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How many will be going the Octo Core route?
- Thread starter daneoni
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Come Monday, if nothing is announced at NAB, I'm clicking the "place order" button on my 8 core mac. I figure sure, I may not need it all right this second, but what about 6 months from now? how about a year?
Plus, think about how fast Firefox and Adium will run on an 8 core with 4 gigs of ram!
Plus, think about how fast Firefox and Adium will run on an 8 core with 4 gigs of ram!
Exactly the same speed as it would on a 4 core with 4 gigs of ram.. neither program is threaded to use more than one core, is is the case with 99% of the software on the market.
On the other hand, if you were at the same while surfing with Firefox, running Adium (neither of which are really going to run any slower on a single core machine as they don't use alot of processing power) playing music on iTunes, encoding a DVD for your iPod, using photoshop and running folding@home at the same time.. then ya, you'll notice a difference with 8 cores.
Even a year down the road, your not going to find many more threaded programs that will make use of more than one core, I mean, dual core (CPU) computers have been out for over 15 years and really, theres only a handful of programs (not counting OSes) that will take advantage of more than one processing core.
People seem to think that having 8 cores is the best thing since sliced bread.. what they don't realize is yeah, if you use a high end program that will use it it's great, otherwise your just wasting your money really.. and it's only high end programs that are going to take advantage of it for a very long time.
On the otherhand, if you regularly run 8 different programs that are doing CPU intensive work (most are just sitting idle like Adium, BBEdit, etc. waiting for the user to do something with it) then each program will use a different core that has the currently lightest load.
There's alot of confusion over the benefits of more than one processing core, kinda like people comparing clock speeds on AMD and Intel processors. People are just starting to get it through their head that clock speed does not equal a CPU's performance unless your talking about the exact same CPU.
I still say the majority of non-pro people and a fair number of the pros will not see any benefit from 8 core over 4 core machines
Dude, I was kidding! I'm not getting a $5k+ computer to run Firefox and adium, I can do that on my Powermac G3. Hell, I could do that on my old Performa IIe if I really wanted to!
What I will use it for, is running Photochop and Lightroom at the same time, while virtualizing XP in Parallels publishing my website using Digital Darkroom on XP.
I'll also use it for running Final Cut, Photoshop, and Soundtrack pro at the same time with a slight dabbling in DVD Studio pro and Shake.
And yeah, while I'm doing all this, i'll probably be checking somthing with Firefox, have Mail and Gmail notifier running in the background, and possibly talking to someone on Adium.
And I am convinced the future is multi-threaded programs. Hell, I bet when they show us FCP6 this weekend, it'll be on an octo-core, and it will be using all 8 cores for rendering
What I will use it for, is running Photochop and Lightroom at the same time, while virtualizing XP in Parallels publishing my website using Digital Darkroom on XP.
I'll also use it for running Final Cut, Photoshop, and Soundtrack pro at the same time with a slight dabbling in DVD Studio pro and Shake.
And yeah, while I'm doing all this, i'll probably be checking somthing with Firefox, have Mail and Gmail notifier running in the background, and possibly talking to someone on Adium.
And I am convinced the future is multi-threaded programs. Hell, I bet when they show us FCP6 this weekend, it'll be on an octo-core, and it will be using all 8 cores for rendering
Sounds like your a candidate for the maximum 16GB of memory.
Yeah, but unfortunately I won't be able to afford that right off the bat. I'm going to start with the 1GB that it comes with and add 2x2GB aftermarket for a total of 5GB. I know this is not the best way to do it, but i'll slowly be adding 2GB sticks, so I don't want to waste any money on 1GB sticks
My question is, since the Servers support 32GB ram, is that a hardware or a software/firmware thing? will these systems eventually support that, or will we have to wait for new MBs?
I'm looking to buy something fairly pimpin' when I get back from Iraq. dual 30" displays will be a must, so the Mac Pro is in my future. I am a heavy virtualization...so perhaps a Oct-core will be more than just a ego stroker for me. (but probably not)
Here is my analysis of the octo. Waste of electricity. Wait for the 45nm process with true quad processors then it will make sense. I got the 2.66ghz not only for the price but the wattage. 65 watts makes for a nice cool case and low electricity. The quad 3ghz is like 150watts and most apps won't use the power. But heah, if you are rich then go for it. If I was filthy rich I wouldn't care either way.
I am thinking about it, however so far it doesn't really look to be too much of an upgrade from the quad-core Mac Pros. It's barely faster for most applications... I really don't know if it's worth the extra grand for.
the big thing is you KNOW that FCP6 is going to be taking full advantage of it.... NAB cant come soon enough.
I'm not interested in having 8-cores, but I am interested in waiting until the Mac Pro receives a proper refresh. I am waiting for better video card options and a different memory configuration (non-$FB-DIMM$), but that option doesn't seem like it will become a reality. An E-SATA port would be nice too.
I bought a a four core Mac as soon as the 8 core came out... it's not what I wanted ... so I will wait until the next upgrade... No big deal!
I want to add option 4
4. Caring about it, but bad finances force me to proceed with the day as normal...
and in October you buy the OS upgrade that can, and then you will have a machine that doesn't have those extra 4 cores you could have made use of....
So don't decide to hastily.
Because of the Leopard delay I've put my Mac Pro purchase on hold. I don't want to be buying a brand new Pro machine with a .9 operating system. I want the new machine with the new OS pre-installed for an awesome experience with the new Mac.
168 days till detonation..
168 days till detonation..
where da benchmarks at?
Where are the benchmarks for the Ocho? All i've seen so far is the barefeet.com one... surely, someone else has received their 8core by now, and run some tests... Anyone seen additional reports? I am waiting to buy to see how virtualized OSes perform on all the cores.
Give me some help, hardware sites!
Where are the benchmarks for the Ocho? All i've seen so far is the barefeet.com one... surely, someone else has received their 8core by now, and run some tests... Anyone seen additional reports? I am waiting to buy to see how virtualized OSes perform on all the cores.
Give me some help, hardware sites!