Mac Pro Questions / 4-core / 6-core / Gaming Comparison / Upgradeability / PC

[MrJandali]

Hi !

Considering to get a Mac Pro...

There are some important questions now ... maybe someone here can give an advice ?

1) In general, gaming is important to me. Therefore a D700 is the choice. Question here: How does the CPU limit the GPUs ? Does it make a (noticeable) difference to use a 6-core instead of a 4-core CPU ?

On Futuremark there are several benchmark results done with different Mac Pros. There it can be seen that the performance win is quiet low from 4-core to 6-core but especially the Skydrive bench shows an odd result for the 4-core which is nearly half as good as the 6-core results:

http://www.3dmark.com/compare/sd/2136228/sd/2221461 : 17869 vs. 29251

Other benches match more or less:

FireStrike: http://www.3dmark.com/compare/fs/2431161/fs/2377827 10756 vs. 10485
FireStrike Extreme: http://www.3dmark.com/compare/fs/2063605/fs/2279901 5671 vs. 5557
CloudGate: http://www.3dmark.com/compare/cg/1488446/cg/1331780 24219 vs. 28274
IceStorm: http://www.3dmark.com/compare/is/1603234/is/1827113 146107 vs. 146255

Anyone here any idea what the SkyDrive results are so bad on 4-core ?

2) Probably the reason is a driver issue, seems to me. If I order the 4-core the big question is upgradeability !

Questions:
Are all Mac Pros basically the same ? Do they all contain the same PSU ? Can any Mac Pro be upgraded to any offered CPU ?

3) There is someone offering a used Mac Pro from the U.S.A. and I really wonder if the USA PSU is exactly the same as those in EU units ??

Thanks for your attention and thoughts which I appreciate !

 

[macines]

4 core should work great for gaming

if you got the money i'd say go with 6-core anyways

seems like you already made up your mind about the gpus, so no advice there

 

[purplecu6e]

Here's an example where two Mac Pros with D700s got wildly different results on Sky Diver:

http://www.3dmark.com/compare/sd/2174514/sd/2166593

Both are configured with the same CPU.

 

[Wardenski]

Either 4 or 6 core should be good for gaming but in most games I suspect there will be little difference, maybe a few FPS.

If you can afford it, take the 6 core as hopefully more games should be multi-threaded in the future, partially becasue the new consoles have 8 cores (I think).

Problem is your stuck with those D700s until someone offers something new.