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Need advice on a Possible 2013 nMP purchase + CPU Upgrade

K

KBS756

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jan 27, 2009
548
14
Planning to keep my old 12 core dual X5680 Mac pro tower and use it as a render node, but also planning on adding a new nMP

considering the following

Buy a 3.7 GHz Quad Core
32GB Ram
512 PCIe SSD
dual D700s

and then go out and buy a E5-2667v2 8 Core 3.30GHz with 4.00GHz turbo for an upgrade

Think it would be a good choice because it runs like my 12 core on Geekbench's multicore tests and blows it away on single core. And unfortunately a lotta tasks like Dynamics in 3D are still mostly single core.

costing 4419 with student discount + 2000 for the processor (Assuming the business deduction doesn't work out better then student one)

The programs I use are

Final Cut Pro X, Lightwave, Modo, ZBrush, After Effects, Premiere, and Photoshop

I am a student hoping to work in animation, and do already so some work in 3D Modeling and soon 3D Printing. More of a hobbyist when it comes to video.

Thanks for any advice you can be!
 
KBS756 said:
Planning to keep my old 12 core dual X5680 Mac pro tower and use it as a render node, but also planning on adding a new nMP

considering the following

Buy a 3.7 GHz Quad Core
32GB Ram
512 PCIe SSD
dual D700s

and then go out and buy a E5-2667v2 8 Core 3.30GHz with 4.00GHz turbo for an upgrade

Think it would be a good choice because it runs like my 12 core on Geekbench's multicore tests and blows it away on single core. And unfortunately a lotta tasks like Dynamics in 3D are still mostly single core.

costing 4419 with student discount + 2000 for the processor (Assuming the business deduction doesn't work out better then student one)

The programs I use are

Final Cut Pro X, Lightwave, Modo, ZBrush, After Effects, Premiere, and Photoshop

I am a student hoping to work in animation, and do already so some work in 3D Modeling and soon 3D Printing. More of a hobbyist when it comes to video.

Thanks for any advice you can be!
Click to expand...

That CPU is not worth it IMHO. The 6-core has plenty of power... I would just go with that and use the $1500 or so you save for something that might make more of a difference in your life ;)
 
VirtualRain said:
That CPU is not worth it IMHO. The 6-core has plenty of power... I would just go with that and use the $1500 or so you save for something that might make more of a difference in your life ;)
Click to expand...

The 6 Core is a pretty significant drop in terms of rendering (multicore performance) and I'm not sure I want to accept too much of a drop there. 3D Rendering is something I do want to do a lot of going forward, hopefully over the network if I can figure out setting that up.

Is there any major speed difference between a 512 GB and 1 TB SSD?

Thanks again!
 
Which is more important to you? Single-core or multi-core applications?

If it's the latter, consider buying the 10-core 3ghz cpu. It's cheaper than the 8-core 3.3.
 
Buy the MP6,1 8-core/32GB RAM/512GB-SSD/Dual-D700s for $6799 minus any student discount.

Your budget seems to be around $6420, so the $6799 isn't that much more, plus you get Apple warranty whereas your method will void the warranty I believe.

No matter, good luck.
 
KBS756 said:
The 6 Core is a pretty significant drop in terms of rendering (multicore performance) and I'm not sure I want to accept too much of a drop there. 3D Rendering is something I do want to do a lot of going forward, hopefully over the network if I can figure out setting that up.
Click to expand...


the 6core multicore performance isn't too much below that of the 8 core.. (roughly speaking-- 6 x 3.5 = 21GHz _vs._ 8 x 3.0 = 24GHz)

regardless, you're talking about having a 12 x 3.33 render node?
in all honesty, if i had that set up, i'd want a quad nmp since it has the fastest clock speed which you'll benefit from in modeling apps..

anyway, as far as rendering over the network, your applications need to be able to support that.. of the ones you've listed, i only know Modo will do it for sure.. i'd imagine some of the others can but research it first.

-------------
[edit] oh.. i see you're talking about the crazy 8 core mod instead of the stock 8core.. yeah, do that instead then post around here.. you'll be popular :)
 
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orpheus1120 said:
Which is more important to you? Single-core or multi-core applications?

If it's the latter, consider buying the 10-core 3ghz cpu. It's cheaper than the 8-core 3.3.
Click to expand...

Its a balanced combination of both, but as of now since certain things I want to do such as Cloth dynamics are single threaded tasks I'd lean a little more towards prioritizing that going faster. I do my own rendering as well though for which multicore is pretty important. I was looking at the 8 core 3.3 because it turbos at 4 ghz while the 10 core i believe is 3.5 or 3.6

which I think makes the 8 11% faster at single core and the 10 13.6% faster for multicore roughly ...

flat five said:
the 6core multicore performance isn't too much below that of the 8 core.. (roughly speaking-- 6 x 3.5 = 21GHz _vs._ 8 x 3.0 = 24GHz)

regardless, you're talking about having a 12 x 3.33 render node?
in all honesty, if i had that set up, i'd want a quad nmp since it has the fastest clock speed which you'll benefit from in modeling apps..

anyway, as far as rendering over the network, your applications need to be able to support that.. of the ones you've listed, i only know Modo will do it for sure.. i'd imagine some of the others can but research it first.

-------------
[edit] oh.. i see you're talking about the crazy 8 core mod instead of the stock 8core.. yeah, do that instead then post around here.. you'll be popular :)
Click to expand...

I currently have a 12 core mac pro which I would use to send out renders to, though at times I am rendering 2 things at once ... so I would like good multi core performance. The reason i asked about the 3.3Ghz 8 core is because it scored

3715 Single Core 27000 Multicore in geekbench

while the 8 core that comes with the mac pro scores

3631 Single core and 26135 Multicore

Actually may just go standard 8 core as someone suggested given there really doesn't seem to be all that much of a difference here

3153 Single Core 29457 MultiCore (Large fall off on single core here) for the 10 core

3255 Single Core 33245 Multicore 12 core

Any actual speed difference between a 512 GB and 1 TB internal drive?

Thanks again for the advice
 
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The only thing I would add is to get your memory 3rd party - a decent brand obviously - but Apple's RAM is so expensive. I'm just about to purchase a nMP, mainly because it's the only Mac that can accept 64GB RAM and I want to consolidate my VMware lab onto a single machine.
 
shaunp said:
The only thing I would add is to get your memory 3rd party - a decent brand obviously - but Apple's RAM is so expensive. I'm just about to purchase a nMP, mainly because it's the only Mac that can accept 64GB RAM and I want to consolidate my VMware lab onto a single machine.
Click to expand...


Where would you suggest buying RAM? as of now I'm only going to go till 32 GB as 64 GB is too expensive at the moment and as of now I don't think I'll max out 32 all that often.
 
KBS756 said:
Where would you suggest buying RAM? as of now I'm only going to go till 32 GB as 64 GB is too expensive at the moment and as of now I don't think I'll max out 32 all that often.
Click to expand...

B&H has nMP memory from Crucial 64GB for $626 with Free Shipping.
 
Last edited:
KBS756 said:
Where would you suggest buying RAM? as of now I'm only going to go till 32 GB as 64 GB is too expensive at the moment and as of now I don't think I'll max out 32 all that often.
Click to expand...

It depends which country you are in I guess, but you can also get it direct from Crucial (www.crucial.com). That's where I'll get mine. I've bought loads of memory and SSD's from them in the past and they've always been good.

I'm just going to buy the base 4-core, upgrade it to 6-core so I pay for 12GB Apple RAM rather than 16GB - saves around £80, that I can put towards the upgrade from Crucial.
 
shaunp said:
It depends which country you are in I guess, but you can also get it direct from Crucial (www.crucial.com). That's where I'll get mine. I've bought loads of memory and SSD's from them in the past and they've always been good.

I'm just going to buy the base 4-core, upgrade it to 6-core so I pay for 12GB Apple RAM rather than 16GB - saves around £80, that I can put towards the upgrade from Crucial.
Click to expand...


I think I'm gonna buy an 8 Core with 32 GB straight from apple because with student discount 32 doesn't really seem cheaper for me anyways.
 
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