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Questions regarding a Mac Pro setup (Got the Mac Pro!)

iBookG4user said:
snip.................

From Apple:
One 3.33GHz 6-Core Intel Xeon “Westmere”
3GB (3x1GB)
1TB 7200-rpm Serial ATA 3Gb/s hard drive
ATI Radeon HD 5870 1GB
One 18x SuperDrive
(Plus wireless keyboard and mini-displayport to DVI adapter and printer)
total = $4402.15

From Superbiiz:
3x8GB Hynix DDR3 1333 ECC
total = $577.77

From Newegg:
3x Icy Dock
3x OCZ Vertex 2 SSD 60GB
2x Acer G235HAbd 23''
1x CyberPower CP1000AVRLCD 1000VA 600 Watt UPS
total = $855.45

Grand total = $5,835.37

I checked my finances and managed to squeeze another $250 in for the computer budget, but that's all that I could manage. I couldn't fit an IPS monitor into the budget or 32GB of RAM, unfortunately. But they'll probably get added on in a few months, as my technology budget will be a bit exhausted after this :p
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Greetings

For the price you quoted I'm going to throw this at you:
http://store.apple.com/us_epp_202040/product/G0LG0LL/A?mco=MTkzMzg2NzM

Or this http://store.apple.com/us_epp_202040/product/FC561LL/A?mco=MTkyMTM1ODQ if you're OK with the slightly slower clock speed. Spend the saved $'s on 48GB of ram and you'll be S'ing in tall cotton!

Long term these dual processor 12 cores will seriously outperform the single hex. hahahaha...................... I love spending other people's money! :p

regards
JohnG
 
toxic said:
and how many panics have you had from bit errors?
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All it takes is one. Plus not all transient errors are immediately evident. But hey, it's your data - if the reliability of it isn't important to you don't sweat it.

Pennywise/Pound foolish comes to mind here...

if you mean "match" as in match the type, the OP wasn't intending to use the stock 1GB DIMMs anyway.
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I still would stick with ECC. I found some used 2GB chips on sale from OWC and went from 6GB to 16GB for a little under $200 - not bad! Then again I could do that because I had two CPUs and the four extra slots you get with the second socket. I still encourage the OP to build a strong foundation first, then start loading on extra RAM and things like SSD's and secondary video cards. All that stuff can be added later - the memory slots, not really.

yes, it does. if you go by page outs, you'll be chasing 64GB of memory over nothing.
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OK, terminology mismatch on my part - you are correct, page outs in and of themselves are pretty useless. But you can watch swap activity - in particular the real quick rule of thumb in your page file size (swap used). Smaller is better. Zero is better still :D

the only advantage of 64-bit mode is being able to use more than 32GB of memory.
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You can get a pretty significant boost from drivers and extensions that are 64 bit. I just tried booting my Pro in 64 bit and the speed difference is pretty noticeable. I did a bunch of complex editing and more importantly, Aperture doesn't appear to be slowing down like it would in the past. D'oh! I can't believe there was more performance hiding in my machine that was a simple key-combo away.

And apparently the 2010 Mac Pro's boot into 64bit by default so it's moot for the OP anyway :cool:

http://macperformanceguide.com/SnowLeopard-64bit.html
 
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johnnymg said:
Long term these dual processor 12 cores will seriously outperform the single hex.
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While this is easily very true. Buying long term is pointless for your business/workflow if you end up with a machine that is slower, than one that is much cheaper, for a couple years. Particularly when most upgrade 3-4 years. The Hex is going to give 3-4 years of solid performance. And in many cases the hex will give better performance for the first couple years while software catches up to hardware.
 
DocNo said:
All it takes is one. Plus not all transient errors are immediately evident. But hey, it's your data - if the reliability of it isn't important to you don't sweat it.

Pennywise/Pound foolish comes to mind here...
Click to expand...

if you think errors are rare, you'd be wrong. they happen all the time, and most of these are hard errors, which ECC cannot fix. Google and the University of Toronto did a study on this.

I still would stick with ECC. I found some used 2GB chips on sale from OWC and went from 6GB to 16GB for a little under $200 - not bad! Then again I could do that because I had two CPUs and the four extra slots you get with the second socket. I still encourage the OP to build a strong foundation first, then start loading on extra RAM and things like SSD's and secondary video cards. All that stuff can be added later - the memory slots, not really.
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if you really want 2GB sticks, sure, but the resale value is about zero and you have to swap out sticks instead of simply adding more. that's why people here like to pay more for 4 or 8GB sticks.

OK, terminology mismatch on my part - you are correct, page outs in and of themselves are pretty useless. But you can watch swap activity - in particular the real quick rule of thumb in your page file size (swap used). Smaller is better. Zero is better still
Click to expand...

generally, all that matters is that your page outs and swap are very small compared to your page ins.

anyways, obviously the OP needs more than 8GB, but I don't think he needs 32...
 
DeeEss said:
And in many cases the hex will give better performance for the first couple years while software catches up to hardware.
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That's IF software catches up anytime soon. I see another 5 years slogging through Cores vs. GHz for all our specialized software needs. But I should be more optimistic. I always want a new computer after 3 years anyway.
 
Just a little bit of an update, I found a nice set of cPVA panel 23" monitors at my local Fry's for $140 each plus tax :D

The monitor pair I ended up with are each SAMSUNG 2333T 23" LCDs. With the link to the refurbished 12-core Mac Pro earlier in the thread, I'm really considering it due to how much of a discount on it there is. I'm still gathering up the funds right now. But most likely it's going to be a decision between going with the 6-core and the 12-core Mac Pro at this point.
 
toxic said:
if you think errors are rare, you'd be wrong. they happen all the time, and most of these are hard errors, which ECC cannot fix. Google and the University of Toronto did a study on this.
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That sure would make an interesting read! Have you got any link to that study?
 
Thnx, that's indeed an interesting read. Just read the conclusions, now gonna read the rest of it :p
 
Alright, I have come to the decision, here's the setup that I'm going to be ordering:

From Apple:
Two 2.66GHz 6-Core Intel Xeon “Westmere” (12 cores)
6GB (6X1GB)
1TB 7200-rpm Serial ATA 3Gb/s hard drive
ATI Radeon HD 5870 1GB

From Newegg:
3x OCZ Vertex 2 60GB SSD
3x Icy Dock

From Superbiiz:
8x4GB DDR3 RAM

I've already ordered the SSDs, Icy Docks and RAM. And will be getting the rest of the money to make the Mac Pro purchase in a week, I can't wait! :D
 
how did you determine that 12 2.66 cores would suit you better than 6 3.33 cores in photoshop or Lightroom? I would go as far as to say that a 2.8 base 4 core model still might be faster for those two 6 core 2.66 chips you are looking at getting.....
 
rmitchell248 said:
how did you determine that 12 2.66 cores would suit you better than 6 3.33 cores in photoshop or Lightroom? I would go as far as to say that a 2.8 base 4 core model still might be faster for those two 6 core 2.66 chips you are looking at getting.....
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Future proofing plus double the RAM slots. I'm happy the decision I came to and that's all that matters :)
 
toxic said:
if you think errors are rare, you'd be wrong. they happen all the time, and most of these are hard errors, which ECC cannot fix. Google and the University of Toronto did a study on this.
Click to expand...

OK, but I fail to see how having less protection (no ECC) is better than some. Yes, ECC isn't perfect but it is better than nothing.

if you really want 2GB sticks, sure, but the resale value is about zero and you have to swap out sticks instead of simply adding more. that's why people here like to pay more for 4 or 8GB sticks.
Click to expand...

If you absolutely need more than 16GB, then sure - get 4GB or 8GB up front - but the price difference is pretty significant so unless you are absolutely sure you will get the maximum benefit from having more than 16GB it's not much of a gamble to run with the 2GB sticks until the 4's and 8's get better. Especially when you can get 2GB used as cheaply as I did :)

anyways, obviously the OP needs more than 8GB, but I don't think he needs 32...
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Yup - I would rather have the two socket board with double the amount of RAM slots and less RAM up front than permanently locking myself into just four RAM slots.
 
Johnf1285 said:
How did the system turn out?
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Just got her yesterday :D

The RAID 0 array of the 3 SSDs is very nice, getting reads and writes of upwards of 600MB/second, plus 3TB of regular storage, so it's the best of both worlds :)

Still waiting on the third monitor and a new desk and chair, though.
 

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Nice, is this for hobby or business, I am always curious when people spend this kind of moolah.

I just upped my system too, love it!
 
Macshroomer said:
Nice, is this for hobby or business, I am always curious when people spend this kind of moolah.

I just upped my system too, love it!
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A bit of both, I do photography on the side, so it's going to be a great aide for that! Editing 18MP images on a Core 2 Duo was painful to say the least :p
 
rmitchell248 said:
how did you determine that 12 2.66 cores would suit you better than 6 3.33 cores in photoshop or Lightroom? I would go as far as to say that a 2.8 base 4 core model still might be faster for those two 6 core 2.66 chips you are looking at getting.....
Click to expand...

Congrats on new baby


Lightroom utilizes true multicore computers
photoshop doesn't
my Dual 2.4 is much faster in lightroom and photoshop than my 27"imac

6 core that i had for less than 2 weeks was faster than imac in photoshop by about 5 sec on the test and my 8 core was about a second slower
when I did 8 folder export out of lightroom each about 20 gig anf that included conversion from tiff to jpg plus resize to 500k and 2400x2400 per image my 8 core was about 20 minutes faster than my 6 core and about 1 hr faster than i mac

I do about 30 weddings a year plus allots model and portrait work where I can export up to 1000 files plus at once

for single image there is no competition speed does matter, but for multi image multicore will never be replaced by faster core
 
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