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Which programs use 6 core?
- Thread starter alexstjo
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No, web browsers need 12 cores to be able to function properly.
(I am joking)
The general rule is that if you don't know whether you need 6 cores, then you probably don't need 6 cores. Are you really thinking of getting a Mac Pro mainly for web browsing? I assume you realise that a faster machine is not going to make your internet faster?
(I am joking)
The general rule is that if you don't know whether you need 6 cores, then you probably don't need 6 cores. Are you really thinking of getting a Mac Pro mainly for web browsing? I assume you realise that a faster machine is not going to make your internet faster?
I'm in the same boat - trying to justify a 6 core over a 4. My primary usage is Aperture (bunch of plug ins like OnOne and Nik Collection), Photoshop CC and Parallels VMs (Windows development). I'm starting to get into video and have Premiere CC (probably purchase Final Cut X if I continue), but this is a very small usage right now.
I'm pretty sure the latest/greatest iMac is plenty enough, but would push to the nMP for future proofing. Definitely waiting for benchmarks to come available whenever it releases.
Best,
Rob
I'm pretty sure the latest/greatest iMac is plenty enough, but would push to the nMP for future proofing. Definitely waiting for benchmarks to come available whenever it releases.
Best,
Rob
I use many of the same apps you do. I went the iMac route, for the same price as a base nMP I get a 27" monitor.
I opted to get a faster 4-core over a 6-core. Nevertheless, I do actually use two pieces of software that would benefit:
I frequently use Handbrake, and it will use every core and GHz you can throw at it.
Parallels (and I assume VMWare) can dedicate cores to VMs.
I frequently use Handbrake, and it will use every core and GHz you can throw at it.
Parallels (and I assume VMWare) can dedicate cores to VMs.
Yeah, the iMac's 27" is sweet, although I do have a great NEC 26". Having a second monitor in the iMac would be great.
Pretty much this. If you're not sure if your workflow is highly parallelized, it's not.
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Sounds like what you want isn't a computer with a lot of cores, but a graphics card that has Eyefinity or can support many displays.
If you have to ask.....but seriously 4 cores is enough if you have to ask, I'm sure you could make many photo editors and even video editors happy with the 4 core option alone, of course those professionals will spring for 6, 8 and 12 core options if they can afford it but my point is web browsing is a joke of a task for a CPU...I have 16 tabs open on my Quad Core 2.4GHz i7 and CPU usage is hovering between 3-8%....If you need allot of tabs open RAM will help a hell of allot more as my 8GB's of RAM is usually pretty full (but not too bad). On my old Mac RAM made browsing much faster with multiple tabs. Since the lowest end Mac Pro will have 12GB's of RAM you should be fine but really you should question whether you need a Mac Pro. The GPU's on the new Mac Pro should be able to run monitors with ease, especially if they aren't 4K monitors, even then its pretty nice to be able to use 3 or 4 UHD monitors. I think the defualt GPU will run them well, maybe look at getting 4-6 2560x1440p monitors or 3 or 4 4K monitors for good real estate.
Handbrake is amazing like that, the bigger and badder the processor the faster it gets...Its simply amazing to see Handbrake run through an encode on a something like a 12 or 16 core machine.
Handbrake is amazing like that, the bigger and badder the processor the faster it gets...Its simply amazing to see Handbrake run through an encode on a something like a 12 or 16 core machine.
Theres no way on earth any web browser needs more than 1 or 2 THREADS let alone cores to function fast.
nah.. a browser can have lots of threads going at once and will spread them out across cores.. granted, none of it is particularly demanding on today's hardware.
I have same dilemma.
Tried to test it with my RMBP Early 2013 with 2.7Ghz.
I did some tasks on following apps I use the most:
Aperture 3 (work with 5D3 raw files)
Lightroom 5 (work with 5D3 raw files)
Photoshop CC (around 150 layers PSD)
Indesign CC (30 pages document with photos and vector graphics and a lot of text)
Illustrator CC (some more complex vector graphics)
None of those apps caused load go higher than 200% in Activity Monitor.
What I understand it used max of 2 fully loaded cores of my I7. I guess nMP Xeons are even more powerful.
I think it's worth remembering that you don't necessarily need a single program that will take advantage of six cores; one of the advantages of more cores is that you can more easily run multiple programs at once.
The most common use-cases of multi-core usage are video editing (though that may soon focus more on OpenCL, not sure yet), 3d rendering, video encoding and such.
But with six cores you could run any two of those at the same time, giving them roughly three cores each (assuming they have performance settings, otherwise they'll just battle it out and the OS will decide).
It also means that you could run a 4-core workload, with two cores to spare for whatever else you want to do at the same time, or five core work and one core spare etc.
So yeah, more cores doesn't mean you need a single program that will use them to justify it, though you probably do still need something more than web-browsing
The most common use-cases of multi-core usage are video editing (though that may soon focus more on OpenCL, not sure yet), 3d rendering, video encoding and such.
But with six cores you could run any two of those at the same time, giving them roughly three cores each (assuming they have performance settings, otherwise they'll just battle it out and the OS will decide).
It also means that you could run a 4-core workload, with two cores to spare for whatever else you want to do at the same time, or five core work and one core spare etc.
So yeah, more cores doesn't mean you need a single program that will use them to justify it, though you probably do still need something more than web-browsing
I find handbrake will tap all 12 cores (<1200%) BUT it will not touch the virtual cores like Cinema 4D (<2400%) unless there is something I am missing?
When multiple apps are open, I noticed the extra workload are distributed to the other idle cores sort of like multi-tasking. Some apps also take advantage of hyperthreading like After Effects. When I am using AE all cores including the virtual cores are put to usage.
I found this to not exactly be true - take a look at my own testing here:
https://forums.macrumors.com/posts/18186069/
Adobe even mention specifically in their documentation to allow over half of your CPU threads to remain available for other processes.
Of course the more cores you have the better - but hyper threading does not exactly play a role in increasing performance.
I cannot at this stage speak for other software but the next on my list for testing will be Cinema 4D, Premiere Pro CS6 and Avid MC.
Great point, I often stated that myself. I run broadcasts that utilize many applications at once that place a great load on the system.
Save a lot of money and get an older mac pro tower and throw 2 video cards in. Some video cards can run 4 monitors on a single card (nvidia 660 by gigabyte for example)
It sounds like what you are going to be doing isnt very CPU related.