Woodcrest or Clovertown?

[Demoman]

I have been waiting for the new Powermac to come out and see some benchmarks come in. I have a G5 2.0x2 and a 2.5 quad right now. I want to add one more workhorse for rendering and compressing video. If the performance gain was not exceptional, I thought about 'bottom fishing' for someone looking to upgrade their G5 quad. Otherwise, I was going to buy the new Intel offering.

The numbers I am seeing (albeit early ones) seem to fall right into the middle of my decision ones; they are good enough to believe upgrading makes sense, but they are not so compelling to warrant a quick decision.

The quad core Clovertown has a planned release date to manufactures in late 2006. Now this should be a very significant jump in performance. And, I certainly am not pressed to make this purchase before March-April. By reading this board, I know some of you posters are very knowledgeable and keep current on hardware. You also have many years experience with Apple. So, here are my questions.

1) based on Intel's schedule, when would you expect to see these in a mac?
2) would the top of the pro line use this immediately, or would it be initially XServe?
3) would this be the top pro configuration and the rest remain Woodcrest?
4) what other issues might effect an Apple release and cost?

Thanks

 

[Silentwave]

First i'd take some of the app benchmarks with a grain of salt- we've already seen Apple patch one of their pro apps (Logic) to run better on the Mac Pros just in the past two days or so. We may see further upgrades that will optimize performance. Remember this is the first real intel workhorse they've released.

1) based on how its been going with apple, I'd say we'll see the next update no more than 6 weeks after the chip is released.

2) anything is possible. Clovertown may actually not make it all the way through the line- it has a slower FSB and only takes FBDIMM 533 RAM instead of 667 like the current Mac Pro.

3) entirely possible- the FSB/RAM issue may well keep it isolated, or it could be used through the whole line in single chip configs except the top of the line.

4) Again, the FSB and RAM thing mentioned in (2), plus possible heat and power constraints. Nothing major I think. The TDP of the most powerful Clovertown compared to the TDP of the 3GHz Woodcrest is about the same difference between the 3GHz Woody and the 2.66 Woody.

That's why I may hold out for the next gen after Clovertown, which should be Tigerton.

 

[spriter]

That's why I may hold out for the next gen after Clovertown, which should be Tigerton.

I agree. Tigerton looks like the one to wait for.

 

[quruli]

I agree. Tigerton looks like the one to wait for.

Tigerton is just a MP version of Clovertown. So 2+ processors. Other than that they are the same thing.

Unless Apple gets a killer deal on Quad cores, I don't think Apple will go to these until cost comes down. They may offer them, but at a high cost. They could adopt it as a single CPU system however, which may be reasonable. I still doubt it though.

This whole core thing is just getting big. Quad cores more assuredely aren't about to make dual cores absolete. Which is why I think the cost will be high. I could be wrong though.

 

[Glen Quagmire]

I'm not too sure about Clovertown. All those cores, one tiny little FSB (1333Mhz). I wonder how bandwidth-starved it will be?

The Intel system that will really be worth waiting for is the one with CSI - Intel's version of Hypertransport. They will finally be able to get rid of the FSB.

 

[freezerburrn]

Any word when this CSI is aimed to be released?