[alligator]

At work, I picked up a Dell Precision 270 Workstation. It has two 2.8 GHz Xeon processors, which have been out for 6+ months. How does the new Mac Pro that I ordered for home use compare to this machine? I know my Dell has 2 processors, and I can enable hyper-threading on each one so I effectively see 4 processors.

I'm just curious. The dell cost about $2500 at the time. Have they updated the Xeon processors since then?

[OreoCookie]

Eeeeh, yes. You must have missed all the hype about the new Xeons).

The new Xeons are based on the Core 2 architecture and are faster on a per-core basis. Plus, you have two additional cpu cores (in a dual workstation, that's four instead of two).

Oh, and moving â€¦

[mduell]

The Xeon 5100 processors in the Mac Pro are about twice as fast (at the same clockrate) as Xeon 5000 processors in your Dell. And of course you also have twice as many cores. And a faster bus. And faster memory.

[Chuckit]

Despite being called a "Xeon," the processor in the Mac Pro is not closely related to the one in your computer. It just fills the same market niche, so they gave it the same name.

[Leonard]

Knock off the rude comments.

--Scott

[Simon]

Originally Posted by OreoCookie

The new Xeons are based on the Core 2 architecture and are faster on a per-core basis.

This obviously can't be repeated enough! I hope this confusion is just a Mac people thing. Otherwise Intel has some serious marketing work to do.

Xeon basically means only one thing: SMP.

Xeon does not mean Netburst, it is not a number of cores, it does not require RDRAM, it is not restricted to servers, it is nothing of all that baloney you sometimes hear. It is basically just SMP.

There are very many types of Xeon processors. Often Intel will take their current desktop CPU, modify it and add SMP support, then they dub that Xeon. Xeon is a class of CPUs not a specific architecture.

The Xeon Apple chose (the dual-core Xeon 5100 series) is the Core-based Xeon, so it's basically an SMP capable version of Conroe. It is just as powerful as any Conroe (in some cases even more powerful) and it is exactly the same leap ahead of Netburst as Conroe. It is however not the only dual-core Xeon. Similar to the Pentium D, Intel slapped together what they called the Xeon MP which is also a dual-core Xeon, but not based on the Core architecture (Xeon Dempsey for example). Dempsey may clock higher, but Woodcrest is more powerful. If you want to compare Xeon sytems by their clock, you first have to make sure you're looking the same Xeon series.

If it's still not clear, check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xeon

[baw]

Intel makes things confusing. Jobs needs to pay Intel a visit and clean house.

[Simon]

Originally Posted by baw

Intel makes things confusing. Jobs needs to pay Intel a visit and clean house.

Be patient. Steve has just started the cleanup by choosing a decent logo.



vs.

[mduell]

Originally Posted by Simon

The Xeon Apple chose (the dual-core Xeon 5100 series) is the Core-based Xeon, so it's basically an SMP capable version of Conroe. It is just as powerful as any Conroe (in some cases even more powerful) and it is exactly the same leap ahead of Netburst as Conroe. It is however not the only dual-core Xeon. Similar to the Pentium D, Intel slapped together what they called the Xeon MP which is also a dual-core Xeon, but not based on the Core architecture (Xeon Dempsey for example). Dempsey may clock higher, but Woodcrest is more powerful. If you want to compare Xeon sytems by their clock, you first have to make sure you're looking the same Xeon series.

The MP in Xeon MP means "able to do more than 2 way SMP", not anything to do with the number of cores in a package.

[alligator]

So, in short - my Mac Pro should run circles around my Dell at work. This is good news. I'm going to process much more video on my Mac Pro than I do at work.