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UnixMac · Aug 12, 2006, 03:30 PM

Gonna take the plunge and "upgrade" from my Dual 2.5G5 to a 3.0 Pro.. BUT, I need some advice..

I'm mainly doing Photoshop CS2 and Audio recording work..

First I wanted to know if I could keep my 10,000 RPM Raptor from my Current G5 (SATA) and use it as my "boot" disc for the pro, like I did on the G5?

Also, Does this thing use the same RAM as on the latest PCs? Should I shop for RAM elsewhere? or buy it from Apple (they tend to be pricey).

Anyone else have any advise on how to configure it, please advise.. I've got about $4200 budget.. not including screen.

Thanks fellow MACNNers.

UnixMac · Aug 12, 2006, 03:53 PM

I was thinking of this config assuming the new Drives are actually faster than the older 10,000RPM Raptors..

As for Graphics.. I don't need the slots, so I did the 4x option..

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Two 3GHz Dual-Core Intel Xeon
2GB (4 x 512MB)
250GB 7200-rpm Serial ATA 3Gb/s
500GB 7200-rpm Serial ATA 3Gb/s
4 x NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT 256MB
1 x SuperDrive
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chefpastry · Aug 12, 2006, 04:01 PM

Your Raptor should work fine.

The Mac Pros use FB-DIMMs with large heatsinks. So far, the only place that I know of that sells FB-DIMMs with large heatsinks designed for use in the Mac Pros are Other World Computing. Everyone else only has regular heat spreaders on them.

mduell · Aug 12, 2006, 04:07 PM

Yes, you can keep your Raptor. I think you'll have to reformat it if you want it to be the boot disk due to a change in the partitioning scheme.
The new drives are on a faster bus (which doesn't matter, since even the fastest disks weren't saturating SATA150), but they're slower than your Raptor.

Yes and no. It uses FB-DIMMs, which are found in all of the other dual Xeon 5100 platforms (workstations and servers), but not found in the average single processor desktop. Buy RAM elsewhere, with or without oversized heatsinks.

$4200? Sweet. From Apple take the downgrade to 160GB and add AppleCare. That brings you to $2673.

Apple's drive prices are crazy. For the $75 you save in the 250->160G downgrade, you can go buy a 250G disk. 500G prices are similarly out of touch with reality.
Do you work with thousands of 10MB digital photos? Buy a big drive (400-750G) or two.
Or do you work on a few 1GB posters? Buy a 150G Raptor or two.

Apple's memory prices are business as usual.
As soon as Crucial puts up memory recommendations for the Mac Pro, buy 2x1GB ($334) or 2x2GB ($895). Again, depends on how many files you have open at a time, how big the files are, and how many other apps you have running.

edit: I just saw your new post. Jebus, do you really have 8 monitors you plan on using? Or even 4?

UnixMac · Aug 12, 2006, 04:33 PM

Ok, so If I understand correctly, the Raptor 74 GB that I bought over 18 months ago, is still faster than these 3/GB sec ones that come with the new mac?

So maybe then I'll order the mac with the small 160GB, and keep my Raptor.. then buy two more 500's elsewhere.. The Memory, I'm stuck I suppose, so I'll do either 2 or 4 GB..

The only question remaining is Graphics..

Wil the 4 x Nv7300 be as fast or faster than the 3-5 week wait ATI?
Or is it just more screens, and the GPU is slower?

chefpastry · Aug 12, 2006, 04:53 PM

No, four nVidia 7300s will not out perform the ATI Radeon X1900. It will only allow you to connect more monitors.

UnixMac · Aug 12, 2006, 04:55 PM

Originally Posted by chefpastry

No, four nVidia 7300s will not out perform the ATI Radeon X1900. It will only allow you to connect more monitors.

that's what I thought... thanks.. I guess I'll have to wait for the ATI..

mduell · Aug 12, 2006, 05:43 PM

Originally Posted by UnixMac

Ok, so If I understand correctly, the Raptor 74 GB that I bought over 18 months ago, is still faster than these 3/GB sec ones that come with the new mac?

So maybe then I'll order the mac with the small 160GB, and keep my Raptor.. then buy two more 500's elsewhere.. The Memory, I'm stuck I suppose, so I'll do either 2 or 4 GB..

The only question remaining is Graphics..

Wil the 4 x Nv7300 be as fast or faster than the 3-5 week wait ATI?
Or is it just more screens, and the GPU is slower?

While the SATA bus is now up to 300MBps (3Gbps after 8b10 encoding), the drives aren't pushing much more than 70MBps on a good day. Your Raptor can push about the same bandwidth, and has better latency.

Go anywhere but Apple for the memory. If Crucial doesn't get their recommendation up soon, go to OWC. Anyone but Apple.

Multiple 7300GTs is just for multiple screens. Unlike Windows, OSX does not support SLI (linking multiple graphics cards for increased performance), and the 7300GT isn't a great card to use for SLI anyway.

UnixMac · Aug 12, 2006, 06:04 PM

Well, I pulled the trigger on a 3.0GHz system with 4GB Apple RAM (reason was I didn't find the OWC deal to be much better).. and the X1900 card (hate to wait, but heck!)..

The Raptor is going to be sold with my current G5, so I ordered another one (they're $185) to replace the "250GB" coming with my system, and then I'll move the 250GB along with a 500GB Hitatchi I ordered with the Raptor to bay's 2 and 3.. for "storage"

Damn, my wallet feels light now!

thanks all.. when the system gets here.. I'll post pics, review..

Now to wait for CS3!

jamil5454 · Aug 12, 2006, 06:05 PM

While SATA 3Gbps doesn't really provide faster sustained transfer rates, it DOES allow for faster burst reads/writes, as does a 16MB cache. I'd rather have a 300GB SATA 3Gbps with 16MB cache than a WD Raptor... but it all depends on what you're going to be using it for. For photos (usually lots of relatively small files) a larger cache and larger drive will suit you better. For audio creation/production a faster RPM would let you create more audio tracks since the audio "streams" from the disk.

UnixMac · Aug 12, 2006, 06:09 PM

i've got the 16MB cache Hitatchi's on order for storage drives.. (one 500, and the 250 that comes with the unit).. Those will be for storage, and the Raptor for boot/OS.

It worked great on my Dual G5.. boots about 2x as fast as my friends.. so I'm going to keep the same tricks..

mduell · Aug 12, 2006, 06:39 PM

Originally Posted by jamil5454

While SATA 3Gbps doesn't really provide faster sustained transfer rates, it DOES allow for faster burst reads/writes, as does a 16MB cache. I'd rather have a 300GB SATA 3Gbps with 16MB cache than a WD Raptor... but it all depends on what you're going to be using it for. For photos (usually lots of relatively small files) a larger cache and larger drive will suit you better. For audio creation/production a faster RPM would let you create more audio tracks since the audio "streams" from the disk.

The 16MB cache makes a difference compared to an 8MB cache for about 25 milliseconds. After that, you're going to disk. And the Raptors are a lot faster with seeks than the 7200RPM drives.
I think that's nonsense about photos. They're both unlikely to be cached, and you can't fit many of them in cache.

chefpastry · Aug 12, 2006, 07:09 PM

Good luck with your machine, UnixMac.

Cadaver · 09:15 PM

The Raptor 74GB drives with 8MB cache are only slightly faster, if that, than some of the newer high-density 7200 RPM drives with 16MB cache. While the rotational speed isn't has fast, the higher density on the newer drives really boosts speeds (more data passing under the drive heads per rotation compared to a lower-density drive).

The new Raptor 150GB drives have a 16MB cache and have more data density per platter compared with the 74's, and are notably faster.

For example, according to benchmarks (both published and my own according to Intech's Drive Tools), the 300GB Maxtor 16MB 7200 RPM drive is slightly faster overall than the 10K RPM 74GB Raptor in the same machine (a 2.5GHz dual G5). The Raptor 150's, according to reports (I don't own one) is faster still.

Edit:
Added pictures to document the above...

Raptor 74GB (8MB cache) on internal G5 SATA bus (bay 1):

Maxtor 300GB (16MB cache) on same machine (bay 2):

FireWire 800 software-based RAID 1:

Scotttheking · Aug 12, 2006, 09:25 PM

You do realize you are buying a system that will perform slower than your current one for the listed tasks, right...?

aafuss · Aug 12, 2006, 11:49 PM

Mac Pro's use FB-DIMMS-Xeon 5100 based servers do too. Speeds are measured in PC2-, eg ef PC2-4300.

UnixMac · 01:03 AM

Originally Posted by Scotttheking

You do realize you are buying a system that will perform slower than your current one for the listed tasks, right...?

Only until CS3 is out in Q2, And I also have FCP HD which I'm told I'll get a good boost in performance with the intel coded version. CS3 is only 5-6 months away (I've got to wait 2 for this thing anyway). it's the future, and even though I wasn't too happy with Apple dumping the G5, I'm always looking to keep up with the latest trends (with in reason), and I think I can get more money for my G5 now then if I waited for it to become obsolete.

mduell · Aug 13, 2006, 12:29 AM

Cadaver: Note the drop-off in performance of the 300G 16M drive at sizes larger than 128K; after that the Raptor is ahead and still improving.
128K on a SATA takes less than a millisecond to transfer.

UnixMac · Aug 13, 2006, 12:37 AM

all I know is when I went from the 16mb cache 250GB Hitachi drive as my boot, to a Raptor, I shaved 1/2 the time off my boot time.. Furthermore, with the Raptor as my OS/Software drive and the 250 as my "Scratch/data" drive, I'm multi-threading (don't know if that's the right word) when I use apps that store data on the other drive, which makes better use of my bandwidth.

UnixMac · 03:11 PM

Originally Posted by Scotttheking

You do realize you are buying a system that will perform slower than your current one for the listed tasks, right...?

Hey Scott... what do you make of this? And it's a Quad G5 (I've got a dual). They benched a 2.66 and I'm getting a 3.0. So I'll prolly break even with CS2.. for now.

http://www.barefeats.com/quad06.html

Scotttheking · Aug 13, 2006, 05:46 PM

Originally Posted by UnixMac

Hey Scott... what do you make of this? And it's a Quad G5 (I've got a dual). They benched a 2.66 and I'm getting a 3.0. So I'll prolly break even with CS2.. for now.

http://www.barefeats.com/quad06.html

It says the G5 will be faster by around 10-12%.

MaxPower2k3 · Aug 13, 2006, 06:25 PM

Originally Posted by Scotttheking

It says the G5 will be faster by around 10-12%.

where? I don't see any comparison between the 3GHz Mac Pro and a Dual-Core G5. The only relevant thing I see supports UnixMac's decision:

But if you are running only a two processor G5, you will see significant gains with the Mac Pro by nature of the fact that it has four processors -- which the two Adobe apps fully use.

UnixMac · Aug 13, 2006, 07:57 PM

Eitherway, it's all a moot point in Q2 of '07 with CS3.. and the iapps which I use a lot will hopefully move a bit faster too..

I wonder when MS Office will go UB?..

brokenjago · Aug 14, 2006, 10:38 AM

Originally Posted by UnixMac

I wonder when MS Office will go UB?

When MS comes out with the next version of Office for mac in late 2007 or early-to-mid 2008.

UnixMac · Aug 14, 2006, 11:27 AM

Originally Posted by brokenjago

When MS comes out with the next version of Office for mac in late 2007 or early-to-mid 2008.

That would suck.. I thought I read someplace that they're working on a UB for the "Current" cersion of office to be release "soon".. or something.. Rumor I guess.

good thing I don't US it often, except to view the occasional Spread Sheet and write a letter here and there..

I am VERY happy to hear that FCP 5 HD is UB however, as this is one I use a lot... though I'm told the next version will be better optimized for the Xeon's (FCP Tech support said this to me).

brokenjago · Aug 14, 2006, 10:03 PM

Originally Posted by UnixMac

That would suck.. I thought I read someplace that they're working on a UB for the "Current" cersion of office to be release "soon".. or something.. Rumor I guess.

That's funny, because I heard the exact opposite: "Office for Mac works great under Intel processors now, so we're goingto keep it this way and go UB with 200(X) (where X is 7,8, or 9.)

I've also heard that because of the massive changes being made in Office 2007 for Windows, (new XML-based file format, completely new UI, etc.) the Mac version will be coming significantly later... like um, 12-18 months later. I'm not exactly sure those are the right numbers though.

Madrag · Aug 15, 2006, 08:49 AM

nice setup UnixMac!
I wish they release those UB soon!

MaxPower2k3 · Aug 15, 2006, 09:38 AM

Originally Posted by Scotttheking

It says the G5 will be faster by around 10-12%.

well, barefeats got their 3GHz Mac Pro and pitted it against the G5 Quad in the Photoshop test. The G5 still won... by a whole 2 percent. And the MP beat it in After Effects, even with the Rosetta handicap.

http://www.barefeats.com/quad06.html

UnixMac · Aug 15, 2006, 09:48 AM

Originally Posted by MaxPower2k3

well, barefeats got their 3GHz Mac Pro and pitted it against the G5 Quad in the Photoshop test. The G5 still won... by a whole 2 percent. And the MP beat it in After Effects, even with the Rosetta handicap.

http://www.barefeats.com/quad06.html

AND.. I have a DUAL 2.5Ghz G5... not a QUAD like in the test.

UnixMac · Aug 18, 2006, 05:51 PM

Just decided to go 30" as I didn't even realize they dropped the price.. $1999, is too hard to pass up!

all2ofme · Aug 19, 2006, 02:03 AM

That's only the MP-aware benchmarks, though - they might not be as close for the rest. I'm hoping they are, but I'm trying to be realistic, too

Originally Posted by MaxPower2k3

well, barefeats got their 3GHz Mac Pro and pitted it against the G5 Quad in the Photoshop test. The G5 still won... by a whole 2 percent. And the MP beat it in After Effects, even with the Rosetta handicap.

http://www.barefeats.com/quad06.html