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gpro · Feb 25, 2007, 02:22 PM

Whats more powerful a 2ghz intel core duo 2 which comes in a macbook pro or a 2gz dual core intel xeon which comes in a mac pro. obviously the mac pro is more powerful because is quad. but when their both dual core which one is more powerful?

Catfish_Man · Feb 25, 2007, 02:31 PM

I wouldn't expect to see a noticeable difference between them. The Xeon has a slightly faster bus, but also uses slightly higher latency ram.

gpro · Feb 25, 2007, 02:32 PM

so with the intel xeon. the more ram the faster the processor will be?

Catfish_Man · Feb 25, 2007, 02:39 PM

That's true of all processors, up to a point. The nice/not-so-nice thing about the Xeon (or more specifically the chipset it uses) is that it uses FB-DIMMs. This allows for huge amounts of ram, but also increases the cost and latency some.

gpro · Feb 25, 2007, 02:42 PM

now i currently have 2gb of ram. if i get 4 gb of ram (8 x 512mb) will that increase the speed of my mac pro

Catfish_Man · Feb 25, 2007, 02:49 PM

It might. It certainly wouldn't be as noticeable as going from 1GB to 2GB though, unless you work on pretty huge datasets.

gpro · Feb 25, 2007, 03:06 PM

yh i got 1gb of ram at the moment but i ordered 2 x 512mb so going to be haveing 2gb but i might get more ram in the future as i will be running vista on my mac pro.
Is the 7300 GT powerful enough to run 2 x 19" wide screen monitors?

tkmd · Feb 25, 2007, 10:07 PM

Yes you should be able to run dual monitors with the 7300. The Xenon chip is inherently faster: its got a fsb running at 1333 MHz vs 800 MHz for the Intel c2d. Everyone complains about the fb dimms used in the MP but technically speaking it is more advanced than ddr2 memory. Yes it is more expensive but I think as AMD adopts it and the supply catches up it should become cheaper. It has a higher latency, but I don't think its as bad as the doom and gloom picture that toms hardware painted it to be. Again as this type of memory becomes more common I think that we will see more memory modules coming was better CAS ratings. Currently the best I've seen is 5, which is highest latency. Overall, Xeon chip set is pretty good.

cgc · Feb 25, 2007, 11:29 PM

This article has some benchmarks for the C2D and Xeon. Almost every benchmark has the C2D and Xeon about even.

I bought my MacPro because it's a tower, if it had C2D in it I'd be just as happy. Look at these benchmarks comparing the MacPro to the iMac on gaming. The stock MacPro (with nVidia 7300GT) is equal or slower than the iMac but th eMacPro can accept new video cards like the Radeon X1900XT which makes it way faster for gaming. Another advantage of the Xeon is it allows quad-processor configurations which is an advantage over C2D.

mkerr64 · Feb 25, 2007, 11:49 PM

How much RAM does one suggest when running a MP 2.66 for running this machine to its full potential?
is 2gb enough for most?

Simon · Feb 26, 2007, 02:34 AM

Originally Posted by cgc

Look at these benchmarks comparing the MacPro to the iMac on gaming. The stock MacPro (with nVidia 7300GT) is equal or slower than the iMac but th eMacPro can accept new video cards like the Radeon X1900XT which makes it way faster for gaming.

That BareFeats test was indeed interesting. However, they never compared the 24" iMac with the stock 7300 GT to the MP with the stock 7300 GT. While it was fairly clear that the iMac with the 7600 GT option would beat the MP with the stock 7300 GT card, I'd be surprised to see the iMac beet the MP when they both actually have the same GPU.

Abbas · Feb 26, 2007, 09:23 AM

As someone pointed out, the faster FSB of Xeon should make the Xeon faster, however, higher latency memory modules even things out. The reason you would want a Xeon over a Core 2 is to support SMP (more than one CPU, not cores) and higher available memory.

webmonkie · Mar 2, 2007, 06:29 AM

I would go with the Xeon. My 2 year old HP Xeon 3.6GHz PC (single CPU) is still running like new (I do lots of web & print design).
I just finish putting together a Quad-Core QX6700 PC that I will be using for video editing.

Cadaver · Mar 2, 2007, 09:47 PM

Originally Posted by webmonkie

I just finish putting together a Quad-Core QX6700 PC that I will be using for video editing.

What mobo did you go with? I've been kicking around the idea of building an X6800 machine... not sure if I want an nVidia board for possible SLI or an Intel-brand (this board) for ultimate maximum stability. I don't really play too many games honestly, so while an 8800GTX SLI setup seems like it'd be fun to build, its something I just really don't need. 99% uptime, however, is more important than FPS.

P · Mar 3, 2007, 05:27 AM

For my recent Core 2 build, I went with a Gigabyte GA-965P-DS3. No SLI/Crossfire, but it's worked fine for me, let's me overclock like crazy on stock cooling or run very cool on default speed (even undervolting the CPU). Uses solid-state capacitors, so they won't every bulge or leak. Only thing missing is Firewire, but I guess you might want FW800 anyway, so you'd need a PCI board in any case.

mduell · Mar 3, 2007, 07:57 AM

Originally Posted by Cadaver

What mobo did you go with? I've been kicking around the idea of building an X6800 machine... not sure if I want an nVidia board for possible SLI or an Intel-brand (this board) for ultimate maximum stability. I don't really play too many games honestly, so while an 8800GTX SLI setup seems like it'd be fun to build, its something I just really don't need. 99% uptime, however, is more important than FPS.

Go with the Intel board... SLI doesn't make sense in price or performance terms unless you're building a $2k+ box just for games.
Also, 99% uptime is pretty miserable; that's 3.5 days of downtime a year. 99.9% uptime is more realistic (9 down hours a year).

Cadaver · Mar 3, 2007, 09:59 AM

Originally Posted by P

For my recent Core 2 build, I went with a Gigabyte GA-965P-DS3. No SLI/Crossfire, but it's worked fine for me, let's me overclock like crazy on stock cooling or run very cool on default speed (even undervolting the CPU). Uses solid-state capacitors, so they won't every bulge or leak. Only thing missing is Firewire, but I guess you might want FW800 anyway, so you'd need a PCI board in any case.

Looks like a nice board, and the price is right. While I love tweeking and overclocking, I'm tempted to go with the Intel as they traditionally have few overclocking options in the BIOS. Again, stability over anything else. I think stock speed on a C2D X6800 will be fast enough.

And yes, mduell, I expect 99.9% uptime (though don't forget, this is Windows we're talking about, not just hardware).

brokenjago · Mar 3, 2007, 07:37 PM

I bought my MacPro because it's a tower, if it had C2D in it I'd be just as happy.

I doubt that very much, as you'd be limited to one processor as opposed to two, which, until recently, would have limited you to two cores instead of four.

Although being able to use standard DDR2 memory would have been really nice from a performance and price point of view.

P · Mar 4, 2007, 03:12 PM

Originally Posted by Cadaver

Looks like a nice board, and the price is right.

Note that you're paying extra for the solid-state capacitors - with regular electrolyte capacitors, the price drops further. I'm very happy with mine, and their support was very helpful when my SATA DVD wouldn't work (the DVD was DOA, as it turned out). Many others recommend the Asus P5B series.

The Intel board you linked uses the older 975X chipset, btw. I avoided that chipset after reports that the 965 ran cooler, but I don't know how big the difference is.

P · Mar 4, 2007, 03:16 PM

Originally Posted by brokenjago

Although being able to use standard DDR2 memory would have been really nice from a performance and price point of view.

More price than performance. While synthetic tests show that the FB-DIMM latency is significantly higher, in practise the big L2 cache of the Woodcrest hides it nicely in most cases.

Simon · Mar 5, 2007, 02:31 AM

Originally Posted by P

The Intel board you linked uses the older 975X chipset, btw. I avoided that chipset after reports that the 965 ran cooler, but I don't know how big the difference is.

IIRC you need a 975X rather than a 965 if you want to use a Core 2 Extreme CPU. Are you sure he can put his X6800 in that 965 board?

Cadaver · Mar 5, 2007, 07:01 PM

Originally Posted by Simon

IIRC you need a 975X rather than a 965 if you want to use a Core 2 Extreme CPU. Are you sure he can put his X6800 in that 965 board?

According to the specs at NewEgg, the GA-965P-DS3 supports the Core 2 Extreme quad-core (QX6700) so I presume it could also take the X6800.

May have to consider that board strongly. Hope Vista likes it.

Simon · Mar 6, 2007, 02:01 AM

You're right. I checked and indeed it looks like the original 965 chipset needed only some slight modifications to the PS module to make it compatible with X6... and QX6... The modified 965P is compatible.

MagnusDredd · Mar 6, 2007, 01:44 PM

The Intel 965P is an excellent Core 2 chipset... It's also extremely good for overclocking. My personal recommendation would be the ASUS P5B ($126.12 shipped/NewEgg.com) as a non-SLI motherboard or the ASUS P5B Deluxe ($183.93 shipped/NewEgg.com) as an SLI motherboard.

Quad core support may require a BIOS update, however with the current BIOS they are supported. If you're not doing crazy stuff in Photoshop, Video editing/encoding, 3d rendering, or scientific modeling the extra two cores in the quad core won't really help you, at least not under Windows.

There are other boards that have slightly higher benchmark scores in some things, but personally I'm more interested in a board that I know won't unexpectedly die in short order, and will run reliably.
----
As to the original message, FBDIMMs are good in that you can update to newer types of memory chips while not upgrading the motherboard. Because they are fully buffered, the fact that the memory chips on the module may be DDR2 or DDR3 is not relevant, only that the board and the stick support the FBDIMM standard. This means that there is an extra stage between accessing the memory and the memory controller which adds to latency. The current FBDIMM standard also allows for tons of memory.