[thewocky]

Fellow Mac Geeks,

I'm about to plunk down on one of those new 8-core monsters, and I'd like to get the most bang for my buck. Can anybody offer advice on where I can find the best products and service for the price? Sure, the Apple Store is probably the most reliable, but it's also the most expensive. For a base system (2 Quad-core 3GHz, 1GB RAM, 250GB HD, 7300GT, SD), here are the prices I'm comparing:

MacMall: $3799 + $30 shipping
MacConnection: $3799 + free shipping

For memory, I've read that you can save lots by going with a different vendor than Apple, but that you can also get burned (literally) because these modules get Africa-hot. I found this article on Crucial (2GBx2 = $766), but I've also seen lots of people recommend Crucial as the next-best-thing to Apple. Then there's OWC, which claims to sell exactly the stuff that goes into new factory-configured Macs for $200 cheaper. And then there's DMS with the rock-bottom price of $498.

Finally--I want to finish it off with a big fat hard drive or two. On this very forum, I read about Seagate compatibility issues, but then I also read somewhere that Seagate bought out Maxtor (no URL to paste, I'm tired). What should I do??? So many options...by the time I decide, Microsoft will have sold their first Zune....

If anybody has had a particularly good or bad experience with any of these vendors, or can recommend another vendor that's worth checking out, I'd greatly appreciate your advice.

Thanks,

the wocky

[brokenjago]

Personally, I'd reccomend the ATi X1900XT, depending on what you're doing.

Second, Crucial is great, OWC is great. Can't go wrong with either of those guys.

I like Seagate a lot, and there are no compatibility issues with drives with firmware 3.AEE or better.

[ninahagen]

I have been working the net generally, plus forums and blogs for a while, and the consensus is that a maxed 8-core is only beneficial for:

1. Heavy CPU-based tasks (like scientific computation), in which case it is WAY faster.
2. 3-D modelling, Video editing (neither of which will begin to be optimized until Leopard)
3. Future-proofing for 64-bit CS3 (probably at least a year away)
4. Bragging

I have met a lot of good people in my quest who have said in unison, that if one of these is not your aim, go for the 4-core and "pimp" it by going with WD Raptor 10k rpm 150GB HDs instead of the Seagates, preferably in a RAID configuration (see wikipedia). As for vid-card, I would wait until after Leopard, as mant have said a new vid-card is likely to come them...it may only be days away...I heard April 15th at NAB convention in Las Vegas. Good luck...

Could you run the Photoshop speed test on you current system and the new one when you get it? Would love to compare them.

What are you planning to use this for?

[brokenjago]

They're not going to release Leopard at NAB.

They might announce the release date, tho.

[thewocky]

Thanks for the responses.

Yeah, I was thinking about waiting till Leopard comes out, but I think that's going to be at the WWDC in June, and I can't wait that long. My 3-year-old PowerBook G4 is getting slower by the day (inexplicably, and maybe worth posting in a different forum), and my tasks aren't getting any less intensive. To answer your (ninhagen's) question, I do web and multimedia development: Photoshop, Flash, Illustrator, Dreamweaver mostly. I also dabble in 3-d (Maya) and video (AfterEffects/Premiere), and I'm hoping to do more and more of that in the coming years, so I want a pretty speedy machine. And I hate getting a new system and then discovering that it's outdated a week later: I'm hoping to use this thing as my main workstation for three years at least.

You mention "future-proofing" for 64-bit CS3. I'm a little confused about CS3 and multi-threading...I would assume that CS3 takes advantage of multiple processors, but I have a hard time finding any proof of this online. Does it?? Do all CS3 applications take advantage of multiple processors, or is it different per app (or even per task)? Apple and Adobe both say that CS3 is "optimized for the Intel processor," but don't say much about multiple processors. The closest explanation I can find--John Nack on Adobe--only confuses me more.

I'm not an engineer, so I don't have a firm grasp on what hardware components provide the most benefit. I figure most tasks I need benefit from a combination of processor speed, number of processors, and RAM. The video card is a good example: I don't care about getting a 100FPS frame rate on Quake, but I DO care about rendering a 3-d animation with all kinds of lighting and textures and dynamics. Does the video card only speed up the display, or does it also help in the computation of imagery?

In any event--I appreciate the tips (Raptor HD's, X1900XT) and you're right, I might as well wait till after NAB to see what comes out of that. And of course, I'm definitely planning to compare the new system with the old--I'll be happy to post those results.

[mduell]

I'd go with Crucial for RAM.

The more recent Seagate drives work fine. Go with a dealer with a good return policy (like Newegg, which is also one of the cheapest) if you're really concerned.

The X1900 will help with realtime rendering in Maya (but not final quality renders), but if you don't spend a lot of time there it may not be worth it.

Raptors are always a good idea when you're looking at a system in this price range for multimedia.

Photoshop does take advantage of multiple processors, but it's not great. CS3 on OSX.4 shows no improvement from 4 cores to 8 cores.

I'd consider going with quad 3 or even 2.66Ghz CPUs and more RAM. 5GB and 8x3Ghz CPUs is imbalanaced in my opinion for a multimedia workstation. You can drop in a pair of faster quads in a year or two after your warranty is up if you find your applications can take advantage of more cores at time.

If you don't need a new machine yesterday, I'd wait until Apple releases an updated stock configuration. The current stock CPU/memory/disk/graphics combination is pretty stale.

[ninahagen]

I always just set and forget my machines, so I am going to really future proof... you do video and want to do more, so my vote is...

3.0 Ghz 8-core (upgraded to Leopard the day it comes out...better thread control)
16Ghz RAM (when CS3 goes 64-bit, you will be extra glad you did)
4 x Raptor 10k rpm 150GB HDs in RAID 0
1 x Hitachi 1TB external HD for daily backups (gives you 400GB extra space for stuff you will never manipulate like music and movies)
the next gen best vid card you can afford.
***one alternative (if you don't want an ext HD or manually updates) would be running 2 Raptors with 2 mirror Raptors that automatcally update. I wonder if the 2 main Raptors could be Run in a mini RAID 0 and the mirrors could also...hmmm. Anyone know the answer to that?

[thewocky]

(mduell): Yeah, 8-core seems a bit excessive right now. But I'm wondering if I "only" get a quad 3 right now, if I'll regret it a year from now, when Adobe is talking about some crazy 128-bit CS4 suite and Apple is about to release 10.6 "Puma" (I'm making that up, but it's inevitable, right?). It's impossible to know the future, but I know whatever system I get will be outdated eventually. Still, as you and a lot of other forums point out, the difference in performance seems marginal at this point, and maybe I should spend the $$ on another 4GB of memory.

As for the stock configuration, that's probably a while off, no? Since they just announced the 8-core last week, and Leopard/iLife is around the corner, I'm guessing any more Mac Pro updates are on the back burner....

(ninahagen): I may need to take out another mortgage. But if that means this machine will still be useful five years from now, instead of outdated in three, then it's well worth it.

I found some other really helpful articles: diglloyd.com, who also has a whole page on memory, and barefeats.com.

Thanks for the help....

[ninahagen]

So, please us know what you do, OK? And pls don't forget to post your before and after speed tests.

[mduell]

Originally Posted by thewocky 

(mduell): Yeah, 8-core seems a bit excessive right now. But I'm wondering if I "only" get a quad 3 right now, if I'll regret it a year from now, when Adobe is talking about some crazy 128-bit CS4 suite and Apple is about to release 10.5 "Puma" (I'm making that up, but it's inevitable, right?). It's impossible to know the future, but I know whatever system I get will be outdated eventually. Still, as you and a lot of other forums point out, the difference in performance seems marginal at this point, and maybe I should spend the $$ on another 4GB of memory.

As for the stock configuration, that's probably a while off, no? Since they just announced the 8-core last week, and Leopard/iLife is around the corner, I'm guessing any more Mac Pro updates are on the back burner....

If there is suddenly some huge unforeseen advantage to 8 cores in a year or two, you can drop a pair of faster/cheaper quads into your Mac Pro at that time. My rule of thumb is 1-2GB RAM per core for workstations. I think you'll be better served for the next year or two with 8-9GB RAM and quad 3Ghz than 5GB RAM and octo 3Ghz.

The dual quads were added last week, but nothing else changed. Intel has a price drop coming up (April 22) and the other component prices (RAM/HDD/GPU) have dropped hundreds of dollars (combined) since the Mac Pro release.
In late April or May I'd expect the base configuration to be 3Ghz quad (upgrade to 3Ghz octo, downgrade to 2.33Ghz quad), 2GB RAM (to match the MBP), 320GB disk (which is now where the 250GB was at launch), and one of the newer low-end cards (nVidia 8400 or ATi equivalent). Except for the video card (drivers), none of those upgrades require any development work.

[thewocky]

Grr....and I was about to click "Submit" on my order! I could've had my new computer within a week! Seriously--thanks for that notice, I would've been kicking myself if my new machine arrives the same day the price drops. I can hang out with my old (single processor 1.5GHz!) machine for another couple weeks....

[cgc]

There are benchmarks comparing the 4-core and 8-core MacPros in applications and gaming and essentially the 8-core shows very little improvement due to a suspected memory bottleneck. I'd recommend the 2.66GHz 4-core MacPro with 10K drives and 3GB+ memory with X1900XT.

[mduell]

Originally Posted by cgc 

There are benchmarks comparing the 4-core and 8-core MacPros in applications and gaming and essentially the 8-core shows very little improvement due to a suspected memory bottleneck. I'd recommend the 2.66GHz 4-core MacPro with 10K drives and 3GB+ memory with X1900XT.

What leads you to believe that memory bandwidth is the problem?

[nerd]

I'm not buying the hype of the limited bandwidth. Did you see the benchmark when exporting 6 QuickTime movies at once? Once we see more apps written to take advantage of 8 cores they'll shine a lot more.

Early Performance Texting of the 8 Core Mac Pro

[cgc]

Yeah, some apps seem to take advantage, but then others barely beat 4-core MacPro. Why is this? No idea, but there's some bottleneck..may be the OS, may be HDDs, may be buss, may be memory...I have no idea but then again I don't get paid enough.

I think you have to look at whatever benchmark is relevant to the type of work you expect to use your Mac for. I have 4-Core and use PS and some games. Good for me...if someone uses Cinebench all day long maybe they should get an 8-core monster

[Simon]

The problem isn't memory bandwidth per se. According to Apple max memory bandwidth is about 21.3 GB/s but that's more of a marketing statement [which comes from the super simple calculation (128 bit bus width) * (1333 MHz bus clock) / (8b/B) ] than a relevant figure for everyday work.

If you actually measure memory copy speed (which includes actual reads and writes to/from memory) you get something like 2.9 GB/s (uni-directional) memory bandwidth for an actual application. For the quad-core systems that leaves you with 725 MB/s per core and now with the actual 8-core MP you're down to 363 MB/s per core. For memory intensive apps that is indeed a serious bottleneck.

From diglloyd Blog: April 2007
Ironically, any job that can actually make use of 8 cores (rare) will be hampered by the reduced memory bandwidth available. So in terms of real world performance, think of 8 cores as 6 cores when compared to the quad core Mac Pro—a step up worth paying for highly specialized tasks, but not for most users—I’ve yet to see all 4 cores of my quad-core Mac Pro at full utilization (except using diglloydTools, an artificial case).

Of course other issues like contention and core swapping are probably contributing to the mixed results of the 8-core MP as well.

[chipchen]

Just curious... why get 2 x 2GB kit. Do you really plan on putting 16GB in this thing? You've got 8 slots. I would get 4 x 1GB chips... then.... if you really want to get 16GB in it later... the 2GB chips will have come down in price enough to still be cheaper than your initial investments in them. And you can sell the 1GB chips. But even with those in, you can get up to 12GB of RAM in there....

Just a thought.

[mduell]

Originally Posted by Simon 

If you actually measure memory copy speed (which includes actual reads and writes to/from memory) you get something like 2.9 GB/s (uni-directional) memory bandwidth for an actual application. For the quad-core systems that leaves you with 725 MB/s per core and now with the actual 8-core MP you're down to 363 MB/s per core. For memory intensive apps that is indeed a serious bottleneck.

Either there's something wrong with that benchmark, something wrong with OS X, or something wrong with the Mac Pro hardware.

Other benchmarks on 51xx Xeons with FB-DIMMs are showing 6+GBps reads and 5+GBps writes (which makes sense since FB-DIMMs have 14 read lanes and 10 write lanes). Even with a single thread they're well over 3GBps each way.

Originally Posted by chipchen 

Just curious... why get 2 x 2GB kit. Do you really plan on putting 16GB in this thing? You've got 8 slots. I would get 4 x 1GB chips... then.... if you really want to get 16GB in it later... the 2GB chips will have come down in price enough to still be cheaper than your initial investments in them. And you can sell the 1GB chips. But even with those in, you can get up to 12GB of RAM in there....

If you put in 4x1GB, you're at 5GB with 2 slots free, limiting you to 9GB without selling/trashing modules.

[cherry su]

Or you could wait for a longer time and buy 8GB DIMMs when they become relatively cheap. A 64GB (8 x 8GB) upgrade for a comparable Dell workstation costs a whopping $50,000

You do wanna pimp your Mac, dontcha?

[brokenjago]

Originally Posted by cherry su 

...Dell workstation costs a whopping $50,000

You do wanna pimp your Mac, dontcha?

Mere pennies.

[thewocky]

Originally Posted by cherry su 

Or you could wait for a longer time and buy 8GB DIMMs when they become relatively cheap. A 64GB (8 x 8GB) upgrade for a comparable Dell workstation costs a whopping $50,000

You do wanna pimp your Mac, dontcha?

Yeah, I wanna pimp it, but I'm not actually a pimp. 64 GB RAM is the geek equivalent of a fur coat, jeweled cane, and spinning rims.

When Intel does a price drop like we're expecting Sunday, do retailer prices usually drop right away, or does it take a day/week/month to take effect at the Apple Store, etc.?

Go Hokies...

[brokenjago]

One would imagine Apple would be happy to keep their prices the way they are for a good month or so...

[mduell]

Originally Posted by thewocky 

When Intel does a price drop like we're expecting Sunday, do retailer prices usually drop right away, or does it take a day/week/month to take effect at the Apple Store, etc.?

Retail (street) prices will drop immediately a lot of places (like Newegg). OEMs usually take a few weeks to catch up. Apple will probably wait a couple weeks until they have a more complete package ready for the refresh (current-generation graphics, bigger stock HD/more stock RAM).