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Apple introduces new Mac Pro topping out at 3.2GHz - Page 2

post #41 of 253
1/8/08 at 7:53am
I wonder if the single CPU 2.8GHz has the exact same innards as the rest of the BTO line?

That is, with 2 sockets, same amount of RAM and PCI-E slots?

That looks like a decent option for most graphics pros and can be later on upgraded to dual CPUs if need be.

Once again, what Apple is asking for the memory upgrade is quite steep.

I wonder if the machines can accept standard 800Mhz FB-DIMMs (say from Kingston ValueRam line). These are much cheaper than Apple BTO options.

BTW, even with 1600Mhz bus, and two separate dual channel memory pathways, 2 x quad core is still memory starved in some highly RAM bound operations. That won't be fixed until merom and it's new platform arrives (maybe this year on paper, but it won't be until Q1/2009 earliest before it ships through Apple).
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post #42 of 253
1/8/08 at 7:53am
Quote:
Originally Posted by melgross View Post

We may see BD sooner rather than later. The word is now out that Paramount may switch to BD. Supposedly, there is an opt-out clause in the contract with Toshiba, that if Warner moves exclusively to BD (they are the biggest), then Paramount, and I also assume Dreamworks, can move over as well.

If this is true, then bye bye HD-DVD. There is no way Universal would stay by themselves as exclusively HD-DVD.
.

If that's true- then why no Blu-ray now?? Pc's already have them - there is no reason why not now.
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post #43 of 253
1/8/08 at 7:54am
Awesome. Any site listing the applications taking advantage of the full 8 cores?
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post #44 of 253
1/8/08 at 7:56am
add a 2th ati 2600xt for $100 will cross fire work it put the briges in? or the card come with the brige ports on it?

or only in windows?
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post #45 of 253
1/8/08 at 8:01am
Lame!
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post #46 of 253
1/8/08 at 8:02am
Quote:
Originally Posted by melgross View Post

8 cores is good. It's something that will make these machines more future proof.

It will take more time to have most apps use more than two cpu's. Meanwhile, multitasking has never been more efficient.

You got that right. I bought the dual xeon 3.0 last year and although it has 4 cores none of the high end graphic/video apps take advantage of them, at least by observing the performance monitor. In addition, I would recommend not buying more than 4 gigs of ram for the same reason. I have 8 gigs and it never touches more than 2 in any situation I have observed.

M

Life is too short to drink bad coffee.

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post #47 of 253
1/8/08 at 8:02am
Cinema 4d , After Effects ... but forget about it if you keep it at 2GB ram. Minimum one core/GB of ram.
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post #48 of 253
1/8/08 at 8:03am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Joe_the_dragon View Post

that is the limit of the intel chip set.

AMD / ATI and NVIDIA AMD chipset as FULL pci-e 2.0.

also $800 for a raid card with only 4 ports??

you get severs board with on board hardware raid for about $100 more then the non sever one.

Is it it really comparable in capabilities? RAID-5 and a 3 day battery backup?
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post #49 of 253
1/8/08 at 8:05am
Quote:
Originally Posted by teckstud View Post

If that's true- then why no Blu-ray now?? Pc's already have them - there is no reason why not now.

You can buy them for Mac and there is common Mac software that will utilize them.

Quote:
Originally Posted by zunx View Post

Awesome. Any site listing the applications taking advantage of the full 8 cores?

That would be good to know.

PS: I just bought the $2,800 model.
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post #50 of 253
1/8/08 at 8:06am
Quote:
Originally Posted by mstone View Post

You got that right. I bought the dual xeon 3.0 last year and although it has 4 cores none of the high end graphic/video apps take advantage of them, at least by observing the performance monitor. In addition, I would recommend not buying more than 4 gigs of ram for the same reason. I have 8 gigs and it never touches more than 2 in any situation I have observed.

M

Never touches more than 2 GB of Ram ? I wonder what you're doing because once i start Leopard , PS CS3 , AE CS3 and Firefox i'm already over 1.0GB of ram without even doing anything in those apps. Once i open project in AE and some small files in PS that are part of AE's composition , i'm well above 2GB.
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post #51 of 253
1/8/08 at 8:15am
Quote:
Originally Posted by wally007 View Post

Never touches more than 2 GB of Ram ? I wonder what you're doing because once i start Leopard , PS CS3 , AE CS3 and Firefox i'm already over 1.0GB of ram without even doing anything in those apps. Once i open project in AE and some small files in PS that are part of AE's composition , i'm well above 2GB.

It's definitely not that hard to use memory. I've had mine use 5GB, wired + active pretty often. Nearly 10GB if you include inactive. I don't have Leopard, or anything CS3. Part of the idea is that programs you often use should stay in memory so it's there & running when you need it.
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post #52 of 253
1/8/08 at 8:19am
Woohoo! Right, now where's my cheque book?
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post #53 of 253
1/8/08 at 8:23am
Quote:
Originally Posted by markb View Post

Was hoping for new displays or maybe bundled blu-ray drive (guess you can add it later).

Thinking outloud about the changes made and whether I am going to pull the trigger now:
The new graphics cards are not bad. Would love to be able to afford the workstation card but...$$$ 8800GT might be a good compromise.
FSB 1333->1600, memory 667->800mhz (dunno if it matters with latency)
Per processor cache 4mb->12mb
+SSE4

It should be a bit more than 12%. Don't forget the 4core -> 8core going from 3.0 -> 3.2. On top of that they will be running more efficient under the 45nm vs the 60nm. I was expecting these to be announced before macworld. I'm going to wait till after mac world to see 2 things.
A) if a pro-sumer / xmac tower comes out.
B) If it is possible to buy a quad 2.8 and add a quad 2.8 later on for octo goodness when one has hte money.

Quote:
Overall ~12% performance bump over previous well equipped Mac Pro? Can't wait for some hard data. Have to justify that the $6k is worth it to the wife compared to the $2k for a 24" iMac.

Divorce is always an option as well.

 

 

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post #54 of 253
1/8/08 at 8:25am
Quote:
Originally Posted by solipsism View Post

You can buy them for Mac and there is common Mac software that will utilize them.


That would be good to know.

PS: I just bought the $2,800 model.

Curious, what mac programs will utilize playing blu-ray???

 

 

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post #55 of 253
1/8/08 at 8:25am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Joe_the_dragon View Post

add a 2th ati 2600xt for $100 will cross fire work it put the briges in? or the card come with the brige ports on it?

or only in windows?

I don't believe this machine has Crossfire. I went through the whole apple mac pro site and didn't see it mentioned one time. Did i miss it?

 

 

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post #56 of 253
1/8/08 at 8:27am
Quote:
Originally Posted by emig647 View Post

Divorce is always an option as well.

That's even more expensive.
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post #57 of 253
1/8/08 at 8:29am
Quote:
Originally Posted by emig647 View Post

Curious, what mac programs will utilize playing blu-ray???

Toast will write data to Blu-Ray, but I don't know if it would write Blu-Ray compatible video discs or not.
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post #58 of 253
1/8/08 at 8:31am
I wasn't asking about burning. I was asking about playing them. You need to have a special program to play the encrypted and BD+ video. Windows has some... PowerDVD and others. Any out there for Mac? If so we could most likely buy a drive from Newegg.com and slap it in the mac pro and play till our little hearts content.

 

 

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post #59 of 253
1/8/08 at 8:33am
is everyone happy with this? no redesign of case?

one thing is new is One Quad core CPU option...

this morning, i thought i slept for one week, geez one more week to go ...

Nov '09 | iMac 21.5" C2D 3.06 Ghz | Intel 330 240GB SSD | ATI

Sep '12| Toshiba 14" 1366 x 768! | i5 3rd Gen 6GB| Intel x25-m 120GB SSD | Win 7|  Viewsonic VX2255wmb 22" LCD
iPhone 4S| iPad 2 wifi

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Nov '09 | iMac 21.5" C2D 3.06 Ghz | Intel 330 240GB SSD | ATI

Sep '12| Toshiba 14" 1366 x 768! | i5 3rd Gen 6GB| Intel x25-m 120GB SSD | Win 7|  Viewsonic VX2255wmb 22" LCD
iPhone 4S| iPad 2 wifi

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post #60 of 253
1/8/08 at 8:33am
Quote:
Originally Posted by wally007 View Post

I'm unimpressed. Not by Apple but by Penryn. When you look at official benchmarks , in 3D and video apps , 3.2Ghz Penryn is only 10% faster than previous 3.0Ghz 8core. So if you take into account 200Mhz extra Penryn is sporting , clock for clock it's probably exactly same performace. (i'm not talking about performace per watt or per $$$)

Clock for clock, according to testing in Anandtech, and other places, Penyrn is about 5 to 10% faster, and SSE4, when a program is written to use the new functions, is showing a 20 to 40% improvement.

For portables, that goes along with a 5 to 20% improvement in battery life for an otherwise identical machine, depending on what the computer is being asked to do.
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post #61 of 253
1/8/08 at 8:35am
Quote:
Originally Posted by emig647 View Post

I wasn't asking about burning. I was asking about playing them. You need to have a special program to play the encrypted and BD+ video. Windows has some... PowerDVD and others. Any out there for Mac? If so we could most likely buy a drive from Newegg.com and slap it in the mac pro and play till our little hearts content.

I see what you are saying. I really don't know. I do know that Toast Titanium, as JeffDM mentioned above, and Apple's DVD Studio Pro has support for creating blue-laser discs.
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post #62 of 253
1/8/08 at 8:35am
I'm happy. The only thing missing is Blu-ray drive, but i'm sure we'll be able to add that later when the software exists.

I'm a little bummed the prices went UP instead of DOWN like they should have. But then again it is octo across the board. I'm hoping we can buy a 2.8 quad and add a 2.8 quad down the road.

 

 

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post #63 of 253
1/8/08 at 8:37am
Quote:
Originally Posted by e1618978 View Post

If you want apple quality fridge/freezers, buy Northland:

http://www.northlandnka.com/

(not affiliated, but I own the 72" fridge freezer combo, and it kicks sub-zero ass)

I've been considering that for when I have to replace my Sub-Zero. The only problem is that it's a pretty small company compared to the others, and I've not seen anyone who has one. I also never see any reliability rating for them.

The Sub-Zero does a great job, I have no complaints.
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post #64 of 253
1/8/08 at 8:41am
Quote:
Originally Posted by halcyon View Post

I wonder if the single CPU 2.8GHz has the exact same innards as the rest of the BTO line?

That is, with 2 sockets, same amount of RAM and PCI-E slots?

That looks like a decent option for most graphics pros and can be later on upgraded to dual CPUs if need be.

Once again, what Apple is asking for the memory upgrade is quite steep.

I wonder if the machines can accept standard 800Mhz FB-DIMMs (say from Kingston ValueRam line). These are much cheaper than Apple BTO options.

BTW, even with 1600Mhz bus, and two separate dual channel memory pathways, 2 x quad core is still memory starved in some highly RAM bound operations. That won't be fixed until merom and it's new platform arrives (maybe this year on paper, but it won't be until Q1/2009 earliest before it ships through Apple).

It's probably a different mobo with one socket.

You can use other manufacturers FB-DIMMSas long as they state that they meed APPLE's specs. A fair number of companies are offering the older ones, and shortly should be offering the 800's for these.
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post #65 of 253
1/8/08 at 8:42am
Why would they create a whole new mobo for 1 configuration? They couldn't use the old mobo because the FSB is slower. ô.O

 

 

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post #66 of 253
1/8/08 at 8:42am
Quote:
Originally Posted by melgross View Post

On another note, I'm a bit frustrated that Apple went halfway with Express 2, offering just 2 Express 2 slots, with the others being Express 1 slots. I'd like to find out just what this means for the overall throughput of the machine.

I had decided that if Apple went to Express 2 this time, I would get the machine now (though I was hoping for a new case, eSATA port, etc, as well).

Also the range of graphics cards.

But, now I don't know what to think. It's not like Apple to go halfway with a new bus. I guess we'll see more when the store is back online shortly.

Quote:
Originally Posted by emig647 View Post

I don't believe this machine has Crossfire. I went through the whole apple mac pro site and didn't see it mentioned one time. Did i miss it?

the card does have the ports on it and crossfire is open to many chipsets
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post #67 of 253
1/8/08 at 8:42am
Quote:
Originally Posted by emig647 View Post

I'm a little bummed the prices went UP instead of DOWN like they should have. But then again it is octo across the board. I'm hoping we can buy a 2.8 quad and add a 2.8 quad down the road.

Did the chips cost stay the same or go up? You can drop the price by $500 if you only want one Xeon installed. The default configuration is now double the RAM and built-in Bluetooth.
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post #68 of 253
1/8/08 at 8:43am
Quote:
Originally Posted by teckstud View Post

My prediction is the AppleTV only will get blu-ray at MacWorld.

No THAT would be a great idea!
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post #69 of 253
1/8/08 at 8:44am
Quote:
Originally Posted by emig647 View Post

Why would they create a whole new mobo for 1 configuration?

What do you mean "one configuration"?
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post #70 of 253
1/8/08 at 8:46am
One configuration for CPUs. IE 1 out of 4 configurations is only single CPU vs dual CPU. IE quad vs octo.

So why would they change the motherboard for 1 of the 4 CPU configurations? Seems like a waste. Why not just not put one of the CPUs in?

 

 

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post #71 of 253
1/8/08 at 8:46am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Joe_the_dragon View Post

the card does have the ports on it and crossfire is open to many chipsets

But in the end the motherboard chipsets still have to support crossfire and have crossfire drivers for the OS. Which i failed to see mentioned anywhere. I'm all about it if true, but I haven't seen anything on it.

 

 

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post #72 of 253
1/8/08 at 8:47am
Quote:
Originally Posted by teckstud View Post

If that's true- then why no Blu-ray now?? Pc's already have them - there is no reason why not now.

I've been watching Apple since before Jobs left, while he was away, and now that he's back.

During all that time, I've never been able to figure out why Apple does what it does.

Something lacking in support in the OS. It must support the DRM throughout the product, from player through to the DVi or HDMI port. Apple hasn't had any cards with that support, it was even late coming to the PC world. They have no support in the OS either.

I haven't looked to see whether any of the cards Apple is offering (disappointing, again!) offers HDMI. If one or more does, that might tell us something. Perhaps someone will look for us.

I assumed it would come with 10.5, but it doesn't seem to be there. Apple could offer it in an update.

Who knows? Perhaps now with the situation changing in the Hi Def battle, we will see a hastely arranged statement of support at Macworld.

At least, I hope so.

Apple's support would be the last nail.
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post #73 of 253
1/8/08 at 8:50am
Quote:
Originally Posted by solipsism View Post

You can buy them for Mac and there is common Mac software that will utilize them.

For recording, and data.

You're not saying someone offers movie playback through the Mac, are you?
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post #74 of 253
1/8/08 at 8:50am
"Price increased to $2800. Enough room between consumer and pro to fit in a mid-range tower or otherwise-desktop mac."

As others have noted, there's a $2300 option. From the Apple Store: "One 2.8GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon (quad-core) [Subtract $500]"

And quoting mdriftmeyer: "I didn't expect FW3200. I don't expect BluRay as a BTO until Fall 08 and the dust has settled a bit more"

The dust pretty much HAS settled on HD-DVD, as today's announcements confirmed.

As for fw3200, can someone give a little primer here on ports? I thought eSATA might be adopted by apple for future computers including its laptops. Does its absence on MacPros suggest that's not the case? And is that a dumb idea anyway? What ARE the speeds and other advantages or dis's, for fw800, 3200, and eSATA?

thanks.
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post #75 of 253
1/8/08 at 8:52am
Quote:
Originally Posted by emig647 View Post

I wasn't asking about burning. I was asking about playing them. You need to have a special program to play the encrypted and BD+ video. Windows has some... PowerDVD and others. Any out there for Mac? If so we could most likely buy a drive from Newegg.com and slap it in the mac pro and play till our little hearts content.

It has to be supported in the OS, and in the graphics cards. No DRM support, no movie.
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post #76 of 253
1/8/08 at 8:53am
Quote:
Originally Posted by shanmugam View Post

is everyone happy with this? no redesign of case?

No!

We'll likely have to wait 'till the ADC and Nehalem for that.
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post #77 of 253
1/8/08 at 8:54am
Quote:
Originally Posted by emig647 View Post

Why would they create a whole new mobo for 1 configuration? They couldn't use the old mobo because the FSB is slower. ô.O

They've done it before.
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post #78 of 253
1/8/08 at 8:56am
Quote:
Originally Posted by emig647 View Post

But in the end the motherboard chipsets still have to support crossfire and have crossfire drivers for the OS. Which i failed to see mentioned anywhere. I'm all about it if true, but I haven't seen anything on it.

Almost no one uses these schemes anyway. Apple won't bother.
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post #79 of 253
1/8/08 at 8:57am
I don't recall this happening with the g5's or the Mac Pros. Did it with the G4's? The only one I can think of that was possibility was Yosamite vs Sawtooth.

 

 

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The reason why they are analysts is because they failed at running businesses.

 

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post #80 of 253
1/8/08 at 8:59am
Quote:
Originally Posted by rtdunham View Post

"Price increased to $2800. Enough room between consumer and pro to fit in a mid-range tower or otherwise-desktop mac."

As others have noted, there's a $2300 option. From the Apple Store: "One 2.8GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon (quad-core) [Subtract $500]"

And quoting mdriftmeyer: "I didn't expect FW3200. I don't expect BluRay as a BTO until Fall 08 and the dust has settled a bit more"

The dust pretty much HAS settled on HD-DVD, as today's announcements confirmed.

As for fw3200, can someone give a little primer here on ports? I thought eSATA might be adopted by apple for future computers including its laptops. Does its absence on MacPros suggest that's not the case? And is that a dumb idea anyway? What ARE the speeds and other advantages or dis's, for fw800, 3200, and eSATA?

thanks.

No advantage to FW3200, as it won't be out until 2009.

Firewire requires a converter chipset, which causes no end of problems, as well as slowing don the drives, which are ATA.

SATA, both external, and internal, is a native drive type, and is simpler, and faster, as well as being more reliable, without requiring dependence on a third party chipset and software.
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