Question about processors

Posted:
in Current Mac Hardware edited January 2014
Hi, whats the difference from the Core 2s that the imacs have and the xeons the mac pros have? Is it just more powerful? or is it more complicated, like the xeons are better at certain tasks?



The reason I ask is I'm curious in regards to gaming, although the xeons more expensive, maybe the core 2 is more designed for stuff like games

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 7
    The distinguishing characteristic for Intel's Xeon processors (which have been around since at least the P3 days) has always been the presence of a larger high-speed on-chip level 2 memory cache.



    The Core 2 Duo processors have either 2 or 4 MB L2 caches while the Xeons have 8 MB caches. This difference is where most of the performance differences come from.



    As a result, Xeons probably will perform faster for gaming applications, though more often the graphics card is the bottleneck there.



    -- Mark
  • Reply 2 of 7
    backtomacbacktomac Posts: 4,579member
    As of today ( things change rapidly with Intel now), Intel has a microarchitechure chip design it calls core. Within the core chips it has several varients designed for different markets. The 'merom' core 2 is a mobile varient with a max clock speed of 2.33 ghz and a FSb of 667 mhz. It's in the iMac, MBP and MB. The 'conroe' varient is designed for desktop pcs and has clock speeds from between 1.83 ghz to 2.9 ghz. The fsb is 1066 mhz. 'Woodcrest' chips are the Xeon core chips. They are for servers and workstations. They have a max clockspeed of 3.0 ghz and come in quad core versions (conroe do as well or will very soon). Woodcrest have 1.3 ghz fsb. These are used in Mac Pros. Apple do not use conroe chips at this time.
  • Reply 3 of 7
    There are currently available Xeon-branded chips that have slower FSBs as well, though as Backtomac points out, the Woodcrest and Clovertown chips in the current Mac Pro have faster FSBs than available Core 2 processors. Intel currently sells at least a few Xeon product lines and 3 Core 2 product lines. The single distinguishing factor between Xeons and everything else is cache size, although the top-end FSB speeds of the Xeon line are somewhat higher.
  • Reply 4 of 7
    backtomacbacktomac Posts: 4,579member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by mark_wilkins View Post


    There are currently available Xeon-branded chips that have slower FSBs as well, though as Backtomac points out, the Woodcrest and Clovertown chips in the current Mac Pro have faster FSBs than available Core 2 processors. Intel currently sells at least a few Xeon product lines and 3 Core 2 product lines. The single distinguishing factor between Xeons and everything else is cache size, although the top-end FSB speeds of the Xeon line are somewhat higher.



    Intel are pumping out product so fast it's hard to keep up.
  • Reply 5 of 7
    feartecfeartec Posts: 119member
    Really bad for those who want a system that will rock for a significant amount of time.
  • Reply 6 of 7
    blascockblascock Posts: 153member
    hmm very interesting.. lol but ya i agree with the last two posts, very confusing and hard to keep up!
  • Reply 7 of 7
    wmfwmf Posts: 1,164member
    The Xeon and Core 2 are virtually identical. Both have the same cache size. However, Apple uses the mobile Core 2 in the iMac, which is slower than the desktop Core 2 and Xeon. So a Mac Pro will definitely be faster than an iMac for all applications, including gaming.
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