Dell beats Apple in unveiling 8 core Xeon workstations
Dell, Inc. said Wednesday it's the first PC maker to market with workstations that feature Intel Corp.'s new quad-core processors, beating longtime-rival Apple Computer whose Mac Pro professional desktops have yet to make the jump from dual-core chips.
The world's second-leading PC manufacturer said customers can now configure its two-socket Dell Precision 690 and Dell Precision 490 workstations with two new Quad-Core Intel Xeon chips, delivering a total of 8 processing cores and performance gains of up to 54 percent on multi-threaded applications.
"Dell prides itself not only on being first to market with technology, but first to deliver exceptional value to the customer while helping to reduce costly complexity in their environment," said Brad Anderson, senior vice president, Dell Product Group.
Bare bones dual-core Dell Precision 690 and 490 models start at just $2,399 and $2,149, respectively, but require a minimum investment of $4,392 and $5,348 when configured with two quad-core Xeons running at 1.86GHz -- the only variant of Intel's new quad-core Xeon that it offers.
The Round Rock, Texas-based PC manufacturer also announced the addition of Quad-Core Intel* Xeon*processors to its two-socket Dell PowerEdge 1900, 1950, 2950, 2900, SC1430 and 1955 blade models. Prices start at $1,599, $1,599, 1,699, $1,049 and $1,799 respectively.
Customers may begin to place orders for Precision and PowerEdge quad-core computers beginning today, but Dell says shipments of those systems may be delayed by more than two weeks.
Meanwhile, Apple Computer is also expected to soon introduce a version of its Mac Pro professional desktop systems that will also boast 8 cores via two Intel Quad-Core Xeon chips. People familiar with the Cupertino, Calif.-based Mac maker's plans have said to expect an announcement any time after the first half of November.
Apple's Mac Pro is a relatively new system, having been introduced just this past August. It's currently available in a single $2,499 configuration that packs two 2.66 GHz Dual-Core Intel Xeon processors, 1GB of 667 MHz DDR2 fully-buffered ECC memory, a NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT with 256MB of GDDR2 SDRAM and a 250GB Serial ATA (3Gb/s) hard drive running at 7200 rpm.
The Mac Pro can also be configured with up to two 3.0GHz Dual-Core Intel Xeon processors through the company's online store.
The world's second-leading PC manufacturer said customers can now configure its two-socket Dell Precision 690 and Dell Precision 490 workstations with two new Quad-Core Intel Xeon chips, delivering a total of 8 processing cores and performance gains of up to 54 percent on multi-threaded applications.
"Dell prides itself not only on being first to market with technology, but first to deliver exceptional value to the customer while helping to reduce costly complexity in their environment," said Brad Anderson, senior vice president, Dell Product Group.
Bare bones dual-core Dell Precision 690 and 490 models start at just $2,399 and $2,149, respectively, but require a minimum investment of $4,392 and $5,348 when configured with two quad-core Xeons running at 1.86GHz -- the only variant of Intel's new quad-core Xeon that it offers.
The Round Rock, Texas-based PC manufacturer also announced the addition of Quad-Core Intel* Xeon*processors to its two-socket Dell PowerEdge 1900, 1950, 2950, 2900, SC1430 and 1955 blade models. Prices start at $1,599, $1,599, 1,699, $1,049 and $1,799 respectively.
Customers may begin to place orders for Precision and PowerEdge quad-core computers beginning today, but Dell says shipments of those systems may be delayed by more than two weeks.
Meanwhile, Apple Computer is also expected to soon introduce a version of its Mac Pro professional desktop systems that will also boast 8 cores via two Intel Quad-Core Xeon chips. People familiar with the Cupertino, Calif.-based Mac maker's plans have said to expect an announcement any time after the first half of November.
Apple's Mac Pro is a relatively new system, having been introduced just this past August. It's currently available in a single $2,499 configuration that packs two 2.66 GHz Dual-Core Intel Xeon processors, 1GB of 667 MHz DDR2 fully-buffered ECC memory, a NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT with 256MB of GDDR2 SDRAM and a 250GB Serial ATA (3Gb/s) hard drive running at 7200 rpm.
The Mac Pro can also be configured with up to two 3.0GHz Dual-Core Intel Xeon processors through the company's online store.
Comments
While no doubt 8 are better than 4 for certain apps, if these new chips are limited to 1.83 GHZ the question is whether money wouldn't be better spent on two 3 GHZ duo core chips. Let the testing begin.
The Clovertons are not limited to 1.6GHz/1.83GHz, there are also 2.33GHz and 2.66GHz models. More than likely the 1.6 and 1.8 are the only speeds that they can so far get decent yields on. I have read elsewhere that the 2+GHz Clovertons may not appear until 2007. My bet is Apple won't update the Mac Pro until then.
Gee, for such a big company, they have a real inferiority complex.
Dell hasn't done crap yet except issue a press release and flip a switch in their online store.
Dell may have unveiled it first, but the biggest hang-up is of course windows XP. after spending 3 yrs with Mac OS X, I can definitely see an overall perfmance difference, and my guess is, I'll notice a difference from 8 cores rather than 2(my current machine)
I work at an engineering firm, they're all on PC. If you were to secretly switch out my Dual Dual-Core (Quad) Xeon 3.2 with an Octo Dell workstation, I can say that without a doubt I wouldn't notice a performance gain.
What I'm getting at really is, with the PC realm, the hardware technology is there (except hard drive technology)... it's the Operating System that is in dire straits.
I give all the credit in the world to PC hardware... I just don't think it's OS gives it justice... we'll see with Vista aka MAC OS V
-Clive
Dell, Inc. said Wednesday it's the first PC maker to market with workstations that feature Intel Corp.'s new quad-core processors, beating longtime-rival Apple Computer whose Mac Pro professional desktops have yet to make the jump from dual-core chips.
The world's second-leading PC manufacturer said customers can now configure its two-socket Dell Precision 690 and Dell Precision 490 workstations with two new Quad-Core Intel Xeon chips, delivering a total of 8 processing cores and performance gains of up to 54 percent on multi-threaded applications.
Bare bones dual-core Dell Precision 690 and 490 models start at just $2,399 and $2,149, respectively, but require a minimum investment of $4,392 and $5,348 when configured with two quad-core Xeons running at 1.86GHz -- the only variant of Intel's new quad-core Xeon that it offers.
That's a lot of cores but that's a lot of money too.
I don't think I would pay any extra for an Octo workstation. I'd just get a "basic" quad and upgrade to Octo when the chip costs go down in a few years. I have maxed out a Quad but what I was doing was running a LIveType simulation, encoding HDTV recording to iPod resolution, playing an HD recording and recording over the air HD. It had like 7% CPU power left and didn't feel the least bit sluggish compared to a system with little to no CPU load.
Coming from a guy who use to work on PCs for 10 yrs...
Dell may have unveiled it first, but the biggest hang-up is of course windows XP. after spending 3 yrs with Mac OS X, I can definitely see an overall perfmance difference, and my guess is, I'll notice a difference from 8 cores rather than 2(my current machine)
I work at an engineering firm, they're all on PC. If you were to secretly switch out my Dual Dual-Core (Quad) Xeon 3.2 with an Octo Dell workstation, I can say that without a doubt I wouldn't notice a performance gain.
What I'm getting at really is, with the PC realm, the hardware technology is there (except hard drive technology)... it's the Operating System that is in dire straits.
I give all the credit in the world to PC hardware... I just don't think it's OS gives it justice... we'll see with Vista aka MAC OS V
That's correct. The client version of Windows is not good at scaling beyond 4 cores. as it's being discontinued, it likely won't be upgraded to do so.
I'm wondering just how Vista is in that catagory. I would imagine the two Home versions won't work with more than two cores, and that if they do at all, they won't gain much.
The real question here though, is will there be a difference in performance between the Professional versions? I haven't seen anything written on this.
If there is, it will be good for Apple. Fortunately, we only have one client version. Those few claiming that Apple should also have a "home" version as MS does, simply don't understand the complexity, and confusion, it would cause
I'll hold off on upgrading from my old dual G5 until Apple makes the entire Mac Pro line 8 core. By then, pretty much everything I use should be Universal, too.
You might wait a fair while for that. They will likely stick one in at the top end, as the high speed chip now is only 2.66 GHz.
Unless they came out with a seperate line for them, which I doubt.
If I have 7,000 processors, 800 TB of RAM, and 500 Petabytes of hard drive space... will my computer finally be able to do my job for me?
I'm sure it will make my typing and webpage reading alot faster!!!
If I have 7,000 processors, 800 TB of RAM, and 500 Petabytes of hard drive space... will my computer finally be able to do my job for me?
It depends. Are you capable of doing it now?
It depends. Are you capable of doing it now?
Barely... but more to the point, my job is managing computers. I don't think I'd trust it to another computer. Ya know... HAL 9000, Skynet, etc....
I'd rather have four cours at 3 gig.
I thought the 2.66 was going to hit by the end of the year? Hmm. And for the price? Good luck Dell.
I'll wait until Apple does it properly with their Octo machine. Seems like Dell are doing the old Apple pre-order routine.
Apple are doing more of the 'shipping today' thing.
When 8x2.66-ish arrives. Then I may get excited. And only if it's at the price point of the current 3 gigger.
Maybe it might take longer than thought to arrive. Maybe next Summer at the latest. Thought they were going to make it before Christmas. This 'low' clock is a little disappointing.
I wonder how it will bench in something like Lightwave...
Lemon Bon Bon
that you can do just as much work with Mac OS 8.5, 256mb of RAM and an old copy of Word as you can with Mac OS 10.5, 2Gb of RAM and Word 2004?
suckers. get off the rat treadmill.