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News New Mac Pro sports eight cores

Discussion in 'Article Discussion' started by Tim S, 6 Apr 2007.

  1. Tim S

    Tim S OG

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  2. ou7blaze

    ou7blaze sensational.

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    Bit excessive? Hardly anyone has even heard of quad core for Windows and we have 8 cores now for Apple computers :O
     
  3. flabber

    flabber What's a Dremel?

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    Not really all that excessive tbh. Mac Pro's aren't really targetted at gaming-rigs either. They're workstations, targetted at the pro-market. Renderers, 3D-dev's, Cad-Cam and such are the points where this rig is top dollar :)

    The actual CPU-model used by Apple is the (at the time of this writing) unreleased Xeon X5365, which is being produced in a limited stock at the moment. At least, that's what Intel's PR director Ruben Simpliciano says :)
     
  4. genesisofthesith

    genesisofthesith complete spanner

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    Wonder how other vendors feel about apple (a small vendor in terms of volume and revenue) getting preferential treatment from intel?
     
  5. DreamTheEndless

    DreamTheEndless Gravity hates Bacon

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    Yeah - I think the fact that the proc is exclusive to Apple should be added to the article.

    Currently, other vendors can only get 2.66ghz quad core xeons.

    (Also, in regards to price - if you try to spec out an 8 core dell, it comes in at an even higher price, and that's with 2.66 ghz cpus, not 3.0)
     
  6. Da Dego

    Da Dego Brett Thomas

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    Points listed above have been added to the article. As well, please note the one other clarification - Apple IS intending to market this as a super-powered gaming rig as well as a workstation.
     
  7. DreamTheEndless

    DreamTheEndless Gravity hates Bacon

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    That's why I love bit-tech - they actually listen to their readers....

    Thanks guys.

    (I know, "listen" is the wrong verb for a written media, but the spirit of it sounds better than the alternatives. Oops - there I go again with "sounds better" - you guys know what I mean.....)
     
  8. DXR_13KE

    DXR_13KE BananaModder

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    this is not a gaming system.... it lacks a great graphics card.
     
  9. koola

    koola Minimodder

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    How is a X1900XT 512MB not a great gaming card?

    You can even have a NVIDIA Quadro FX 4500 512MB for the multi-monitor graphics workstation guru :D
     
  10. DXR_13KE

    DXR_13KE BananaModder

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    how about a pair of 8800GTX? if you are going to have a ludicrous GPU you better have a ludicrous GPU.
     
  11. Cupboard

    Cupboard I'm not a modder.

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    Well, as it does quad sli, you can but hope for 4...
     
  12. Hamish

    Hamish What's a Dremel?

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    it does come with a 10k rpm SAS 300gig drive and a SAS raid controller to match

    if you match similar specs on the 2 sites you get something like this:

    dell:
    dual quad core 2.66
    4gig ram
    quadro 4500
    300gig 10k rpm sas + raid controller
    16x dvdrw
    24" WS dell
    3yr NBD dell support
    £6k + vat :|

    apple:
    dual quad core 3ghz
    4gig ram
    quadro 4500
    250gig 7200rpm sata
    23" WS cinema
    applecare (1 year warranty, 3 years support)
    £4200 + vat

    so still way cheaper but the disk subsystem and support seems to be lacking a bit on the apple side


    anyone else think that 8 cores of xeon is going to be horribly horribly memory limited? :p
     
  13. Ramble

    Ramble Ginger Nut

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    Fast workstation? Yes
    Fast gaming station? No. Throwing tons of RAM and CPU at a game won't do much right now (and how fast is that RAM? As fast as that DDR-1000 RAM?).
     
  14. Firehed

    Firehed Why not? I own a domain to match.

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    Apple isn't exactly world-renowned for its gaming prowess. I would very much like to see a citation for that bit; the Apple site for the Mac Pro merely says killer *workstation* graphics (and über-customizable - props for that!). I can only assume that programs like Photoshop and Final Cut get some extra speed from a more powerful GPU, as that would really be the only reason to get anything above the baseline chip.

    It's actually has great value right now, but it's not like computers hold their value especially well. Just a couple years ago, you'd pay well over $500 for a rig with a 3GHz processor in it, and this has eight of them in one box. That said, I couldn't possibly justify a $5000+ rig for what I do.
     
  15. thefriscokid

    thefriscokid why s**t so crazy?

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    just waiting for steve jobs to say apple has "reinvented" gaming with this 8 core mac pro. just need to rename it Igame and mac fanboys will rave about it like there's no tomorrow.
     
  16. koola

    koola Minimodder

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    Fair point, but a X1900XT can still play most games at acceptable frame rates.

    I would rather see game developers taking advantage of the extra cores and offloading some processing like physics onto the extra cores.
     
  17. DreamTheEndless

    DreamTheEndless Gravity hates Bacon

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    Yeah - the stuff Valve is doing along these lines is very exciting.
     
  18. GoodBytes

    GoodBytes How many wifi's does it have?

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    Wait.. 8 CORES!
    There is already little number of application or GAMES on the PC or MAC or LINUX that uses 2 cores...
    What a waist of money. Really!

    Yea its cool to have, but what is the point... and it will create so much heat under LOAD, that it will sound a air plane reactor. Water colling must be a need for this computer.
     
  19. genesisofthesith

    genesisofthesith complete spanner

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    The tasks that do use as many cores as you can throw at it (video editing, image creation and manipulation, CAD + rendering etc.) are what the powermac/MacPro's user base generally use.

    If there was an 8 core macmini that would be ridiculous, but for a macpro I don't think its overkill - maybe excessive (not that great an advantage compared to two woodcrests in the same configuration) but not overkill.
     
  20. DarkLord7854

    DarkLord7854 What's a Dremel?

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    I use a Mac Pro with 2 CPUs in it, makes a big difference when editing movies, don't need to spend 6 hours waiting for the movie to be rendered :rolleyes:
     
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