Fredrik Harreschou
Well-known member
True. I believe Adobe recommend 2GB/proc with 1GB as a minimum. Thats 16GB to use an eight-core efficiently..
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8-core mac, today or later?
- Thread starter Gunleik Groven
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True. I believe Adobe recommend 2GB/proc with 1GB as a minimum. Thats 16GB to use an eight-core efficiently..
Fredrik
- Moderator
- #22
Jeff Kilgroe
Well-known member
Yep.
I'm actually surprised that AMD hasn't released something better, but they're still trying to run with the same chip design they released 3 years ago. It's good, but not as good as what Intel has done with the Core2 design.
- Moderator
- #23
Jeff Kilgroe
Well-known member
For anyone buying a Mac Pro, now or in the near future, plan on putting 8GB in it as a minimum. I would recommend the full 16GB.
Don't buy your RAM from Apple -- they were charging huge mark-ups back in the day when they set these prices. Now they haven't updated their prices on RAM in about 9 months and they're just astronomical.
Apple mostly ships their Mac Pro systems with RAM from Mushkin or PNY. You can buy 2GB modules with proper Apple heat spreaders direct from Mushkin for $150 or about $135 from some online resellers. The PNY modules are priced similarly. So figure about $650 to put 8GB in it or about $1300 for the full 16GB. ...Not $4400 for the full 16GB that Apple charges. :huh:
Christian Edwards
Frontline Infantry
have a look at the new bacalona chips set and amds 64core technology and tell me that
Joe Carney
Well-known member
Go over to tomshardware and check out the review of the upcoming penryn quad core. they safely overclocked it to 3.8ghz (4 if you don't mind the risk). It also executes intructions faster than the 65nm chips at the same clock speed.
http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/10/29/intel_penryn_4ghz_with_air_cooling/
Mike McCarthy
Well-known member
I await one positive review or independent benchmark of the new Barcelona chips. I have looked into them, but it is hard to get much info about them. Everything I found so far has portrayed them in a very negative light.
Christian Edwards
Frontline Infantry
yeah i guess we shall wait and see. from what i have seen and heard its the next gen chip
- Moderator
- #28
Jeff Kilgroe
Well-known member
Barcelona chips are just now getting proper support chipsets, and are getting out of the OEM test and evaluation period. Initial reports have been meaningless (even though they were negative) due to incomplete chipset support and other initial technical issues. But I think AMD pushed initial evaluations ahead of schedule because they're feeling the crunch. ...Evaluations ahead of schedule within the development process, but Barcelona was over 6 months delayed.
The point is, if you're buying a system today, Intel has the edge. Tomorrow is an entirely different story and AMD could very well leapfrog Intel in the very near future -- as has happened before and as the cycle typically works.
I'm still surprised that it has taken this long for AMD to come up with something new.
As for their 64-core tech, that's future talk and a few years away. Intel has demonstrated a partially functional 80-core sample (huge monsterous beast), but the only thing that really matters is what is shipping now. And both companies, while competing, at least seem to be heading in the same general direction. Both have openly commented that the theoretical core limit is somewhere between 75 and 100 before the returns of multiple cores diminish to nothing. ...Or at least that's the case with current technology. They're also both talking about organic computers as a future tech possibility and multi-dimensional chip structures.
One thing is for certain, CPUs are going to keep getting faster and more powerful. And Intel, AMD and others are going to be continuously fighting for first place.
The point is, if you're buying a system today, Intel has the edge. Tomorrow is an entirely different story and AMD could very well leapfrog Intel in the very near future -- as has happened before and as the cycle typically works.
I'm still surprised that it has taken this long for AMD to come up with something new.
As for their 64-core tech, that's future talk and a few years away. Intel has demonstrated a partially functional 80-core sample (huge monsterous beast), but the only thing that really matters is what is shipping now. And both companies, while competing, at least seem to be heading in the same general direction. Both have openly commented that the theoretical core limit is somewhere between 75 and 100 before the returns of multiple cores diminish to nothing. ...Or at least that's the case with current technology. They're also both talking about organic computers as a future tech possibility and multi-dimensional chip structures.
One thing is for certain, CPUs are going to keep getting faster and more powerful. And Intel, AMD and others are going to be continuously fighting for first place.
Mathieu Ghekiere
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Thanks for this great information, Jeff!
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- #30
My advice to anyone on the fence for purchasing a MAC? Wait. The new Intel CPUs have SSE4 which is specifically targeted for video apps and a monster cache which should translate to faster encodes and such. Apple would be seriously daft to not move to those new chips sometime in the near future but when that will happen exactly is anyone's guess as they need a solid stockpile for the Mac Pro.
As for the new AMD chips, it won't be until sometime next year when real world end-user oriented performance information is available. They look like a simple double up of what AMD currently has so who knows what performance will be like. The big problem with AMD chips both current and past is that their cache has been lacking to the point where the word "pathetic" has been tossed around and that is one area in which Intel has kicked the crap out of them with the Core architecture which has contributed to their better performance in current machines. More cache is always going to give you a good performance boost and AMD needs to adopt that into their architecture even if it raises the prices a little bit or lowers yield. AMD's onboard memory controller tech has given good results but it's just not enough to stand up to the Intel Core architecture which is getting faster and more powerful every sixth months while AMD hasn't made any big performance leaps for some time.
As for the new AMD chips, it won't be until sometime next year when real world end-user oriented performance information is available. They look like a simple double up of what AMD currently has so who knows what performance will be like. The big problem with AMD chips both current and past is that their cache has been lacking to the point where the word "pathetic" has been tossed around and that is one area in which Intel has kicked the crap out of them with the Core architecture which has contributed to their better performance in current machines. More cache is always going to give you a good performance boost and AMD needs to adopt that into their architecture even if it raises the prices a little bit or lowers yield. AMD's onboard memory controller tech has given good results but it's just not enough to stand up to the Intel Core architecture which is getting faster and more powerful every sixth months while AMD hasn't made any big performance leaps for some time.
Mathieu Ghekiere
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Are that the new chips that are coming out around November, and probably will be in the new Mac Pro's?
Christian Edwards
Frontline Infantry
Great summary thanks man
- Banned
- #33
Yes those are the new chips. Apple will either buy up the majority of the first run chips or slowly stockpile and release a new MacPro workstation using them probably somewhere around the summer. I can't see it coming very soon without a sufficient supply to fill demand in the Post Production industry.
- Moderator
- #34
Jeff Kilgroe
Well-known member
I disagree... Apple will have the new chips inside the Mac Pro and it will be available within a few weeks of Intel shipping these new chips. It won't be summer, it will most likely be late december or early january. Intel already has more CPUs to replace these models slated for mid summer.
Apple will have no trouble getting their hands on sufficient quantities. Intel's fab systems can keep up once they're all online (2 to 4 weeks) and every other PC vendor will be shipping immediately too. Apple shipped the Clovertown based Mac Pro systems in less than 3 weeks of the CPUs becoming available and they even managed to get that 90-day exclusive on the 3GHz quads too.
Apple will have no trouble getting their hands on sufficient quantities. Intel's fab systems can keep up once they're all online (2 to 4 weeks) and every other PC vendor will be shipping immediately too. Apple shipped the Clovertown based Mac Pro systems in less than 3 weeks of the CPUs becoming available and they even managed to get that 90-day exclusive on the 3GHz quads too.
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- #35
Well here are the facts..
Intel at the moment has only one fab (FAB32) that just opened last Friday which is capable of turning out the new chips and it's going to be doing all of the 45nm chips (desktop, server, mobile, workstation) for a while. Their development fab (where the engineering samples are made) can't turn them out in large amounts at all because they have no equipment for a production line of that nature. The other fabs (only two) which you refer to are not starting production until sometime next year because one needs to be retooled for 45nm and the other hasn't even been built.
Apple had it easy with Clovertown because it was just a gimmick chip that was made by sandwiching two Woodcrest (the CPU they had in the first Intel MacPro workstations which was already established) dies together. If Apple wanted big orders, it wasn't an issue because the product was simple to make and they were making it in many different locations. In the case of 45nm Penryn and such, it's not so simple.
Intel at the moment has only one fab (FAB32) that just opened last Friday which is capable of turning out the new chips and it's going to be doing all of the 45nm chips (desktop, server, mobile, workstation) for a while. Their development fab (where the engineering samples are made) can't turn them out in large amounts at all because they have no equipment for a production line of that nature. The other fabs (only two) which you refer to are not starting production until sometime next year because one needs to be retooled for 45nm and the other hasn't even been built.
Apple had it easy with Clovertown because it was just a gimmick chip that was made by sandwiching two Woodcrest (the CPU they had in the first Intel MacPro workstations which was already established) dies together. If Apple wanted big orders, it wasn't an issue because the product was simple to make and they were making it in many different locations. In the case of 45nm Penryn and such, it's not so simple.
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- #36
Jeff Kilgroe
Well-known member
Sure. But I think you under-estimate how fast the retooling and construction will be. I'm betting that Intel will have 2 45nm facilities fully online by mid January. If not, they won't even come close to their own published shipping estimates. Intel is already accepting orders for the new CPUs from integrators and they're still sticking by their late November release.
- Banned
- #37
Actually, until almost summer or so, the only fab producing the chips will be the one they just opened. The retooling of the NM fab begins in Feb and production is scheduled to begin around July. The new 45nm fab they are planning has yet to begin construction but it is supposed to be up and running by next Fall. That info comes straight from the mouth of Intel. In the past and certainly recently Intel has had problems delivering on it's new high-end chips because their manufacturing facilities were not up to the task so I don't expect this to be any different. As for the shipping estimates those are just based on a theoretical fully functional production line model with little or no defective chips that in no way equates real world results. Intel specifically based their shipping numbers for this product line with two fabs (D1D and FAB32) when in fact, FAB32 is the only one that has a full production line for the 45nm chips while D1D is just a manufacturing design center where all Intel research is done. The thing you have to keep in mind is that Intel has only gotten the manufacturing of 45nm done at D1D and this new place might have all sorts of environmental and equipment quirks that are different from D1D which means you will have production problems. When the NM fab is retooled, it too will have to go through a painful period where everything is calibrated and adjusted to meet the exact specifications required for that location and product line. Intel's recent problems with chip manufacturing in the last few years were all caused by differences in the equipment and environments used to make the chips and their research labs and the fact that they retooled older fabs to make the 90 and 65nm chips instead of building new ones caused a big headache in their supply lines because they didn't have the right environments set up or the correct equipment settings until months after the retooling was completed.
If Apple wants to shove another MacPro out the door they can certainly try to do so but the market will not be in their favor until there is a large supply of fully functional chips available to them, the price of chips is stable, and the software is rewritten to take advantage of their new OS and Intel's SSE4 instructions. Given that Adobe software has issues with Leopard that need to be fixed and Adobe has not finished tweaking their video software for SSE4, there certainly isn't any need for them to rush a new MacPro out. But I will tell you this, having had the chance to toy with the engineering samples, those high-end chips are perfect for anything RED related so if Apple and Intel play smart, you'll see a new high-end MacPro next year possibly with DDR3 memory running at the same speed as the FSB and maybe even 8GB DIMMs.
- Thread starter
- #38
Gunleik Groven
REDuser Sponsor
So the moral of all this is to me something like:
Buy a 4-core now and hope for a new 8-core by March.
Gunleik
Buy a 4-core now and hope for a new 8-core by March.
Gunleik
Mike McCarthy
Well-known member
From what I have been reading, it seems that the Xeon line will be Intel's first priority with the 45nm processors. There is only one desktop model to be released this year, at over $1000, and I haven't seen any details on a mobile version anytime soon. I would anticipated that most of their 45nm production will be for the Xeon line for the first few months. I don't know all of the details on this stuff, but it seems that new Xeons shouldn't be that rare based on what Intel has been doing. I expect that getting your hands on a 45nm 775 socket chip on the otherhand might be very difficult.
The biggest gains in the new 45nm process are heat, and power use, factors that are more important to businesses than consumers. So, the server varients are likely to be the focus of Intel's thrust, with a few desktop gamer chips for PR. Us Xeon workstation people will just be taking advantage of Intel's push for 45nm chips for servers.
The biggest gains in the new 45nm process are heat, and power use, factors that are more important to businesses than consumers. So, the server varients are likely to be the focus of Intel's thrust, with a few desktop gamer chips for PR. Us Xeon workstation people will just be taking advantage of Intel's push for 45nm chips for servers.
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- #40
Jeff Kilgroe
Well-known member
I'm not going to keep arguing it. My opinion obviously differs from Lexicon's. Regardless of how many fab lines Intel has set up and by when, they are taking orders now and promising dates and quantities. We'll see what happens.