New Mac Pro sports eight cores
Eight times the fun -- the new Mac Pro features eight cores.
Cupertino unveiled its latest brainchild on Thursday... or maybe it should be brainchildren. The release was for the newest member of the Mac Pro family -- and it packs eight cores of power. The new system uses two Intel Xeon 5300 processors (four cores each) at up to 3GHz. If that sounds like a lot, just wait until you hear the price -- $3,997.00 USD before most options. However, it looks like this one will be better suited for the workhorses among us, particularly those doing graphic arts, 3D rendering, or video editing.
While the price may be staggering, you're getting more bang for your buck than other similar systems. You can price out an eight-core system from Dell but it crosses well over the $4,000 mark, and that's only with 2.66GHz processors. Why no 3GHz models? Well, Apple has an exclusive on them (at least for now) courtesy of Intel - the actual processor is the Xeon 5365, which is limited stock production. In that respect, the system is quite a deal.
Graphically, the machine can sport any of three options: Nvidia GeForce 7300 GT, ATI Radeon X1900 XT or an Nvidia Quadro FX 4500. Sadly, this top option of only a X1900 XT seems a bit underclassed as a gaming system, even though that's one of Apple's new target markets for the Mac Pro. If you choose Nvidia cards, the board does support up to Quad SLI -- but somehow four 7300s just doesn't sound all that appealing. Since the system undoubtedly will frown on BIOS adjustment, the DDR2-667 RAM won't be as much of a limitation as it is at least enough to match the CPU front-side bus. Apple is intending to actively market the new Mac Pro as a gaming rig, so we'll just have to see how it does...personally, I think it's better suited for its usual professional-level workstation.
For those users on Windows who think that eight cores sounds positively excessive, you may be right. However, both OSX and its software tend to function much better with Symmetric Multi-Processing (SMP) than Windows based machines. This is due to the fact that OSX is built on a derivative of Unix, which has a very strong SMP support. Because of this, most software developed for 'nix variants (particularly more work-oriented software) supports the feature. Somehow, I doubt it will need all that power just to run Google Desktop though.
Do you have a thought on the new Mac Pro? Tell us about it in our forums.
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24 Comments
Discuss in the forums ReplyThe 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 :)
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)
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.....)
You can even have a NVIDIA Quadro FX 4500 512MB for the multi-monitor graphics workstation guru :D
how about a pair of 8800GTX? if you are going to have a ludicrous GPU you better have a ludicrous GPU.
Well, as it does quad sli, you can but hope for 4...
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
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?).
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.
I would rather see game developers taking advantage of the extra cores and offloading some processing like physics onto the extra 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.
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.
In A 4000 computer? :|
It's a joke. Or just marketing. Anybody here can build a gaming PC that will run circles around it for 1000 or so. At least, with a Falcon, Voodoo or even one of the new XPS you get real gaming capabilities...
If Apple have any interest in catering to the gaming community, they could do much better launching some cheaper Mac Pro with a single socket board and more graphical options. The Mac Pro case is great, it's the only "upgradeable" form factor Apple sells and quite silent. Paint it in black (because all gamers know black computers are faster), add the usual Apple black tax, add a range of black peripherals (with some kind of "gaming" tag attached) like cinema displays and cables, cut the price and technology and as a gamer machine, I bet it would be a success.
Of course some push for native Mac games would help, too. I can't see the point of selling a gaming machine while forcing your potential costumers to use MS's operating system...
More pub time for me!
Phil
if only cider as already working.......
Would certainly explain the lack of a gf8800 option.