Quad or 8 core Mac Pro?
 

Hey everybody,

I am going to buy the new Mac Pro, but I am still in doubt about which one to get. I read a lot of articles about both machines and I know both of them are sweet, but what is your opinion about it?

I shoot with the HVX200 and I am doing a lot more HD editing nowadays. Next to that I need a lot of rendering for Compressor, Color and the Neat Video plug-in. My old Macbook Pro is just not really up for that. Is the 8 core still overdone, will the quad core do fine or looking to the future it's better to go for the 8-core?

Cheers
Niels

I suggest you start here.

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/high-defi...vs-8-core.html

Thanks Andy! I did the search but didn't see this one...

EFI-x option
 

You may want to think about the efi-x system instead of a macpro. Its a quad core for half the price.

Thanks for that James, but I have to narrow it down to these two options because I am flip flopping between these two for the last two weeks now and another option won't get me to sleep at all anymore ;)

I narrowed it down to 2.66 Quad, 6 GB memory, 1TB 7200-rpm Serial ATA 3Gb/s, ATI Radeon HD 4870 512MB, Apple Wireless Mighty Mouse, AirPort Extreme Wi-Fi Card with 802.11n for € 2.769,00

or

or the standard 8-core, with ATI Radeon HD 4870 512MB, Apple Wireless Mighty Mouse, AirPort Extreme Wi-Fi Card with 802.11n for € 3.244,00

Will the quad be more suited for gamers then for video editers? I work on Final Cut Studio 2.

My workflow is mostly this:
I edit a project in FCP 6 and run it through compressor, while compressor is running I make the DVD-menu in DVD Studio Pro and make the DVD-cover in Photoshop.

What about this workflow, will I benefit from a 8-core but with a slower 2.26GHz?

Get the 8 core--for your use of compressor alone, it will be worth it.
4-core versus 8-core Nehalem Mac Pro

I will Mike. I narrowed it down to 1 now :) Especially with the future in mind (Snow Leopard, FC Studio 3 etc.).

I'll buy the 2.26 8-core with 6GB Ram (minimum) and get some 3rd Party Ram (prob. up to about 16GB). Next to that the ATI 4870 upgrade, wireless mouse, AirPort Extreme Wi-Fi Card with 802.11n and AppleCare...

For the same reasons (SL & FCS3 hopefully soonish) I'm going for a pretty similar option - 8 core Nehalem 2.66Ghz with 12GB RAM (to start with) with 4 x 1 TB drives, ATI 4870, Airport and 3 year Applecare. Just need to find some time to order it (and that will almost certainly not be from the UK Apple store but from a well known UK Apple stockist - assuming they give me a good discount like the last time I spent a small fortune with them).

Wow Andy, that's a pretty nice setup, for this moment a little bit to much bucks for me to get. Hope to nail down some nice jobs that pay well in the near future so I can upgrade the whole thing.

Is it possible to upgrade the processor in the future or or would that always be a case of a to expensive part of the machine to replace?

Nothings "impossible" but, as you already suspect, it just would not be worth doing (IMHO).

Everything else on the new Mac Pro 2009 is very easy to add/upgrade (especially so on the 09 MBs) except the processor - which is why I'm taking a hit and going for a moderately fast 8 core 2.66Ghz Nehalem MB rather than sticking with the 2.33. The 8 core 2.93 is just too stupidly expensive for me - I'd rather a 8 core 2.66 and load it with RAM and extra hard drives etc. for the same money hit. By "moderately fast", it's all relative - this should be one heck of a speed machine! As stated above my 8 core (16 virtual) decision is for Snow Leopard and FCS3 multicore "flexibility" that I'm hoping will appear very soon (but as we all know, things don't necessarily work out as you expect with computer developments - just as with everything else!). It will drive 2 existing/pretty new Dell 2408WFP screens (one via the DVI adapter Apple now force you to need, another stupid concept by Apple IMHO... but thankfully it's not a very expensive addition).

I hope to have this as my main work horse (for mostly corporate video work as my business is taking off) for at least the next 3 years, being supplemented by my existing 2008 15 inch MBP (with 2TB GRAID3 Raid 0 setup and numerous external 1TB FW800 drives for back-ups) and no doubt an external raid set-up for the Mac Pro too in the future, if required as well as a PC running Vegas. Should just about cover it!

Expect the price of "my MB spec" to drop significantly or, more likely it to get a processor speed spec boost, soon after I actually order it!!!! (another certainty in life!)

If I take the 8 GB memory on the apple site and the another 8 GB-kit at a 3rd party it's going to cost me less then getting the 8-core with 6 GB and a 16 GB-kit. But isn't it a problem to run this 8GB kit with the 8Gb that comes from Apple, cause I remember that I've read something about it somewhere?

I have last year's model Mac Pro that I ordered with minimum 2GB Apple memory & ordered an extra 8GB from Crucial saving many hundreds of Euros. When I fitted the new memory I saw that the Apple memory was in fact manufactured by Crucial & labelled as such. Apple don't make memory they just buy good quality memory from Crucial or one or 2 other suppliers & evidently don't even stick their own Apple label on it.

BTW The memory that I bought six months ago now costs only about 60% of the price that I paid.

If you ask me...you need to approach this has a good 5-7 year investment...perhaps you may not need all the 8 cores now, but later on I am sure there will be softwares and video technology which would be benefit from all this processing power...If i were you i'd go ahead and get the dual quad core processors with the 6Gb of RAM that comes standard with the new Mac Pros...In addition, I am sure the new final cut studio 3 would be utilizing this processing power...

BTW..i have a better chance of seeing God twice instead of predicting when in the world is Apple releasing Final Cut Studio 3 with Blu-Ray Support =)

Well I made my decision, finally. I can get a good night rest now!

Like you said Akbani, I am seeing this as a investment for a lot of years, so I decided to go with the 2.66 Ghz 8-core with 8 GB of ram and fill that up with a 8 GB-kit of a third party (can somebody confirm that it is no problem combining those?).

Next to that the ATI 4870 upgrade, wireless mouse, 1TB 7200-rpm Serial ATA 3Gb/s, AirPort Extreme Wi-Fi Card with 802.11n and Apple Care Protection.

It will be more then 5000 euro's but I'll be done for a couple of years and I really need to upgrade my system.