New Mac Pros are out with Penryn CPUs

[Michael Y Wong]

Wow!!! Crazy specs... right in time for my move to mac (finally!)

[James Klatt]

I am surprised Apple made an update to the Mac Pro with such a minor upgrade. It's a tiny bit faster than the last models, but not even close to tempt me to upgrade.

I really thought they would wait til they at least had a Blu Ray drive.

[Simon Wyndham]

Well, it is a pretty major upgrade. 2x as fast as the quad core 2.66 is nothing to be sniffed at.

[Mel Enriquez]

This news is expected, but still much welcome. At least it will put pressure on software makers to start scaling up their apps to be able to use multicores.

We, as video shooters and editors will likely be one of those who really need this. The question still begs -- do our apps now are capable of using these cores?

I know that Sony Vegas can use 4 cores, but I am not sure if it can use all these 8. In theory, it should, but otoh, it may be limited to only 4 cores right now. If so, we should not expect dramatic improvements in speed with the new cpu until such time we get the softwares that can take advantage of these new cores. Otherwise, ghz speed improvements are still the way to go. Unfortunately, that is a dead end solution in spite of new cpu efficiencies.

Anyone care to write w/c of the NLEs can take advantage of these 8 cores? FCP can use them?

[Mathieu Ghekiere]

I also think it's a pretty major upgrade, our company will be definately buying one now.

You basically get almost a complete 8core product line, instead of where it used to be the most expensive option!
I agree in specs it's not a WOW upgrade, but it's not minor to be able to get an 8 core for the price of a quad (even compared to the competition).

Mel, I don't know sure, but I think rendering and compressor and stuff should go faster in FCS.

[Noah Yuan-Vogel]

It's nice to see apple catching up with modern hardware again, especially in terms of price. its so interesting to watch hardware prices drop over the year and have apple's prices stay the same. (I dont doubt the same can be said to some extent about certain other PC manufacturers). As usual apple charges about a 400% markup for ram and 100% markup for hard drives. It did surprise me to see the extra 2.8GHz cpu is only $500 over the single cpu configuration, since the 2.8GHz cpu sells for over $500 separately. in that respect, the standard config appears to be a pretty good deal. or maybe it was intentional that they increased the price of the downgrade to be less appealing.

Also, i heard the 8800GT's arent available for 3 weeks?

[Jim Michael]

There are a couple of ways for a business to get discounts on Apple products. One is to talk directly to the business sales rep at the Apple store. Second is to join the Apple Developers Connection. The latter is $500/yr but gives you a decent discount on one purchase - http://developer.apple.com/products/select.html. There is a higher cost membership for additional discounts if you are a big shop.

Sales tax is always a consideration on large equipment purchases if sales tax is charged in your state. If your equipment is going to be used for filmmaking check out possible benefits from your state film commission. For example in Georgia you can get a sales tax exemption for equipment used for a film made in Georgia.

[Mathieu Ghekiere]

Originally Posted by Noah Yuan-Vogel

It's nice to see apple catching up with modern hardware again, especially in terms of price. its so interesting to watch hardware prices drop over the year and have apple's prices stay the same. (I dont doubt the same can be said to some extent about certain other PC manufacturers). As usual apple charges about a 400% markup for ram and 100% markup for hard drives. It did surprise me to see the extra 2.8GHz cpu is only $500 over the single cpu configuration, since the 2.8GHz cpu sells for over $500 separately. in that respect, the standard config appears to be a pretty good deal. or maybe it was intentional that they increased the price of the downgrade to be less appealing.

Also, i heard the 8800GT's arent available for 3 weeks?

Everone knows never to buy RAM at Apple, or hard disk space.
But the price for this 8 core is very good, compare it to (good) PC manufacturers.

[John Stakes]

Originally Posted by Mathieu Ghekiere

You basically get almost a complete 8core product line, instead of where it used to be the most expensive option!
I agree in specs it's not a WOW upgrade, but it's not minor to be able to get an 8 core for the price of a quad (even compared to the competition).

Mel, I don't know sure, but I think rendering and compressor and stuff should go faster in FCS.

If you think about it Apple has a great marketing strategy. Their markup is ALWAYS rediculous, but then when there is an upgrade, the price is still the same. So then everyone is like "WOW, what a great deal," when in reality, they still have their rediculous markup. Think of all the extra money they get for not dropping there prices when harware prices drop. They can use that money alone to produce the new machines. Wash, rinse, repeat.


As far as the performance of the extra cores, I think the most advantage would be seen when you are running multiple applications. I did read somewhere that actual speed was about 1.4 times faster than the quad. Apple claims 2x speed with 4GB of ram, but who knows the difference between 8ms and 4ms? There will certainly be significant performance gains in some areas, but others will be transparent.


EDIT: just did a price check for Apple's components on the Mac Pro. It is about $2100 in parts (my price). So by the next upgrade, it will be worth it. I tried to configure the same system at Dell but they have too many options and I'm sneaking online from work : )

[Mathieu Ghekiere]

Originally Posted by John Stakes

If you think about it Apple has a great marketing strategy. Their markup is ALWAYS rediculous, but then when there is an upgrade, the price is still the same. So then everyone is like "WOW, what a great deal," when in reality, they still have their rediculous markup. Think of all the extra money they get for not dropping there prices when harware prices drop. They can use that money alone to produce the new machines. Wash, rinse, repeat.


As far as the performance of the extra cores, I think the most advantage would be seen when you are running multiple applications. I did read somewhere that actual speed was about 1.4 times faster than the quad. Apple claims 2x speed with 4GB of ram, but who knows the difference between 8ms and 4ms? There will certainly be significant performance gains in some areas, but others will be transparent.

Well okay, I went to the website of HP Belgium, Dell Belgium and Apple Belgium. I spiced up computers at the most comparable specs, with as benchmark the new 3.0 ghz 8core Mac. And I took 4GB RAM as standard, and I even 'bought' it from Apple, who overcharges for RAM. All have a 320 GB HDD.
Found out:

HP: 4857 euros (with slower front bus speed then the Dell or Apple and without free shipping)
Dell: 4430 euros (don't know if I had free shipping)
Apple: 3680 euros (free shipping)

Now how's Apple so much more expensive then the others?
Don't get me wrong, I always used to think Apple overcharged, but now that I just check it out, it just isn't the fact, well, not about these workstations anyhow. Not in comparison with the competition.

[Evan Donn]

Originally Posted by Mel Enriquez

Anyone care to write w/c of the NLEs can take advantage of these 8 cores? FCP can use them?

Barefeats ran some tests on the previous 8 cores -

Final Cut Pro & Compressor:
http://www.barefeats.com/octopro5.html

a single instance of compressor registered 567% CPU utilisation - but running a virtual cluster of up to 8 compressors on the same machine cut their rendering time in half and maxed out all 8 CPUs.

After Effects:
http://www.barefeats.com/octopro4.html

8-core ran approximately 30-40% faster than 4-core with multiprocessing enabled - AE's multiprocessing mode runs background processes in a similar manner to qmaster with compressor above.

In both these situations memory becomes your primary limit - there should be even greater increases with the new systems due to the faster memory & bus. You'll also need a lot of RAM to really take advantage of all 8 cores - ideally 12-16Gb so that each core & background process can have 1.5 - 2Gb. Definitely don't go with Apple for that - aftermarket RAM is running about $400/8Gb (I recently found a receipt for my first memory upgrade on my first Mac, and the price was approximately the same... for 8 megs!).

[Thomas Smet]

I have never wanted to buy an Apple computer but I am really starting to think about it now. No matter how hard I try I just cannot beat the price of the base model.

The nice thing I like about the base model is that it only uses one 4 core chip instead of two 2 core chips. I hope that means I could always go and pop in another 4 core chip at some point in the future if I wanted to.

I need to buy a nice new work station for 3D Studio Max and I'm starting to think I should just get one of these and put Windows on it. I would end up saving a lot of money this way.

[Mathieu Ghekiere]

Originally Posted by Thomas Smet

I have never wanted to buy an Apple computer but I am really starting to think about it now. No matter how hard I try I just cannot beat the price of the base model.

The nice thing I like about the base model is that it only uses one 4 core chip instead of two 2 core chips. I hope that means I could always go and pop in another 4 core chip at some point in the future if I wanted to.

I need to buy a nice new work station for 3D Studio Max and I'm starting to think I should just get one of these and put Windows on it. I would end up saving a lot of money this way.

With base model, do you mean the standard model?
Doesn't that have 2 4core chips and it's the low end model that only has one 4core? Or am I understanding you not correctly?

[Glenn Thomas]

I'm just wondering why their RAID option is so expensive? You can buy a decent PC motherboard with RAID built into it for much less than $200.

Other than that, it looks like it would be a nice toy to own, even just to run Windows on with a copy of Vegas etc.

[Mike Brown]

Is there any performance hit in running Vegas on an Intel Mac, as compared to a similarly-speced PC platform?