Macworld Forums: 12-core Mac Pro (Mid 2010) - Macworld Forums

Post your comments for 12-core Mac Pro (Mid 2010) here

"CineBench R15" - should be "CineBench R11.5", unless the speed was so fast it transported you to the future.

Also why not publish the individual results that make up the final score? Opening up a long word document in pages isn't going to be a typical use for a 12-core mac pro, so I don't care if an iMac can do it faster...

I would love to see the specs on the 3.33 BTO with 6 or 12 GB or RAM instead of only 3GB. The fact that it scored a 263 with only 3GB of RAM is impressive.

Sadly for specific tasks like analyzing data or converting audio/video/rendering 3D or compiling software you get far more bang for bucks with a PC running Windows.

…and it doesn't crash when you try to run all the cores.

I would have thought Apple would have at least been interested in giving themselves something more powerful.

But apparently not. …and I doubt they're fools enough to believe their own hype.

My guess is the hardwork at Apple gets done on Linux boxes out the back.

Biallystock,

The test software was crashing, not the Mac Pro. Can't really blame Apple for that, especially when it was fixed in a newer version of the benchmark.

I wonder why pretty much everyone that runs Pro Tools runs it on a Mac?

I don't think you really care though, you're just trolling.

mretondo, on 15 October 2010 - 02:07 PM, said:

Agreed. When this generation of Mac Pros first came out, some people on this board were wondering why this configuration wasn't being tested along with others. Now that I've seen the numbers, I can see why they were so eager. Talk about a sweet spot in price/performance!

This post has been edited by wardoggie: 15 October 2010 - 03:08 PM

Thanks for the graph. Much better than a table.

mretondo, on 15 October 2010 - 02:07 PM, said:

I hope you're only referring to Apple memory as a review spec for the 6-core -- it would be an appalling waste of money to buy BTO memory from Apple rather than say 12GB of RAM as a set from someone like OWC (who also sell a 24GB set for the 6-core).

Can benchmark results for the new "One 3.2GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon “Nehalem”" BTO option please also be provided.

Who cares about cores/Mhz/and RAM until Apple gets OS-X to a point where it takes advantage of more of its resources. Most applications aren't multi-threaded, and don't take advantage of large RAM sizes. The cores just sit there idle, waiting for the disk, which is busy swapping virtual memory, - all while 8 or 10 GBytes of RAM sit idle.

But, the new iPhones/iPads are hot!!!

CatOne, on 15 October 2010 - 02:18 PM, said:

I'm not clear on what your comment about Pro Tools on a Mac has to do with this.

My understanding of Pro Tools, which is admittedly limited, is that the majority of its processing is done on equipment that's separate from the computer itself, either on an internally installed PCI card or an external box. I've seen very capable Pro Tools setups running on Power Mac G4s.

The biggest advantages to these machines over what was out a few years ago is the faster frontside bus and RAM. The processor speed and amount of cores aren't as big a deal.

If the money is going to be spent on a computer like this, I would definitely invest in an SSD for the main drive that contains the OS and applications. With that, the every day tasks would at least feel faster, while the multiple cores can be put to use when called upon.

This post has been edited by 3Dlabrat: 15 October 2010 - 08:30 PM

Need. Money.

I think it's pretty clear the price:performance sweet spots in the Mac heavy iron lineup are the Mac Pro 3.33 GHz 6 core Westmere and the 27" iMac 2.93 GHz quad-core i7. If you can afford it, you could goose them both with a 256 GB SSD plus a 2TB hard drive and up to 16 GB of RAM in the iMac and extra hard drives and RAM in the Mac Pro. Unfortunately, the 6 core Westmere tops out at 16 GB of RAM, where the 8 and 12 core models will take 32 GB. But as these tests show, at this level additional RAM doesn't add as much to performance as do faster clock speeds. The Westmere CPUs seems to make the biggest difference and are probably worth the premium price.

If experience counts for anything, the clock speeds on most of these models will get a boost over time, though these upgrades usually don't get much attention.

Then again, Apple has a Mac-centric press event scheduled for next week, so no doubt Steve Jobs has some surprises in store for us that could change the balance once again.

whitedog, on 16 October 2010 - 02:01 AM, said:

The 4- and 6-core Mac Pro models will handily utilize up to 32 GB memory from third parties such as TransIntl.com or OtherWorldComputing.com. The 8- and 12-core models will utilize up to 64 GB.
Best performance from the triple-channel DDR3 memory will be obtained using a maximum of 3x8 = 24 GB or 6x8 = 48 GB, respectively.

As a boon to professionals, Mac Pros can utilize (and are typically configured with) marginally more expensive ECC memory, by virtue of their Xeon processors.