Asher Kelman
OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Apple has today introduced it's latest and most powerful beast sporting 8 processors: 4 dual cores Specs here.
Inside the new Mac Pro is the latest technology from Intel: Quad-Core Intel Xeon “Harpertown” processors. These processors run at blazingly fast speeds up to 3.2GHz. Based on the new 45-nm Intel Core microarchitecture, they deliver amazing performance but still maintain outstanding energy efficiency.
With 4GB Ram, (this can take 32 GB RAM) it goes 1.9 x as fast as the previous flagship in Apple's Photoshop CS3 tests. A speed bump of x1.9 does not seem all that much but, if it applies to 8 hours of PS work, I'd imagine it might save 10% of actual time. So that would be 1 hr and 20 minutes! Your guess? At what increment is it worthwhile upgrading? I guess that if a faster machine will save one from hiring an extra person or allow one to not pay overtime, meet a deadline or just say hello to your loved ones, it might just be worth it!
One can really spend one's inheritance if one adds 300GB Serial Attached SCSI 3Gb/s, 15,000 rpm, 16MB cache4 or even 4 of them! So probably with optimization of image access, one could run CS3 even faster. For Aperture, which is Graphics card dependent, one might benefit from the faster Graphics cards.
Anyway, I love Macs, that is when I don't hate them, which is the current cycle I'm riding right now! That's a bad start for 2008. All resolutions of thrift may go out the window! You can buy one to your own customized to taste and your own line of credit here .
Who's going to be the first to get one up and running: give us a report!
Asher
Inside the new Mac Pro is the latest technology from Intel: Quad-Core Intel Xeon “Harpertown” processors. These processors run at blazingly fast speeds up to 3.2GHz. Based on the new 45-nm Intel Core microarchitecture, they deliver amazing performance but still maintain outstanding energy efficiency.
With 4GB Ram, (this can take 32 GB RAM) it goes 1.9 x as fast as the previous flagship in Apple's Photoshop CS3 tests. A speed bump of x1.9 does not seem all that much but, if it applies to 8 hours of PS work, I'd imagine it might save 10% of actual time. So that would be 1 hr and 20 minutes! Your guess? At what increment is it worthwhile upgrading? I guess that if a faster machine will save one from hiring an extra person or allow one to not pay overtime, meet a deadline or just say hello to your loved ones, it might just be worth it!
One can really spend one's inheritance if one adds 300GB Serial Attached SCSI 3Gb/s, 15,000 rpm, 16MB cache4 or even 4 of them! So probably with optimization of image access, one could run CS3 even faster. For Aperture, which is Graphics card dependent, one might benefit from the faster Graphics cards.
- ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT (Standard)
For excellent all-around performance in creative and productivity applications, choose one or more ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT cards. This card features a 256MB GDDR3 frame buffer, PCI Express 2.0 interface, and two dual-link DVI ports. With up to four ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT graphics cards installed, a Mac Pro can support up to 8 30-inch Apple Cinema HD Displays. We'd need to have someone actually test this! Just because they can do 3D graphics and run 4 monitors doesn't mean they will process 1000 images faster.
- NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT ($200 Option)
For even greater graphics performance, choose the latest-generation NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT with 512MB of GDDR3 video memory. With a unified shader core and massive memory bandwidth, the NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT brings advanced performance to graphics-intensive applications like motion graphics, 3D modeling, rendering and animation. Featuring a PCI Express 2.0 interface for high bandwidth connection to the Mac Pro and two dual-link DVI ports for connecting up to two 30-inch Apple Cinema HD Displays.
- NVIDIA Quadro FX 5600 (just another $2850)
Featuring a massive 1.5GB frame buffer of GDDR3 memory, the NVIDIA Quadro FX 5600 is the ultimate workstation-level graphics card. It’s ideal for industrial-strength 3D design work, modeling, animation, and stereo 3D visualization. One of the most advanced graphics cards available, it has an integrated stereo 3D port, so you can use stereo goggles for stereo-in-a-window visualization applications. With two dual-link DVI ports, you can connect two 30-inch Apple Cinema HD Displays.
Anyway, I love Macs, that is when I don't hate them, which is the current cycle I'm riding right now! That's a bad start for 2008. All resolutions of thrift may go out the window! You can buy one to your own customized to taste and your own line of credit here .
Who's going to be the first to get one up and running: give us a report!
Asher
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