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Just bought the new 8 core Mac!!!

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C1 Pro, Aperture (also GPU), Tiffany III, custom apps (I also write my own MP apps)... Then there are various CVS and SVN servers being hit in the background (each serial thread apps). Not to mention, the web browser is fully multi threaded (not that this is a big deal), the thought that extra cores is worthless is funny IMO.

It is a power on demand thing. It is great to have it when you need it.

Steven

--
---
Spring 2007 (Paria Plateau):
http://www.pbase.com/snoyes/images_spring_2007

2006 White Sands and Bisti Workshop
http://www.pbase.com/snoyes/white_sands_and_bisti

 
Whoever said more cores was worthless? I did not. This is what I said:

"The verdict: For virtually everything anyone here does, you are far better off getting 3GHz dual-cores (the current "quad" boxes) and more RAM."

And I will stand by that. It's exactly why Apple didn't release 2.66GHz 8-core boxes when they could have last November/December--for a large portion of their audience, it would have cost a lot more with very little gain in performance, and why you don't see one now. At 3.0GHz, it will definitely outperform anything else they sell.

Consider yourself the exception; if you write your own software, you clearly are. Many of the filters in PS are still not fully MP-aware; that's just one example. There is a lot of non-MP-aware software out there. Yes, the OS can assign other tasks and threads to other cores, but my point still stands. For most of their install base, an 8-core machine is not going to be huge productivity booster--it's a niche product, hence the single model at the top of GHz range and top of the price range.

Jeff

--
http://www.pbase.com/jhapeman
 
Jeff_WI said:
Whoever said more cores was worthless? I did not. This is what I
said:

"The verdict: For virtually everything anyone here does, you are
far better off getting 3GHz dual-cores (the current "quad" boxes)
and more RAM."
Click to expand...
Sounds like a massive devaluation of more cores to me:-)
Jeff_WI said:
And I will stand by that. It's exactly why Apple didn't release
2.66GHz 8-core boxes when they could have last
November/December--for a large portion of their audience, it would
have cost a lot more with very little gain in performance, and why
you don't see one now. At 3.0GHz, it will definitely outperform
anything else they sell.
Click to expand...
Agree on that point. The 3 GHz makes an unambiguous splash.
Jeff_WI said:
Consider yourself the exception; if you write your own software,
you clearly are. Many of the filters in PS are still not fully
MP-aware; that's just one example. There is a lot of non-MP-aware
software out there. Yes, the OS can assign other tasks and threads
Click to expand...
There are many more MP aware apps IMO. In fact, I think almost every one of my apps are fully MP aware except the MS ones. But that has always been a selection factor for me.
Jeff_WI said:
to other cores, but my point still stands. For most of their
install base, an 8-core machine is not going to be huge
Click to expand...
But I still stand by what I said. Photo-processing is one of those niche markets. It can gobble processors very fast and the people on THIS board are about processing photographs. This is not an Excel or Word board, it is photography board and in this area, the 8 cores will be very beneficial to many many more people than you expect.
Jeff_WI said:
productivity booster--it's a niche product, hence the single model
at the top of GHz range and top of the price range.
Click to expand...
And yes, it is the top of the price range. It will cost me $5100 to get it and 4GB memory + a 30" LCD. But it will be a productivity booster when I upgrade. It will be for many on this board as well.

Steven

--
---
Spring 2007 (Paria Plateau):
http://www.pbase.com/snoyes/images_spring_2007

2006 White Sands and Bisti Workshop
http://www.pbase.com/snoyes/white_sands_and_bisti

 
I'm honestly curious. I have a quad with 4gigs and was debating on upgrading to 8gigs or 12gigs (via OWC). I put in an order for an additional 4gigs today, but after reading your specs, I wonder whether I should have put in an order for 8gigs to bring up my total to 12gigs.

4Gigs really is the minimal that you need. Photoshop will suck that memory up. I also run Aperture, and 4gigs for both Aperture and photoshop is way too light. I had originally thought I'd upgrade to 12gigs so that I'd never have to close photoshop or aperture as well as Safari, mail, iTunes, Parallel. I'm going to need to do some HD video (Final Cut) editing soon and figured the 12 would be good for all, but then I convinced myself that 12gigs was plain excessive, and that I was just obsessing over wanting all that memory.

Do you NEED 16gigs or do you WANT 16gigs? I keep thinking of the 8gigs restrictions PowerMacs used to have and the 3gigs restrictions that Windows XP had and people got by with that.
 
Right now OS X will limit any one application to something like 3-4GB. I am sure someone can step in and give the exact number. Not sure if Leopard will fix that or not...but unless the OS lets it happen, a 64-bit app on its own is not going to be able to use more than what the OS allows.

That said, if you are running multiple apps, like Lightroom and Photoshop, or Aperture and Photoshop, plus a few other things...you can easily start to chew up a lot of RAM quickly. So, getting 8GB or more of RAM will not be a waste IF your workflow can use it.

Jeff
--
http://www.pbase.com/jhapeman
 
Steven Noyes said:
And yes, it is the top of the price range. It will cost me $5100
to get it and 4GB memory + a 30" LCD. But it will be a
productivity booster when I upgrade. It will be for many on this
board as well.
Click to expand...
"...many on this board." I highly doubt that, reading most of the threads on this board--and this board is also a poor sample of the universe of Mac users. So again, not sure why you feel compelled to argue my point--it's a niche product that will benefit very few users, period. The average person has no need for 8 cores at this point in time.

I don't consider myself average--I shoot with a Canon 1Ds Mark II and a 5D--so I have some huge RAW files. I do a lot of batch-processing. I can peg my processors, but honestly, it doesn't happen all the time. For the minimal gain I would get in processing time, it's not worth it.

Unless you assume that most people here are working pros, and their time is worth the money, then it gets even less likely that you are in a situation where it's economically feasible for someone to upgrade.

My original point stands--for most people the advantage is not going to be worth the cost. If it is for you, great, but don't assume that everyone stresses the cores as much as you do.

Jeff
--
http://www.pbase.com/jhapeman
 
Jeff_WI said:
"...many on this board." I highly doubt that, reading most of the
threads on this board--and this board is also a poor sample of the
universe of Mac users. So again, not sure why you feel compelled
to argue my point--it's a niche product that will benefit very few
users, period. The average person has no need for 8 cores at
Click to expand...
I would 100% agree if we were talking about Access, Word, Excel, Outlook, IE, Mail.app, OmniGraffle, etc but we are not. We are not talking about the average user. We are talking about people that use their computer for photography. It is one of the applications that is very well suited for parallel processing.
Jeff_WI said:
this point in time.

I don't consider myself average--I shoot with a Canon 1Ds Mark II
and a 5D--so I have some huge RAW files. I do a lot of
batch-processing. I can peg my processors, but honestly, it
doesn't happen all the time. For the minimal gain I would get in
Click to expand...
It is all about power on demand. It is true most of the time, users do not require the power, but it is invaluable when it is needed and can be a huge time saver. The question is if you value your time and if so, by how much.
Jeff_WI said:
processing time, it's not worth it.
Click to expand...
To me it is very much worth it and many others as well judged by the fact people DO want faster machines.
Jeff_WI said:
Unless you assume that most people here are working pros, and their
time is worth the money, then it gets even less likely that you are
Click to expand...
So you do not judge off time as valuable? I value it very much.
Jeff_WI said:
in a situation where it's economically feasible for someone to
upgrade.
Click to expand...
There are two cases. You are a working pro and the question is will it save enough time to take on extra work? You are an hobbiest (even avid) and the question is can I afford this and will it improve my workflow/enjoyment enough to justify the cost?

The first one is purely economic. I love dual very large displays not only because it is nice, but they pay for them selves many times over. It is the prime oversight of corporate IT to not understand the significant productivity gains more screen real-estate or faster computers can truly bring.

The second one is purely personal. Can you afford it and does it reach your cost benefits. When I come back from shooting surf shots (at 8.5 fps you can create huge volumes of files) or 4 days shooting landscapes (when the light is screaming, 12+MP adds up fast), I really do not want to wait on the computer much.
Jeff_WI said:
My original point stands--for most people the advantage is not
going to be worth the cost. If it is for you, great, but don't
Click to expand...
My point stands as well. For many people on this board, they will see a substantial boost in adding cores and it becomes a question of THEIR finances and not yours on weather it is worth it TO THEM.

Steven

--
---
Spring 2007 (Paria Plateau):
http://www.pbase.com/snoyes/images_spring_2007

2006 White Sands and Bisti Workshop
http://www.pbase.com/snoyes/white_sands_and_bisti

 
Jaddie Dodd said:
single 750GB hard drive. I plan to add two Hitachi 1TB drives as
soon as those drives are available in the retail channel, which
should be before the end of the month. I plan to stripe those two
drives.
Click to expand...
The price per GB of those drives is likely to be quite a bit more than that of the 750GB, any reason why you're hard set to get those particular drives?
 
Dear Ender & Friends
Ender78 said:
The price per GB of those drives is likely to be quite a bit more
than that of the 750GB, any reason why you're hard set to get those
particular drives?
Click to expand...
The retail price of the new Hitachi 7K1000 1TB hard disk drive in an internal configuration is supposed to be US$399. That's less than US$0.40 per gigabyte. 750GB drives are selling for around US$270, right? That'd be US$0.36 per gigabyte. So there's not much of a difference.

These new Hitachi drives come with 32MB of cache and they perform almost as well as the Western Digital Raptor, a 10K-rpm drive.

I don't like to fiddle and futz with my machine once I get it set up, so I'd like to opt for the 1TB hard disk drives if they're available in retail channels reasonably soon.

--
Sincerely,
Jaddie
Models & Miscellaneous http://www.jaddie.com/photos/

--Geez, this stuff costs way too much money!
 
Steven Noyes said:
My point stands as well. For many people on this board, they will
see a substantial boost in adding cores and it becomes a question
of THEIR finances and not yours on weather it is worth it TO THEM.
Click to expand...
Again, I think you are ignoring my initial point, which is what started this back and forth, Steve, when you implied that I had indicated the cores were worthless (which was a misleading misrepresentation). Let me refresh your memory on what I originally said:

"The verdict: For virtually everything anyone here does, you are far better off getting 3GHz dual-cores (the current "quad" boxes) and more RAM."

There are those who can afford nearly anything they want. I feel very fortunate that I fall in that class and it sounds like you do, too, but who cares? A lot of the people on this board do NOT fall in that class--look at the responses to this thread and the other posts on hardware--a lot of people are still using much older machines. A lot of people belabor the costs of even the current quad-core offerings. A very small group can spend whatever they want, or can somehow justify it for business reasons.

I have never said someone shouldn't make the financial judgment on their own, or that people shouldn't decide on their own criteria. I only pointed out the obvious, quoted again above.

There are people that read these forums looking for real advice. There are those who can read threads like this and get confused about the reality of what they need--they don't have enough knowledge to know that they can get 90% of the processing power of the 8-core box for something like 40% less money. Posts like yours do not necessarily help such people, and at best tend to confuse the matter. I provided a practical answer that most readers here could take some value from.

Sheesh.

Jeff
--
http://www.pbase.com/jhapeman
 
I'm developing a Macintosh application to create fractal images. It's universal and multi-threaded, and will use as many processors as you have.

I'd LOVE to see it run on an 8-core Intel Mac. I'm still limping along with G4-based Macs. I've been waiting for CS3, since (excluding my fractal generating app) that's the most CPU-hungry thing I do with my systems, and it makes no sense at all to buy a top-of-the-line machine only to run an app using processor emulation.

Fractals can be quite striking looking. Here's an example:



Follow this link for a larger version:
http://www.pbase.com/duncanc/image/75327526/original

I have a few more images here:
http://www.pbase.com/duncanc/fractal_images&page=all

If anybody's interested, you can download my app, FractalWorks, at this link:

http://homepage.mac.com/dmchampney1/FileSharing1.html

If you do decide to download it and try it, let me know and I'll send you some plot files that will really make a new 8-core mac sweat.

I'm not sure I will spend the $$$ for one of these high-end machines. It would be fun, and nice, but is awfully expensive. CS3 should run very well on these machines, and give near instant results for workflow (assuming you build a machine with a very fast disk and lots of memory)

I wonder if Apple will put one of the new 4 core chips into a Macbook Pro? That would make for quite a powerful portable system. Not sure if the power/heat requirements would work in a laptop, though.

Duncan C
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david jean said:
WOOHOO!!

Lot o' $$ but i've been waiting to get the new Intel Mac since it
was annouced so I jumped on it!

I'll have to keep my quad PPC for awhile because Lightwave STILL
hasnt made the UB jump yet and I use it regulary so...

As soon as LW releases their UB version i'll be selling my quad on
eBay to help replenish my bank account LOL! Now I gotta come up
with the money to get the Creative Suite upgrade : /

Man, how am I going to sneak this new machine past my fiancee?
Going to rough...
Click to expand...
--
dpreview and PBase supporter.



http://www.pbase.com/duncanc
 
Jeff_WI said:
Right now OS X will limit any one application to something like
3-4GB. I am sure someone can step in and give the exact number.
Not sure if Leopard will fix that or not...but unless the OS lets
it happen, a 64-bit app on its own is not going to be able to use
more than what the OS allows.

That said, if you are running multiple apps, like Lightroom and
Photoshop, or Aperture and Photoshop, plus a few other things...you
can easily start to chew up a lot of RAM quickly. So, getting 8GB
or more of RAM will not be a waste IF your workflow can use it.

Jeff
--
http://www.pbase.com/jhapeman
Click to expand...
Jeff, I am not sure if I am with you on this or not.

Let me give you an example. 32-bit driver for Mac Pro is limited to 4GB - theoretically. In real world, if the 32-bit driver is trying to use any memory address larger than 2.5GB, system will hang right there. The only cure is to tweak it (Apple's driver reference has this info) and let the driver can access up to 4GB. But this is driver part, the OS still maintain its memory mapping table where shows address larger than 4GB.

So when you said:
Jeff_WI said:
Right now OS X will limit any one application to something like
3-4GB. I am sure someone can step in and give the exact number.
Click to expand...
I am with you on this, because I am a Mac driver developer, 2.5GB is the exact number - this number has been tested by our lab many many times. However, you can follow apple's driver guideline, add some codes and resolve this issue.
 
Jeff_WI wrote:
[snip]
Jeff_WI said:
"The verdict: For virtually everything anyone here does, you are
far better off getting 3GHz dual-cores (the current "quad" boxes)
and more RAM."
Click to expand...
Jeff,

I'm curious about this statement. For most computer users, multiprocessor systems are a waste. They don't run multithreaded apps. That's absolutely true.

However, PS has been able to take advantage of multiprocessor machines for a long time now, and it is the "gold standard" of image processing. I bet a very large subset of the readers of this board own CS. Sure, there are some filters that can't use multiple processors, but which are they? Are they part of most users' core workflow? Are they part of the release version of CS3, or add-ons?

There are also a whole class of multimedia apps that are excellent candidates for multithreading. Still images, audio, video, all lend themselves VERY well to parallel processing. I haven't surveyed the state of the art in Mac multimedia applications, but I bet there are quite a few apps out there that take full advantage of as many cores as you have.

It seems to me that digital photographers are among the class of "specialized" users for whom these multi-processor machines are ideally suited.

Duncan C
--
dpreview and PBase supporter.



http://www.pbase.com/duncanc
 
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