A MacRumors forum user who got his Nehalem Mac Pro has shared his experiences unboxing the new beast and benchmarked the system's memory and processor performance in GeekBench Result Browser. Below is the system configuration of the "Nehalem" Mac Pro he got.- Processor 065-8315 Two 2.93GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon
- Memory 065-8333 6GB (6X1GB)
- Graphics Card 065-8316 ATI Radeon HD 4870 512MB
- Hard Drive Bay1 065-8537 640GB 7200-rpm Serial ATA 3Gb
- Optical Drive 065-7923 One 18x SuperDrive
- Wireless Option 065-7925
- Mini Display Port Adapter 065-8677
- Mini Display Port Adapter2 065-8679
- Fibre Chl Card 065-7929
The Geekbench benchmark for the 2.93GHz, dual Quad-Core Nehalem system gave a total score of 17,665, giving it the second place in the list of all GeekBench 2 scores. Multi-threaded functions and memory performance contribute to the highest gains in the scores of the new system. The 3.2GHz 8-core Mac Pro has got a score of 11,030 with many results in the 9,000 range. The multi-core performance of the new 2.93GHz processor has significantly outpaced the previous generation machines.
The Geekbench benchmark score of the new Nehalem 2.26GHz Mac Pro turns out to be in the range of 11226-13113. Also the 2.26GHz 8-core Nehalem performed comparably to the previous 2.8GHz 8-core processor in multi-threaded tasks, but worse at single threaded tasks. Nehalem processors driven by lower clock speed excelled at multi-threaded tasks, but the performance turned out to be slower at single-threaded tasks due to the lower clock speed. The Cinebench benchmark results chart compiled by MacRumors users as shown below reiterates the same fact.
Based on the Mac performance benchmark results, Macrumors concludes that it makes more sense to buy a faster Quad-Core than a slower Octo-Core.
For more unboxing pictures posted by the user, visit here. You can also see Apple's performance charts for Mac Pro's and GeekBench's Mac Performance Chart to know all the Mac performance benchmarks as of February 2009.
*Images Courtesy: MacRumors:Forums
afusionTM
for $500 more(equipped w. 4870 and dual burners) it's worth Mac OS X, a well managed interior, and that classic aluminum finish.
afusionTM
Dell XPS 435 has a great design and is much cheaper. http://www.dell.com/content/products/produ...s=19&l=en&s=dhs
for $500 more(equipped w. 4870 and dual burners) it's worth Mac OS X, a well managed interior, and that classic aluminum finish.
afusionTM
haha this is a funny comment
Maybe I'm just cheap, but I can't justify that much money, much less the idea that I'd have to use Windows anyway just to play the games I want and so forth.
seems way too much for me anyhow
for $500 more(equipped w. 4870 and dual burners) it's worth Mac OS X, a well managed interior, and that classic aluminum finish.
afusionTM
haha this is a funny comment
Man some people are just suckers from birth!
Dell XPS 435 has a great design and is much cheaper. http://www.dell.com/content/products/produ...s=19&l=en&s=dhs
Id like to see you build a Dual Quad Core Xeon for less than $2500, the xeons alone are $1500.
Also, you'd think someone interested in hardware and video games would simply purchase something that would do the job. I've got components coming in today for under $500, even less after I get all my rebates taken care of. Should be able to play Call of Duty 4 & 5 and then some on high settings just wonderfully.
Now, unless the purchase is not being made by him, then yes, go all out with whatever suits your heart's desire.
Dell XPS 435 has a great design and is much cheaper. http://www.dell.com/content/products/produ...s=19&l=en&s=dhs
Id like to see you build a Dual Quad Core Xeon for less than $2500, the xeons alone are $1500.
The Nehalem Xeons aren't even available retail yet, buy you can get a 2.93GHz Nehalem i7 from Newegg for less than $600. Apple overprices again.
# Hard Drive Bay2 065-7908 None
# Hard Drive Bay3 065-7913 None
# Hard Drive Bay4 065-7918 None
# Optical Drive 065-7923 One 18x SuperDrive
# Wireless Option 065-7925 None
# Mini Display Port Adapter 065-8677 NONE
# Mini Display Port Adapter2 065-8679 NONE
# Fibre Chl Card 065-7929 None
# MAC OS X SERVER 065-7932 None
# Apple Software App- iWork 065-7672 None
# Apple Software Final Cut Exp 065-7674 None
# Apple Software App-Aperture 065-7673 None
# Apple Software App-Logic Exp 065-7675 None
# SW APP-FILEMAKER 065-8307 NONE
# SW-MSO 065-8198 NONE
# Mouse from AOS 065-7938 Apple Mighty Mouse
# KEYBD + USER'S GUIDE FOR AOS 065-7943 APPLE KEYBD/USERS GUIDE
# Country Kit 065-7963 Country Kit Mac Pro
It makes no difference to the benchmark scores
It makes no difference to the benchmark scores
If they know why would they leave it out and not put it in there, more info is better than none. I think you're just whinging for the hell of it to be honest.
# Hard Drive Bay2 065-7908 None
# Hard Drive Bay3 065-7913 None
# Hard Drive Bay4 065-7918 None
# Optical Drive 065-7923 One 18x SuperDrive
# Wireless Option 065-7925 None
# Mini Display Port Adapter 065-8677 NONE
# Mini Display Port Adapter2 065-8679 NONE
# Fibre Chl Card 065-7929 None
# MAC OS X SERVER 065-7932 None
# Apple Software App- iWork 065-7672 None
# Apple Software Final Cut Exp 065-7674 None
# Apple Software App-Aperture 065-7673 None
# Apple Software App-Logic Exp 065-7675 None
# SW APP-FILEMAKER 065-8307 NONE
# SW-MSO 065-8198 NONE
# Mouse from AOS 065-7938 Apple Mighty Mouse
# KEYBD + USER'S GUIDE FOR AOS 065-7943 APPLE KEYBD/USERS GUIDE
# Country Kit 065-7963 Country Kit Mac Pro
That's a lot of "None" results! I guess it's a clean version, but it seems like there should be more things that come up positive in that test.
As much as I would love to own one again, the price is OUTRAGEOUS for the hardware. Maybe if I wasn't giving more than 1/3 of my income to the .gov...
I do like how easy it is to remove a drive and plug one in tho...no cables at all...nice and neat
Last edited by techbeck on 11 Mar 2009 - 03:41
I'll admit, the inside looks nice, but... who really cares? If you got something that costs THAT much money, you should have a damn warranty and shouldn't really be fooling around in there at all anyway.
You don't need 2 quad core xeons, what a waste.
Exactly, so why do they throw Xeons (server processors) in them other than to boost the price?
Tell me truthfully; what's the difference between a workstation and a desktop?
Since the death of Windows ME, from what I can see, it's *marketing* mostly. Most of the so-called *workstation-specific* hardware can also be found in pretty darn ordinary desktop computers (The XEONs found in the Mac Pro are basically Core i7 920s/960s with different pinouts on a custom motherboard, as every XEON, without exception, has had a desktop equivalent.), as can most, if not all, of the software.
All this does is make Apple's lack of a desktop OR workstation bridge between the iMac and Mac Pro all the more glaring and obvious. (Single XEON, or even standard i7 920, or Q9400 for that matter, and a GTS250 or AMD HD4850 for the graphics, and a plainer-but-still-brushed-aluminum tower case, called "Performa II", would fit nicely.)
I'd say the GPU and the type of CPU is what makes it a work station. Like the Quadro GPU. I think...
With exception of gamers, there is very little practical need for massive CPU and GPU power these days for most people - hence, desktop. Equate desktops to basic functionality - internet and office applications.
Workstations enter the picture when you do power computing, such as 3D visualizations, CAD, EDA, video transcoding, matlab, etc. They're also great for virtualization. $5k might seem overkill to you, but when you're paying your engineer $50-$100/hour, forking over an extra couple grand to save a few hours/week suddenly isn't such a bad idea. Workstations typically come with built-in RAID controllers, support higher bandwidth peripherals (such as PCI-X, many PCie 16x slots), and registered DIMMs. Most of the workstations I've used support far more RAM than most desktops - typically 16-64 GB, vs a paltry 4-12 GB.
Computers are tools and workstations are just more specialized tools. Just because you have use for a hammer but not a ball-peen hammer doesn't mean someone else doesn't.
My family owns a graphic design business, and we use macs. We would NEVER need that much power to do PS, Indesign, Fireworks, DW, projects. Who uses this thing???
My family owns a graphic design business, and we use macs. We would NEVER need that much power to do PS, Indesign, Fireworks, DW, projects. Who uses this thing???
Another example of Apple not growing with their popularity and as a whole company. Its great that they are building better, faster, and "cooler" systems..but whats the use if no one can fully utilize it? Not bashing, just stating my opinion.
Maybe Apple is gearing up for something????
Last edited by techbeck on 11 Mar 2009 - 04:34
My family owns a graphic design business, and we use macs. We would NEVER need that much power to do PS, Indesign, Fireworks, DW, projects. Who uses this thing???
Another example of Apple not growing with their popularity and as a whole company. Its great that they are building better, faster, and "cooler" systems..but whats the use if no one can fully utilize it? Not bashing, just stating my opinion.
Film/Audio.
http://www.apple.com/pro/profiles/
Agreed. You sir, win the Internets for the day.
Anyway...
You shouldn't need a benchmark to verify this. Many apps barely even take full advantage of a quad core system. I mean, architecture-wise from the multiple cores. Even a fast dual core may often be faster than a slower quad core.
Advantages from an octo core only comes from quite special circumstances where the app was specifically designed for multiple cores, and among those I can think of, I think I can count them on one hand.
Mac Pro, when compared to any other real Workstation, don't cost that much more. And you get OS X, not everybody is a Windows Fanboy. And owning a computer is not always about gaming, some work needs to be done from time to time.
And yes, if you work with BIG Photoshop/Aperture project, you could need a powerful PC. And it gets worst when you move to audio and video (Final Cut Pro). Rendering/compressing a movie does not require the best and most powerful video card. In a sense, the GT 120 fit quite well in there. And you can upgrade if you need more power.
Mac Pro, when compared to any other real Workstation, don't cost that much more. And you get OS X, not everybody is a Windows Fanboy. And owning a computer is not always about gaming, some work needs to be done from time to time.
And yes, if you work with BIG Photoshop/Aperture project, you could need a powerful PC. And it gets worst when you move to audio and video (Final Cut Pro). Rendering/compressing a movie does not require the best and most powerful video card. In a sense, the GT 120 fit quite well in there. And you can upgrade if you need more power.
For Photoshop you need bad ass Video Card and as far as Fina Cut Pro -> bad written application. Rendering/compressing a movie should be done by GPU not CPU...whoever wrote that app have no clue about hardware.
This shows how ill-informed you are on the subject. Rendering in any form has traditionally been done on the CPU for a multitude of reasons. First and foremost, the GPU has always been incapable of doing it for you.
It wasn't until the last year or so that they gained the ability to do this kind of stuff to any useful degree with GPGPU technologies like CUDA.
Last edited by MioTheGreat on 11 Mar 2009 - 16:22
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lol
There is a Nehalem-based Xeon!?
Please clarify, because I know the i7 series is the latest and greatest, ATM.
Please clarify, because I know the i7 series is the latest and greatest, ATM.
EDIT: whoops wrong section...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xeon#5500-ser...22Gainestown.22
Time is money. For a lot of people it's WAY cheaper to pay more for a workstation and spend less time, say, waiting. Maybe the improvement is only 10%. But if you're fighting for a small time-to-market as part of your business strategy and you're paying your A/V guy $50/hour, then you better believe that that 10% is worth the paltry $2-3k extra.
Never mind the science, engineering, and other research-related uses having that much power can help. You've probably never tried to simulate complex hardware, perform fourier analysis on multi-gigabyte data sets in parallel, or process billions of lines of log files.
Computers aren't just bought by individuals, businesses buy them too. People do more than just look at porn and post on Internet forums all day.
From what i've heard, one of the biggest deals with Snow Leopard is that it will be 64bit. And as far as i know, you need 64bit OS in order to utilise more than 3.25gb of Ram. So my question is, if this machine is running Leopard (which im assuming, maybe foolishly, is a 32bit OS) how is 6gb of ram not redundant?
Some people here sure don't do a lot of things with their computer to say powerful computers are useful to play games only.
Hey kids there's people around actually WORKING with computers and not only playing games, watching pron and surf the net.
WHAT?! Because now theirs no more difference between Desktop PC and Workstation PC? I'm sorry but you're plain wrong. I would not want to run mission critical stuff on a plain desktop PC. I'll want something better.
Why would you not run "mission critical" things on a desktop? Are you worries about data loss? Go with a RAID 1. BAM! Problem solved.
+1
That's something a lot of folks don't get.
There really isn't a lot of difference between the workstation and the desktop anymore, and there hasn't been since even before the death of Windows ME, and even most of that difference can be blamed on *marketing*. (The same motherboards used in workstations are also used in gaming/enthusiast builds; I'd know, because I've used two of them, ASUS' P4C800-E Deluxe, and ABIT's VP6, in my own desktops.) CPUs? Haven't you been listening to Intel since the introduction of the first XEON? Every XEON that Intel has introduced, without exception, has been mirrored by a desktop and/or mobile CPU elsewhere; the only difference has been the pinout because of motherboard differences. Until now, the mirroring has been in the LGA775 pinout (Core 2); the current ones are mirrored in LGA1366 (Core i7). However, the mirroring is still happening.
Snow Leopard as 64-bit only - Please! XP Professional 64-bit was bigger news. (And it well should have been, considering this was actually the only operating system Microsoft initially gave away to the public at large.) I can picture this now....
Steve Jobs riding his new 4-bit kitty onto (fittingly) Interstate 64. However, as soon as he completes the merging, he gets two mail messages on his iPhone. The Apple boss pulls over (no reading while driving for Steve) and growls in consternation. The messages are from Linus Torvalds and Steve Ballmer, and both say the same thing.
"What kept you?"
Besides all that, it's really stupid to go 64 bit because it's 64 bit. The 64 bit market has been there for years (15 years or so) but has never been very successful. For a simple reason actually: it wasn't all that necessary. It's becoming necessary nowadays because of the huge amounts of memory (4 GB is becoming standard). That's why the 64 bit train is just starting to roll.
This is NOT a workstation. Does a workstation come with a gaming GPU? Does it? Nawwwwwww... It would come with something like a Quadro, FireStream or FirePro... but no, it's got a GAMING CARD.
So what makes this desktop a workstation? The dual socket MB? NOPE! Thems called server boards 'round these parts! Newegg even tells me so. Now once you throw in a workstation card, you can call it as such. Hell, I can throw a Quadro in my computer and call it a workstation.
This is NOT a workstation. Does a workstation come with a gaming GPU? Does it? Nawwwwwww... It would come with something like a Quadro, FireStream or FirePro... but no, it's got a GAMING CARD.
So what makes this desktop a workstation? The dual socket MB? NOPE! Thems called server boards 'round these parts! Newegg even tells me so. Now once you throw in a workstation card, you can call it as such. Hell, I can throw a Quadro in my computer and call it a workstation.
The only difference between Quadro and GeForce hardware is the PnP ID in the BIOS. You can flash a GeForce into a Quadro.
I thought that voids the warranty?
A significant segment of the desktop market are computers expected to perform as workstations, but using PC operating systems and components. PC component manufacturers will often segment their product line, and market premium components which are functionally similar to the cheaper "consumer" models but feature a higher level of robustness and/or performance. Notable examples of this are the AMD Opteron, Intel Xeon processors, and the ATI FireGL and Nvidia Quadro graphics processors.
A workstation class PC may have some of the following features:
* support for ECC memory
* a larger number of memory sockets which use registered (buffered) modules
* multiple processors
* multiple displays
* run a "business" or "professional" operating system version
* £4,739.00 incl. VAT
*
* Ships: 6 business days
* Free Shipping
But, it has free shipping, so that is ok
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