8 cores or quad?

pietervd · Post by **pietervd** » Thu Apr 10, 2008 1:09 am

hi all
i'll probably spend money on a mac pro pretty soon.
at the moment i work on a powerbook and a dual G5 but the G5 has to go (it wasn't mine).

a quad mac pro seems like big upgrade compared to the dual G5. i'll save 450 euros if i only take 4 cores. are the 4 extra cores worth that money?

if i pay for the 8 cores, would you advice to buy extra RAM too (more than the 2 gig that is standard)?

btw i do a lot of virtual instruments stuff and guitar rig etc...

tnx for advice!

Frodo · Post by **Frodo** » Thu Apr 10, 2008 1:18 am

Pieter:

4GB should be a minimum for virtual instruments and audio. If you want to run instruments outside of Digital Performer at the same time you are running instruments and plugins inside of DP, you will want to get 5-8 GB to start.

However-- read through some of the threads on the 8-Cores. Some users are finding some plugins a little unfriendly at the moment. It's not what I would call a widespread problem, but just read what 8-Core owners are saying before you buy.

pietervd · Post by **pietervd** » Thu Apr 10, 2008 6:39 am

thnx frodo.

mmm...
it looks like i can buy some extra ram and a nice screen with the money i save on the cores...

ECmaj7 · Post by **ECmaj7** » Thu Apr 10, 2008 7:09 am

I am ready to pull the trigger on a new MAc Pro also.
$400 less for the quad than the 8 core.
I thinking to get a refurbished 8 core for $2400 from Apple.
Any thought on refurbished Macs?
Will I wish I had an 8 core a year from now?

Every time I buy a Mac Apple upgrades a month later

Emilio

hammerman · Post by **hammerman** » Thu Apr 10, 2008 8:08 am

I'm still on a G5 but if I were upgrading my computer soon, I would wait for DP 6 and then wait some more for reports on how it handles on a 4 core vs. an 8 core. It may be a different beast than 5.13 in CPU handling. Just a thought. I would not be wary of refurbished computers, especially from Apple.

Rusty Shackleford · Post by **Rusty Shackleford** » Thu Apr 10, 2008 9:10 am

ECmaj7 wrote:.
Any thought on refurbished Macs?

I bought a G5 refurb and it's been great. I did have a problem with it at after a few months that was fixed quickly, but I don't think it had anything to do with being a refurb. The G5 was like new when I took it out of the box.

chunkdz · Post by **chunkdz** » Thu Apr 10, 2008 9:25 am

I got one of those $2400 refurb 8 cores. It's amazing. And surprisingly quiet, too.

All the techies I asked said you are going to want those extra cores in the future. Memory is relatively cheap and modular. Spend your dough on the processing.

crufty · Post by **crufty** » Thu Apr 10, 2008 9:45 am

I concur. In other words, spend the dough on the cores, and buy more memory later. If you buy memory now, you'll have to buy a new computer to get more cores.

Now, as to whether one NEEDS 8 cores, different issue. Bus speed is everything with multiple cores when it comes to audio stuff. If the bus is flooded the core's can't work.

My suggestion: 2GB will work fine, for a while. Get the 8 cores, especially if you are thinking about effects and post processing. Then, get a really really fast secondary hard drive. Finally, get additional memory.

ECmaj7 · Post by **ECmaj7** » Thu Apr 10, 2008 9:55 am

thanks,
here are two refurbished choices...

1.) $2399
Two 2.8GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon processors
2GB (2 x 1GB) of 800MHz DDR2 ECC fully buffered DIMM
320GB Serial ATA 3Gb/s 7200-rpm hard drive
16x SuperDrive (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW)
ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT 256MB (two dual-link DVI ports)

2.) $2499
Two 3.0GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon processors
1GB (2 x 512MB) memory (667MHz DDR2 fully-buffered DIMM ECC)
250GB Serial ATA 3Gb/s 7200-rpm hard drive
16x SuperDrive (DVD+R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW)
NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT graphics with 256MB memory

I believe the 3.0 is a previous model compared to the 2.8
the 2.8 has better specs except the processor.

thanks again for your thoughts,
Emilio

crufty · Post by **crufty** » Thu Apr 10, 2008 10:19 am

The difference between 4x and 8x cores isn't 2x, but it is, or rather--could be--significant. Not always though.

However, the difference between 2.8 and 3.0 is very minor. Chances out if you are maxing out @ 2.8 you'll be maxing out @ 3.0.

My take...the 2.8 is a better deal provided everything else is the same. what is the bus speed on those two boxes? That is what matters most. if its the same then i'd say 2.8.