computer advice

[MasonAtom]

Looking to upgrade from my dual 1.8GHz G5 machine.

I'm interested in people's impressions on the difference between the stock entry level 8-core (8 processors, 2.26 GHz w/6GB RAM) and the stock top of the line Quad Core (4 processors, 2.93 GHz w/6GB RAM). They run about the same price at MacMall. I've seen some benchmark test that show that the 8 2.26GHz processors perform better than the 4 2.93GHz processors, but the results are based on processor tasks and calculations, not on real world performance. Is DP 6 (or DP7) written to take advantage of hyperthreading 8 cores?

Also interested in general impressions of the i7 Quad Core iMac. I'm really intrigued by this product and the beautiful display but am scared off a bit by the limited expandability and the reports of higher than average defect rates (lots of DOAs and screen issues).

Thanks in advance for any comments/suggestions/advice.

Mason

[MasonAtom]

bump

[mhschmieder]

We don't generally "bump" in this forum, just so you know.

I suspect the reason you haven't gotten an answer is because these things are generally discussed on the Mac forum, unless specific to a particular aspect of DP itself or a plug-in/VI etc.

There has been some recent discussion of this topic on the Mac forum, close to the top of the topic list. I can't remember if I placed a link or not, but some speedmark type tests were done a few days ago, and the new i7 Quad Core iMac matches the Quad Core Mac Pro and is roughly 50% as fast as the Eight Core Mac Pro. It is twice as fast as the entry-level Late 2009 iMac.

[johnnytucats]

This page at motu.com: https://www.motu.com/products/software/dp claims that "Digital Performer takes full advantage of the latest advances in Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard's multi-threading and multi-processor operation". But then, you probably already read that.

You'd probably have a hard time finding someone who's used DP on those two exact setups for a comparison.

[mhschmieder]

I don't still have the link for that other banchmark that showed MacPro 8-cores being twice as fast as i7 iMac Quad Cores, but will list if if I find the printout.

In the meantime, here is Macworld's own benchmark published yesterday, which shows the i7 iMac Quad Core being more powerful than the MacPro 8-cores:

http://www.macrumors.com/2009/11/20/mor ... nce-gains/

Take that with a grain of salt, if you will, but the new iMacs are unquestionably pro computers, without much expansion.

Early reports indicate possible heat build-up issues though, so I personally plan to wait a bit (budget aside; I can't buy for a few weeks at least anyway), to see how that plays out.

[mhschmieder]

I found the printout, but it was just the image with no article or URL -- I had problems printing from that website, just as with the MacWorld test site, so had to cut/paste text into OpenOffice and the image into Preview, separately.

The other benchmark site was labeled "Geekbench 2 benchmark results (64-bit)". I have no personal interest in hunting it down again, but hopefully this is enough information for you to go on.