DP and Mac Pros

claude · Post by **claude** » Tue Aug 17, 2010 6:33 pm

Hi everyone,

need to upgrade my G5 and am a bit at loss in choosing between going with a powerful iMac or an all out big MacPro.

One of the reasons that make me hesitate is that i've read on a few forums that most applications aren't written to take advantage of multicores and hyperthreading and that it could take a very long while before this happens wich would make it ridiculous spending 5000$ on the MacPro as i believe that we will see USB 3, Firewire 1600/3200, 128gigs RAM in a pretty near future and the current machine would be a bit behind the curve before having been able to perform at their fullest...

Does anybody know if DP is good at distributing the work load between multiple cores, say 12? How about hyper-threading?

TIA

Best,

Claude

BradLyons · Post by **BradLyons** » Tue Aug 17, 2010 8:00 pm

You'll never beat the new technology that isn't out yet if you know what I mean. The Core i7 iMac's are amazing computers and absolutely worth it, but there are advantages to the MacPro towers such as PCIE slots for things like the UAD2 Card and hey, what if you want a MOTU HD192 for your I/O?

twistedtom · Post by **twistedtom** » Tue Aug 17, 2010 8:32 pm

The iMacs are powerful but the Pros are unreal. But as Brad says there is more to the pro.
$5k is a bit but if you are making money using it and use lots of tracks, effects and VI's it is a good investment.

BobK · Post by **BobK** » Tue Aug 17, 2010 9:28 pm

I just replaced a six-year-old G5 with a Mac Pro, and while shopping I was wondering the same thing. I was concerned after reading things like Macworld's review of the 8-core Nehalem Mac Pros, where they said that very few apps are written to take advantage of those cores.

But DP appears to be one of those apps. At MOTU's site, they say that DP takes 'full advantage' of multiprocessor and multithreading technology. They don't get specific about multicore processors, but the implication is that the more powerful computer, the better. I decided to trust them on that. I also wanted more internal drive bays, a separate display, and the sturdier build of a Mac Pro. I got a pretty good deal on a used 8-core Nehalem a couple of weeks ago ($2,700 - with a 1 TB drive and 16 GB RAM), and am very happy with it.

claude · Post by **claude** » Wed Aug 18, 2010 10:40 am

Thanks everyone for your input.

I'll probably end up buying a MacPro because indeed MOTU claims that DP is optimized to take advantage of multiple cores and multi-threading...

But it's still interesting to note that for the first time in 10 years i've even considered buying an iMac instead of a Tower for professional use...

Best,

Claude

gseibert · Post by **gseibert** » Wed Aug 18, 2010 11:20 am

I have an 8 core Mac Pro with a little application called MenuMeters installed. If you install it, you can display CPU utilization by core all the time, up in the menu area on the screen. DP CPU usage is always very balanced across the cores. Many other apps do not, but DP is very good at this. I would say of the apps I use most often, only Handbrake does as good a job as DP.

Phil O · Post by **Phil O** » Wed Aug 18, 2010 7:47 pm

Also, I've noticed that when the background processing window pops up, it will show 4 processes at a time being done on my 4 core machine and 8 processes on my 8 core. Makes me smile.

Phil

toodamnhip · Post by **toodamnhip** » Wed Aug 18, 2010 10:52 pm

BobK wrote:I just replaced a six-year-old G5 with a Mac Pro, and while shopping I was wondering the same thing. I was concerned after reading things like Macworld's review of the 8-core Nehalem Mac Pros, where they said that very few apps are written to take advantage of those cores.

But DP appears to be one of those apps. At MOTU's site, they say that DP takes 'full advantage' of multiprocessor and multithreading technology. They don't get specific about multicore processors, but the implication is that the more powerful computer, the better. I decided to trust them on that. I also wanted more internal drive bays, a separate display, and the sturdier build of a Mac Pro. I got a pretty good deal on a used 8-core Nehalem a couple of weeks ago ($2,700 - with a 1 TB drive and 16 GB RAM), and am very happy with it.

How old was that 8 core? I am thinking about buying a used one too, but I am a bit ignorant as to what improvements newer 8 cores had compared to the older ones.

BobK · Post by **BobK** » Wed Aug 18, 2010 11:43 pm

The Nehalem is also known as the 'early 2009' Mac Pro, released in March 2009.

For detailed specs, including performance benchmarks and helpful comparisons with previous models, check out everymac.com. Here's their Mac Pro main page:

http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/m ... acpro.html

jon · Post by **jon** » Thu Aug 19, 2010 5:02 pm

BobK wrote:I got a pretty good deal on a used 8-core Nehalem a couple of weeks ago ($2,700 - with a 1 TB drive and 16 GB RAM), and am very happy with it.

This is a nice deal!

PFulton · Post by **PFulton** » Tue Aug 24, 2010 7:01 am

I'm in a similar spot: replacing my dual G5 with what? Is it foolish to think of an iBook with an external, faster drive? I'm open to a laptop, iMac, or a tower (I already have a 22" display). I don't run vast numbers of VIs, but do some video in Final Cut. Any opinions?

noah330 · Post by **noah330** » Tue Aug 24, 2010 12:41 pm

I bought a Mac Pro used for $1000.00.

I had a dual 2.7 G5. I can tell you the MP smokes it in that my G5 was having trouble with some VIs (12 GB of RAM in it BTW) and just would sometimes get bogged down.

I went with the MP instead of the iMac because I already had a monitor, wanted to be able to isolate the computer for noise issues and wanted to keep my UAD and Duende and also wanted to be able to add additional SATA drives.

MOTUnation.com

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