Does DP and MF3 use all 12 cores equally efficient?

[Steve Steele]

I'm deciding between an 8 core and a 12 core and because I may be purchasing in the next day or so, I'd like to know if anyone knows if DP treats all CPUs and cores equally? I read some rumors somewhere at some point that some DAW was running more efficiently on an 8 core for some reason.

I'll be moving up from a G5 which chokes at one or two instances of PianoTEQ. Not fun!

Sorry if this question has been asked or discussed already. I'm in a hurry and my research time is limited.

Thanks in advance.

P.S. I used to work at Apple and knew all the inside info. Now I'm so deep in the music business I don't have any idea what's going on computing wise. Sad.
Sort of.

[Timeline]

You would think it would share evenly and be faster but not to many users have made the leap because of the incredibly high prices Apple wants for basically almost the same machines we have now. You would think they would be cheaper by now but nooo. The cases are the same and most stuff inside too with a few MB changes for the CPUs.

When the cores are much faster than they currently are, then an 8 grand machine may be viable to consider, like double the speed, 6GHZ, and a third less energy usage.

As for now, I'd rather have a new car.

[MIDI Life Crisis]

Depending on your city, there are a lot of great used machines out there. I just snagged an 8 core 3.2 (2008) with 3 HDs and 2 Super Drives for $2k. I couldn't even touch a new lower level Mac Pro for that new. Of course, money might not be an object for you, in which case I'd go with the fastest machine I could. All 8 or 12 cores may not be accessible in some (most) apps now, but it is from the OS and will certainly be useable in the future.

Also, if you want to use Lion (and why would you?) the new machines may give you a longer OS compatibility. I doubt I'll ever see that OS on any of my machines so I'm pretty much where I think I'm staying until the machine (or) I become dysfunctional.

[Timeline]

MLC, I see you got out of that G5 finally.
Welcome to the multi-iCore family.

[MIDI Life Crisis]

Long time comin' -s'gonna be a long time gone.

Thanks.

[HCMarkus]

DP used all cores of my G5 Quad fully, and reports 'round here are that the Intel cores are similarly fully utilized.

Don't miss the 6 core 3.33 machine... faster than the top 8 core. You MAY want to wait for Sandy Bridge, expected within the next few months, if you are buying new.

[Steve Steele]

New Mac Pro with Sandy Bridge, configured for my use. $10,000. plus, easily. No thanks. Used 8 core for $2000 will HAVE to work.

[HCMarkus]

$10k? Always buy the bare-bones Mac with the precessor you need and install HDs, SSD's and RAM yourself.

I expect we may see some better bang-for-the-buck with Sandy Bridge.... like a single 6-core Geekbenching close to 20k. Price will likely be simiar to the current 6-core, runnign about $3500.

[Steve Steele]

Yeah I know. I used to work for Apple, and know the drill. But I went ahead and picked me up a MacPro 8 core 3Ghz with 20GB of RAM. So I should be safe for now. I just wasn't sure about DPs use of multi-cores. Haven't had the time to read up on it. Thanks for the advice guys and gals!