SillyDog701

[Mandrake]

Apple has updated it's Mac Pro workstation with Intel's new Xeon 5400 range (aka as 'Harpertown') with speeds of up to 3.2GHz.

The new CPUs feature reduced power consumption, large 12MB L2 cache, 1.6GHz (up from 1.33GHz) FSB speeds, support for 800MHz FB-DIMM memory (up from 667MHz), new SSE4 instructions and more. (Anyone wanting the full information on the new CPUs should check Intel's website.)

Apple's default configuration includes:

* Two 2.8GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon (8-core)
* 2GB (2 x 1GB)
* 320GB 7200-rpm Serial ATA 3Gb/s
* ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT 256MB (Two dual-link DVI)
* One 16x SuperDrive
* Apple Mighty Mouse
* Apple Keyboard (English) + Mac OS X

For a price of $2799. That's $300 more than the previous Mac Pro - but with much faster CPUs (8 cores as standard), much faster graphics, more storage space and double the memory it's easily worth the extra cost.

It's also good to see that Apple has updated the graphics options for the Mac Pro as well - the older graphics cards they were offering are all from the previous generation, but the new offerings look great.

If anyone needs, and can use, the power of an eight core workstation - it doesn't get any better than this.

It surprised me that they announce this so close to MacWorld. I would've thought that they would delay the announcement a few days until MacWorld so Steve Jobs could announce the new Mac Pro in his keynote.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.1.11) Gecko/20071127 Firefox/2.0.0.11

[Antony]

Thanks Mandrake for the posting.

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[JockTheBlock]

Sure looks like a nice Apple Mac machine. How would it compare to other high-end professional workstation PC's though, on both price and performance? I've recently noticed a company called Boxx which makes these sorts of machines. And of course, more commonly known names like Dell also build such machines.

Question is, assuming I had a few thousand pounds/dollars/euros going begging in my bank, (which unfortunately I don't), and I was looking to buy a high-end workstation, which company would I be better off buying such a system from, Apple, Boxx, Dell, or some other?

By the way, a bit off-topic, what's the UserAgent thing about below my message?

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-GB; rv:1.8.1.11) Gecko/20071128 SeaMonkey/1.1.7 Firefox/2.0.0.x

[Mandrake]

I priced out a similar machine at Dell (the Precision T4700) and it came out to $4473!

My System Details
Quad Core Intel® Xeon® Processor E5440 (2.83GHz,2X6M L2,1333)
Quad Core Intel® Xeon® Processor E5440 (2.83GHz,2X6M L2,1333)
Genuine Windows® XP Professional, SP2 with Media
256MB PCIe x16 nVidia NVS 290, Dual Monitor DVI Capable
2GB, DDR2 SDRAM FBD Memory, 667MHz, ECC (2 DIMMS)
16X DVD+/-RW w/ Cyberlink PowerDVDâ„¢ and Roxio Creatorâ„¢ Dell Ed
C1 All SATA drives, Non-RAID, 1 drive total configuration
320GB SATA 3.0Gb/s,7200 RPM Hard Drive with 8MB DataBurst Cacheâ„¢
No Monitor
My Accessories
USB Entry Quietkey, No Hot Keys
Dell USB 2-Button Mechanical Mouse with Scroll
No Floppy Drive
Internal Chassis Speaker,Dell
My Software
Resource DVD - Contains Diagnostics and Drivers
My Services & Warranties
3 Year Limited Hardware Warranty with Next Business Day On-Site Service
No Onsite System Setup
Also Included
Genuine Windows® XP Sticker

The Mac Pro is faster (Dell doesn't offer the 1600mhz FSB/800mhz memory versions of the Xeon) and costs about $1650 less. Seems like an easy choice to me, especially since you can run Windows on the Mac Pro if you want to.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.1.11) Gecko/20071127 Firefox/2.0.0.11

[JockTheBlock]

Yes I think I'd probably go the Apple route having read that. The Apple OSX system looks really good, although I'm more used to MS Windows than OSX. I've only ever used OSX in the Apple retail stores

If only it was legal to have Apple OSX on a non-Apple PC though. But that's a different kettle of fish altogether!

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[Antony]

Bare Feats has conducted benchmark testings on the new Mac Pros it is interesting to note the increased performance of 8-core compared to (downgraded) quad-core.

In almost all categories (except Photoshp CS3 MP Actions, 100MB and 300MB tests), 8-core does deliver noticable performance improvement over the quad-core.

Detail:
Mac Pro "2008" vs others

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[Antony]

Also from Bare Feats,

The new Mac Pro uses less power and less noisy than previous generation (April 2007 release) on both 8-core machines.

Greenpeace should be happy to know that Apple is greener.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X; en-US; rv:1.8.1.11) Gecko/20071127 Firefox/2.0.0.11

[Antony]

Primate Labs have published benchmarks for all 3 (2.8GHz, 3.0GHz, 3.2GHz) new 8-core Mac Pros. Testing both 64-bit and 32-bit codes.

It is interesting to note that 32-bit code is slower than 64-bit code even 32-bit codes on 3.2GHz is slower than 64-bit code on 2.8GHz. Nevertheless to say that 32-bit code running on 2.8GHz is still extremely fast.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X; en-US; rv:1.8.1.11) Gecko/20071127 Firefox/2.0.0.11

[Don_HH2K]

It is interesting to note that 32-bit code is slower than 64-bit code even 32-bit codes on 3.2GHz is slower than 64-bit code on 2.8GHz. Nevertheless to say that 32-bit code running on 2.8GHz is still extremely fast.

It looks like Primate Labs were just measuring raw number-crunching performance. I'd personally have liked to see a benchmark comparing real-world apps like a QuickTime encode rather than integer and floating-point times.

Nonetheless, some impressive numbers.

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