Your computers?

[Antony]

After four years of using the 24-inch iMac (24-inch, 2.33 Core 2 Duo) as my main machine, I got my new computer delivered yesterday.

This small display arrived a few days earlier:


And the main machine which arrived yesterday:


I got the lowest model of the 12-Core options. (to Don: Antony is poor!)

Quick specifications:
Two 2.66GHz 6-Core Intel Xeon “Westmere” (12 cores),
6GB 1333MHz DDR3 ECC SDRAM,
1TB 7200-rpm Serial ATA hard drive,
ATI Radeon HD 5870 1GB,
One 18x SuperDrive.

I only upgraded the graphic card from ATI Radeon HD 5770 to ATI Radeon HD 5870 in the customised configuration.

Adding more RAM and more HDDs are in my list of things to do.

More at this blog entry.

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[iJohnE]

After four years of using the 24-inch iMac (24-inch, 2.33 Core 2 Duo) as my main machine, I got my new computer delivered yesterday.

This small display arrived a few days earlier:


And the main machine which arrived yesterday:


I got the lowest model of the 12-Core options. (to Don: Antony is poor!)

Quick specifications:
Two 2.66GHz 6-Core Intel Xeon “Westmere” (12 cores),
6GB 1333MHz DDR3 ECC SDRAM,
1TB 7200-rpm Serial ATA hard drive,
ATI Radeon HD 5870 1GB,
One 18x SuperDrive.

I only upgraded the graphic card from ATI Radeon HD 5770 to ATI Radeon HD 5870 in the customised configuration.

Adding more RAM and more HDDs are in my list of things to do.

More at this blog entry.

Very nice Antony. Congratulations on your purchase. Hope it was worth the money.

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[Mandrake]

Very nice setup Antony, but also a very pricey one! Just out of curiosity, why did you decide to go with the DP model? That's a hell of a lot of processing power there. Two CPUs, six cores and twelve threads for each. 24 threads. That's insane.. For me, a single socket machine (be it 4 or 6 cores) with a higher frequency would be more useful. TBH, I struggle to max out my near 18-month old i7.

How much ram do you intend putting in that beast? 12GB I assume? If you spent so much on that system I'd also suggest that it sense to stick an SSD in when you do a HDD upgrade. Nice video card too, the 5870 is a real beast (speaking from experience).

Have fun with that!

(P.S. I'm surprised you went with such a modestly sized monitor! )

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[Antony]

Thank you.

Well, a poor man needs to upgrade his computer too.

Just out of curiosity, why did you decide to go with the DP model? That's a hell of a lot of processing power there. Two CPUs, six cores and twelve threads for each. 24 threads. That's insane.. For me, a single socket machine (be it 4 or 6 cores) with a higher frequency would be more useful. TBH, I struggle to max out my near 18-month old i7.

Well, I was deciding to go with either an iMac (27-inch) or the Mac Pro version, and I ended up with Mac Pro mostly following Don's longevity decision.
Since I decided to go for Mac Pro, I decided to go for the high spec'ed one. Like I mentioned earlier, it is the lowest model of the 12-Core offerings because I am cheap. (Somehow I can't justify extra A$1680 for upgrading from two 2.66GHz to two 2.93GHz, Antony is poor.)

How much ram do you intend putting in that beast? 12GB I assume? If you spent so much on that system I'd also suggest that it sense to stick an SSD in when you do a HDD upgrade. Nice video card too, the 5870 is a real beast (speaking from experience).

I will pump up the RAM from time to time. Apple's RAM are known to be expensive. (Again, Antony is poor.) Apple states it supports up to 32GB 1333MHz DDR3 ECC SDRAM. And there are reports that this Mac Pro can run up to 64GB RAM (8 x 8GB modules).

Yes, I have ordered the SSD (again, I am too cheap to get the SSD from Apple.), same brand as yours

(P.S. I'm surprised you went with such a modestly sized monitor! )

I know, I am poor.

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[Mandrake]

Thank you.

Well, a poor man needs to upgrade his computer too.

Well, I was deciding to go with either an iMac (27-inch) or the Mac Pro version, and I ended up with Mac Pro mostly following Don's longevity decision.
Since I decided to go for Mac Pro, I decided to go for the high spec'ed one. Like I mentioned earlier, it is the lowest model of the 12-Core offerings because I am cheap. (Somehow I can't justify extra A$1680 for upgrading from two 2.66GHz to two 2.93GHz, Antony is poor.)

Speaking of longevity, I think that four years of solid use from your iMac is pretty good. I agree, you must be destitute not going for the 2.93GHz CPUs.

I will pump up the RAM from time to time. Apple's RAM are known to be expensive. (Again, Antony is poor.) Apple states it supports up to 32GB 1333MHz DDR3 ECC SDRAM. And there are reports that this Mac Pro can run up to 64GB RAM (8 x 8GB modules).

Keep in mind that each of your CPUs has a triple channel memory controller. That means you need to use multiples of three with the memory to get maximum bandwidth. (i.e. use three of the four memory slots for each CPU). 6x 2GB is probably the most economical now, you could always go to 4GB memory sticks in a few years time.

Yes, I have ordered the SSD (again, I am too cheap to get the SSD from Apple.), same brand as yours

This is familiar! Nearly three years ago now, I purchased an HDTV. I recall that Antony soon after purchased the same HDTV model, simply in a larger size. A short while ago, I purchase an SSD and find it to be great. Soon after, Antony purchases the same SSD I have, but I suspect once again in a larger variety. Hrrmph!

I know, I am poor.

But of course.

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[Antony]

Keep in mind that each of your CPUs has a triple channel memory controller. That means you need to use multiples of three with the memory to get maximum bandwidth. (i.e. use three of the four memory slots for each CPU). 6x 2GB is probably the most economical now, you could always go to 4GB memory sticks in a few years time.

Thank you for the explaining. Apple's Memory DIMMs - Replacement Instructions (page 4) states the same. Apple said:
"Populating slot 4 slightly drops maximum memory bandwidth, but depending on the applications used, overall system performance may benefit from the larger amount of memory."

I will settle for the 6GB (default configuration, 6 x 1GB) for the time being. I still have a few big(*) ticket items to order. (Okay, my credit card hurts.)

(*) from a poor man's standard.

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[Antony]

Well, recently, we have a few Apple products delivered to the place, and here's the latest one and it is for Laurent:


A Don-approved iMac (21.5-inch and Intel Core i5).



Quick specs:
3.60GHz Intel Core i5 (customised-to-build)
4GB 1333MHz DDR3 SDRAM (2 x 2GB, I might upgrade that later)
1TB Serial ATA Drive
ATI Radeon HD 5670 512MB GDDR3 SDRAM
802.11n of course.

The important thing about this iMac is... I can have my over 6.5-year-old 12-inch PowerBook G4 back.

(blog entry)

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[Antony]

How much ram do you intend putting in that beast? 12GB I assume? If you spent so much on that system I'd also suggest that it sense to stick an SSD in when you do a HDD upgrade. Nice video card too, the 5870 is a real beast (speaking from experience).

Not long after installing SSD, I also pumped up the RAM. Well, I did not go to the technical maximum (64 GB), instead I get it to Don's approved 48 GB. (8 GB modules x 6)

Apple's Memory DIMMs - Replacement Instructions says that populating slot 4 and slot 8 will drop the maximum memory bandwidth. So, I decided to not occupy those two.

To Don: Antony is poor, the memory upgrade was part of the original budget.

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[Mandrake]

To Don: Antony is poor, the memory upgrade was part of the original budget.

Something tells me that someone who can spend $1500 AUD+ on memory alone isn't poor! Just to keep track, from memory... your new setup has cost you something like $7K AUD for the system itself, $2K AUD for the monitors, $1.5K for memory and about $650 AUD for the SSD. Yeah. That makes the amount I spent on my Core i7 system seem totally reasonable and sane by comparison.

Technology also progresses quickly. Intel's next generation architecture, codenamed Sandy Bridge, is set to launch in two weeks time. Whether I'll make that upgrade or not is still open to debate. The Radeon 6000 series and Geforce 500 series have also launched. Interesting times ahead indeed.

Finally, the question of the the year has to be: What on earth will you do with 48GB of ram?! I have 12GB and it's still overkill.

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[Don_HH2K]

I second Mandrake's question - what do you intend to do with 48GB of RAM? Why not go for 6GB or even 12GB now, and buy the rest once it's come down in price?

Well, I'm still on 2GB and having no problems with it.

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[Mandrake]

I second Mandrake's question - what do you intend to do with 48GB of RAM? Why not go for 6GB or even 12GB now, and buy the rest once it's come down in price?

Well, I'm still on 2GB and having no problems with it.

For me, the minimum I could get by on is about 8GB (I like to run without a paging file). So the 12GB is a bit of overkill, but 48GB is just pure insanity. 24GB RAM would still be crazy. But 48GB... geez. That's bigger than my SSD!

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[Antony]

Mandrake, let's not do the math on the money part, the number is a bit scary.

Finally, the question of the the year has to be: What on earth will you do with 48GB of ram?! I have 12GB and it's still overkill.

Well, my lower-end Mac Pro has 8 memory slots and it came with 1GB x 6 of RAM (= 6GB, 1333MHz DDR3).

6GB of RAM which we can agree is not really enough when you do serious photography. (Yes, I also bought Adobe Photoshop CS5 recently, also part of the budget.) There's the thing, if you want to go up to with 4GB memory modules, you can have them in any mix with 1GB, 2GB memory modules. If you decide to use 8GB module, you will need to ensure all modules are in 8GB modules.

After some searches in Apple Discussion (Apple's forum), there are quite a lot of people with top-end 12-Core Mac Pro go with 64GB of RAM. I was deciding if I shall max it out to 64GB or just 48GB. Then, Don suggested me 48GB for the maximum memory bandwidth. So, I did not max out the RAM.

Since I have invested quite a fair bit on the Mac Pro, why not getting the amount of RAM I want? And getting those RAM earlier means I can start enjoying the benefit earlier. This Mac Pro is designed to last for at very least 3+ years. Although it might cost a bit more now, but it makes sense to upgrade it in the early days.

Don't worry, that's the end of the Mac Pro expansion (for now).

To Don: Antony is poor, he does not max out the memory.

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[Antony]

I second Mandrake's question - what do you intend to do with 48GB of RAM? Why not go for 6GB or even 12GB now, and buy the rest once it's come down in price?

What do you mean by you second Mandrake's question? I asked you (over iChat), and you told me to get 48GB of RAM.

If I go for 12GB (or any amount up to 32GB) for now, I can't put any 8GB module in unless I want to waste any of those 2GB or 4GB modules. Hence, there's economic factory in it, as well as Don's longevity aspect.

Remember: Antony is poor, he did not max out the RAM.

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[beanboy89]

Speaking of RAM upgrades, Santa brought me 4 GB of DDR2 for my desktop. I now have 6 GB installed.

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[Antony]

Speaking of RAM upgrades, Santa brought me 4 GB of DDR2 for my desktop. I now have 6 GB installed.

Congratulations! We all love Santa, don't we?

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