Mac Pro "Quad" vs "Dual" Core

[Anonymous]

My firm is debating between the Mac Pro Quad [8 core] versus the Dual [4 core] machines. We are starting to generate a lot of 3D movies and virtual tours. So, we've looked on other web sites to see if the speed difference between the two machines has been "clocked", but to no avail. Does anyone know if ArchiCAD V10 [or V11] can make use of the additional processors in the 8 core? I'm told that if its 64 bit then it should be able, so is either of these 64 bit? Thoughts? Thanks.

[Dwight]

Yo, Denver!

More processors beyond 2 don't speed things up in Archicad, they let you maintain more processes simultaneously. Wider, not deeper. Eighteen wheeler, not sports car.

Applications are written to exploit the full capacity for a single task, but these don't include Archicad.

Photoshop should shine on as many processors you give it.... and apps like Cinema 4D are always quick to exploit extra power.

As to 4 or 8, it depends on your simultaneous activities, say Archicad, Artlantis, Photoshop and Doom at the same time.

[owen]

If you are using Lightworks to render within ArchiCAD or an external application (such as Cinema 4D) then yes it may be worth it.

Otherwise (putting aside the effects of running other applications concurrently) you may as well have a single core processor. The majority of ArchiCADs processes do not support multi-threading and it will be this way until GS does a substantial re-write of ArchiCAD's code. Don't hold your breath.

There are plenty of excuses from GS (time, money, it won't really help that much, blah blah) but fact is this is the only real way they are going to be able to improve ArchiCAD's performance in the future. There is a reason Intel & AMD are focused on increasing the number of cores rather than clock speeds.


http://www.archicadwiki.com/64-bit

http://www.archicadwiki.com/Multiprocessing

[Anonymous]

Dwight, Owen, Thanks. I appreciate the help... and I think I've got it. I can multi-task more [run several apps] with less impact on each, but ArchiCAD can only utilize a processor at a time and won't actually increase speed if I'm only running ArchiCAD and hoping that it will utilize all 8 processors at once. We are planning to use Artlantis to help render and it sounds like some other software [Photoshop?] can use multiple processors. So if all of this is right, that helps me weigh my decision. Thanks again.