Which Mac?

[Anonymous]

I am buying a mac book pro today (ordering online). I was curious, they have the nVidia 256 and 512 video cards in the same model. Is the 512 worth the extra 500 or so?

I dont want to over spend but then I dont want to under spec.

[rm]

Your going to see the benefits when you rotate your model or if you use an additional monitor, say like a 23" display.

Are you going to be running Windows on your Mac, it looks like you currently run Windows. Your graphics will be a bit zippier on the Windows side if you are running through VMware or Parallels.

[Thomas Holm]

"J Is the 512 worth the extra 500 or so? [/quote wrote:

Yes. As is the 17" glossy LED-lighted screen!

[vfrontiers]

We are buying about 10 new macs and I wanted to ask the question...

Do we see a benefit of 8 cores? or is the one QUAD CORE enough? I'd rather spend the money on RAM.

SO...
2.8 (1) Quad XEON
2gb RAM (stock)
+8gb RAM (not from apple, jez)

320 HD (we're also getting a 4tb server)
256mb VRam

[Karl Ottenstein]

vfrontiers wrote:
Do we see a benefit of 8 cores? or is the one QUAD CORE enough? I'd rather spend the money on RAM.

If you spend a lot of time in Artlantis, which fully utilizes all 8 cores during real-time preview as well as final render, then go for 8. Otherwise, your $$ tradeoff sounds reasonable.

Karl

[Thomas Holm]

Depends on the expected life span. The cores are not upgradeable AFAIK. if you expect these machines to be productive for more than three years, i'd go for 8 cores. OSs and programs are utilizing them more and more and this trend is strong. And the price difference isn't so big. RAM and graphics are upgradeable.

[vfrontiers]

Can someone explain whether matchin RAM sticks to processor core is relevant?

So if I get 2 quad cores, do i need to have 8 physical sticks of ram in the machine?

I don't know where I get this stuff...

[Karl Ottenstein]

vfrontiers wrote:
Can someone explain whether matchin RAM sticks to processor core is relevant?

So if I get 2 quad cores, do i need to have 8 physical sticks of ram in the machine?

No, the gross memory is shared - the interconnect does not distinguish which processor is accessing which ram bank AFAIK.

It is important though that the sticks are installed in matched pairs. There's a aluma-glyph on the inside face of the tower access panel to illustrate. (Guess if petroglyph is an etching in stone, that alumaglyph is...)

Karl

PS Latest rumors are for some Mac hardware updates in October...

[Dwight]

just use the matrix at:

http://www.crucial.com/

[Karl Ottenstein]

Dwight wrote:
just use the matrix at:

http://www.crucial.com/

...and then buy it from:

http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/memory/Mac-Pro-Memory

You want the 800 MHz stuff for the "Early 2008" Mac Pro - which is the model still being sold, but barefeats found that if you have the older 667 Mhz sticks, that the performance hit isn't that bad, only 4%:
http://www.barefeats.com/harper5.html

Also some memory tests on different configs of sticks in slots here:
http://www.barefeats.com/harper3.html

Interesting to see in that article that perhaps I should fill my empty 2 slots to increase memory bandwidth 10%, even if I just fill them with someone. Would be interesting to see if I could see the difference when running a render, etc...

Karl