Review: Apple Mac Pro

Four years ago a computer engineer with the military, was in my studio poking my new Mac workstation.

“To me they’re tools not toys.”

The latest and greatest at that time from Apple wasn’t super impressive. His project was built on the Apple architecture; 1028 machine networked processors; they too were using Ultra-SCSI 320 dual channel RAIDs for super computing. I was impressed. At that time he spoke of the future, he told of an 8-Core system; code name “Nehalem”. He also told me I should shave my soul patch and get in shape. Can you imagine?

Millimeter Review: Apple Mac Pro

Set the record:

I try not to make technology upgrades unless there is a valid reason. The performance boost from the newest CPU from Intel. Nehalem is worth making that investment; our first move to an Intel machine. This replaces a G5 dual 2.5 machine; still a video crunching workhorse with lots of life, the Atto U-320 dual channel RAID controller has moved a steady flow of data 200MB/sec all day and many overnights.

Overall I realize a significant performance boost over the older CPUs. Does the return on investment dictate auctioning off your old system in favor of the new? That depends on the type of work you do. That G5 with SD/HD card, is making a lateral move as the new audio workstation.

Our audio studio can edit HD and 5.1 sound.

New Mac Pro single processor systems start around $2500 but in a work environment that will never live up to the workload, and so we stepped up to dual 2.93 quad-core Xeon 5500 processors. That’s 8 processors plus a new Intel architecture. As always, I configured this system with lots of RAM, 16 Gigs (1066MHz DDR4 ECC SDRAM).

“But Honey, it could take 32 Gigs…”

Next-generation Intel architecture? I’ve never even met the last generation. Now that’s a generation GAP I can be proud of.

Now powered by all-new Quad-Core “Nehalem” and a new system architecture, 8MB of fully shared L3 cache, an integrated memory controller, and 1066MHz DDR3 ECC memory, these processors deliver greater memory bandwidth. And new Turbo Boost technology.

Power when (and where) you need it. (more on real-world performance coming soon)

The new Mac Pro introduces Turbo Boost: a dynamic performance technology that automatically boosts the processor clock speed based on workload. If you’re using an application that doesn’t need every core, Turbo Boost shuts off the idle cores while simultaneously increasing the speed of the active ones, up to 3.33GHz on a 2.93GHz Mac Pro.

The virtue of virtual cores? Virtually ridiculous.

The new Intel Xeon “Nehalem” processors support Hyper-Threading, which allows two threads to run simultaneously on each core. So an 8-core Mac Pro presents 16 virtual cores that are recognized by Mac OS X. Performance is enhanced because Hyper-Threading enables the processor so real fast typists can take better advantage of the execution resources available in each core.

Path of least resistance? No more mid-day nap-time at this studio.

A new bidirectional, point-to-point connection — called QuickPath Interconnect — gives the Intel Xeon “Nehalem” processor quick access to the disk, I/O, and other Mac Pro subsystems. In the new 8-core Mac Pro, there’s a QuickPath Interconnect between the two quad-core processors as well. This connection acts as a direct pipeline, so processor-to-processor data doesn’t need to travel to the I/O hub first. It’s another way the new Mac Pro boosts performance across the board.

Powerfully efficient. Continue on our quest to be GREEN.

Based on an industry-leading 45-nm process technology and combined with improved power management capabilities, the new Intel Xeon “Nehalem” processors are more energy efficient than before. So the Mac Pro is faster than ever, while using less energy when idle.

See the tech specs on this link: Apple.com

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Tags: apple, Intel, PR, video edit