You're warming my quad-core heart![:)]
PL
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@nomad said:
haha - its not a lack of enthusiasm, it is just that they do not perform (as we understand performance currently) - you can't open as much instances on a G5 as you can on a macPro ... is it the little vs. big endian thing or the processor pipeline, don't ask me why in detail ...
the 8-cores ... if you like to hear my opinion ... they are only a minor step forward in relation to the last generation macPros, actually not even compared to the 4-cores. i'm not even sure everything is scaling as expected across the 8 proc. intel themselves releases some *code optimization tool* lately to allow full access to the capabilties of these processors ...
regarding several reports about the new firewire chip and strange USB behaviour it would maybe a good idea to let their first release pass by until everything is clear ...
as i read the news the Q9000 (quadcore penryn) series is a little bit delayed but should be delivered soon.
my 2c only, christian
The "Harpertown" in the new 8-core Mac Pro _is_ a quad core Penryn - as I understand it, the Q9000 is a "Core" (not "Xeon") line of the Penryn family, which means it will be targeted for future iMacs, not Mac Pros. El Reg clears things up a little:
http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2007/09/19/idf_intel_penryn_decoder/
See: clear as mud! 😉
But, I have to say a "minor step forward" they most certainly are not. Lower power (and virtually silent), faster, cheaper, pci-e 2.0, and so on... I'm also really curious about rumors suggesting that OS X 10.5.2 will somehow make use of SSE4 - if it does, then we should see significant performance gains in certain areas. Time will tell, I guess. I bought the day after this revision was released - in spite of long history with Apple, which has made me fully aware of the potential dangers of buying "rev a" anything. However, my feeling was that most of the development in this revision was coming from Intel, not Apple, so the logic board _design_ shouldn't have changed too much (just the various chips running the show). Anyway, no USB or Firewire problems to report, at this early date. My audio interface is Firewire (Apogee), and it's been flawless.
As revisions go, obviously the next gen will be "better", but it will probably continue to build on the current Penryn line. If you have the patience of a saint, and basically don't need to get anything done this year, then wait for Nehalem - that promises to be a real beast. For myself, I had already waited several months for Penryn, and I'm glad I finally "jumped in".
J.
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good to hear everything works flawless with your 8-core, jbm - its just that several reports reached my desk that USB gets lost unexpectedly.
i've been under the impression the new macPro is using the E5472 XEON with an intel 5000 family chipset and here i'm considering the processor bus to be too small for 8 cores (or better: for what 8 cores could process in the sampling world)
christian
and remember: only a CRAY can run an endless loop in just three seconds. -
Hey Christian.
Yeah, it's a 5400 of some kind... I'm not sure exactly which one (you're probably right about 5472). I actually did have my mouse disappear when I first booted the machine, but I updated to the latest Logitech drivers, and it's been fine since - so I assumed it was a driver issue. I'll be interested to see if it continues to stay put now. But my m-Audio keyboard (class-compliant USB, thank god - no need to rely on m-Audio _writing_ a driver) has been totally fine. What do you care about USB anyway! ;-)
Interesting about the bus - I wasn't aware of that potential bottleneck. Mind you, it doesn't seem like much of anything in the software world is even close to managing "what 8 cores could process" anyway, at this point. I'm curious to see how much improvement I see over the coming year, or so, as apps get proper Leopard updates, and start to take advantage of all 8 cores - not to mention SSE4. Should be interesting. I remember some pretty astonishing performance boosts, in my PPC days, when altivec first started showing up in apps. I had a G3, and upgraded it to a G4 with only a slightly higher clock speed. But the performance gains were astonishing. Some apps which were almost useless without altivec were dramatically improved once optimized to take advantage of it. Mind you, I'm kind of new to the Intel world, so I'm not absolutely clear on how comparable SSE is to Altivec. It also doesn't seem certain that many developers are even going to bother with it. Do the VIs take advantage of SSE4? Will they? Is there any point in VSL implementing it, or does it have to be done at a lower level? I'm genuinely curious about all this...
J.
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oh yeah... and ALL of my Vienna Keys have stay put! They worked right from first install, and are happily reporting licenses every day!!!
And the really big thing for me?... 16GB of RAM!!! It's a dream come true! Bliss, really. Though, of course, a 64-bit VE for Mac would be the icing on the cake. Some day soon, I hope. ;-)
J.
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Although, "Hah, Hah!" I throughly enjoy sarcasm directed at me, my actual question remains unanswered. I can't help observing, from my own direct experience, that the G5 machine has somewhat limited capabilities in comparison the the Intel MacPro machines. I was asking if there were reasons beyond this that make it unsuitable as a slave when used wit VE 3.Obviously, if my intent is to use it as a slave I would not expect it to run a tremendous number of samples. But, would I be better off selling it replacing it with two MacBooks each with 4GB of RAM? Or with something else? Perhaps someone would be gracious enough to forgo the sarcasm and answer this question. Thanks, Stephen
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I'd personally go and sell, but only as Apple's focus will be on Intel so at least you'll have a good base to move forward on. I can see a point not too far in the future when PPC code is no more and apps developers will focus on Intel only.
You do raise an interesting point though around buying Macbooks - I've never really considered buying a laptop as a slave as I always saw the cost as too high when you can buy 2 minis or an iMac for the same price. Why not buy 4 x 2GB mini's and control them with leopard's screen sharing?
And I do wish VSL would lift the veil of silence on all this - or at least give us a countdown on the front page.....
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@stevesong said:
Perhaps someone would be gracious enough to forgo the sarcasm and answer this questionsorry if it came over that way ...
we just noticed a significantly higher CPU load with PPC and the strange thing is, it puts also higher load on the (intel-)host.
our test setup was the special edition demo #1 (24 tracks IIRC) and this has been too much ....
christian
and remember: only a CRAY can run an endless loop in just three seconds. -
Christian:
Thanks for the answer.
Tim:
I thought of the MacBooks because they are relatively inexpensive and accomodate 4GB of RAM whereas the current Mac Mini is limited to 2GB of RAM. So the two Macbooks might double as mobile system as well being slaves in the studio. First thing is to obtain a MacPro and see what can be done with it - - I'm waiting a bit until some of the kinks are worked out with firmware updates and OS 10.5.2. Perhaps by then there will be new Mac Minis or some other solution.
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Simsy,
Mini's can only take 2GB AFAIK. I'm using 3 so far and also want further information on how good the performance will be. They all have 1000T ports so that's ok, plus I've upgraded the internal disks to 7200RPM and use Lacie LittleBig 200GB 7200RPM Firewire drives.
Hopefully we'll get either i) further info from VSL or ii) VE3 released on Friday (wishful thinking that though)
Best
Tim
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Sorry to break your Mac discussion, but I didn´t really find an answer for the original question: When can we buy VE3 (directly after NAMM?) and how much will it cost?
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Hi@timkiel said:
Simsy,
Mini's can only take 2GB AFAIK. I'm using 3 so far and also want further information on how good the performance will be. They all have 1000T ports so that's ok, plus I've upgraded the internal disks to 7200RPM and use Lacie LittleBig 200GB 7200RPM Firewire drives.
Hopefully we'll get either i) further info from VSL or ii) VE3 released on Friday (wishful thinking that though)
Best
Tim
If you go to macsales.com and click on memory and mac mini, they now sell 3GB memory that will work in the mac mini for $70! Awesome!! If mac minis work for you then I am sure it would be fine to get some. Just out of curiosity what processor speed do you have in yours? Just the slightly slower processors sell for a lot less on ebay and if I knew they would work fine I would maybe go for them!
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Yes, I really would like to understand, why you're still so fascinated by those mac minis. I'm a mac user myself, but for the price of two mac minis I get a audio store optimized and silenced PC with 8 Gb, that should perform better with VI and can load at least 2 Gigs of samples more, than two minis. In addition I keep reading about more problems with mac OS, than Windows. This is not meant to start one of those MAC vs. PC discussions (I am Pro-Choice : ). I just want to know, if I'm missing something there ...
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Just to avoid, my question getting lost: Anyone here knowing about the release and cost of VE3?
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Hi
If you go to macsales.com and click on memory and mac mini, they now sell 3GB memory that will work in the mac mini for $70! Awesome!! If mac minis work for you then I am sure it would be fine to get some. Just out of curiosity what processor speed do you have in yours? Just the slightly slower processors sell for a lot less on ebay and if I knew they would work fine I would maybe go for them!I'd not seen that I must go and have a look. I have the earlier 1.6 and a 1.8 both seem fine with memory being the bottle neck rather than CPU - and that's running at 128ms on the internal mac soundcard.
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You forget 2 obvious factors, size and noise.
Size could be a factor I agree, but noise certainly isn't. In fact I would guess that the only noise you're going to hear from a properly specced PC is the hard drive, if that. Mac users who come to my studio are often surprised by how quiet it is, so it makes me wonder what they are used to. I'm told the Mac Pros are very quiet, but my last Mac (a Dual G5) lasted less than an hour, and one of the reasons that I sent it back was noise.DG
