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elektro80
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Joined: Mar 25, 2003 Posts: 21959 Location: Norway
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Posted: Wed Aug 09, 2006 9:08 am Post subject:
Block diagram of the Mac Pro |
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So there... _________________ A Charity Pantomime in aid of Paranoid Schizophrenics descended into chaos yesterday when someone shouted, "He's behind you!"
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elektro80
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Joined: Mar 25, 2003 Posts: 21959 Location: Norway
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Posted: Wed Aug 09, 2006 9:12 am Post subject:
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More info: beep beep _________________ A Charity Pantomime in aid of Paranoid Schizophrenics descended into chaos yesterday when someone shouted, "He's behind you!"
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v-un-v
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Joined: May 16, 2005 Posts: 8932 Location: Birmingham, England, UK
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Posted: Wed Aug 09, 2006 9:16 am Post subject:
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WOW! 1333MHz frontside buss?!? (this mac is 100MHz!!! ) _________________ ACHTUNG!
ALLES TURISTEN UND NONTEKNISCHEN LOOKENPEEPERS!
DAS KOMPUTERMASCHINE IST NICHT FÜR DER GEFINGERPOKEN UND MITTENGRABEN! ODERWISE IST EASY TO SCHNAPPEN DER SPRINGENWERK, BLOWENFUSEN UND POPPENCORKEN MIT SPITZENSPARKSEN.
IST NICHT FÜR GEWERKEN BEI DUMMKOPFEN. DER RUBBERNECKEN SIGHTSEEREN KEEPEN DAS COTTONPICKEN HÄNDER IN DAS POCKETS MUSS.
ZO RELAXEN UND WATSCHEN DER BLINKENLICHTEN. |
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brinxmat

Joined: Oct 24, 2005 Posts: 262 Location: Norway
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Posted: Thu Aug 10, 2006 12:16 pm Post subject:
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http://www.apple.com/macpro/intelxeon.html wrote: | Performance also benefits from 4MB of shared L2 cache per processor. The availability of that much L2 cache enhances processor performance by keeping data and instructions closer to the processor cores. What’s more, the Dual-Core Intel Xeon takes advantage of Intel Advanced Smart Cache technology. Smart Cache allows either of the two cores to utilize all 4MB of cache if the other core happens to be idle. |
Oh yeah. I'll get the bacon, if you get the eggs. So that's where the speed bump comes from, then. I should have invested in one of these babies instead of that stupid DC inverter. _________________ -- Say "&Eth;onne hit wæs hrenig weðer" |
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BobTheDog

Joined: Feb 28, 2005 Posts: 4044 Location: England
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Posted: Mon Sep 11, 2006 8:15 am Post subject:
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Hi Guys,
I have one of these (4GB 2x3ghz) arriving next week I will let you know how it is.
Cheers
Andy |
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elektro80
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Joined: Mar 25, 2003 Posts: 21959 Location: Norway
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Posted: Mon Sep 11, 2006 8:18 am Post subject:
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Excellent news! _________________ A Charity Pantomime in aid of Paranoid Schizophrenics descended into chaos yesterday when someone shouted, "He's behind you!"
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BobTheDog

Joined: Feb 28, 2005 Posts: 4044 Location: England
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Posted: Tue Sep 19, 2006 11:19 am Post subject:
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Hi Guys,
Well I have the new machine, very nice.
I have some benchmark results here for Cubase running under XP on the MacPro. These are with a Yamaha 01X audio device which has not got very good drivers, even so this thing flys.
01X set up 24bit, 44.1, 8 in and 8 out.
N4 Sonex test 44.1 8 in 8 out
buffer________cubase cpu meter max peak_______xp cpu meter range
================================================================
64____________55%_____________________________30-36%
128___________35%_____________________________23-29%
256___________31%_____________________________16-24%
512___________25%_____________________________15-22%
1024__________25%_____________________________15-20%
FiveTowers
buffer________cubase cpu meter max peak_______xp cpu meter range
================================================================
64____________31%_____________________________19-22%
128___________21%_____________________________13-23%
256___________18%_____________________________11-15%
512___________15%_____________________________8-16%
1024___________13%____________________________8-15%
I have included some graphs for these tests with outher machines.
Cheers
Andy
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dmosc
Joined: Jun 23, 2003 Posts: 298
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mosc
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Joined: Jan 31, 2003 Posts: 18240 Location: Durham, NC
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Posted: Tue Sep 19, 2006 8:46 pm Post subject:
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It looks like Apple is using mother boards from Intel. The Mac Pro looks like a very nice box, but you can get nice boxes elsewhere too, like http://www.newegg.com/ProductSort/Subcategory.asp?Subcategory=7
By using Intel chips, Apple can only offer hardware that is at best as good as the competition.
Sometimes I think Jobs is a genious, and sometimes I think he isn't. I believe it would make Apple a lot of money if they would OEM the operating system and support it on the same platforms that Windows, Linux, Unix, Solaris, BSD, etc run on. IMHO, if they did this, they would sell 5 to 10 times as many operating systems as they sell now, and probably the same amount of hardware.
I bet OSX would then start to be picked up by businesses. It would be big.
UPDATE: Just reading the Mac Pro spec sheet. Do I read correctly? No onboard RAID controller? Maybe I'm missing something.  _________________ --Howard
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Eggotrip
Joined: Sep 19, 2006 Posts: 6 Location: Atlanta
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Posted: Tue Sep 19, 2006 10:34 pm Post subject:
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Things to keep in mind about the Mac Pro
1) Price comparison to anything on the market with similar specs it is less.
2) OSX rules, and being able to run Windows either as a fully functional reboot or at ~70% speed along side OSX is a great catch all (via Parallels)
3) There are many good benchmarks of the internal raid arrays (0 or 1 arrays or combos of these)
4) I think apple for the most part has made better decisions than other PC makers with what hardware to support in their machines and what to leave behind. Being more progressive with hardware and their OS is why the creative fields have stuck with apple. Its a competitive advantage to their hardware, especially when bundled with their OS and other great software. At this point with the intel chips running WinXP or Vista fine, you either want OSX and its apps or you don't. So a non-mac OSX isn't needed. My experience since switching from XP to Mac about 2 years ago has been nothing but positive. |
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elektro80
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Joined: Mar 25, 2003 Posts: 21959 Location: Norway
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Posted: Tue Sep 19, 2006 11:18 pm Post subject:
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mosc wrote: | UPDATE: Just reading the Mac Pro spec sheet. Do I read correctly? No onboard RAID controller? Maybe I'm missing something.  |
AFAIK, there is no hardware based RAID support in the Mac Pro, which is quite OK with me because you can either buy a 3rd party controller card or use an external raid device wth its own controllers. OS X does come with a nice software based raid support though, which is cool but noone would ever use this without a high end UPS anyway, so the actual benefit of this is limited.
There are now 4 HD slots in the new Mac Pro. This is excellent but it is still too few for a fully functional large scale level 5 RAID with a hot spare. I prefer external RAID devices with redundant power supplies. _________________ A Charity Pantomime in aid of Paranoid Schizophrenics descended into chaos yesterday when someone shouted, "He's behind you!"
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elektro80
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Joined: Mar 25, 2003 Posts: 21959 Location: Norway
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Posted: Tue Sep 19, 2006 11:42 pm Post subject:
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Just for the record, the Apple XRAID is excellent. It is an inexpensive enterprise level RAID device with a nice mix of features. _________________ A Charity Pantomime in aid of Paranoid Schizophrenics descended into chaos yesterday when someone shouted, "He's behind you!"
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BobTheDog

Joined: Feb 28, 2005 Posts: 4044 Location: England
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Posted: Wed Sep 20, 2006 1:30 am Post subject:
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dmosc wrote: | http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16819117085
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813151023
I could go on... basically you're paying nearly $1000 for a fancy case and their version of an OS. I can't see this as a good value for anybody who wants to run anything but mac-only applications but whatever floats your boat. |
The MacPro in the UK is very cheap for what you get, I do not understand your post!
The machine I got was basically £1500 cheaper than equivalents from IBM, DELL and HP.
Cheers
Andy |
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BobTheDog

Joined: Feb 28, 2005 Posts: 4044 Location: England
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Posted: Wed Sep 20, 2006 1:42 am Post subject:
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elektro80 wrote: | mosc wrote: | UPDATE: Just reading the Mac Pro spec sheet. Do I read correctly? No onboard RAID controller? Maybe I'm missing something.  |
AFAIK, there is no hardware based RAID support in the Mac Pro, which is quite OK with me because you can either buy a 3rd party controller card or use an external raid device wth its own controllers. OS X does come with a nice software based raid support though, which is cool but noone would ever use this without a high end UPS anyway, so the actual benefit of this is limited.
There are now 4 HD slots in the new Mac Pro. This is excellent but it is still too few for a fully functional large scale level 5 RAID with a hot spare. I prefer external RAID devices with redundant power supplies. |
Hi Guys,
The MacPro uses an Intel 5000x based motherboard, paired with a ESB2 Southbridge. Now the ESB2 Southbridgae actually does support hardware raid 0/1/5/10 across 6 SATA ports.
So basically the MacPro does have hardware raid, but Apple in their wisdom have decided not to use it. Maybe in the future this will be enabled, complaints have already been voiced to apple about this situation.
Cheers
Andy |
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Eggotrip
Joined: Sep 19, 2006 Posts: 6 Location: Atlanta
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Posted: Wed Sep 20, 2006 4:38 am Post subject:
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But like elektro mentioned, 4 drive spaces isn't enough for a real solution of RAID 5 or others besides 1,0 - so what's the point of using the hardware raid?
The two on board sata spots are meant for potential drive bay SATA devices, so there are two potential more but at the loss of optical drives. With eSATA does it matter anyways?
If speed is your concen than one great benchmark for the internal raid:
http://www.barefeats.com/quad07.html
And IMO this is the easiest implementation for a raid. Apple's Drive Utility is a great program for applying raid, partions, or formatting (versus the XP equal being a well hidden nightmare - I use my Macs to make FAT32 partitions because of the pain required for the same in XP, and its a MS format). I abandoned RAID after using it once before on windows (mobo hardware raid), but now when I expand by 500 gigs will get 2x 250 instead for the increased bang for my buck without added hassle. |
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BobTheDog

Joined: Feb 28, 2005 Posts: 4044 Location: England
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Posted: Wed Sep 20, 2006 5:00 am Post subject:
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Hi,
Well the hardware raid would be nice for us XP users.
Concerning setup: the raid setup is actually done in the southbridge outside of the OS completely, each OS would just see a disk.
This is how most PC Raid systems work, I have never had to setup anything in XP.
Cheers
Andy |
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Eggotrip
Joined: Sep 19, 2006 Posts: 6 Location: Atlanta
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Posted: Wed Sep 20, 2006 5:22 am Post subject:
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Ahh, I see your point. Wouldn't effect me as I wouldn't fat 32 my raid drives so that Windows could read/write to them. I kinda like to keep Win sectioned off in its own world where it can't see (and corrupt via a virus) to my other files. |
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mosc
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Joined: Jan 31, 2003 Posts: 18240 Location: Durham, NC
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Posted: Wed Sep 20, 2006 8:20 am Post subject:
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I would not run any computer without RAID 1 - drive mirroring. Drives are the most failure prone devices because of the mechanical aspects. External RAID arrays are great but a bit overkill for a personal workstation.
As for the price, dmosc was talking about building your own. I think his point was that you could build an equivalent computer to the Mac Pro using parts from NewEgg (or other supplier) for about $1000. Time to assemble is usually about two hours from my experience. I personally like building computers for many reasons.
1) you save a lot of money
2) you get exactly what you want or need - for example, you can focus on very quiet design for use in a music studio, or ultra graphics performance if you are a gamer.
3) you can easilly upgrade and add components
4) you can fix it yourself - saves downtime and money
5) you get a good sense of accomplishment like using a DIY synth
6) it is easy even for old timers with bad eyesight - the only tools you need are a couple of screw drivers.
7) lots of fun
Actually, using an add on RAID controller is not a bad thing and I would recommend to anyone running a Mac Pro, or any other computer for that matter, to get one. A good RAID system should be independent of the OS, IMHO. Better than that, use two add on RAID controllers and use duplexing - individual controller for each mirror. When you loose a RAID controller you can in some cases currupt both mirrors - very unpleasant. When this happens on a RAID 5 installation - yikes...  _________________ --Howard
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BobTheDog

Joined: Feb 28, 2005 Posts: 4044 Location: England
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Posted: Wed Sep 20, 2006 9:05 am Post subject:
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Hi Howard,
I don't believe you could make one for $1000!
I have had a look around for prices as an experiment:
The basic 2.66 woodcrest processor cost about $730 (If you can find them in stock), so times that by two and we have $1,460 .
1GB ram is $299.
So we are up to $1759 already.
Now add a motherboard, case, memory, powersupply, fans, video card etc and I bet you can't do it much cheaper than apple!
Nowadays its not that cheaper (if at all) to make your own machine, the manufacturers get much better prices on components.
Cheers
Andy |
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mosc
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Joined: Jan 31, 2003 Posts: 18240 Location: Durham, NC
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Posted: Wed Sep 20, 2006 9:42 am Post subject:
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You are right, those processors are very expensive - wow. That memory is not all that cheap either. Most probably in a few months they will go down in price, but as it stands now, the Mac Pro is pretty resonably priced.
 _________________ --Howard
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ian-s

Joined: Apr 01, 2004 Posts: 2672 Location: Auckland, New Zealand
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Posted: Wed Sep 20, 2006 11:28 am Post subject:
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So I can run XP and RAID 1 on this box.
Is it quiet? |
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Eggotrip
Joined: Sep 19, 2006 Posts: 6 Location: Atlanta
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Posted: Wed Sep 20, 2006 7:37 pm Post subject:
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Its very quiet - but your choices of HD's and video card can impact that.
Mine is a standard config 2.66 with 2 gigs of ram - and I've yet to get the fans to kick up. Not much different than my mac mini in sound(without considering its off the side of my desk instead of on it).
Mac talk aside, I enjoy building myself, but I've never considered the method to be cheaper. That is because of the few parts that end up not working out or need early replacement.
I'll agree with the points of knowing how to fix it yourself and knowing how to upgrade. But considering I enjoy just having more uptime, than constantly pulling out the phillips - my heart isn't aching for DIY. I think anyone who truely enjoys computer video games should build their own. For that a self built Conroe system for about 1500 is much more sensible than the MP because games aren't taking advantage of four cores and you have the possibility of SLI.
Personally, I've given up on CPU gaming for the same reason I'm not missing DIY computing - consoles have more uptime. Less time fiddling with installing, settings, upgrades, fixes, frame rate issues, etc. Also more variety of games, its more relaxing on the couch, big screen TV, Dolby surround sound, and controllers are easier to learn to play most games (I like the 360's FPS controls, but wouldn't think traditional RTS could work). The next computer game I am looking forward to is Spore.
So for me a CPU is primarily for information gathering/exchange, music listening, and music playing. |
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elektro80
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Joined: Mar 25, 2003 Posts: 21959 Location: Norway
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Posted: Wed Sep 20, 2006 11:25 pm Post subject:
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The actual cost of something like the Mac Pro might in fact also be "lower" than the alternatives due to the fact that Apple is prety good at tuning firmware and drivers and stuff so there will be less time spent for making this work as they are supposed to. I have spent too many hours surfing the web for PC related software patches and drivers, and if any vendor out there is getting it right that would be Apple. _________________ A Charity Pantomime in aid of Paranoid Schizophrenics descended into chaos yesterday when someone shouted, "He's behind you!"
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BobTheDog

Joined: Feb 28, 2005 Posts: 4044 Location: England
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Posted: Thu Sep 21, 2006 1:04 am Post subject:
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g2ian wrote: | So I can run XP and RAID 1 on this box.
Is it quiet? |
Hi,
At the moment you cannot run with raid 1 on a standard MacPro running XP as far as I can tell.
The chipset does support it but how you would go about enabling it without help from Apple I have no idea.
It is very quiet, the stock 500GB drive I got is a bit noisy thats about it.
Cheers
Andy |
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BobTheDog

Joined: Feb 28, 2005 Posts: 4044 Location: England
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Posted: Thu Sep 21, 2006 1:08 am Post subject:
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mosc wrote: | You are right, those processors are very expensive - wow. That memory is not all that cheap either. Most probably in a few months they will go down in price, but as it stands now, the Mac Pro is pretty resonably priced.
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In the Uk the price difference is more astounding as parts like cpu and memory basically have a 1 to 1 relationship between dollars and pounds, while the apple pricing is much more realistic, the base mac is 1699 in the UK and 2499 in the states.
edit: Actually the component differencs are not much more here at $322.66, processors 1,818.19. So I was wrong about that! Things must have changed since I last looked at these things.
Cheers
Andy |
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