Future Proofing your Computer: one or two Quad cores on new mac pro?

*Read before voting*

Well the title pretty much says it. I have done a lot of research reading articles and looking at benchmarks on sites like barefeats.com, but I still can't come to a conclusion on the importance of having two quad core processors. Basically as early as tonite I am purchasing a mac pro tower, and I want it to last me a good long time. As much as I don't want to go cheap on it, $450 is a lot of money. But the only thing I can't upgrade (and keep warranty) as programs demand and can use more features is the cpu's.

I of course mainly run Photoshop and other programs in the CS3 suite, but also do some video editing (and might do more down the line, but its not really a priority), and gaming (in 64bit Vista). So while all that I've seen so far shows no speed increase in the current gen of photoshop from having the extra cpu, it seems likely the next version will. Also apple's next OS snow leopard claims it will have increased support for this technology.

So basically, I know the situation pretty well, but am looking for any extra insights for people who have gone through the same process, and just strait up opinions.

I am putting up a poll, please only vote if you have a real opinion. Don't vote just because you think 8 cores sounds cool .

Thanks in advance,

Don't ever plan on "buying a computer to last a long time", you'll be disappointed every time.

That said, while you may not have use for 8 cores at the moment, that doesn't mean that you won't before you replace the machine. If Apple sucks so much that they'll void your warranty for installing a second CPU in a dual-processor system (NOTE: Not the same as replacing the existing processor with something faster, most OEMs don't appreciate that) then you don't really have a choice if you want to get full value for your money.

Okay when I say "long time" I mean like 4 years. I fully understand the life cycle of electronics, I would build my own computer but I'm fed up with Microsoft and having to constantly keep my computer up to speed. With up to 32gb of ram and 4TB of hard drive space and 8 cores I can't really see why it wouldn't last that long.

Truth be told, there aren't many applications that can fully leverage the power of that many cores yet (in that the code has not been written to accommodate that number of CPUs), and OS support for >4 CPUs is fairly thin on the ground too. However, it looks like a lot of that is set to change next year when Apple release 10.6 Snow Leopard. One of their main focuses is upon optimising multi-core CPU support within the OS, and also offering developers an easy way to optimise their apps to leverage all that power with a technology they're calling Grand Central. For this reason, this is one of the more interesting developments in the OS for a long time imo.

Rest assured that an 8 core machine bought now will perform very well, and will perform substantially better when the OSes and software are better optimized, which will happen next year.

If you plan to add a second CPU later on down the line, make sure it's from the same family as the one already in your machine - eg if the current processor is a Penryn, don't go sticking a Nehalem in the other slot.

Can you not leave the socket empty and get another CPU later?

In the foreseable future the only speedup you get from 4 to 8 cores is with batch jobs, and with them you can usually wait anyway. I'd get 4 cores for now.

Yes, but apple assumes that its customers are all too stupid to know how to put a part in a slot, and thus adding the part will void your warranty.

I do know that PSCS (or PS8) will use every bit of a pair of dual cores (4 cores total) as will all of my preferred RAW converters (Bibbil, RSP and Lightroom)

I would have to assume that all of the above, especially when we talk about PSCS being on V4 in a short while, will use all 8 cores.

I[m not familiar with the Mac-intel MOBO architecture, but I do know that one of the benefits of the Mobo I am using (whcih is now waaaaaaaay old tech), is that by it's having dual sockets, it also has dual memory controllers and dual buses, allowing each bank of memory (one for each socket, or one for each pair of cores in my twin Dual core situation) also adds a huge performance boost to memory handling over for instance a single socket board with a single quad core.

I'd look into the architecture and see what other performance gains one can gain from a dual socket mobo,.

I doubt you'd get much more performance interactively going from 4 to 8 cores, just batch performance increases.

It'd also be worth confirming with Apple, as unlikely as it is, but just to be safe, that if you choose to go with only one processor for now, they don't fit your machine with a single socket board.

As I understand it, for most things you won't notice a difference. For video editing, though, you will use it (depending on the program you use), so it's well worth consideration in that case.

That's my understanding too Victoria (at least for the next 12-18 months).

Along with video editing, a number of the more recent Digital Audio Workstations are also well equipped to take (more) advantage of an increasing number of cores. Logic Pro springs to mind, as does Final Cut in terms of video editing apps.

It is nice to be able to run multiple applications on your computer and not have them step all over your interactive session. I just got a MacPro with the dual 4 cores a few weeks back after 5 years with my old dual processor G5 1.8GHz and am quite happy I took the plunge.

The place where I notice the extra CPU power the most is when I am working on photos late at night and my backup program starts up. I can see the icons activate while it starts scanning the filesystem for things that need to get backed up but it has no impact on me toggling back and forth between Lightroom, Bridge CS3 and Photoshop CS3 at all.

I can't wait for 10.6 to see what all this will be able to scale to up the road. It wasn't worth it to me to roll the dice on whether I would be able to add on another quad core CPU later. All things considered if you can get 4-5 years use out of a new computer anymore you have made a good choice. 4-5 year old PCs are ready for the junk heap and my old 2xG5 1.8GHz is getting bids on fleaBay that exceed the cost of a new dual core PC.

I just checked, my PC is 5 years old, I upgraded it a year ago to dual core (Athlon 4800+ X2 I think) and 2GB RAM and it still does everything about as quickly as the new core 2 duo I use at work. The Core2 will be faster at batches, and marginally faster interactively, but it's not a huge difference. PCs these days are pretty damn fast, so even a 50% gain isn't really making much difference - pretty damn fast to damn fast isn't huge.

8 cores are good. So is a lot of ram

If you're gonna do it, do it right the first time - 8 core FTW!!

Thanks for the advice guys, I ordered the 8 cores. I figured both arguments had good points but only one side could lead to no regrets.