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

I think on balance that if you could afford the 8 cores, you've made a solid choice. Enjoy when it arrives. Enjoy even more when 10.6 arrives

<< Jealous

Good call - given the length of time you are hoping to be able to keep the computer it's a given that software will catch up to the compute power you just bought and then some.

The big add on that will make the most of the CPUs is RAM. I added 4 2GB sticks of Crucial RAM (lots cheaper than Apple's) to mine to give it 10GB and find that I am typically running at around 5.5-6GB when I have everything I want open and usable. It's nice not waiting for your computer to catch up with what you ask it to do when you are trying to wade through 200+ photos at the end of a day's worth of shooting.

sure definitely. I already ordered 2 2gig sticks to add to the 2 gigs the computer comes with, I figure that 6gb should be more than enough for this software cycle, then in a year or so I can buy more, and hopefully 4 gig sticks will be a lot less then too.

That should do fine for now. I wasn't sure how much I needed to keep all of my tasks active for my current software when I got mine and subsequent glances I have taken at system resources suggest that most of the time I am just below 6GB.

The one thing we can always count on is the fact that RAM gets cheaper through time.

Is it a good idea to have matched pairs of memory?

Billginthekeys wrote in post #5993652
... I figured both arguments had good points but only one side could lead to no regrets.

Wow, sage thinking.

P.S.,. Now i'm jealous...

tim wrote in post #5995996
Is it a good idea to have matched pairs of memory?

Yes - you have to add the DIMMs as matched pairs. This is not optional.

CyberDyneSystems wrote in post #5985956
I[m not familiar with the Mac-intel MOBO architecture,

Of course not. Has been outdated for over two hundred years.

I must be out of date if Apple is no longer using intel CPUs ?

To swerve off my swerving off the thread...

... as far as I have researched, most software is not able to use eight cores. To use eight cores, software has to be specifically written to do so.

I wonder if, when you bought 8 cores now, have 4 cores sitting around thumb-twiddling.

Except you always have other applications running in the background, then you could benefit.

How much is the price difference between 4 and 8 cores? Do you have applications running in the background? What if you bought the cheaper machine now, and upgraded in a year or two? If there's a 1000 Dollar difference between 4 and 8 cores...?

What applications are you running mostly? If it's Photoshop or other image editing apps, I doubt if they can use more than 2 or 4 cores...

As far as I have heard, some 3D apps can use 8 cores.

CyberDyneSystems wrote in post #5996584
I must be out of date if Apple is no longer using intel CPUs ?

Apple? Do they still have Apple Computers in the future? Weren't they taken over by... you?

tim wrote in post #5995996
Is it a good idea to have matched pairs of memory?

That's what I heard.

Read, actually, I read it. Could have said "heard", too. Just not literally. Guess this is not the day for literal statements. So I finally decided to write "read".

Beaufort 12 wrote in post #5996590
To swerve off my swerving off the thread...

... as far as I have researched, most software is not able to use eight cores. To use eight cores, software has to be specifically written to do so.

I wonder if, when you bought 8 cores now, have 4 cores sitting around thumb-twiddling.

Except you always have other applications running in the background, then you could benefit.

How much is the price difference between 4 and 8 cores? Do you have applications running in the background? What if you bought the cheaper machine now, and upgraded in a year or two? If there's a 1000 Dollar difference between 4 and 8 cores...?

What applications are you running mostly? If it's Photoshop or other image editing apps, I doubt if they can use more than 2 or 4 cores...

As far as I have heard, some 3D apps can use 8 cores.

Wonderful post, great way of moving the thread off topic and, believe it not, wrong.

It has been proven that photoshop does use all 4 cores in a quad core machine, and performance numbers would indicate it uses all 8 in a dual quad core.
There is nothing to suggest it can't use as many as you throw at it, and the large render farms that utilise hundreds of CPUs at the same time would tend to back that idea up.

For an application to use more than 1 core, all it needs is to be running more than 1 thread of code.
When used in a good operating system, each thread will be given to a separate processor until you either run out of threads or processors.
This process is more more efficent by having dual sockets with dual bus controllers etc. It's why CDS's antiquated skynet will process the photoshop test file faster than my nice modern quadcore.

You benifit from 8 cores if you burn DVD's , CD's , back up your computer , Go on internet while running CS 3 in back ground -- any 3 at same time .
Mine slows down when time machine , internet and downloading pictures thru firewire are doing there thing at same time .