8 Cores

[MacRobbo]

Im just curious what the eight cores in the Mac Pro are for? Hardly any software uses this right? Im considering a Mac pro as next pc, even though its a long time away.

[grorr76]

that will change with the next operating system snow leopard, multi core access and acceleration is promised in 10.6 ..

[areal]

I was using my Mac Pro as a box to run numerical simulations. Eight cores meant I could generate data four times as fast as on an iMac or a MacBook Pro. Now I have a MacBook Air which generates jerky HD video playback, bag space, and heaps of ooohs and ahhhs. I also think that eight cores would be useful for video encoding, but I don't know much about that.

[MacRobbo]

oh ok havent read much about snow leopard, but it sounds good. Id better start saving for it actually.

[decryption]

More cores = more stuff running at once.
With 8 cores you could encode a bunch of movies at once, whilst still having very fast speeds for checking your email/surfing web etc.

Same with more RAM.

I want an 8 core Mac Pro with 16GB of RAM and 4x 1TB HDD's in RAID10, ahah

[melted.marsbar]

Whilst still on the same trail of thought... I'm thinking of upgrading from my PowerBook to a MacBook (C2D) soon... So does that mean it will be super-dooper fast in comparison? I would have two cores to take advantage of?

[Hamsmyth]

Originally Posted by melted.marsbar

Whilst still on the same trail of thought... I'm thinking of upgrading from my PowerBook to a MacBook (C2D) soon... So does that mean it will be super-dooper fast in comparison? I would have two cores to take advantage of?

You will definately notice an increase. The main difference will be the more modern architecture of the Intel chips. ALso, throw as much RAM in there as you can - its cheap these days and is so worth it.

[dangelovich]

I find the raw processing power of my Mac Pro goes unused most of the time.
I run a few Virtual Machines on it now and then, and the numerous cores are very useful in these cases. I also encode/transcode some video files - but even that doesn't take full advantage of all 8 cores. I don't think I've seen any one app use up all the CPU time.

It is good to know this beast can handle *anything* I can throw at it.

[Brains]

Originally Posted by MacRobbo

Im just curious what the eight cores in the Mac Pro are for? Hardly any software uses this right?

Nope -- just about everything that's well-written can make use of however many cores there happen to be. Programs which make use of "threads" can do multiple things at the same time, if the resources are there to do it.

Old-school programming was self-contained, they would do one thing after another after another, and the OS would tell the program when it could have its share of the processor. With threads, a program can assign a sub-task to a thread and hand the thread to the OS; the OS will pick up the first available processing unit and then slot it into the multitasking system. If there is only the one processor, the thread has to complete before the program can send another. With multiple processors, multiple threads can run concurrently; its as if a program is actually a little OS of its own with several sub-programs running.

[forgie]

Originally Posted by Brains

Nope -- just about everything that's well-written can make use of however many cores there happen to be. Programs which make use of "threads" can do multiple things at the same time, if the resources are there to do it.

Old-school programming was self-contained, they would do one thing after another after another, and the OS would tell the program when it could have its share of the processor. With threads, a program can assign a sub-task to a thread and hand the thread to the OS; the OS will pick up the first available processing unit and then slot it into the multitasking system. If there is only the one processor, the thread has to complete before the program can send another. With multiple processors, multiple threads can run concurrently; its as if a program is actually a little OS of its own with several sub-programs running.

The only problem is, with any reasonably complex software project, threads break programmers brains. It all seems easy in trivial cases, but anything non-trivial in a GUI application can quickly become headache inducing for the programmer. That's where GCD and blocks come into the picture - "threading" (or the equivalent of threading), without the broken brain. Everyone wins! 10.6 FTW.

[AnthoMac]

Originally Posted by melted.marsbar

Whilst still on the same trail of thought... I'm thinking of upgrading from my PowerBook to a MacBook (C2D) soon... So does that mean it will be super-dooper fast in comparison? I would have two cores to take advantage of?

I'd personally wait until the MacBook refresh if your PowerBook is still serving you well (slowly, but surely). But depending on your model, your PowerBook may have a superiour videocard unless you opt for the MacBook Pro in which case it'll fly compared.

[MacRobbo]

Also what is the point of 16GB of RAM in a Mac Pro?

[Piratbyran]

More apps open + ram disks rock

[MacRobbo]

But 16GB? Youd think at least 4GB would be enough....unless your after a supercomputer.

[Phase]

Originally Posted by MacRobbo

Also what is the point of 16GB of RAM in a Mac Pro?

More applications able to run at maximum potential.

Open CS3 with several large images, Lightroom, Safari, a torrent program and mail at the same time, and tell me how much ram you have left.

I have 8Gbs in my Mac Pro, and the answer is 'not much'

[MacRobbo]

actually i have never tried many images in CS3 so I guess I should give it a go.

[Lachie]

i have 4Gb and currently im using about 2.5Gb's with Transmission, iTunes, Safari and Adium open. these are all pretty mundane tasks as well.

[AfterBurner_1]

Originally Posted by dangelovich

I find the raw processing power of my Mac Pro goes unused most of the time.
I run a few Virtual Machines on it now and then, and the numerous cores are very useful in these cases. I also encode/transcode some video files - but even that doesn't take full advantage of all 8 cores. I don't think I've seen any one app use up all the CPU time.

It is good to know this beast can handle *anything* I can throw at it.

perhaps you throw BOINC at it and some SETI,Einstein and Rosetta.

works just fine on my E6600.

[feeze]

Originally Posted by MacRobbo

But 16GB? Youd think at least 4GB would be enough....unless your after a supercomputer.

Bill Gates once said 640k would be enough.

The thing you have to take into consideration is 64 bit computing.

Right now a 32 bit apps (which is the majority of apps you are using and the Mac OS X kernel) can address a maximum of 4 GB (4 000 000 000 bytes) of memory.

A 64 bit app on the other hand can theoretically address a total 16 EB (16 000 000 000 000 000 000 bytes) of memory. Current Core 2 chips can address a maximum of 256 TB.

While those numbers may seem absolutely absurd, when you start to think about the potential data sets 64 bit computing can process, these massive amount of RAM become essential. To quote Apple;

“To put the difference between 32-bit and 64-bit computing into perspective, imagine that you are working with a dataset in which the road area of the Golden Gate bridge can be represented in a 32-bit address space. With 64 bits of address space, you have the ability to model the entire surface of the Earth at the same resolution.”

Imagine using Google Earth without to constantly stream the data. Or even better Google Galaxy.

These large data set will take space and I can guarantee developers will use it.

Combine this with multi-core processing and a all sudden the potential of your machine becomes enormous. As it is right now, the Mac Pro is not being used to it's full potential. This will change over the next decade and I believe we will start seeing some amazing stuff.

Also you must remember the Mac Pro is a high end workstation that is targeted towards professional users who require large amounts of computing power. So 8 cores with 16 GB RAM isn't that excessive.

EDIT: BTW Snow Leopard will be a full 64 bit OS.

[Lachie]

dont forget about Moores law. generally he's spot on, and if thats the case things like 512 bit CPUs are only about 5 years away. although some how that seems rediculous, its plausable.