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Level 1

2 points

New Mac Pro - 6 or 12 cores for Logic?

Hi

I'm about to place an order for a new Mac Pro, to replace our previous Mac Pro.

Does anyone know if the 12 or the 6 core model is likely to deliver the best performance with Logic? The 6 core is clocked higher than the 12 core - 3.33GHz v 2.93GHz - and it's hard to get a handle on whether the additional cores are likely to compensate for the lower speed.

Does anyone who knows more than me about this stuff have a view? Is Logic even able to fully utilize all 12 cores?

On our current 8-core system I tend to see activity across 4 or 5 cores only, and the times we hit performance issues are when 1 particular core is being maxed out, even though others are idle or running at low load. That said, we're still using OS 10.5 so maybe load balancing is improved with 10.6.

Any help or advice very much appreciated.

Jules
http://www.trailermen.com

Mac Pro 8 Core, Mac OS X (10.4.10)

Posted on Aug 12, 2010 6:40 AM

Best reply

Mike Connelly

Level 4

1,791 points

Posted on Aug 12, 2010 7:32 AM

Nobody knows yet. I'd wait until they are shipping, which should only be a week or two, and see what the user reports online are from Logic users.

Also, as you have seen, Logic is not well optimized for all numbers of cores. When the new hardware is released, it's possible that Logic will be updated at some point to better utilize more cores, or it may take months or years to catch up with the hardware (the current situation). If you have an eight core already, personally I'd stick with that since it's not being used to its full potential yet. Is it a 2008 or 2009 MP?

You may be able to adjust your sessions to better balance the load, check this out:

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3161

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201 replies

iSchwartz

Level 5

4,321 points

Sep 19, 2010 12:52 AM in response to spheric

spheric wrote:
It's like YouTube comments for composers.

Guess you're not a big Apple Loops fan...

😉

spheric

Level 3

699 points

Sep 19, 2010 1:03 AM in response to iSchwartz

iSchwartz wrote:

spheric wrote:
It's like YouTube comments for composers.

Guess you're not a big Apple Loops fan...

😉

Guess you're right. 🙂

Brglfnk

Level 1

20 points

Sep 20, 2010 4:06 PM in response to Mike Connelly

Mike Connelly wrote:

21th Century wrote:
An update to support the new 6- and 12-cores should be coming soon, but don't expect HT core support. Maybe the (accidentally) introduced HT support for Quads will go away too.

I think that particular genie is already out of the bottle. Can you imagine the reaction from quad owners if a "fix" cut their processing power in half? Apple does some odd things, but that one is hard to imagine even from them.

My guess is that the Logic team is currently finishing up the Garage Band update and they may be able to get back working on Logic once that's out the door.

Okay, so let's see if we can put together some of these pieces of information and come up with some kind of conclusion. The quad will run Logic with 4+4=8 (real plus virtual HT cores). There may be an update soon that will take advantage of all six (real) cores on the hex model. But "don't expect HT core support". Meanwhile, the available clock speed on the octo model is slower than that on the quad.

So of these three, the quad ought to be the best bet for Logic, even assuming the next Logic update does add more multi-core support. If it does not, of course the quad still comes out on top anyway.

Meanwhile, it just seems to me that if the Logic developers had good news as 21th Century suggests, they would want to share it with us ... and they haven't ... so a bit of healthy skepticism may be in order. So the 12-core would require not only the big price premium but a measure of wishfulness as well.

Consequently, my logic still leads me back to the quad as the surest bet for running Logic.

If you see any holes in this reasoning, please be my guest. I am only trying to get to the truth here ... to the extent we can know it.

Ravich

Level 1

8 points

Sep 20, 2010 10:24 PM in response to Brglfnk

Wait. When does Apple ever share good news?

Sep 21, 2010 7:17 AM in response to Brglfnk

Brglfnk wrote:
So of these three, the quad ought to be the best bet for Logic, even assuming the next Logic update does add more multi-core support. If it does not, of course the quad still comes out on top anyway.

Assuming multi core support my guess would be the 12 is fastest, then the hex, then octo, then the quad. The only one that's really a question is the octo since it's the one with much lower clock speed.

Meanwhile, it just seems to me that if the Logic developers had good news as 21th Century suggests, they would want to share it with us ... and they haven't ... so a bit of healthy skepticism may be in order.

Apple never shares anything. 64 bit was big news but they didn't breathe a word until it was released, so I'd expect no advance word before an update. We might get Logic 9.1.2 or we might get nothing until Logic 10 next year.

Brglfnk

Level 1

20 points

Sep 21, 2010 7:24 AM in response to Mike Connelly

Thanks much, Mike. Your comments in this thread have been very helpful.

New Mac Pro - 6 or 12 cores for Logic?