Anandtech reviews XP performance and tests 8-core
Very interesting:
http://www.anandtech.com/mac/showdoc.aspx?i=2832&p=1
Bottom line:
1) FB-DIMMs slow the machine down while encoding and playing games as compared to a Core 2 Duo machine with regular DDR. He tested with the 7300GT so the X1900 may help offset this speed penalty a bit. The penalty in speed wasn't at all huge, but it was at least 5% as compared with a Core 2 Duo Extreme.
It still isn't clear how much memory he used on the MP in the tests. He admits that more modules = better bandwidth (well, that's grossly simplified, but you know that 8X512 [good] or 8X1GB [best] is the best for bandwidth)
2) 3rd party RAM without an Apple-sized heatsink may cause ECC errors
3) Quad core chips (Clovertown) WILL work. He tested engineering samples and found the Mac Pro found all 8 cores just fine. Impressive! I think the cost of buying these processors will make such upgrades not financially reasonable, but it is nice to know that it will probably just work.
4) Only some applications will use over 2 cores. Unless you're a heavy multitasker or run heavily multithreaded apps like Cinema 4D, you won't see much of an increase over a Core 2 Duo. This is especially true moving to 8 cores, and even more so considering the quad-core chips will top out at 2.66 GHz.
http://www.anandtech.com/mac/showdoc.aspx?i=2832&p=1
Bottom line:
1) FB-DIMMs slow the machine down while encoding and playing games as compared to a Core 2 Duo machine with regular DDR. He tested with the 7300GT so the X1900 may help offset this speed penalty a bit. The penalty in speed wasn't at all huge, but it was at least 5% as compared with a Core 2 Duo Extreme.
It still isn't clear how much memory he used on the MP in the tests. He admits that more modules = better bandwidth (well, that's grossly simplified, but you know that 8X512 [good] or 8X1GB [best] is the best for bandwidth)
2) 3rd party RAM without an Apple-sized heatsink may cause ECC errors
3) Quad core chips (Clovertown) WILL work. He tested engineering samples and found the Mac Pro found all 8 cores just fine. Impressive! I think the cost of buying these processors will make such upgrades not financially reasonable, but it is nice to know that it will probably just work.
4) Only some applications will use over 2 cores. Unless you're a heavy multitasker or run heavily multithreaded apps like Cinema 4D, you won't see much of an increase over a Core 2 Duo. This is especially true moving to 8 cores, and even more so considering the quad-core chips will top out at 2.66 GHz.
Mac Pro 3.0/3X500GB/2XSD/7300GT/BT/4GB*MBP 15" 2.0/256/2GB/7200*iMac Intel 17", Mac OS X (10.4.7)
