Mac 8core 2.8 gHz Harpertown 16-32 gig RAM vs. New 2.66 gHz Nehalem with 8-16 gig Ram

[abenkori]

Hello to all:

I will be running Pro Tools V.8.0 on my mac-which apparently will either be a used 8-core 2.8 Harpertown machine (which I will upgrade to 16 or even 32 gig RAM), OR: a reconditioned 2.66 Nehalem quadcore machine, which as we all know, is limited (according to mac formalities ) to 8 Gig RAM.


I know many people say that with aftermarket chips (which I'll be using anyway-so as not to grossly OVERPAY!), we can cram in double the apple spec, and get 16 gig of DDR3 RAM in the new quadcore.

I plan to use BFD's latest version, a bit of soft synths, and plenty of compressors, eqs, F/X, and I'd like to Keep things flexible (in the MIDI realm) and not bounce to audio , so I know RAM is important....but the advantages of a newer quadcore vs the Harpertown 8 core can be blurred according to who you talk to...usually computer salespeople who don't know much about pro audio, and couldn't care less! They talk up what they have on hand to peddle... Only PT users are gonna' have real world answers.


My Question is:

Would you rather have a year-old 8-core Harpertown machine upgradeable to 32 GIG of DDR2 Ram, or the new 2.66 Nehalem machine, which may max out at 8 GIG of DDR3 (or even 16 GIG DDR3)?
Thanks so much.

[tamasdragon]

If you have money, I vote for the new one. Nehalem is faster, though both computer is beast.
Tamas Dragon

[NHH]

I'd be tempted to wait a couple of weeks as Snow Leopard is imminent.

Evidently this can access the CPU for basic tasks a lot quicker than Leopard which could have massive impact on the performance of ProTools.

I've seen Snow Leopard running - flicking through photographs etc. and the re-draw is much much tighter than Leopard on the same machine.

[abenkori]

Do you mean that you think a Nahelem single quadcore processore is likely to work better with Snow Leopard than an 8-core harpertown Xeon machine? I believe I could upgrade to snow leopard, backwards compatible to a year-old harpertown intel processor machine.. I think the cost of an upgrade is either free or affordable...what I want to find out is whether thr 1-yr old 8 core is better than the 6 month old quadcore nehalem.

What I am really asking everyone, is their opinion about two-to four times the the RAM capacity (albeit DDR2) in the harpertown 8-core-which is 32gig-versus the single quadcore nahalem-which, according to mac, will max out at only 8 GIG... and (may be upgradeable, while voiding Mac's warranty) to 16 gig.

that's the critical question.
Slightly an apples-to oranges comparisson, but I'm sure some one among us has real experience comparing

Thanks.

[tamasdragon]

I would rather have the new one with "only" 16gigs of ram.
I think it is better, and more future proof if we can say something like this in the computer world.
Tamas Dragon

[sunburst79]

Originally Posted by abenkori

Do you mean that you think a Nahelem single quadcore processore is likely to work better with Snow Leopard than an 8-core harpertown Xeon machine? I believe I could upgrade to snow leopard, backwards compatible to a year-old harpertown intel processor machine.. I think the cost of an upgrade is either free or affordable...what I want to find out is whether thr 1-yr old 8 core is better than the 6 month old quadcore nehalem.

What I am really asking everyone, is their opinion about two-to four times the the RAM capacity (albeit DDR2) in the harpertown 8-core-which is 32gig-versus the single quadcore nahalem-which, according to mac, will max out at only 8 GIG... and (may be upgradeable, while voiding Mac's warranty) to 16 gig.

that's the critical question.
Slightly an apples-to oranges comparisson, but I'm sure some one among us has real experience comparing

Thanks.

AFIK you should be able to replace your RAM without voiding the warranty. Apples configuration options seem more geared towards forcing you to upgrade to a dual processor machine rather than giving you a capable single processor one.

[se.audio]

Hey, I'm no big tech or anything, but in my amateur geek opinion, you are still better off with 8 processors to allocate to your plugins. even if it's against 4 better processors. The Nehalehem cores are not twice as good as the harpetown, so technically, you get more with the old 8 core. Remember though that until PT is 64bit compatible, 8, 16, or 32 gigs of ram won't make a difference...