Conumdrum: New Mac Pro?

[nst7]

The $300 upgrade from 256 to 512 of flash storage is more reasonable than I would have thought.

By the way, OWC is already offering ram for this new model, and they have trade-in rebates for the stock ram. If you're going for the 32 gigs, OWC is a much better deal.

Also interesting is that upgrading to 8 or 12 core is a much bigger jump than upgrading the 4 core to the 6 core.

I think once again the 6 core will probably be the sweet spot for balance of processor speed and number of cores.

[RyanC]

Originally Posted by nst7

I think once again the 6 core will probably be the sweet spot for balance of processor speed and number of cores.

These might be different. Certainly the 6 core will offer the best monetary value, but I think people are putting too much weight on the base clock speeds. e5 v2 xeons are all about turbo states for peak performance.

Considering the 6 core is 6x3.9 and the 12 is 12x3.5 and all of these are single chips, I expect the 12 core to scale better for audio than the 6 vs 12 of the last gen. Especially with 11 where the hybrid buffer will help with more effective multithreading. Only time will tell.

[Transputer]

Originally Posted by RyanC

These might be different. Certainly the 6 core will offer the best monetary value, but I think people are putting too much weight on the base clock speeds. e5 v2 xeons are all about turbo states for peak performance.

Considering the 6 core is 6x3.9 and the 12 is 12x3.5 and all of these are single chips, I expect the 12 core to scale better for audio than the 6 vs 12 of the last gen. Especially with 11 where the hybrid buffer will help with more effective multithreading. Only time will tell.

I am truly amazed that people aren't more clued up on these "new" Xeons. I posted over on Gears**** that not only are the Xeons tested but can be bought right now in the retail channel. I shouldn't have wasted my time there.

Overclockers have the BX80635E52697V2 - Intel Xeon E5-2697 V2, S 2011, 12 Core, 2.7GHz, 8.0GT/s QPI, 30MB Cache, 130W, in stock at £1999.99 they have a pair of them actually. Meantime do the build to order thing on Apple's store and you have a spend of £2800 to change up to the same 12 core from the quad xeon. That's not pretty at all.

Anandtech tests of the BX80635E52697V2 with Cinebench 11.5 are easy to find. All my recent builds have proved that Dverb2 scores and Cinebench scores are comparable. It matters not however, as even Dverb tests seem too much bother for most nowadays

[RyanC]

Originally Posted by Transputer

I am truly amazed that people aren't more clued up on these "new" Xeons. I posted over on Gears**** that not only are the Xeons tested but can be bought right now in the retail channel. I shouldn't have wasted my time there.

Overclockers have the BX80635E52697V2 - Intel Xeon E5-2697 V2, S 2011, 12 Core, 2.7GHz, 8.0GT/s QPI, 30MB Cache, 130W, in stock at £1999.99 they have a pair of them actually. Meantime do the build to order thing on Apple's store and you have a spend of £2800 to change up to the same 12 core from the quad xeon. That's not pretty at all.

Anandtech tests of the BX80635E52697V2 with Cinebench 11.5 are easy to find. All my recent builds have proved that Dverb2 scores and Cinebench scores are comparable. It matters not however, as even Dverb tests seem too much bother for most nowadays

Haha yeah...avid and even intel seem to both be aware that improving multithreaded performance and peak performance is crucial to get more out of these procs. Considering that a 2697 v2 can't run at full 3.5 for hours on end, and then considering dynamic processing + hybrid buffer and it almost seems like Avid knows what they are doing!

Actually with the hybrid buffer I bet a dual 2697 v2 could put up staggeringly high D-verb numbers (to match the price)...I guess over 2,000 which by the way would take 16 HDX cards.

Do you have a IBe xeon build? What are the D-verb numbers? Good old 3930k @4.5 here is running in the mid 900's in 11 and also running around 500 on auxes at the 32 buffer.

[nst7]

I don't understand a word you guys said, but what are you thinking would be the best configuration with these new Mac Pro's, aside from price?

[RyanC]

Originally Posted by nst7

I don't understand a word you guys said, but what are you thinking would be the best configuration with these new Mac Pro's, aside from price?

Haha. My *guess* is the 12 core will outperform the 6 core by 60-70% in practical use for audio with PT11. But it does depend a bit what *practical use* means for different people, the margin will be lower for those using the lowest buffer settings and having a lot of auxes (which cannot use the higher playback buffer).

[garnoil]

So...what is better for Pro-Tools 11:

3.5 Ghz 6 core with 16 RAM
or
3.0 Ghz 8 core with 16 RAM

Also, how much better is it, by this I mean, is it a little better (like you would not notice it) or is it a lot better that one would immediately notice a much better machine.

The 12 core come in at around 7K + the PCi e expansion card so that would be close to 10K (with taxes). I think that is a bit much unless the machine is like 10 times faster, an better all around.

I have an 8 year old Mac Pro 2.6 Ghz 8 core, would the new 5.1 Ghz 6 core be much, much, faster? I exclusively use the machine fro Pro-Tools in a professional post place, I am the only user, and I do not run any other applications (may be FCP for my own amateur use).

Thanks

[propower]

Playing around with it the sweet spot for me looks like:
From Base $2999

-Hex core +$500
-32G apple ram +$500 (this is ~$125 more than OWC after trade in but if you ever need service they will make you put the apple ram back in first . If you are going 64G - OWC all the way
-512G storage +$300
-D500 +$400 (4x speed of D300 - just in case it ever matters ...

$4699...

Imac is doing everything I need but I can always dream

Interesting that RAM uses all 4 slots so looks like an end to incremental upgrades
Either 4X4G, 4X8G or 4X16G....

[JFreak]

I'd guess the 6-core model is the sweet spot. If your budget permits, upgrade the SSD to a full terabyte, but leave the memory upgrade to later time. That said, I'm not in the market as I just ordered a fully loaded retina MBP which is so much cheaper and this tech is right now evolving very fast.

[garnoil]

Originally Posted by RyanC

Haha. My *guess* is the 12 core will outperform the 6 core by 60-70% in practical use for audio with PT11. But it does depend a bit what *practical use* means for different people, the margin will be lower for those using the lowest buffer settings and having a lot of auxes (which cannot use the higher playback buffer).

*practical use*...what do you think of my situation: I am maxing out my current Mac Pro 2.26 Ghz (not enough CPU remove plugins), and my HDX card shows about 70% full. I just bought revibe so I am sure I will max out my HDX card on my next film. Films I do use about 200 audio tracks, + all 4 sets of re-record 5/1 stems as I record to tracks not bounce to disk. I use about 12 auxes (may be 16), with may be 4 surrounds and the others stereo.

So coming from an old 2.26 Ghz Mac, if I get the 6 core will I be able to run many -I mean a lot like another 150 native plugs- without the machine running out of CPU? Right now, I am very limited as to how many Native plugs I can use.

Lastly, I am also going to buy another HDX card so that I can run 500+ voices. I also use full video 1920X1080 in the same machine.

Any knowledgeable insight is appreciated as I have no idea how better the new machines are or not.

G