New Apple 12 core Mac Pro and iMac announced

joker454 said:
But if you have the skill to tear apart and repair machines they why not just build a custom machine in the first place exactly as you want it and save a boat load of cash in the process? That's what puzzled me at first. But like another poster mentioned, in some places there is a stygma of being a noob unless you show up with a Mac so I guess people in that situation have no choice but to spend the cash. I hadn't thought about that. Plus for some reason I thought you could run FCP on pc hardware given that Mac and Pc hardware are so similar nowadays. For example I have friends that will by Mac hardware and install Windows 7 on it, I oddly thought the reverse was possible as well, my mistake :( I don't use FCP and my business partners could care less what hardware I use so I guess I'm more flexible in that regard. Note, I have no interest in turning this into a tiresome PC vs Mac debate, I was just genuinely curious why some are stuck spending $5k on a 12 core machine when I could build one for ~$2.5k. Makes more sense now so I'll step away...feel free to resume discussing the new machine.
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I don't think there's a stigma. It just tends to be more efficient for everybody within a specific production to be working on the same system.

So if you are going into a production that is based around FCP, it's just going to slow the workflow down if you are bringing a PC into the mix, even if it is just slightly.

The same is true of bringing a Mac into a PC dominated production.
 
Just an thought on this , A freind of mine is running (I think is called Hankon MAC ) mac os on his Quad core system for the last 4 months with very great success , usesing a mix of FCP ,Edius and CS5 it is stable and has the best of both worlds . Also he told me the Mac software overall was cheaper ,than the PC base stuff here . Myself I am seriously thinking to go this route as i am still running XP and need to update very soon the cost factors look very good.
Any input would be valued
 
Luis Caffesse said:
Interesting - thanks for digging that up, David.
I would have expected the mac pro to still be faster... but I'm surprised as to how much faster it was (or how much slower the imac was, I suppose)
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Not much of a surprise.

The previous processor generation is 10-15% slower than the i7 at the same clock speed (0.85x-0.90x the performance). But the old machine has twice the cores, it can be up to 1.7x-1.8x faster than the 4core i7 depending on the quality of code.

After Effects does good multithreading, so it uses the cores to a very high percentage and gets that 1.7x.

Compressor and iMovie (and other code used in these tests) are very badly written so they can't use much of the 8 cores, they only get 1.2x and 1.3x.

Cinebench CPU rating gets 1.87x which is a little optimistic.

Geekbench gets 1.5x which is about average between good 8core use (after effects) and mediocre 8core use(compressor/imovie).
 
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Otis Grapsas said:
Not much of a surprise.
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Sure, as long as you're incredibly knowledgeable on the subject.
:)


So, from what I've read/heard FCP is also not very efficient in regards to utilizing multiple cores, is that right?
Would it be fair to say that we'd probably see similar results from FCP benchmark tests (meaning 1.2 to 1.3x)?
 
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