http://www.barefeats.com/octopro1.html -- Benchmarks for 8core vs 4core Mac @ 16gbs of Ram.
Particular point of interest in article:
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]TIGER IS "CHASING ITS TAIL"
"Yes, the memory bus is weak, but the biggest problem is that OS 10.4 (Tiger) does not know how to deal with so many cores. Perhaps 10.5 (Leopard) will. the problem is that the OS does not know that it should keep a thread on the SAME core instead of swapping it around to any one of the 8 cores. When a thread moves to a different core-group, the cache has to be reloaded on the new core. Since Intel quad-cores are two Core 2 Duos "duct-taped" together, the problem is worse than it would otherwise have been. When this thread/core shift happens repeatedly, it makes the cache ineffective and floods the memory bus with activity." (Though put forth by a yet-to-be named BF reader, this analysis has been confirmed by Lloyd Chambers where he discussed "core swapping" on his latest blog entries regarding the 8 core Mac Pro.)
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]On the other hand, there are scenarios where the 8 core Mac Pro will be able to show its multi-threading muscle, as exemplified by the QuickTime graph above. [/FONT]
[/FONT]
Again, it's a matter of what you need now and what you can honestly wait for. But, when Native Quads are introduced and Apple changes their line-up... And the freaking things cost as much brand new as they do now at the end of this year (Intel's slated to release native Quad's around third quarter I believe) that might be the time to jump on the octo-core bandwagon.
It's just like the PENTIUM D ( two Pentium 4's super glued together) Versus the Core 2 Duo E6X00. Native Duals are just that much faster.
http://diglloyd.com/diglloyd/blog.html
This link's also embedded in that quote, and he pretty much sums up what I expected. It runs more like a 6 Core Mac as opposed to a real 8 Core.
Particular point of interest in article:
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]TIGER IS "CHASING ITS TAIL"
"Yes, the memory bus is weak, but the biggest problem is that OS 10.4 (Tiger) does not know how to deal with so many cores. Perhaps 10.5 (Leopard) will. the problem is that the OS does not know that it should keep a thread on the SAME core instead of swapping it around to any one of the 8 cores. When a thread moves to a different core-group, the cache has to be reloaded on the new core. Since Intel quad-cores are two Core 2 Duos "duct-taped" together, the problem is worse than it would otherwise have been. When this thread/core shift happens repeatedly, it makes the cache ineffective and floods the memory bus with activity." (Though put forth by a yet-to-be named BF reader, this analysis has been confirmed by Lloyd Chambers where he discussed "core swapping" on his latest blog entries regarding the 8 core Mac Pro.)
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]On the other hand, there are scenarios where the 8 core Mac Pro will be able to show its multi-threading muscle, as exemplified by the QuickTime graph above. [/FONT]
[/FONT]
Again, it's a matter of what you need now and what you can honestly wait for. But, when Native Quads are introduced and Apple changes their line-up... And the freaking things cost as much brand new as they do now at the end of this year (Intel's slated to release native Quad's around third quarter I believe) that might be the time to jump on the octo-core bandwagon.
It's just like the PENTIUM D ( two Pentium 4's super glued together) Versus the Core 2 Duo E6X00. Native Duals are just that much faster.
http://diglloyd.com/diglloyd/blog.html
This link's also embedded in that quote, and he pretty much sums up what I expected. It runs more like a 6 Core Mac as opposed to a real 8 Core.
