Apple's Mac Pro - Upgrading CPUs, Memory & Running XP
by Anand Lal Shimpi on September 12, 2006 1:51 AM EST- Posted in
- Mac
Final Words
As a computer running OS X, the Mac Pro is the best you can get, but even as a PC the Mac Pro is extremely competitive. For most tasks under Windows XP, the Mac Pro performs much like a similarly clocked Core 2 processor despite having a faster FSB and more cores. If you're running applications that are particularly well threaded, then a four core Mac Pro will obviously have an advantage over a single socket dual core system under any OS. It's particularly in latency sensitive applications such as audio/video encoding and 3D games that the Mac Pro's FB-DIMM memory subsystem really holds it back.
For gaming, before we can even begin to complain about performance, there's the issue of not being able to use cheaper and more readily available PC video cards in the Mac Pro (yet). If you're looking to the Mac Pro as the perfect hybrid OS X/gaming PC, you're either going to have to configure it with a Quadro FX 4500 or an X1900 XT, or wait for the first PC video card hacks to become available for this machine to be a real gaming PC. If and when the latter does happen, the Mac Pro truly could solve the age old problem of not being able to both work and play on your Mac. The FB-DIMM performance penalty in games is noticeable, but with a fast enough GPU it will still be a more cost effective option than buying a Mac Pro and a high end PC for gaming.
If you're not particularly interested in gaming, then the Mac Pro in its base configuration is ready to go and be one of the fastest desktop PCs money can buy. The impact of its FB-DIMMs is much lower in the majority of non encoding/gaming applications we ran, which means that for the handful of applications you need to run in XP the Mac Pro will perform just fine. While our hearts still yearn for a Core 2 based Mac, the Mac Pro will suffice as a good performer regardless of OS and application.
It is still worth noting that if Apple were to release a Core 2 (Conroe/Kentsfield) based Mac similar to the Mac Pro, it could end up outperforming the Mac Pro by being able to use regular DDR2 memory. The Intel 5000X chipset and its FB-DIMM memory are really designed for multi-user server and high end workstation workloads, where large amounts of simultaneous reads/writes are able to mask much of the latency penalty of FB-DIMMs. The problem is that the Mac Pro is the only high end desktop Apple offers without an integrated display, so inevitably it's going to attract a lot of users whose usage models aren't best serviced by the Intel 5000X chipset.
The upgrade path offered by the Mac Pro is particularly interesting, not because Macs weren't upgradable in the past (since they were) but because upgrades have never been so readily available. And based on our initial testing, it's looking like you'll be able to drop in a pair of Clovertowns and make the move from four to eight cores in the Mac Pro by the year's end. The combination of excellent OS X performance, good Windows XP performance and a more interesting CPU upgrade path than any prior Mac makes the Mac Pro particularly interesting. While many were worried that Apple's move to Intel would make the Mac more generic, it has simply made the Mac Pro more versatile and desirable.
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bobsmith1492 - Tuesday, September 12, 2006 - link
Well, thank you for the enlightenment. I will never use Vista now that I know I cannot use more than 64GB of RAM.blwest - Tuesday, September 12, 2006 - link
Who did that comment come from, something about never needing more than 64K? Was it Bill Gates?I already have customers that use Linux over MS because they utilize 64GB of ram TODAY. Even when Vista is released, they will still be using Linux.
bobsmith1492 - Tuesday, September 12, 2006 - link
Well, I've doubled the amount of ram in my _personal_ computer twice in about 5 years along with one upgrade of Windows (98-XP)... so, in 5 more, I'll have 8GB, 10 more: 32, and in about 12.5 years, I'll be up to 64GB, by extrapolation. :P Anyway, I don't expect Vista to last that long, so I guess I'm ok (heck, I'll use XP for a few more years anyway, no doubt - XP was out for a few years before I upgraded).As far as the 64GB of RAM, if you need that for your application, you probably wouldn't even dream of using a closed-source OS for it anyway, so I think the RAM limitation isn't really that relevant (maybe for servers...)
greylica - Tuesday, September 12, 2006 - link
Course the common user will not have to use that quantity of Ram, as far as I know, they are still using 256MB at nmaximun in order to run only apps for office/small production.Here in Brazil the most of them are using at maximun 512 MB of Ram, but when we think in a machine different, like a MAc, or then a graphic Workstation, or then an data seismic or a test evaluation machine, 64 GB in 5 years will be a cap, a limit.
Anyway Linux can save our souls to this switch Microsoft is trying to do again, and again...
A simpler crowd simulation in XSI can achieve 16 GB of Ram in a workstation...
Vista Premium can accept more than 4GB, course, but in the 32 bit usage, the same old 3GB switch is aplicable, but I don´t even imagine why they at the same tima reserve 4GB for the kernel, and limit Vista to 1/2 of the potential.
It´s a same old problem coming back again.
Even 2000 accepts PAE, but doesn´t serve for nothing, course they can give a patch, but, do they want ???
If a patch for ths issue is released, this topic can be sent to oblivion.
Microsoft, give us a patch to 3GB switch right now !!!!!!
mostlyprudent - Tuesday, September 12, 2006 - link
I have to agree with the first part of your post. I read the article and thought.."Why?". I have always understood the appeal of a Mac to be that you could upack it and get to work. If we start talking about running other OSs on a Mac or hacking software/drivers for better hardware supprt, then why pay the premium for a Mac?lopri - Tuesday, September 12, 2006 - link
Well, sort of.. Remember that now Mac is a PC with the ability to dual-boot between XP and OS X. Other than the anatomy description for CPU upgrading, I don't see anything Mac-specific about this article. You can replace the tested Mac with an equivalent workstation from Dell, HP, etc. and the end result would be the same. It's also very questionable how much appeal this article would have to an 'average' apple user - who wants a computer that just works, without worrying about upgrading or fixing, and prefers to use for creative works or entertainment. (This isn't my opinion, btw. I happened to read a few articles on Apple/Mac @DailyTech, and it's how Mac users described themselves) I totally understand this article is a sequel/finale to a previous article, but I think some people would agree with me. (If not, oh well.. :) )From this viewpoint, I'd like to make a comment that Anand's obsession on Apple (be it hardware or software) has been quite over-the-top already. Even though this article isn't really about something unique to Apple, he doesn't skip a single product that Apple produces. (I still can't believe he "reviewed" a mouse just because it's from Apple. There are many more superior and innovative mice in the market, you know.)
Whether it's his personal preference towards Mac/OS X or a business strategy to expand the readership of this site isn't clear to me. But I can't help but notice the imbalance and ask why.
Anand Lal Shimpi - Tuesday, September 12, 2006 - link
The point of the article was for users that want to run OS X as well as Windows XP, rounding out the performance comparison by showing what sort of XP performance you can expect out of the Mac Pro.As for our Mac coverage, we definitely don't review every Apple product that comes out, but the ones that we do focus on are those that are most interesting to the community. The vast majority of our content is still PC focused, but whenever there's a big Apple release we will do our best to cover it just as we do major releases on the PC side.
Take care,
Anand
JAS - Thursday, September 14, 2006 - link
PC = Personal Computer, regardless of whether it is running OS X or Microsoft Windows.Please continue with the Macintosh coverage, Anand. I appreciate the excellent work that you do, and even bought a Mac because of one of your reviews. What a fabulous computer.
Calin - Tuesday, September 12, 2006 - link
:)I'm sure Anand wants to expand the readership of his site to the 5% Mac users :)
(no offence, Anand) but I think this was more like a toy, that is getting better and better. "I bet I could use only this Mac for everything" could have been the idea of the first article, and in the end it seems the Macs were even better than that (whether by look and feel, ergonomy in user interface, invulnerability to almost all viruses/worms/... (the first Mac used by Anand was Power based), other reasons or a combination of all the above).
On another note, I wonder how well those new Macs will survive in the virus world, now that they now have the x86 processors
JAS - Thursday, September 14, 2006 - link
If you mean running Microsoft Windows on a Macintosh, then it is as susceptible to spyware and viruses as any other MS Windows computer. These problems are tied to the operating system, not the microprocessor. OS X is as secure running on Intel as it is on PowerPC chips.