Are Mac Pros overkill for home use
- Thread starter WatchTower
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Is there any reason the Mac Pro uses such a low end gpu? It's an ATI 5770 I believe.
Can't tell if serious, or just trolling.
No Actually I was serious, I don't troll.
The reason why I asked is because a lot of people were saying the new macbook pro (sandy bridge) i7's were faster than the older generation of mac pro (the 8 core 2.26).
My macbook pro gets 10100 in geekbench, it's pretty fast.
In the end however I went with the new (2010) 6 core processor at 3.33ghz. It's much faster with the stuff I use it for and I feel it's more future proof.
I shoved 12 gigs ram in it and an 120gb ssd for the boot drive.
It fly's and is very quiet even when running very intensive tasks. I'm well chuffed with it. Now I am going to put my MBP on the bay.....
Dependent on the particular mobile chip in a MBP, it's clock speed and the task it is performing, yes, it may perform similarly to, or better than a single quad core Xeon that was available in older Mac Pro lines. But two quad core Xeons in the more modern Mac Pro? Unlikely. Provided that the applications being used are able to take full advantage of multi-threading and there's another function Xeons have over particular "desktop" and "mobile" chips that improves performance in instances where more than one CPU is on the same board (but for the life of me I can't remember it's tecnical name or term) which is where Xeons are more commonly used (servers/workstations).
According to rumours I've seen from the usual rumour sites and Mac blogs, Apple are redesigning the Mac Pro as a rack unit. Which is an interesting development. I understand that the majority of people who buy the Mac Pro will use it in a production environment over a home environment. But it makes me wonder if they'll bring out a small Mac Pro model for home users. I said before that I would love a Mac Pro in mATX form factor. Meh, it's an interesting rumour none-the-less.
Edit: The Intel function is QPI (Intel Quickpath Interconnect)
According to rumours I've seen from the usual rumour sites and Mac blogs, Apple are redesigning the Mac Pro as a rack unit. Which is an interesting development. I understand that the majority of people who buy the Mac Pro will use it in a production environment over a home environment. But it makes me wonder if they'll bring out a small Mac Pro model for home users. I said before that I would love a Mac Pro in mATX form factor. Meh, it's an interesting rumour none-the-less.
Edit: The Intel function is QPI (Intel Quickpath Interconnect)
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So they kill the Xserve and then rack-mount the Pro?
It's only a rumour. But; http://www.tuaw.com/2011/04/21/next-generation-mac-pro-rumored-to-feature-rack-mount-stackable/
Yeah, just googled and found this one: http://isource.com/2011/04/21/apple-working-on-more-slender-rackmountable-mac-pro/
I don't know of anyone actually using the Pro as a server, they're either sticking with their Xserves or getting the Mini Server (as I have).
Edit: Apologies for the hijack
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I think you pay for the fact Mac Pros are a workstation. Workstations can be left running continuously for weeks error free. Well this is what I learn't on youtube on when people say i7 PCs are just as good.
So can any other Mac or PC, if you use good hardware and set it up properly!