Andy's Un-Official Unsolicited Mac Advice Thread

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  • jdryan3jdryan3 Registered Users Posts: 1,353 Major grins
    edited April 4, 2007
    Macheads Drool Alert: Mac Pro Dual Quad Core
    Hmmm. 8 way processing. I wonder if it'll run CS3. lol3.gif

    Link here. And they're 3GHz, not just the 2.66 GHz 5355 chip.
    "Don't ask me what I think of you, I might not give the answer that you want me to. Oh well."
    -Fleetwood Mac
  • DavidTODavidTO Registered Users, Retired Mod Posts: 19,160 Major grins
    edited April 4, 2007
    Pretty cool, eh?

    Oh, and it's already being discussed, here. :D
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  • wxwaxwxwax Registered Users Posts: 15,471 Major grins
    edited April 4, 2007
    DavidTO wrote:
    Pretty cool, eh?

    Oh, and it's already being discussed, here. :D
    Is this some secret handshake thing, where you link to the same thread you posted in?
    Sid.
    Catapultam habeo. Nisi pecuniam omnem mihi dabis, ad caput tuum saxum immane mittam
    http://www.mcneel.com/users/jb/foghorn/ill_shut_up.au
  • AndyAndy Registered Users Posts: 50,016 Major grins
    edited April 4, 2007
    wxwax wrote:
    Is this some secret handshake thing, where you link to the same thread you posted in?
    Nope I merged threads.
  • kini62kini62 Registered Users Posts: 441 Major grins
    edited April 5, 2007
    8 core Macs are available!
    Does Andy already have one?mwink.gif

    Didn't see it posted, just in case anyone had $5000 laying around:D

    Gene
  • davidfisherdavidfisher Registered Users Posts: 6 Beginner grinner
    edited April 6, 2007
    With Aperture
    I posted a question about the 8-core to MacRumors, and the general concencous was that it's far better to spend the extra $1700 on extra memory, and a faster hard drive array and possibily even the NVidia 4500 video card than the 8-core machine, when it comes to use with Aperture anyways.

    I mean, is anyone here with a Quad Core intel pegging out all 4 processors reguarly with Aperture? Maybe if you're taking 40mp images from a Leaf or something.
  • AndyAndy Registered Users Posts: 50,016 Major grins
    edited April 6, 2007
    kini62 wrote:
    Does Andy already have one?mwink.gif

    Didn't see it posted, just in case anyone had $5000 laying around:D

    Gene
    You haven't looked in the Andy unsolicited advice thread then thumb.gif Moved post.
  • lynnesitelynnesite Registered Users Posts: 747 Major grins
    edited April 6, 2007
    I'm configuring a rush order for one of these 2.66 bad boys even as we speak. With a 30" display.

    Boy, I love playing with the new stuff, even if I can't afford it myself. iloveyou.gif
  • wxwaxwxwax Registered Users Posts: 15,471 Major grins
    edited April 6, 2007
    lynnesite wrote:
    I'm configuring a rush order for one of these 2.66 bad boys even as we speak. With a 30" display.

    Boy, I love playing with the new stuff, even if I can't afford it myself. iloveyou.gif
    The 2.66 quad core has been out for ages, Lynne. headscratch.gif
    Sid.
    Catapultam habeo. Nisi pecuniam omnem mihi dabis, ad caput tuum saxum immane mittam
    http://www.mcneel.com/users/jb/foghorn/ill_shut_up.au
  • DavidTODavidTO Registered Users, Retired Mod Posts: 19,160 Major grins
    edited April 7, 2007
    wxwax wrote:
    The 2.66 quad core has been out for ages, Lynne. headscratch.gif


    Sid,

    headscratch.gif

    Lynne has forgotten more about the Macintosh than you'll ever know. :D

    Seriously, she's a Mac guru, and has been doing Mac consulting for years. Believe me, she knows what she's talking about.
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  • lynnesitelynnesite Registered Users Posts: 747 Major grins
    edited April 7, 2007
    Speed bumped. Yeah. The one I picked for my customer is the middle speed, 2.66, quad core with dual 2.66s.

    I've been doing a lot less of the bleeding edge things I used to do, mostly small office/home office. More time to be a starving artist that way. Haven't put much effort into the OS knowledge the way I used to, either.

    "now in my 20th year" as a Mac consultant; left the PC world behind in '98
  • wxwaxwxwax Registered Users Posts: 15,471 Major grins
    edited April 10, 2007
    This is the first test I've seen of the new 8-core Mac Pro.

    Of particular interest is the comparative times in the Photoshop test.

    It's possible that the new generation of OS, and perhaps a revised Mac Pro, will take greater advantage of the 8 cores. But for my current usage, a 4 core seems more than adequate.
    Sid.
    Catapultam habeo. Nisi pecuniam omnem mihi dabis, ad caput tuum saxum immane mittam
    http://www.mcneel.com/users/jb/foghorn/ill_shut_up.au
  • dogwooddogwood Registered Users Posts: 2,572 Major grins
    edited April 10, 2007
    wxwax wrote:
    This is the first test I've seen of the new 8-core Mac Pro.

    Of particular interest is the comparative times in the Photoshop test.

    It's possible that the new generation of OS, and perhaps a revised Mac Pro, will take greater advantage of the 8 cores. But for my current usage, a 4 core seems more than adequate.

    Interesting test indeed. Seems like sometimes the hardware improves faster than the OS can take advantage of it.

    Portland, Oregon Photographer Pete Springer
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  • colourboxcolourbox Registered Users Posts: 2,095 Major grins
    edited April 10, 2007
    dogwood wrote:
    Interesting test indeed. Seems like sometimes the hardware improves faster than the OS can take advantage of it.

    Are we really talking about needing OS improvements? There is a memory bottleneck theory in the Bare Feats test and also by the Photoshop product manager that imply that it is in fact the hardware that needs to improve further if those additional cores are going to matter. Can a better OS overcome memory bandwidth bottlenecks at the hardware level?
  • wxwaxwxwax Registered Users Posts: 15,471 Major grins
    edited April 10, 2007
    It just looks like that from a practical point of view, 8 cores are four cores too many, maybe for another 12 to 18 months.

    Neither the hardware nor the software seems to be ready for them.
    Sid.
    Catapultam habeo. Nisi pecuniam omnem mihi dabis, ad caput tuum saxum immane mittam
    http://www.mcneel.com/users/jb/foghorn/ill_shut_up.au
  • ruttrutt Registered Users Posts: 6,511 Major grins
    edited April 11, 2007
    Photoshop isn't going to scale with the number of processors beyond a certain point no matter what you do. But if you are trying to i2e thousands of images you just might get a linear scaling from 4 to 8 processors. Or run a couple of virtual machines at once. Or perhaps getting a huge shoot into Bridge or Lightroom or something like that. Video and rendering animation are much more like those tasks and these machines might be good at them as well.

    Beyond a certain point, Amdahl's Law is going to limit what more processors will buy when working on a single image.
    If not now, when?
  • colourboxcolourbox Registered Users Posts: 2,095 Major grins
    edited April 12, 2007
    Yes, along those lines, I have seen Lightroom tax 4 cores when multiple jobs processing many images each are running in parallel. The CPU graphs looked saturated and the load average went above 3, which usually doesn't happen. I'll bet you're right that we wouldn't see that if working on a single image.
  • ruttrutt Registered Users Posts: 6,511 Major grins
    edited April 12, 2007
    On the other hand, if what you really want it the most processors / $, perhaps so you can run i2e over lots of images in parallel, there are cheaper solutions. For example, Mac Minis are about $800 and have two processors. So you get about 6 of them for $5k which would be 12 processors.

    The Core 2 Duo Extreme that's in the new Mac Pro is really just two Core 2 Duos in a big package and is priced appropriately (>2x Core 2 Duo) By June AMD is expected to ship a true 4 core chip and I know Intel has one in the pipe for the end of the year. Once those parts are available, the price of systems with 4 and 8 processors should drop. For example, expect Mac Minis, Mac Books, and iMacs with 4 cores for about the same price as we now pay for 2 processors. These parts should also be faster per processor.

    One great thing about computers is that the future is always so great compared to the present.
    If not now, when?
  • cabbeycabbey Registered Users Posts: 1,053 Major grins
    edited April 15, 2007
    Well, looks like those of us that put our 10.5 release penny in the spring just lost it.
    SmugMug Sorcerer - Engineering Team Champion for Commerce, Finance, Security, and Data Support
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  • DavidTODavidTO Registered Users, Retired Mod Posts: 19,160 Major grins
    edited April 15, 2007
    Well, the usefulness of the 8-core MacPro is now justified for video editing. The new Final Cut Studio 2 makes great use of the 8-core machines, especially in encoding. The whole suite looks very...sweet! But the $500 upgrade...ouch! :D
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  • patch29patch29 Registered Users, Retired Mod Posts: 2,928 Major grins
    edited April 16, 2007
    DavidTO wrote:
    Well, the usefulness of the 8-core MacPro is now justified for video editing. The new Final Cut Studio 2 makes great use of the 8-core machines, especially in encoding. The whole suite looks very...sweet! But the $500 upgrade...ouch! :D


    They are proud of it aren't they? They made it cheap to go from 4 to the studio, now comes the gotcha. :D
  • greenpeagreenpea Registered Users Posts: 880 Major grins
    edited April 18, 2007
    Has anyone tried out Microsoft Expression Media for the Mac?

    In a former life the product use to be iView Media Pro before MSFT bought it, and I read somewhere in this thread that iView Media Pro was a great photo management package.

    EDIT: I just read that the trial viersion of Expression Media is not yet available. So never mind.
    Andrew
    initialphotography.smugmug.com

    "The camera is an instrument that teaches people how to see without a camera" - Dorothea Lange
  • DavidTODavidTO Registered Users, Retired Mod Posts: 19,160 Major grins
    edited April 18, 2007
    greenpea wrote:
    Has anyone tried out Microsoft Expression Media for the Mac?

    In a former life the product use to be iView Media Pro before MSFT bought it, and I read somewhere in this thread that iView Media Pro was a great photo management package.


    I wouldn't imagine that MS has had enough time to mess it up yet. I have it, I've been using it less lately, haven't kept it up to date, but yes, it's great. Best option, I think.
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  • greenpeagreenpea Registered Users Posts: 880 Major grins
    edited April 18, 2007
    DavidTO wrote:
    I wouldn't imagine that MS has had enough time to mess it up yet. I have it, I've been using it less lately, haven't kept it up to date, but yes, it's great. Best option, I think.

    I tapped out my digital darkroom budget with the purchase of a MBP so now I'm looking for any breaks I can find on software (like having friends at MSFT get me the employee price on software).

    Now if only I knew someone who worked for Adobe.
    Andrew
    initialphotography.smugmug.com

    "The camera is an instrument that teaches people how to see without a camera" - Dorothea Lange
  • SeamusSeamus Registered Users Posts: 1,573 Major grins
    edited April 19, 2007
    greenpea wrote:
    Has anyone tried out Microsoft Expression Media for the Mac?

    In a former life the product use to be iView Media Pro before MSFT bought it, and I read somewhere in this thread that iView Media Pro was a great photo management package.

    EDIT: I just read that the trial viersion of Expression Media is not yet available. So never mind.

    I use iview and highly recommend it. I have all of my motorbike pics in one catalogue, keyworded and sorted in sub-categories.
  • greenpeagreenpea Registered Users Posts: 880 Major grins
    edited April 19, 2007
    What do people use to work on html, css, and javascript on a mac? Hopefully something that enforces xhtml, and formatting of html and javascript and has intelliSence (MSFT word?) built in.

    Or do mac users just do this stuff in a text editor?
    Andrew
    initialphotography.smugmug.com

    "The camera is an instrument that teaches people how to see without a camera" - Dorothea Lange
  • DavidTODavidTO Registered Users, Retired Mod Posts: 19,160 Major grins
    edited April 19, 2007
    I do precious little HTML (just a touch for smugmug) and no JS, but for CSS I HIGHLY recommend CSS Edit. It's aces! :D
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  • colourboxcolourbox Registered Users Posts: 2,095 Major grins
    edited April 19, 2007
    greenpea wrote:
    What do people use to work on html, css, and javascript on a mac? Hopefully something that enforces xhtml, and formatting of html and javascript and has intelliSence (MSFT word?) built in.

    Or do mac users just do this stuff in a text editor?

    Dreamweaver if you're building whole sites, BBEdit if you're more of a coder, TextEdit set to text-only mode if you're totally hardcore...
  • DavidTODavidTO Registered Users, Retired Mod Posts: 19,160 Major grins
    edited April 19, 2007
    BBEdit has a lite, free version in TextWrangler. Might do the trick, and it's better than TextEdit.
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  • StevenVStevenV Registered Users Posts: 1,174 Major grins
    edited April 19, 2007
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