Hi,
I'm currently running Logic Pro (8, but will be upgrading to 9 with the
new system) on a 2006 MacBook Pro with 2GB of RAM and a 350GB hybrid
disk. I run into the dreaded system overload with some regularity. I
don't run very high track counts and do very little recording, but I
tend to use a lot of softsynths (mostly from the NI Komplete suite) and
use a very large array of effect plugins per track.
I've been saving up to replace this machine, and was targeting the
newly-released 2011 iMac 27" with the 3.4GHz quad-core i7 Sandy Bridge
processor, 4GB of RAM (that I was going to upgrade to 12GB after the
fact -- the system maxes out at 16GB), the 256GB SSD + 1TB HD disk
configuration and the 2GB GDDR5 Radeon HD 6970M. With the AppleCare,
this clocks in at $3098 + tax.
However, it's recently come to my attention that a local shop is selling
a gently used 2008 Mac Pro. It has two 2.8GHz quad-core Nehalem Xeon
processors (8 cores total), 4GB of RAM (maxes at 32GB), a 320GB hard
disk, and an NVidia 8800GT with 512GB RAM. They'll warranty it for 90
days and you can pay extra to extend the warranty if you like, although
it'll be their warranty rather than AppleCare. They want $1699 + tax.
Among my geekier-than-me friends, there's been a big debate about the
CPUs in these two machines. The iMac's Sandy Bridge architecture
supports SVX instead of SSE, which apparently will, once apps are
updated to support it, allow it to process eight instructions per cycle
rather than four, according to them. Given that it's already clocked
faster than the Xeons in the Mac Pro, that would make it noticeably
faster CPU-wise. The rest of the Mac Pro's architecture is slower as
well -- the memory bus isn't as fast, the 8800GT is about half the
performance of the 6970M, etc. However, the Mac Pro offers more
expandability -- I could add a RAID card, I could have several internal
disks, I can upgrade the video card, etc. And if Logic Pro doesn't
support SVX, then I expect that having twice as many cores at a slightly
slower speed might be a CPU win.
But the difference in price is also a big factor -- with that much less
money I could perform a lot of ugprades (note that I'd have to eat away
some of that buying a monitor, but you can get a 27" LCD of good enough
quality for me for $300, and getting a disk system comparable to the one
I was speccing for the iMac would take away more of that, but I could do
this flexibly over time). I mean, at $1699, I wouldn't be particularly
upset if I had to upgrade it after only say three years, whereas at
$3100, I'd want the iMac to last me a good five years, much as my
MacBook Pro did.
My only real bottleneck is Logic Pro, though. This is going to be my
studio machine. I mostly game on the Playstation 3, and I have an iPad
that is fine for my needs for travel and surfing. So I'm wondering if
any of you have any thoughts or real-world experience between these two
machines as they specifically pertain to Logic Pro, and if anyone knows
what the status of this SVX issue is with Logic Pro -- if it's something
that I should expect to see coming down or that's even already there, or
if it's even relevant to Logic Pro's architecture, or if having twice as
many cores will still be better when running a ton of plugins.
[Note: I did track down one benchmark that compared both machines -- the Geekbench puts the iMac quad-i7 3.4GHz at about 12,000 in 64-bit Mac OS X mode, with the Mac Pro eight-core 2.8GHz Nehalem Xeon coming in around 8,000 on the same mode. I'm not sure precisely what that benchmark tests for and how well it maps onto Logic performance, though.]
I'm currently running Logic Pro (8, but will be upgrading to 9 with the
new system) on a 2006 MacBook Pro with 2GB of RAM and a 350GB hybrid
disk. I run into the dreaded system overload with some regularity. I
don't run very high track counts and do very little recording, but I
tend to use a lot of softsynths (mostly from the NI Komplete suite) and
use a very large array of effect plugins per track.
I've been saving up to replace this machine, and was targeting the
newly-released 2011 iMac 27" with the 3.4GHz quad-core i7 Sandy Bridge
processor, 4GB of RAM (that I was going to upgrade to 12GB after the
fact -- the system maxes out at 16GB), the 256GB SSD + 1TB HD disk
configuration and the 2GB GDDR5 Radeon HD 6970M. With the AppleCare,
this clocks in at $3098 + tax.
However, it's recently come to my attention that a local shop is selling
a gently used 2008 Mac Pro. It has two 2.8GHz quad-core Nehalem Xeon
processors (8 cores total), 4GB of RAM (maxes at 32GB), a 320GB hard
disk, and an NVidia 8800GT with 512GB RAM. They'll warranty it for 90
days and you can pay extra to extend the warranty if you like, although
it'll be their warranty rather than AppleCare. They want $1699 + tax.
Among my geekier-than-me friends, there's been a big debate about the
CPUs in these two machines. The iMac's Sandy Bridge architecture
supports SVX instead of SSE, which apparently will, once apps are
updated to support it, allow it to process eight instructions per cycle
rather than four, according to them. Given that it's already clocked
faster than the Xeons in the Mac Pro, that would make it noticeably
faster CPU-wise. The rest of the Mac Pro's architecture is slower as
well -- the memory bus isn't as fast, the 8800GT is about half the
performance of the 6970M, etc. However, the Mac Pro offers more
expandability -- I could add a RAID card, I could have several internal
disks, I can upgrade the video card, etc. And if Logic Pro doesn't
support SVX, then I expect that having twice as many cores at a slightly
slower speed might be a CPU win.
But the difference in price is also a big factor -- with that much less
money I could perform a lot of ugprades (note that I'd have to eat away
some of that buying a monitor, but you can get a 27" LCD of good enough
quality for me for $300, and getting a disk system comparable to the one
I was speccing for the iMac would take away more of that, but I could do
this flexibly over time). I mean, at $1699, I wouldn't be particularly
upset if I had to upgrade it after only say three years, whereas at
$3100, I'd want the iMac to last me a good five years, much as my
MacBook Pro did.
My only real bottleneck is Logic Pro, though. This is going to be my
studio machine. I mostly game on the Playstation 3, and I have an iPad
that is fine for my needs for travel and surfing. So I'm wondering if
any of you have any thoughts or real-world experience between these two
machines as they specifically pertain to Logic Pro, and if anyone knows
what the status of this SVX issue is with Logic Pro -- if it's something
that I should expect to see coming down or that's even already there, or
if it's even relevant to Logic Pro's architecture, or if having twice as
many cores will still be better when running a ton of plugins.
[Note: I did track down one benchmark that compared both machines -- the Geekbench puts the iMac quad-i7 3.4GHz at about 12,000 in 64-bit Mac OS X mode, with the Mac Pro eight-core 2.8GHz Nehalem Xeon coming in around 8,000 on the same mode. I'm not sure precisely what that benchmark tests for and how well it maps onto Logic performance, though.]