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Ahem... urgent question

Georg Baumann

Subscriber Member
LOL I think I am falling in love with apple.

Re my exchange Mac.... I am having a choice now... :D

I can choose between:

8 core 2.93 along with 1x640GB and 3x 1TB, 16 Gig RAM

....OR

8 core 2.66, 4x640GB and 32 Gig RAM....

I am tempted with the 32 Gig version also for possible resale value in 24 month... any thoughts? I wonder what digilloyd would choose. For my music composing side, I sure could use the 32 Gig right away. When available and prooven to work, I could whack the 640 gig drives in a drobo and use the new WD 2TB RE4 instead.... yummy
 
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Guy Mancuso

Administrator, Instructor
Hard drives are cheap . That is the first clue. Second I would take those 4 640 gb hard drives. Take a thin top slice of each for a scratch, than take a meatier section for the OS of them than the rest storage. Or stick them in a Drobo, than Get a SSD drive for the OS and than get two 1tb drives partition a thin slice for scratch and the rest data. Many options here but given the choice I would go for the Ram
 

Georg Baumann

Subscriber Member
My thoughts are similiar Guy... the faster processor ok, but down the line the RAM will pay when more applications support it and and 8 core 2.66 aint no slouch either, last not least snow leo should come this year as well.... I am leaning towards the 32 Gig with the slower cpu....
 

stephengilbert

Active member
I'll say this, because the question didn't say where the ram and drives are coming from. I think the consensus is that you should buy very little RAM and a single HD from Apple, and get whatever RAM or drives you need from Other World Computing: http://www.macsales.com/ They have Apple certified RAM and a wide selection of hard drives for much less money than Apple charges.

Lloyd Chambers at diglloyd.com, has a very good Mac performance guide which describes how to maximize performance, especially when using Photoshop. (http://macperformanceguide.com/)

I bought both RAM and drives from OWC. Installation is very easy, and they have on-line videos to show you how to do it. I'm pretty sure Jack has made similar recommendations in the past. (He's probably sleeping off his dinner from yesterday.)

Steve
 

Guy Mancuso

Administrator, Instructor
I think this is what Apple owes him in some kind of refund. But I agree if your doing this purchase yourself buy nothing from Apple except one drive and whatever comes with the ram in the box.
 

Georg Baumann

Subscriber Member
Yup Guy!

Thanks for the PM Steve. It is all coming from apple and is an exchange for a 2008 Octacore.

My intention is to sell the maschine in 18-24 month. So far I think RAM prices are somewhat volatile, sometimes low, sometimes very expensive. Harddrives are getting better and cheaper, same counts for SSD down the road.

I tried to find out what the difference between 2.66 and 2.93 means in real world terms, but it appears this is not a huge step up all together.

For my music needs, the current 8 core already is very snappy and allows me to load a large amount of orchestral stuff and virtual instruments.

I guess I only asked here because I was worried whether I overlook something that might be an important point for the 2.93Ghz cpu with 16 Gig.

On all counts, I think the new technology will start to benefit from more RAM when snow leo and applications are supporting that amount and of course, multicores in general.

Thanks for looking at it!

Best wishes
Georg
 

Lars

Active member
If you use apps that need/use multiple gigs of ram then memory bandwidth often becomes a bottleneck rather than CPU speed (especially with many cores), so yeah don't sweat it over a faster CPU. Assuming the rest of the architecture is the same of course.
 

Georg Baumann

Subscriber Member
If you use apps that need/use multiple gigs of ram then memory bandwidth often becomes a bottleneck rather than CPU speed (especially with many cores), so yeah don't sweat it over a faster CPU. Assuming the rest of the architecture is the same of course.
Hi Lars,

that is very true for the 08 octacores with 800Mhz RAM and a 1066mhz bus which was no slouch either.

The new DDR3 Ram runs at 1066Mhz and the Nehalem CPU has integrated memory controllers, they claim 2.4x more bandwith.

It is not all that important for photohsop and the likes, but the next generation Sampler I use, Native Instruments Kontakt 3.5, can use the full whack of memory installed. It is final beta now, and a dream come true for me as I can create templates with huge orchestral layouts to be whacked all into Ram.

Then again, it never stops. :ROTFL: Once you are used to that, you want to create even bigger templates and ideally have one Mac assigend exclusively for only Impulse Response Reverb Processing. The latest MIR from Vienna Symphonic librabry is already such a breakthrough product that requires an entire Nelahem (or i7 Pc) based maschine to create a variety of hyper realistic concert halls, whereby each instrument has a differnet level of reverb, just as in reality due to the position where they are sitting. Really mindblowing stuff!

For those who are interested in this kind of musik composition technology here is a link and some videos about it:

http://vsl.co.at/en/65/71/393/1165.vsl

P.S. I am a trained classical musician (concert piano) and I have a VERY hard time to tell whether this is a real orchestra or not. In certain pieces of music, I can tell, in others, I can not!

P.P.S Done deal! :D I ordered the 32 Gig Version.
 
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Guy Mancuso

Administrator, Instructor
I think you will be very happy you did. Now I would ask the question how to configure this up. You have several options and hopefully Jack can give you some idea's on this as well.
Here is what you have and being in Ireland we are not sure what is available to you . But if you did not want to spend extra money and just go with these 4 640 drives than one idea here is to take 2 of them and Raid O them together and actually do a second pair as well . So now you have 2 Raid 0 drives setup . Than partition about 350gb off the first set and make that your OS drive , than make a second partition for the rest for just Data files. Now the second set make Raid 0 of the two drives. Than make 3 partitions the first one make about 150gb for a scratch drive , the second set about 200 gb for just a OS backup and the third set you can make the rest for Time machine.

What this gives you if the first OS set fails you have a OS backup and TM on that second set of Raid 0 so you are safe. Now this is assuming you have a Drobo so all your Data files are backed up. Now on the first Data drive I would make that a working Raw drive so download your cards to there and also the Drobo but work C1 from the working Raw drive. So it reads there than writes to desktop, than move as needed. So essentially at the end of the day you have 5 working drives and a Drobo setup

1st Set
OS
Working Raw

2nd set
Scratch
Os Backup
Time Machine

Now this is just one way . Jack may have you working all 4 drives and make partitions from each one in somewhat the same fashion but make a partition from 4 sections of each drive to make OS, Scratch, Backup, Data and maybe time machine
 

Georg Baumann

Subscriber Member
This is very good advise Guy. Thanks a lot. I have to read that a few times though. :D

On the current Mac I had only one Raid-0 configured. Your apporach is much more sophistiacted! I do have a 1TB Time capsule attached, and attached to the TC is a 500Gig WD to have a backup from the backup. :ROTFL:

So I could spare that part in your suggestion.

I would love to get the WD 2TB RE4, particulary because of RAID and they are enterprise class drives, but I am reluctant to dish out as long as it has not been tested in Mac Pros, and here in Ireland and the Uk they are not available yet.

Have to wait a while with that, but when it is prooven to work, I can use the 640 drives and invest in a Drobo. Who knows, by then they hopefully support e-Sata as well, which would make a real boost compared to FW800.
 

Guy Mancuso

Administrator, Instructor
It is actually not that bad the Drobo on Firewire 800 but you have to have a different mind set on the Drobo, it truly is a storage unit and once in rarely comes back to work the data. One reason I have a Drive that I call working folder on my desktop or a partition in your case is i will work from it until i have done everything for a particular job , raw processing ,PS work and all that than i move it to it's permanent home on the Drobo so speed is not that important here but working on it is and reason I have a drive just for that WORKING than after a awhile I clean it out after I know i am pretty much done with that job. Obviously this all depends on your thinking and workflow on how you run a computer. Last thing you want is second guessing yourself where a file is. I know for at least a month everything is on that working drive, obviously the Raws are already backed up on the Drobo so if anything happens i am safe
 

Jack

Sr. Administrator
Staff member
My view: Bigger and Faster is always better :ROTFL:

Or, you can *ALWAYS* upgrade RAM, but upping the processor is not so easy. In real apps today, you will see very little performance boost between 16G and 32G -- some, but only a few percent. Whereas on processor speed, 2.93 is 10% more than 2.66, so you will find most things run in, well, 90% of the time with the 2.93 compared to the 2.66 processor, whether it's using one core or all 16 cores (8 real, 8 virtual)...

AND you can buy the 640G WD Caviar Black drives for $75 each right now.

My .02,
 

Georg Baumann

Subscriber Member
Hehehehe!

Thanks Jack. I had to balance both, music and photography, and yes, it is a compromise, but I did not want to dish out more money at them. It had to be a zero cost exchange. For that I am more than happy.
 
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