Server admins take note; today’s the last day to pick up Apple’s Xserve rack-mount server, which faces the chop at the end of January. As confirmed back in November, Xserve is being phased out and replaced with a new Mac Pro with Snow Leopard Server SKU. Rather than a regular 1U model, the new Mac Pro server option fits two units to a 12U space.
Alternatively, there’s the Mac mini with Snow Leopard Server, as first announced back in 2009; you’ll get two of those to a 1U space. Pricing for the Mac Pro server – which Apple claim is over 25-percent faster at certain tasks than the Xserve – kicks off at $2,999, while the roughly quarter-powered Mac mini server starts at $999.
Apple’s future processor and GPU plans are the subject of numerous leaks today, with sources revealing that the company has been testing Intel Sandy Bridge Core iX chips for several months now, ahead of including them in future MacBook Pro and Mac Pro models, among others. Meanwhile, the company is also tipped to be considering solely using Sandy Bridge integrated graphics in its entry-level notebooks and ultraportables, while higher-end machines would switch from NVIDIA chips to AMD’s Radeon range.
According to Electronista‘s sources, Apple has been testing 2.5GHz through to 2.7GHz Core i5 and i7 mobile processors for its MacBook and MacBook Pro lines, together with dual 2.5GHz Core i3 chips all the way up to quad-core, 3.4GHz Core i7 chips for its desktop iMac and Mac Pro machines. Sandy Bridge is expected to make its official debut at CES 2011 in January, with the long period of testing leading to speculation that Apple will release updated machines sooner rather than later.
Meanwhile, CNET‘s sources suggest that the Sandy Bridge GPU will be the sole graphics chip on 13-inch and smaller notebooks from Apple, while higher-end notebooks will look to AMD’s Radeon line-up. The benefits of Sandy Bridge include a smaller overall CPU/GPU package, since the graphics chip is integrated into the processor itself. It would also allow Apple to bypass ongoing legal issues between Intel and NVIDIA which have constrained its choice of GPU/CPU pairings.
NVIDIA has outed its latest graphics card, and the company has Apple Mac Pro users firmly in its sights. The NVIDIA Quadro 4000 for Mac packs 256 CUDA cores and 2GB of GDDR5 memory, which connectivity includes a DisplayPort and a DVI-I (Dual Link) connector built into its bracket, and an optional 3D stereo bracket; NVIDIA also throw in a DisplayPort to Mini DisplayPort adapter.
The company reckons that, with its new NVIDIA Scalable Geometry Engine, the Quadro 4000 for Mac can process up to 890 million triangles per second. That’ll show its hand in supported apps like pple Final Cut Pro, DaVinci Resolve, Autodesk Smoke, Mathworks Matlab and Adobe Creative Suite 5, for image and video processing.
It’ll also work in Windows apps running under BootCamp, and if you have a pair of cards you can have four displays running simultaneously. Unsurprisingly, all this performance doesn’t come cheap. The NVIDIA Quadro 4000 GPU will be priced at $1,199 when it arrives later this month.
Press Release:
It’s Here — NVIDIA Quadro Delivers NVIDIA Fermi Architecture to the Mac Pro
Award-Winning Professional Graphics Solution Delivers Blazing Fast Performance on Software From Adobe and Others
SANTA CLARA, CA — (Marketwire) — 11/16/2010 — NVIDIA announced today the expansion of its award-winning line of NVIDIA® Quadro® professional graphics solutions to the Mac platform, bringing the computational and visualization breakthroughs enabled by NVIDIA Fermi architecture to Mac Pro users.
For professional users operating on Mac OS X Snow Leopard, this means the wait is over. The NVIDIA Quadro 4000 graphics processing unit (GPU) for Mac is optimized to accelerate workflows and drive a range of top professional applications. For example, the Adobe Mercury Playback Engine in Adobe® Premiere® Pro CS5 software leverages NVIDIA CUDA™ parallel processing technology to enable film and video professionals to work unconstrained. Other examples include visual effects and image processing applications from The Foundry, including NUKE and STORM, and MATLAB from MathWorks.
“Adobe Premiere Pro CS5 and the Adobe Mercury Playback Engine, accelerated by NVIDIA Quadro GPUs, have redefined the non-linear editing workflow, delivering huge productivity gains,” said Ginna Baldassarre, senior product manager at Adobe. “Adobe looks forward to working with NVIDIA to help more Mac users reap the benefits of real-time performance and the ability to create compelling, multi-layer projects with multiple HD or higher resolution video clips, all while instantly viewing results.”
The Foundry is a leading developer of visual effects software for film and broadcast.
“The Foundry’s software has been used to help create visual effects for many Hollywood blockbusters, including ‘Avatar,’ ‘Alice in Wonderland,’ ‘Harry Potter,’ ‘Iron Man,’ ‘Star Trek,’ ‘District 9,’ ’2012,’ and ‘Transformers,’” said Bruno Nicoletti, Founder and CTO, The Foundry. “The Quadro 4000 is a powerful GPU blockbuster for the Mac.”
MathWorks MATLAB is a high-level technical computing language and interactive environment for algorithm development, numeric computation, data analysis, and data visualization, all of which benefit tremendously from fast double precision, a unique Quadro 4000 GPU for Mac feature. Graphics features, including 2-D and 3-D plotting functions, and 3-D volume functions required to visualize engineering and scientific data, are available in MATLAB.
“The visualization features in the Quadro 4000, coupled with GPU-accelerated computation for algorithm development and deployment with MATLAB and Parallel Computing Toolbox, are a powerful combination of capabilities for the Mac platform,” said Silvina Grad-Freilich, manager of parallel-computing marketing, MathWorks. “We are pleased that our Mac users will be able to leverage Fermi-grade computational performance in their applications.”
The high-end NVIDIA Quadro 4000 GPU for Mac, with 256 NVIDIA CUDA processing cores and 2GB of fast GDDR5 memory, delivers exceptional graphics performance across a broad range of design, animation and video applications. With new NVIDIA Scalable Geometry Engine technology, the Quadro 4000 for Mac can process up to 890 million triangles per second¹, enabling professionals to design, iterate and deliver higher quality results in less time.
The Quadro 4000 GPU for Mac also provides additional display flexibility through a DisplayPort and a DVI-I (Dual Link) connector built into its bracket, and a 3D stereo bracket for optimal stereo connection to the system. A DisplayPort to mini-DisplayPort cable is also included to enable mini-DisplayPort only Apple displays. Additionally, users can enable up to four high resolution displays from a single Mac Pro using dual NVIDIA Quadro 4000 for Mac boards.
The NVIDIA Quadro 4000 GPU for Mac enables dramatic increases in computing performance. Minimum system requirements include Mac OS X v10.6.5 or later with MacPro3,1 (early 2008), MacPro4,1 (early 2009), or MacPro5,1 (mid-2010). The Quadro 4000 processing unit for Mac is designed, built and supported by NVIDIA to provide best in class performance, reliability, compatibility and stability with professional Mac applications. NVIDIA and its ISV partners believe it’s the right choice in providing the dependability that video production and graphics professionals require.
Availability and Pricing
The Quadro 4000 GPU for Mac ($1,199 MSRP, USD) is available this month at Apple.com, select Apple resellers and system integrators, and from authorized distribution partners including: PNY Technologies in the Americas and Europe, ELSA in Japan, and Leadtek in Asia Pacific.
To learn more, visit: www.nvidia.com/quadro.
Follow NVIDIA Quadro on YouTube and Twitter: @NVIDIAQuadro.
About NVIDIA
NVIDIA (NASDAQ: NVDA) awakened the world to the power of computer graphics when it invented the GPU in 1999. Since then, it has consistently set new standards in visual computing with breathtaking, interactive graphics available on devices ranging from tablets and portable media players to notebooks and workstations. NVIDIA’s expertise in programmable GPUs has led to breakthroughs in parallel processing which make supercomputing inexpensive and widely accessible. The Company holds more than 1,600 patents worldwide, including ones covering designs and insights that are essential to modern computing. For more information, see www.nvidia.com.
(1)Raw throughput number calculated by graphics processing clusters, GPU clock rate, and triangle throughput.
Apple has been busy this Friday morning. Not only has the company officially announced that they are no longer making the Xserve available past January 31st, 2011, but they’ve also managed to sneak in a brand new Mac Pro Server onto the Apple Store. No surprise that Apple is already ahead of the guessing game as to how they would replace Xserve, even if the replacement isn’t getting much of a release announcement (so far).
Apple has pulled the curtain off the Mac Pro Server, which is set to start shipping in “two to four weeks.” The workstation is a new addition to the Apple Store, and it features a single 2.8GHz quad-core Intel Xeon “Nehalem” processor, 8GB (4 x 2GB) DDR3 SDRAM, and two 1TB hard drives. You also get ATI’s Radeon HD 5770 with 1GB of GDDR5 video memory, and an 18x SuperDrive.
New purchasers will also get Mac OS X Server with unlimited license versions. The base price for the new server begins at $2,999, and will have free shipping, once it ships. Of course, you can start upgrading the Mac Pro Server and see $3,475 price increases, if you felt so inclined.
Welcome to this week’s edition of the Week in Review! Early in the week Fujifilm unveiled a cool new hybrid viewfinder digital camera called the X100. The little digital camera has a 13.2-megapixel sensor and retro style that looks really nice. Some details on HTC’s Android tablet surfaced early in the week. Those details point to a price of $790 and Tegra 2 for the brains of the device. That tablet will be a hard sale at that price I think.
The geeks at iFixit have taken the new PlayStation Move controllers and torn them down. Inside the black case are some parts that can be replaced easily like the battery and vibration motor while others are permanently attached to the board inside. A sweet gaming mod turned up early in the week that has 11 different consoles, a projector and other gear crammed inside a replica of R2D2. The thing has a GameCube, N64, NES, SNES, Atari 7800, PSP, DreamCast and other consoles inside.
We reviewed the Clearwire Rover Puck Monday and while it is cool in a 4G area, travel outside that area and you get squat. The thing doesn’t support 3G networks as a way to cut the price of the device. A report from an analyst surfaced that points to a new iPad coming in 2011 with a smaller 7-inch screen and a pair of cameras. Presumably, those cameras would be for FaceTime and shooting photos.
Rumors surfaced that ARM might be acquired by Apple. ARM came back and called those rumors “complete nonsensical” though it wouldn’t be the first time something was denied outright and then turned out to be true. Leica unveiled its sweet M9 limited edition Titanium digital camera. The thing gets a titanium case and a few other new features.
Headcase unveiled the coolest case ever for the iPad called the Etch A Sketch Case. The case makes your iPad look just like an Etch A Sketch; all it needs is an app for actually drawing and a couple white knobs that actually work. Panasonic unveiled a 3D lens that will be launching soon that allows any micro four-thirds G-series camera to shoot 3D images.
Sony officially launched the 3.50 firmware update for the PS3 that brings support for Blu-ray 3D flicks. The update adds little else to the mix. Scosche freedomMIC for the Flip line of camcorders. The mic has a wireless section that attaches to your lapel.
We reviewed the Mac Pro for 2010 and the unit we got hands on with is a mid-range machine. We liked the machine and it did well running Windows 7 in Boot Camp as well. AT&T has said that it isn’t worried about losing customers if the iPhone goes to Verizon. I still say they might not loose current customers because of contracts, but new iPhone customers may migrate to Verizon instead.
Quirky unveiled a cool new backpack that charges your gadgets with its own internal battery called the Trek Support. It can charge three gadgets at one time that use USB ports and is up for pre-order for $130. ThinkGeek unveiled a new pizza cutter that looks like the Enterprise NCC-1701 from Star Trek. It’s the geekiest and coolest pizza cutter in the history of pizza.
An analyst has cited sources that claim the iPhone 4 for Verizon will go into production in December. This is great news for Verizon fans and hopefully it proves to be true. Kensington unveiled a cool new iPad case called the KeyFolio that has a keyboard inside. The keyboard connects to the iPad using Bluetooth and has rubber keys to keep from scratching the screen of the iPad.
A tip points to a couple new INQ Mobile Facebook phones in 2011. The phones could potentially be on AT&T in the July or August time frame of 2011.
ThinkGeek pulled the wraps off a new iPhone case that adds a keyboard to your iPhone called the TK-421. The Bluetooth keyboard lets you type all you want with real keys and versions are available for the 3GS and iPhone 4. Marvell has unveiled a cool tri-core processor for smartphones and tablets. The processor is the Armada 628 and has a single low power 624MHz core for the functions of the smartphone or tablet and two faster 1.5GHz cores for other tasks.
The WeTab tablet has gone on sale and landed in its own video unboxing. The thing sells for €449 for a 16GB version and has some nice specs. SteelSeries has unveiled a new keyboard called the Shift that has interchangeable key sets. This is the latest version of that old Ideazon Zboard that SteelSeries snapped up a while back.
The iPhone, iPad, and iPod were all turned into cool DIY walking robots. The bots are complete with an animated screen with eyes that flick back and forth. A geek has created the most awesome costume in the history of Halloween. The costume is a full size version of the power loader from the Aliens flick.
A concept mobile phone from Mozilla called the Seabird surfaced late in the week. The coolest feature is the multi-angle pico projectors inside the thing. The Notion Ink Adam tablet may launch in several colors when it hits the market. The thing has a camera with extra swivel range for easier photo taking among other nice features.
The iPhone 4 may well be on the way to the Verizon network, but will Verizon accept Apple’s contract terms? The thought is that the iPhone on Verizon may risk the Android market it has carved out for itself. Thanks for reading this week’s edition! See you next week!
Today was a busy day in the news business, so hopefully you managed to keep up. With that being said, welcome to The Daily Slash, the last little bit before we all wind down. As usual, we’ll capture one story that’s interesting enough to make the cut, as well as wrap up the news from around the R3 Media Network. So let’s get right into it.
From Around the Web:
Apple’s FaceTime a Missing Feature in the Middle East: It looks like some interesting things are happening to the iPhone 4 that’s getting ready to launch in Middle Eastern countries like Yemen, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia. TUAW noticed that the official Apple pages, where the iPhone 4 is gloriously shown off, doesn’t actually showcase anything related to the FaceTime video calling feature. Speculation is robust, with people thinking that the image shown on the Apple site, whether it be the woman’s face or her hair, is causing the confusion — but one thing is for sure, FaceTime is nowhere to be found in the features section of the iPhone 4 in those countries. With the device set to launch in the region soon, it looks like we’ll find out the reason sooner than later.
Apple’s updated 2010 Mac Pro line was a long time coming, but it certainly addressed would-be buyers’ key complaint: the choice of processors. Now offering everything from a single Intel Xeon through to a pair of six-core chips, the new Mac Pro range claims to be “the most powerful, most configurable Mac ever.” We’ve had a dual-processor quadcore Mac Pro on the SlashGear test bench for a couple of weeks; check out our full review after the cut.
Our review unit slots into the middle of the updated Mac Pro range, with two of Intel’s 2.4GHz quadcore Xeon E5620 CPUs, 6GB of 1066MHz DDR3 memory and an ATI Radeon HD 5770 1GB video card. With a 1TB 7,200rpm hard-drive it comes in at $3,499 – for $1,000 less you can have a single 2.8GHz Xeon quadcore and half the memory, while for $1,500 more there’s the dual 2.66GHz hexacore Xeon flagship. Still no Blu-ray – not even the option – so it’s a standard 18x SuperDrive, four PCI Express 2.0 slots, five USB 2.0 ports and four FireWire 800 ports. Networking options include two-gigabit Ethernet ports, Bluetooth 2.1 and WiFi a/b/g/n.
There’s no shortage of graphics choices, either: the Radeon HD 5770 has Dual-Link DVI port and pair of Mini DisplayPort connectors. As for audio, there’s a digital optical input and output, plus analog in/out on the rear panel, and a headphone socket on the front (along with two each of the FireWire and USB ports). We’d love to see USB 3.0 or even eSATA there too, but sadly Apple hasn’t seen fit to install them in this particular Mac Pro generation.
Take off the side panel – an easy task with the flip-up (and lockable) latch on the back – and Apple’s unusual interior layout is revealed. Everything is sectioned off, with the processors and memory at the bottom in a pullout tray, the PCI Express 2.0 slots in the middle, and then the four 3.5-inch hard-drive bays slung above. Each bay has a drive carrier that a standard SATA 3Gb/s drive clips into, before slotting – cable free – into place. Our review unit had a single 1TB drive, but you can specify up to 8TB of traditional HDDs or up to four 512GB SSDs and an optional RAID controller for drive redundancy (RAID levels 0, 1, 5 and 0+1 supported).
Slick design, a sensible layout and plenty of ports are no use at all if the core system doesn’t hold up its end of the bargain, and happily the 2010 Mac Pro is capable of some serious crunching. We performed some of our benchmark testing natively in OS X, and then other elements in Windows 7 Ultimate running in either Parallels or Boot Camp. It’s common for Mac Pro owners to spend at least part of their time in a dual-booting or multimode environment, depending on the software tools they’re reliant on, and so we felt this would give a more balanced view of the desktop than OS X figures alone.
We started out with Geekbench, a synthetic test of processor and memory performance. Tested natively in OS X 10.6.4 Snow Leopard (with the latest patches and updates installed), the Mac Pro scored 14,378. In comparison, a 2009 Mac Pro – with a single Xeon 2.66GHz processor but 12GB of DDR3 memory, a configuration costing roughly the same as the machine in today’s review – scored 9,600.
We then booted into Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit using Boot Camp, and the Mac Pro scored 11,451. Loading Windows in Parallels – which allows you to run both Mac and PC apps at the same time – saw a Windows 7 Geekbench score of 6,017, while scores using VMware ranged from 5563 to 6017. It should be noted that these virtualization scores were calculated when Parallels and VMware were running in four core mode; although they scored higher when using all eight cores, that leaves no resources for the host OS and isn’t advisable in real-world applications.
In contrast, Lenovo’s hefty ThinkStation C20 workstation, with its 8GB of DDR3 memory and dual 2.66GHz Xeon X5650 processors scored 19,565 in Windows 7 Professional. You pay considerably for those extra 5,000 points, however, considering the ThinkStation C20 is a $6,774 machine (almost double what Apple is asking for this Mac Pro).
We then turned to PCMark Vantage, which runs in Windows 7 rather than OS X and rates a system across seven categories (Memories, TV and Movies, Gaming, Music, Communications, Productivity and HDD) and then a final score. We tested the Mac Pro three times in all, using Boot Camp, Parallels and VMware, and had pretty consistent results across all batches. In Boot Camp, using the full 6GB of RAM, the PCMark score was 8,377, with particularly strong scores in Communications and Gaming.
In Parallels, with 4GB of the RAM assigned, the system scored 8,689 overall, with Communications and HDD ahead. Finally, in VMware, the PCMark score was 8,066 with Music and HDD leading the way. It’s important to remember that, in both virtualization setups, the software is emulating hardware so the GPU performance is less than when running a native OS. The Mac Pro fell behind the C20 by 1,400-2,000 points in these situations, but it’s still an impressive showing considering both the price difference and the fact that the PCMark testing was done in the Apple machine’s non-standard OS.
Day to day, then, there’s little you can throw at the Mac Pro and expect to slow it down. We processed HD video while watching different content, browsing with multiple tabs in several windows, and with several other apps running in the background, and we couldn’t get the Apple desktop to break a sweat. It’s hard to imagine the everyday user that would require such a machine; most would likely be better served with an iMac, given that model’s cheaper price and brilliant IPS display. Still, the absence of USB 3.0 and Blu-ray – on both iMac and Mac Pro – does still rankle a little, given rival PCs have offered both for some time now.
If you’re involved in frequent video, audio or image editing, however, or any sort of CAD or other processor-intensive application, then the Mac Pro deserves serious consideration. Strong performance not only in OS X but when running Windows 7 – particularly in Boot Camp – offers the best of both worlds for the platform agnostic, and while the Mac Pro’s upfront sticker price may seem high, compared to native Windows machines of similar build construction it’s actually surprisingly competitive. For those who want the very highest performance, the dual hexacore Mac Pro is an expensive option, but this midrange model arguably delivers the best balance of crunching power and price.
Apple’s Mac Pro is a beast of a machine, and more so when you overclock it, but the fan noise you end up with can be pretty intrusive. The guys over at Asetek decided to see what they could do with their liquid-cooling components, taking a 2008 dual-CPU 2.8GHz Mac Pro – overclocked to 3.16GHz – with custom cooling and comparing it to a newer, stock 3.2GHz air-cooled model straight from Apple.
Video demo after the cut
The end result? A quieter machine with comparable performance – as you can see in the video demo below – but putting out only 37.5 dB of noise, versus the 50 dB from the stock Mac Pro. Both machines were running at 47-degrees centigrade, despite the overclocking of the liquid-cooled model (which uses a 240mm radiator).
Now for the bad news. While we can think of plenty Mac Pro users who would jump at the chance to quieten their computer while boosting performance, Asetek tells us this is a custom job and isn’t available for purchase. That’s because of the socket 771 chip used in this particular Mac Pro; however, the new models use socket 1366 chips, and so you could feasibly hack together a few Corsair Hydro Series coolers to do something similar. No straightforward boxed offering, then, so it’s time to start pestering Apple to offer factory-fit liquid-cooling options.
Apple’s recent refresh of the all-in-one iMac range may not have concurred with all of the preceding rumors, but the main expectation was certainly met: faster processors than ever before. Fresh to the SlashGear test bench is the 27-inch iMac, with the flagship quadcore Intel CPU. Pairing a 2.93GHz Core i7 processor with 4GB of DDR3 memory and a 256GB SSD, it certainly promises high performance; it also makes for an expensive buy, $2,799 to specify the same spec as our review unit. Check out the full SlashGear review after the cut.
As well as the processor, memory and solid-state storage, there’s an ATI Radeon HD 5750 GPU with 1GB of its own GDDR5 memory and an 8x SuperDrive DVD burner. Still no Blu-ray option, of course, and no USB 3.0 ports either; instead Apple gives you four USB 2.0 ports, a FireWire 800 port, audio in/out (each combining analog and digital), gigabit ethernet and a Mini DisplayPort that, on this larger iMac, also functions as an input for hooking up your MacBook Pro. On the side, as well as the slot-loading optical drive there’s an SDXC memory card reader (backward compatible with SD/SDHC cards, naturally) while inside there’s WiFi a/b/g/n and Bluetooth 2.1+EDR. The latter is used with the bundled Apple Wireless Keyboard and Magic Mouse; the Magic Trackpad launched alongside the new iMacs is an optional extra.
While all-in-ones may not be particularly known for their upgrade potential, Apple has made great use of the 27-inch iMac’s internal space. The SSD is an option, but so is pairing a regular hard-drive with a solid-state counterpart, each occupying its own internal bay. The 27-inch model comes with a 1TB, 7,200rpm HDD as standard: you can upgrade that to 2TB or swap it for the 256GB SSD, or combine either HDD with the SSD. That could be useful for digital media pros looking for the system speed an SSD brings together with the relatively cost-effective storage a traditional HDD delivers. At this stage, you can’t combine two SSDs, however.
Our wish-list for the iMac gets smaller with each iteration, and right now is pretty much limited to Blu-ray, USB 3.0 and eSATA. Given Apple’s general antipathy toward the former, it looks unlikely that the company will include Blu ray any time soon; instead they’re betting on digital delivery through iTunes. USB 3.0 and eSATA are trickier: Apple helped lead the way in ditching legacy connections, which might lead you to assume they’d also be at the forefront in these faster ports, but so far there’s no sign.
Everything is wrapped up in what’s perhaps the slickest chassis in Apple’s line-up today, a smooth unibody aluminum expanse with a simple one-legged desk stand. Opt for the included wireless peripherals and a WiFi network connection and you can hook up the iMac with a single cable, for power, which snakes neatly out through a purposefully cut hole in the leg. Up front, most noticeable is the 16:9 aspect 27-inch IPS LCD panel, running at 2560 x 1440 resolution with 375 cd/m2 brightness and 1000:1 contrast ratio. Hidden behind the glass bezel is an iSight webcam, a microphone and an IR port for use with the optional Apple remote, while underneath are stereo speakers each paired with a 17W amp.
The display remains a key selling point for the iMac, being bright, color-rich and having very broad viewing angles. Think of it as the desktop’s equivalent of the iPhone 4′s Retina Display; only a few PC manufacturers offer LCD displays that can compete, and it’s rare to find one integrated into an all-in-one machine. Obviously the iMac is at home with movie playback in Full HD, though of course with the absence of Blu-ray you’re limited to digital content downloaded or side-loaded in 1080p HD resolution. Standalone media performs well, with the iMac’s speakers belying the absence of a dedicated subwoofer; thanks to the digital audio output it’s straightforward to add a 2.1 or 5.1 surround sound system too.
With its superlative specifications, though, it’s likely content creation rather than consumption that iMac buyers prioritizing this particular model would be occupying themselves with. It’s certainly easily capable when it comes to processing video, audio and images. At the risk of getting geekier, though, there are some good reasons why this is the best iMac to-date.
We ran Geekbench, a synthetic test of processor and memory performance, and the quadcore iMac scored a massive 10099 points. In contrast, last year’s Mac Pro – with a quadcore 2.67GHz Xeon processor and 12GB of memory – scored 9600. The current generation entry-level iMac – with a Core i3-550 dual-core running at 3.2GHz is scoring around 6700 in Geekbench; the machine positioned at the same point in Apple’s range late last year scored just 4,650. More importantly, perhaps, is the increase in L3 cache, with the 8MB in the new iMac matching the old Mac Pro (the old iMac lacked L3 cache completely). Put simply, the L3 cache is used as a high-speed store for data being processed: the more you have, the faster the computer can crunch through whatever it is you’re working on. Meanwhile the FSB (Front-Side Bus) is the same 4.80GHz on the quadcore iMac as it is on the old Mac Pro: that’s the speed of the pathway between CPU and Northbridge, and a potential bottleneck if it’s not high enough.
When you start factoring that performance increase in with Apple’s pricing, the new iMac’s appeal gets even greater. First off, consider that – without the SSD – you’re getting Mac Pro (i.e. flagship) performance, plus a brilliant 27-inch display, for less than you’d pay for the current entry-level Mac Pro with a quadcore 2.8GHz Xeon ($2,199 versus $2,449). On top of that you’d need to pair the Mac Pro with a display; the 27-inch LED Cinema Display, using the same panel as the iMac we’re testing, will be $999 when it arrives next month.
Now, the Mac Pro obviously has some benefits of its own: the four hard-drive bays, faster SuperDrive, speedier CPU options and greater connectivity, for a start. For most users though, balancing high performance with price, the iMac’s combination of a slimline form-factor, huge amounts of processing power and integrated display will likely hit the sweet spot that previously only an entry-level Mac Pro would’ve filled.
From that perspective, the $2,799 of our review unit ($2,199 if you opt for the 1TB HDD instead of the SSD) starts to look a whole lot more reasonable. Yes, it’s overkill for most, but that’s why the 27-inch Core i3 version (at $1,699) is on offer; that model itself delivers around 45-percent more performance (as measured by Geekbench) than its predecessor. Factor in the quality of the display, design, construction and usability of OS X, and the iMac is not just a fitting flagship but a well-rounded alternative to traditional workstations. For all those reasons it comes highly recommended. Feel free to drop me questions in the comment section or visit apple.com/imac for more details.
The updated Apple Mac Pro desktop has gone on sale, complete with a choice of quad- and hexacore Intel processors. Announced at the end of July, the new Mac Pros start from $2,499 – for a single 2.8GHz quadcore Xeon, 3GB of RAM and a 1TB hard-drive – while single-chip hexacore machines using Intel’s 3.33GHz Xeon bump that to $3,699.
If you want dual hexacore chips then you’re looking at $4,999; that’s upgrading the basic dual-CPU Mac Pro, which in itself is $3,499, with a pair of 2.66GHz Xeons. Other options include up to 32GB of DDR3 memory, four hard-drive bays to be filled (with optional RAID) and a choice of ATI Radeon graphics with either single or dual-card setups.
Ports, meanwhile, include four FireWire 800, five USB 2.0, analog and digital audio in/out, and then of course whichever graphics outputs are supported on the ATI video cards. New Apple Mac Pro machines ship within 7-10 days.
