Apple Mac Pro Running Dual Quad-Core Spotted

[Kougar]

Okay, I think the Mac Pro just went from bad-ass, to the absolute most powerful desktop possible for the next 5 years... I need to hurry up and win the lottery! :(

Apple's Mac Pro has an undocumented feature: it runs eight physical processors without breaking a sweat


My former boss Anand Shimpi arguably has the best hack all week. Shimpi managed to get his Mac Pro to recognize two quad-core Clovertown processors in a single Mac Pro -- the resulting system ran flawlessly on eight processor cores.

No BIOS updates, no pin-hacks or anything exotic was needed to get the yet unannounced processors to work in the Mac Pro. Shimpi adds "We can't say with 100% certainty that you will be able to upgrade to Clovertown when it comes out, but so far the results are looking good."

The Mac Pro is unique in the fact that the system uses server processors as opposed to desktop processors. The Socket 771 Xeons used in existing Mac Pros, dubbed Woodcrest, support FB-DIMM memory -- the desktop variants do not.

Intel has publically announced several times that quad-core desktop and server processors would be shipping from the company before the end of the year. The desktop versions of the processors, dubbed Kentsfield, will carry the Core 2 Extreme brand. The server brand, codenamed Clovertown, has not been announced yet.

The Kentsfield desktop quad-core processor is expected to launch at a steep $999 MSRP, and typically server components from Intel MSRP for about 20% more than the desktop variants.

Article is from http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=4160 (http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=4160)

[Xero (1)ne]

dam.....*shakes head* thats just crazy...

i give it 9 out of 10 paws :paw: :paw: :paw: :paw: :paw: :paw: :paw: :paw: :paw: ...
and 4 out of 5 greeny guys :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: [image limit] ...

[Kougar]

:lol:

Think Apple would send me a unit to review? If so then it's worth seeing if Intel would be willing to send two Clovertowns out to me for their first sneak-peek review too... :mrgreen:

Maybe while I'm at it I'll ask Dell if I can do a review of their 2407WFP. :roll:

[mlambert890]

I guess I dont see what the fuss is about. It's an Intel 5000 series chipset machine with a couple of Xeon procs.

I can grab a Supermicro board right now for $400, two Intel 5160 3Ghz procs for $1700, add in a nice ATX with 650W power supply, a couple of gigs of FB-DIMMs, a nice big HD, a DVD-R and a decent video card and bring the entire system in at around $3100. Apple's price for this machine would be $3600.

When quad core comes out, you could just drop them into the same home brew config above. The parts are all available from the big resellers right now. The only thing thats stopped me from doing this is that I want to see more results with FB-DIMMs.

What is this sudden fixation/fascination with Apple that I see on so many of the enthusiast forums? It makes no sense. Win XP will support the 4 CPUs fine and, I wouldnt be shocked it if support the 8 as well. XP proc support is tied to the physical socket count and not the core count and the Win 2000 kernel already supported 8 CPU (Win2k advanced server). But even if you hate Windows, you can just load Ubuntu or whatever Linux build floats your boat. Hell, install BSD even! I just dont understand what kind of crack Apple is able to push that they cause such mass hypnosis with what amounts to very unintersting stuff. I "get it" with mass market consumers, but on BJorn?!

[Xero (1)ne]

aww hell lets just make a mobo with 16 cpu sockets, and can handle oh, lets say 8 cores each, and have 3 feet of it dedicated to ram, 5 X-Fi's built in, 20 IDE channels, 40 sata channels, 10 scsi channels, 8 pcie slots, and a mini bar

oh and it also turns into a foozball/airhockey/pool table!

all leather interior and cupholders!

now THAT is the premice for one bad @$$ box:twisted:



hmm wunder wuht the minimum wattage would be:lol:

[Kougar]

I guess I dont see what the fuss is about. It's an Intel 5000 series chipset machine with a couple of Xeon procs.

I can grab a Supermicro board right now for $400, two Intel 5160 3Ghz procs for $1700, add in a nice ATX with 650W power supply, a couple of gigs of FB-DIMMs, a nice big HD, a DVD-R and a decent video card and bring the entire system in at around $3100. Apple's price for this machine would be $3600.

When quad core comes out, you could just drop them into the same home brew config above. The parts are all available from the big resellers right now. The only thing thats stopped me from doing this is that I want to see more results with FB-DIMMs.

What is this sudden fixation/fascination with Apple that I see on so many of the enthusiast forums? It makes no sense. Win XP will support the 4 CPUs fine and, I wouldnt be shocked it if support the 8 as well. XP proc support is tied to the physical socket count and not the core count and the Win 2000 kernel already supported 8 CPU (Win2k advanced server). But even if you hate Windows, you can just load Ubuntu or whatever Linux build floats your boat. Hell, install BSD even! I just dont understand what kind of crack Apple is able to push that they cause such mass hypnosis with what amounts to very unintersting stuff. I "get it" with mass market consumers, but on BJorn?!

Simple. Because your system would have 4 processor cores, and that system would have 8. ;) It is using Quad-core Xeons, which are not even on market yet nor will be for a decent while to come.

I like it because it's a good solid case, with the absolute best in hardware (Give or take on those FB-DIMMs, but can't have everything :mrgreen:), that I can run Vista on. I'd stick with Vista only and use OS X on it as a virtualized OS, with XP running as another virtualized OS, and one or two flavors of linux on another couple to play around with.

I don't like it because it's called an "Apple", I like it because it has the specs to blow away any consumer product on 99% of this planet that is small enough to fit in a tower-sized space under the desk. :) If I hadn't made myself clear enough yet... it takes the most powerful processor (The X6800, which doesn't just beat a FX64, it is in a completely different class), and then quadruples it.

Hell, outfit it will the full 16gb of FB-DIMMs and I'd run every single flavor of linux that exists on it at once. :lol:

[liqnit]

Amazing
So apple could be the first to launch such a computer?
i didn't even knew apple had a server line of products...

[Kougar]

Apple is famous (Or is that infamous?) for intentionally using non-consumer level parts in their Mactels.

Their iMacs will use the 479 or 478 socket Merom (mobile market core 2 duo's), their Mac Pros use Woodcrest (server market Core 2 Duo's). Nothing I know of uses the Conroe Core 2 Duo. They only sell Mac's with Xeons in them because they have the hooks to be used in 2-Processor rigs, but it is also why they have to use FB-DIMMs. Clovertown will simply be the server version of Kentsfield, and Anand had the bright idea to exchange the Woodcrests in the Mac Pro Anandtech is running a series of articles on with two Covertowns, and it worked without any other changes needed, possible (likely) exception being only the cooling!

Apple does have a small niche in the real server market as well, they have been selling Power5 based rack servers... but it appears they've upgraded those to Woodcrest Xeons as well. ;) http://www.apple.com/server/web_server.html (http://www.apple.com/server/web_server.html)

[Absolut352]

Anyone watch the keynote? http://events.apple.com.edgesuite.net/sep_2006/event/index.html

Apple is a good company and all but it makes me crazy when they say that Microsoft copies them on everything. Yet apple copies open source software all the time and even microsoft but they get a free pass. Just look at how similar Itunes7 is to Wmp11. Didnt mean to hijack the thread but i just wanted to see if i was alone on this. They do make cool computers tho.

[GIBSON]

Anyone watch the keynote? http://events.apple.com.edgesuite.net/sep_2006/event/index.html

Apple is a good company and all but it makes me crazy when they say that Microsoft copies them on everything. Yet apple copies open source software all the time and even microsoft but they get a free pass. Just look at how similar Itunes7 is to Wmp11. Didnt mean to hijack the thread but i just wanted to see if i was alone on this. They do make cool computers tho.
Yer, I absolutetly agree on that!

And as someone mentioned earlier, apple is probably going to charge you twice the price that it's actually worth.

[mlambert890]

Simple. Because your system would have 4 processor cores, and that system would have 8. ;) It is using Quad-core Xeons, which are not even on market yet nor will be for a decent while to come.


First off, of course my system would have the quad core. Im talking about once Clovertown is released obviously. Apple cant offer you that today either. My point is that there's nothing particularyl interesting about the Mac Pro. Why isnt Anand dropping those Clovertown engineering samples into a PC motherboard? Good question. I sure cant answer it.

Everything else you're mentioning isnt special. The Apple case is nice and solid, but it isnt small. Its a fair sized tower thats pretty heavy. You can choose from a TON of different form factors with the route I outlined because the Supermicro board is ATX.

And this argument that Apple doesnt use "standard parts" is REALLY farcical. What are you guys talking about? Its a 5000x chipset mobo with two Xeon 5160s and some FB-DIMMs.

Who cares.

I would have thought the curiosity with Apple would have been MORE interesting when it was at least a totally different hardware platform. This current wave of interest is just more Apple marketing magic. Now *everyone* can "feel cool" in the Mac store even if they like to play DirectX games on their multi-thousand dollar rig because the dopey Mac is just another Intel clone.

For what its worth, I always have a Mac sitting around and have used/supported them since the Mac SE 030. I currently still have a G4 dual. So its not that I have some beef with Apple, I just dont see what the fuss is about on the *enthusiast* forums over the Mac Pro.

For me, Im WAY more interested in Anand dropping those same Clovertowns in a freaking Tyan or Supermicro board, but maybe when I wasnt looking the PC enthusiast community somehow became the "Genius Bar".

[Kougar]

I think you are either misunderstanding me, or taking my posts out of context.

My point is not that "Apple is special", nor "Apple uses better-than-anyone-else grade specialhardware". I am solely enthusastic about and interested in the performance that kind of 8-core machine can deliver. There is nothing out there than can come close, and even if K8L is able to turn the tables on the "Core" based Kentsfield, I find it beyond extremely unlikely that a single quad-K8L could match two quad-Clovertowns.

The second part to this, is that the Power5 architecture couldn't offer Intel's Core 2 Duo performance, nor even AMD's X2 or Athlon64 performance. I have absolutely no use for a Power4 or Power5 based Mac, because I don't run OS X and most applications I use don't run under OS X. However with that specific Mac Pro I can boot any OS I choose (Vista and/or XP), and run the rest as background services if wanted.

It's what is under the hood... whether or not it can be built by oneself, that doesn't change that in pure performance numbers it is the crèam de la crèam of personal computers by a currently absurdly large margin. I don't care who made it, it doesn't change it's a killer system!

[GIBSON]

Well, it would kinda suck for a not even released system to be slower than it's competitors' product that's been out for a while.

[Kougar]

Let me try and put it this way.

The released system that is out right now is the exact equivalent of AMD's entire 4x4 purpose/design. Except this Intel "4x4" is using much more powerful Intel Woodcrests. So, it is already off the chats in comparison to any sort of AMD 4x4 systen you could attempt to build today. NOW, double that. Double that, because Anand just turned a 2xdual core system into a 2xquad-core system. He just doubled the already chart-topping performance... AMD's 4x4 set up with a pair of FX64's (Or whatever they plan to use) will be downright paltry in comparison.

It would be like comparing an AMD K5-450mhz chip to the FX62, if not worse :lol:

[GIBSON]

Well, I get what you're trying to say Kougar, but the point is that you can build the exact same system (when those apples come out) for less dough. So yes, it's a good config, but it being apple probably means you'll get F'ed in the A price wise.

[Kougar]

So yes, it's a good config, but it being apple probably means you'll get F'ed in the A price wise.

Well that is a given. :roll:

But what if I said having a dual Clovertown machine right now is the equivalent to having a dual-K8L machine? Because it really is just that. ;)