Is it just me, or where's the beef?
http://www.apple.com/macpro/specs.htmlThe long anticipated update seems to only change the processor: no architecture changes (no L2 cache changes, no bus improvements, etc.) and no peripheral enhancements (no blu-ray, no Hitchi 1TB drives, no more ports, etc. etc.)
The question: For 2D Photoshop CS3 work, do 8-cores provide significant speed improvements over the 4-core? (as it pertains for the quest for the fastest CS3 machine; I fully understand the benefit of striped scratch disks, plenty of RAM, etc.)
One of the wild cards is CS3, Adobe RAW 4.0 , and processing in 16bit images (although I only use a handful of filters: Photozoom, Shadows/Hilights, Noise Ninja , Nik Sharpener Pro).
## 1 Multicores Not Panacea?##
There's Adobe's assertion that just adding more cores, without dedicated processor memory changes, won't make Photoshop go zoom as one would hope...
What's the story with Photoshop & multi-core?
http://blogs.adobe.com/jnack/2006/12/photo..._multicore.html Although, I'm surprised that RAW processing wouldn't benefit significantly (ie, it's computationally intense, no?)
Apple's page on Photoshop performance isn't very compelling:
http://www.apple.com/macpro/performance.html (all about Rosetta and G4's)
Although this guy says he shows all four cores going like gangbusters (perhaps with multiple apps open?):
http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/archives/aug06/082406.html#S21606 ## 2 - Graphics Card Impact? ##
I still can't find any current information as to how much the graphics card choice translates to realworld PS 2D performance? Have there been any metrics on the 3 options for PS3 and/or Aperture (NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT vs. ATI Radeon X1900 XT vs. NVIDIA Quadro FX 4500)?
Apple highlights gaming/3D (
http://www.apple.com/macpro/graphics.html), not Photoshop CS3 nor Aperture.
Some reports say that Photoshop will use VRAM if it depletes it's 4GB limit, but I haven't seen it validated.
Apple Support said Adobe/Apple recommend the entry level graphics card as an "optimized" CS3 solution, referring me to:
http://store.apple.com/AppleStore/WebObjec...ily=MacAdobeCS3 "As counterintuitive as it may sound, video cards have little effect on the performance of most 2D imaging tasks... The one major exception to the above is for users of Apple Macintosh computers. Recent versions of OS X have implemented a technology called Core Image that makes use of graphics hardware to offload some image processing tasks from the processor. Software that is programmed to take advantage of this (such as Aperture) will be reliant on the performance of the graphics card, so buying high-end offerings will be a significant boon to these users. Note that this will not have any effect on software not explicitly using this technology (eg Photoshop)."
http://www.photographicworkflow.com/wiki/C...s:Graphics_Card "Does Photoshop CS3 "hand off" rendering to the graphics card and will you gain speed if you have a fast graphics card with lots of VRAM? Not at this time... the current CS3 beta relies strictly on CPU for rendering effects." (
http://www.barefeats.com/quad16.html)
Also confirmed by Adobe that PS CS3 does not use "Core Image" (
http://blogs.adobe.com/jnack/2006/12/photoshop_and_multicore.html )
## 3 - Aperture or Lightroom Speedup? ##
Maybe the 8-core would speed up Aperture (toward which I'm leaning - Lightroom so far seems too modal and it's not AppleScriptable)?
Although Apple seems to place more stock in higher end graphics card for Aperture (
http://www.apple.com/macpro/performance.html):
upgrading to a high-performance graphics card, you can make the most of OpenGL-accelerated applications such as Aperture.
Some say "The main reason LR is faster is because it uses CPU to do image processing where as Aperture dumps a lot of stuff to the GPU by utilising core image. Hence a macbook with a built in GPU isn't exactly the best machine to be running Aperture on. !"
Also, "ArsTechnica compared the Adobe Lightroom and Apple Aperture in workflow management. Here’s the conclusion: “Aperture’s main drawback is still performance and as that last joke implies, it was designed for bleeding edge machines. On a quad Core2 Duo Xeon, it is very usable but Lightroom just feels faster for everything regardless of hardware. Since Aperture relies on Core Image and a fast video card to do its adjustments (RAW decoding is done by the CPU), it’s limited to what the single 3-D card can do. Lightroom does everything with the CPU and so it is likely to gain more speed as multicore systems get faster."
http://www.adobeforums.com/cgi-bin/webx/.3bc38855## 3 - Hard Info? ##
In trying to get some hard info, I called Apple, and after the usual begging, got connected to an engineer ("Andy"). He was full of wrong information and was shooting from the hip. I corrected him point by point and he fell back to generalized marketing obfuscation such as saying Apple can't comment on unreleased products, etc. (even when I pointed out that was released today). After the fourth time referring him to Apple's own pages, and not having any luck getting a more senior person, I gave up.
Ever the optimist, I called back to talk to MacPro technical support. I asked: specifically what is the 2D graphic performance (ie PS CS3) difference between two 3.0GHz Quad-Core processors and two 3.0GHz Dual-Core processors. I got to listen to some great reggae for 35 minutes at which point their senior tech said the only info is what is on Apple's website (no internal knowledge base information, etc.).
It sounds like we'll just have to wait until someone does actual benchmarks on Quad vs. 8-Core machines using CS3 (?) - sigh, and I have a show coming up in 3 weeks for which I need to process my thousands of Antarctica images?
Running Commentaries:
digg
http://www.digg.com/apple/8_CORE_Mac_Pro_O...ounced_by_ApplePerformance Tests:
Photoshop CS2 vs CS3 beta on High-End Macs
http://www.barefeats.com/quad16.html Apple Info:
8-core architecture
http://www.apple.com/macpro/intel.html (no mention of photoshop, just scientific apps)
8-core specs
http://www.apple.com/macpro/specs.html (no discernible differences besides the processor)
Pricing (with all default settings except processor (1gb ram, 250gb hdd, GeForce 7300 GT)
An 8-core system (two 3.0GHz Quad-Core processors) costs $4,000
A 4-core system (two 3.0GHz Dual-Core) $3,300
A 4-core system (two 2.0GHz Dual-Core) $2,200
Adobe:
Optimize performance in Photoshop (CS2 on Mac OS)
http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/knowledgebase...x.cfm?id=332270 No 64-bit Photoshop CS3
http://news.com.com/2061-10791_3-6146229.html