# Do the multicore Nehalems and Westmeres really perform?



## MacDoc (Nov 3, 2001)

You betcha - real world.

Long time client floated in this am with an ailing 2.8 8 core XX)- long an industry standard.

We did an AE ( Adobe After Effects ) render - all 16 cores going wide open and *what took 10.14 min on his 2.8 8 core took 2.33 minute on a 2.26 Nehalem*....AND he gets the 100% write off from the gov.

Not often we get to see a real life situation comparing two machines - we had just moved his drives over and AE stores the render time.

4870 video card, 24 gigs of RAM , 8 core Nehalem ( 16 processing threads) = - pretty damn fine performance










Apple IS delivering on the performance front....enough ram is critical tho and the apps will only get better.

400% gain and 100% write off......think it about it people.....2 weeks left.


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## screature (May 14, 2007)

Thanks for posting this MacDoc... Do you have any real world tests for less intensive applications like say for Photoshop and filter rendering times?


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## MacDoc (Nov 3, 2001)

Photoshop we feel the quads with 12 gigs and high clock are the winners...
2.66, 2.8 , 2.93 and 3.33 are superb for PS.

Drive speed tho is a factor.

Client had a 2.26 8 core ( 16 processing threads as above ) with 8 gigs and a standard drive array.

Moved him to 24gigs and a pair of Velociraptors....
Response

_
Hi, David!

The increased speed is very apparent now that I am in my home stall. Thank you for your wisdom & alacrity.
_

so - these big guns will not perform with out getting all the factors in place.
He does large file retouching.

After seeing the results for the two clients we think we are going to try and get clients to assess on their own work where possible.


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## screature (May 14, 2007)

^^^ Ok Doc, good to know, thanks...


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## Guest (Dec 18, 2010)

Ram is super important for this. Having just done the same thing I can say that 24G of ram or more is essential if you are doing AE renders especially. With less than 24G there were massive bottlenecks performance wise, but once I upgraded it was much better.


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## Guest (Dec 18, 2010)

How much ram did his previous 8 core have Macdoc? I saw a performance increase but not that significant and not until I had 24G of ram. My drives aren't quite as fast but more than fast enough (RAID1 sat a drives, about 180MB/Sec write speed).


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## MacDoc (Nov 3, 2001)

He had 16 in the 8 core and just a pair of standard drives in an array
I was pretty shocked at 4 times on the same drives
The other difference was a 3870 versus a 4870.

Clear enough RAM and that triple channel bandwidth really helps AE feed the processors.


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## MacDoc (Nov 3, 2001)

Lot of people are giving up waiting and one high end client snagged a 12 core on a deal and borrowed our fav 3.33 6 core ( 12 processing threads ) with 24 gigs of RAM

His comments on the 3.33 over the 2.8 8 core 3,1 he had.....




> hi david
> 
> been doing my research today and this is what ive discovered
> 
> ...


he discovered why we like it so much 


My reply

_yeah it's why we picked the 3.33 ( and others have as well ) as the top all around performer

that said I have a 2.93 12 core coming available tomorrow - will find out pricing
RAM is cheap so that's not a real concern

did you do compressor and after effects ??- both of those will use full max processing










from the article but this was based on the 2.93 ( Bare Feats )




INSIGHTS
I*n the case of After Effects, the 12-core is almost twice as fast as the 6-core. However, with the Compressor and Motion, the advantage is only slight. *That's why when someone asks me, "Should I get the 12-core or 8-core or 6-core? The short answer: "It depends... on what you are running." Or I'll say, "What do you have more of, time or money?"

Click to expand...

_This should also give some insight into what even the very top end iMac compares to a MacPro in the upper end.

A 3.33 priced at $3k would be a big time winner. C'mon Apple...


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