Eight Core or Quad Core??

Hi,
I'm deciding on the spec for new Mac Pro.
The eight core is significantly more expensive than the quad core. Is the difference in performance as noticeable?
My work is mainly hi-res photoshop work - often very large files (between 2 and 5Gb files). Will an eight core make a noticeable difference on that kind of work?
Also, how does a 2.93GHz quad core compare with a 2.2GHz Eight Core Mac Pro?
Many thanks,
Mr Hairdo.

Heck, even the 2008 Mac Pro (check Specials) is fine and what you need is RAM and other things and SAVE yourself the $1400+, way too over-priced for an 8-core.
http://store.apple.com/us/browse/home/specialdeals/mac/mac_pro
Check Barefeats "Pro Apps" article.

Similar Messages

New Mac purchase Quad or Eight Core for CS4/CS5 Photoshop

Its time to replace my vintage G5, but I am struggling with how to choose between a Quad-core or Eight-core Mac Pro. Most of my work is Photoshop for print, with files of various sizes (typically 300-300 layered PSD files, but occasionally upwards of 1.5 GB+ layered PSD files). I also use CS4 InDesign, Illustrator, DreamWeaver, and Acrobat.
For the short term, a 2.66 GHz Quad-Core Mac Pro would be fine, but the 4 RAM slots are restrictive. On the other hand, a 2.26 or 2.66 Eight-Core machine will theoretically give better PS performance, room for more RAM and more long term value. I can add RAM later, but I'll have to live with my processor choice. As best as I can tell, the Eight-core machines aren't a good value for Photoshop work until the software uses all cores. I assume that Leopard and CS5 will eventually well together. My gamble is wether a Quad-Core will serve me long term, or if the additional cores and RAM of the Eight-Core will be worth the extra investment now.
I've read about problems with CS4 and the Nehalem processors, but I hope most of these have been resolved by now. Unfortunately, I can't afford to wait a few months before CS5 is sorted out, so I hope to make a safe choice for CS4 now, that will work with CS5 down the road.
Adobe TechNote: Optimize performance in Photoshop CS4 on Mac OS
ID: kb404440
Last updated:2010-02-09
http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/404/kb404440.html#Operating%20system%20software
Excerpts from Apple TechNote kb404440:
Processor speed
The CPU (Central Processing Unit) of the Macintosh limits the speed of Photoshop. Since Photoshop manipulates large quantities of data and performs many calculations, its speed is greatly dependent on processor speed.
Photoshop requires a PowerPC G5 or an Intel-based processor. Photoshop can also take advantage of multiprocessor systems (that is, systems that have two or more PowerPC or Intel processors), which are much faster than a single-processor systems. All Photoshop features are faster on a multiprocessor system, and some features are much faster. Note that there is a law of diminishing returns with multiple processors: the more processors you use, the less you get from each addition processor. Therefore, you may not experience expected speed increases if you use more than four processors.
Excerpt from the TechNote above states that all PS features are faster on a muti-processor machine. Per Lloyd Charles' tests, (http://macperformanceguide.com/Reviews-MacProNehalem-MoreIsLess.html) the dual CPU is actually slower for many functions in PS. Lloyd's tests were done in OS X 10.5.6 (updated in June 1, 2009). Have the newer Mac Pro machines or Leopard changed any of the performance issues since Lloyds' tests? Sorry if these tests no longer apply, but I am trying to confirm how things stand at this point.

Wow, I may not know all of them because after a certain point, I quit using it on the quad core.
Illustrator - I didn't use it that much on the q4, but the color picker doesn't work. When I click on the color box to change colors, the small color box with the slider is the only thing that opens. on the Duo core, the color picker opens.
Photoshop - On the i7 quad core - Constant crashes and other glitches that I can't remember because I haven't used it since April. But the main problem that I encountered is that the layers palette quits working. It may be ok when I first open PS, but then becomes greyed out - nothing in the palette (either from the dropdown menu or the layers palette box) works - including layer styles like drop shadow, merge, flatten, new layer or anything else in layers. If I opened another file, it would be the same way. Without being able to use layers, and with the constant crashes, I quit using that computer.
The only problem I have on the duo core is in Photoshop in using tools. Frequently, when trying to use a tool, I get a small menu open at my cursor. It keeps popping up and I have to leave tools and do something else then go back to the tool. The tools I've had this with specifically are the paint brush, select tools, burn and dodge tools.
I'm also quite annoyed that twain is no longer included so that I can use my scanner within PS. I just talked with a friend this afternoon who downloaded a trial version of CS5 this afternoon to be sure it works before she upgrades. She is upset because her scanner doesn't work in PS and she is having problems with other plug-ins so she is not going to upgrade.

Quad vs. eight core performance questions

1. Do applications need to be specifically written for the eight core mac to take advantage of its processor capabilities?
2. Will there be any noticeable difference in performance between a high end quad core and an eight core Mac Pro for running Windows?
Thanks.

Hah! optimizing code for 8-cores is not ready and even the core foundation - compiler libraries - are very new and recent. READ.
I sort of suspect that cpus like Nehalem and Snow Leopard will help.
CS5 will be 64-bit for OS X.
A new term someone came up with, "core thrashing"
People seem to think everything can be rewritten, coded, run through a magic machine and turn out something. Or don't realize there are new challenges and bottlenecks to 8 cores and sharing memory or getting the code you want. Or that all applications benefit today.
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070605-intel-updates-compilers-for-multic ore-era.html
The good news is the even game developers can do more development in less time, if and when they can afford and get their hands on new chips, motherboards, and compilers and begin to head in that direction.
+Feeding the beast category:+
esoteric bandwidth "features" http://techreport.com/discussions.x/14950
Nehalem feature set http://techreport.com/discussions.x/12130
Scalability: In its "largest configuration," Nehalem will pack eight CPU cores onto a single die. Each of those cores will present the system with two logical processors and be able to execute two threads via simultaneous multithreading (SMT)—a la HyperThreading. So a single Nehalem chip will be able to execute 16 threads at once. http://techreport.com/discussions.x/13232
Note: IBM's Power7 can execute 4 threads per core, and, runs @ 4GHz.
Nehalem's integrated memory controller: triple-channel DDR3 memory support. http://techreport.com/discussions.x/13457
The 2008 Mac Pro is basically Intel Penryn Skulltrail platform
http://techreport.com/discussions.x/13246
http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/intel/showdoc.aspx?i=3326
http://techreport.com/articles.x/14052
You need hardware to develop software, and compilers and components to support your platform. OS and applications play catch-up, and you may want to wait to let the dust settle at times. You know, like the first months of '08.
Updating an application can easily take a year getting from design to even beta, and (hopefully) months of testing after that with release candidates, as stability and performance and features are nailed down.

Quad Core or Eight Core?

I have a G5 PowerPC Dual 2.0 and wanting to upgrade to a MacPro. My question is should I buy a Quad-Core or 8-Core? I could purchase a 2.66 Quad-Core "Nehalem" MacPro which is 800.00 less money than the 8-Core. Who benefits from 8 cores? I run Lightroom & Photoshop CS4 and primarily use the computer for photography, I occasionally render video but that is not very often. I also could look at the 2008 MacPro's but I have been told the "Nehalem" processors are a big improvement. My thought was this.....if the software does not take advantage of the extra "core" technology then going from 2.26 to 2.66 would be a good speed bump. Any advise is greatly appreciated........
Thanks in advance,
Kevin

Well I'd like to clarify a few things...
I remain very, very happy with my purchase. I have the latest version of Final Cut Studio on my Dual-Quad Mac. I am presently learning Motion, which ought to give Adobe's After Effects a good run for its money. I have been using After Effects extensively at work, where I work on a Pee Cee (A Dell XPS 600 that is about five years old and has 4GB of system RAM out of which the applications tend to see a maximum of 2GB).
I remain committed to the concept of buying as much processor as one can possibly afford, despite Joerollerblade's comments. He's correct in that spending the extra money for a slight processor increase is expensive. But he's not valuing his time as a professional. If he saves just one hour a day in processing time for his workflow, he's paying off the processor cost pretty quickly, assuming he is charging a professional rate.
As to Final Cut Pro, Apple's applications are written under the Cocoa framework and take advantage of Snow Leopard's Grand Central Dispatch for sending multiple threads to multiple processors. Thus, the more processors you have, the faster the application will work for processor-intensive tasks.
Now for some clarification.
Adobe's applications are all written under the Carbon API. Apple, when they released OS X in 2000 told developers that Cocoa was the way they ought to put together their applications and that Carbon was a transitional API to help them get from Apple's earlier System Software to the new Unix-based OS X. Apple has continued support for Carbon in order to support infrequently-updated legacy applications. We're talking applications like Leister Productions' Reunion (though I note they have recently updated their software to version 9, which supports Snow Leopard). Back in 2000, Adobe released Photoshop 6. There have been five releases of Photoshop since, which works out to a new release every two years. Surely, the folks at Adobe can develop for a new API in 9 years.
Carbon applications cannot take advantage of Apple's Grand Central Dispatch in Snow Leopard, so what Adobe has to do is detect and code for multiple processors and multiple cores in their application the hard way. And Adobe's programmers (as talented as they are) can hardly be expected to write code for eight processor cores when most computers out there have no more than four (and many have only two). Apple has just released its first all-in-one Mac with four cores at a very attractive price point. The way computers will get faster in the future is to add more cores.
But Adobe is sticking with Old Skool.They're essentially stuck in code that worked under System 8 and 9. Photoshop 11 (CS4) for Windows runs in 64-bit but, on the Mac, it's still a 32-bit application and that is probably because it's trapped in Carbon (kind of like how Jabba the Hut encased Han Solo). Frankly, it's time for Adobe to come out of the cold and have a nice, steaming hot cuppa Cocoa.
So, if we're assuming Adobe applications, does the Eight-Core Nehalem system give you advantages?
I read the review of Apple's new Quad and Eight-Core Nehalems in Macworld and they tested the two computers using their "Speedmark" test. The stock Eight-Core comes in with a Speedmark rating of 343 to the Quad-Core's rating of 348. Macworld explained that raw processor speed alone seems to place the Quad ahead of the Eight because:
"Many applications have a difficult time using even four processors efficiently, the advantage of having eight was not apparent in most of the application tests that make up our Speedmark benchmark test suite. In fact, the new eight-core system posted a lower Speedmark score than the quad-core system, and bested it in just one test—Cinema 4D, where it posted a 28 percent faster time."
I'm betting Adobe's Photoshop was one of those applications. Since the stock Eight-Core Mac Pro runs 15% slower than the stock Quad-Core, it's the raw processor speed that gave it the bump in performance over the Eight-Core. That is reason enough to upgrade the Eight-Core system's processor. The second reason why it's a good idea to get the more expensive computer is RAM.
The Quad-Core Mac Pro has slots for a maximum of 8GB of 1,066MHz DDR3 SDRAM modules. The Eight-Core can fit 32GB. That's eight times as much RAM in the more expensive computer, which will lend itself to a longer life. If you are using Photoshop to make really large images or you are using Photoshop with Adobe's suite of applications that include Illustrator and InDesign and you need to keep all of these applications open so that you can quickly modify images to suit your publication, 32GB of system RAM will come in handy as time goes on.
My current system has 8 GB installed in it by Apple. That's as much as you can fit into the Quad-Core and I'm all set for another 8GB as the demands of my software increase (which they will).
To jthunders particular question, I have Final Cut Studio on my system. I am running Leopard and not Snow Leopard and this is because Intuit's Quicken 2007 will not run on Snow Leopard. When Intuit finally updates their software, I shall upgrade my OS (assuming I do not have any current projects running and assuming I have a complete clone of my boot drive with a good installation). I routinely have both Motion and Final Cut Pro open at the same time and have had Motion, Final Cut Pro and Color open at the same time for a stretch. I was hitting my hard drive for extra RAM, but the applications handled what was needed with no problems. I contrast that to being at work on the Pee Cee running Windows XP Pro, Adobe's Premiere Pro 1.5 and After Effects 6.5. If I open up Premiere Pro and then open up AE to do something quick, Premiere slows to a crawl until it collects enough memory to get done. Typically, I need to exit Premiere Pro in order to free up enough RAM for the system to get out of its own way when I'm working on anything complex. I'm editing in NTSC (Standard Definition) in Premiere Pro and AE. I can easily work on HD video in Motion and Final Cut Pro.
Back at the beginning of March, Macworld quoted Envisioneering Group's Richard Doherty:
"Apple’s decision to upgrade the Mac Pro falls in line with the growing adoption of high-definition video. Apple is delivering all the processing power it can get for users to edit real-time HD video through the upgraded Mac Pro workstations."
So if all jthunders intends on doing is SD video, he's probably fine with what he has. But if he intends to move forward with HD video on his system, the Mac Pro line (and arguably the new Quad-core iMac) will handle the processing requirements of HD projects.
I would mention one caveat here. Mac Pros can take expansion cards and, if you want to edit HD video, you're going to need a RAID array to play back HD. The only way you can play back uncompressed HD on an iMac is by connecting a RAID array to the built-in Firewire 800 port on the iMac. You cannot choose SAS or SCSI or a Fibre Channel solution on an iMac for video.

Mac Pro 3.1 eight core FCP 6 shows all 8 cores rendering??

I just got a Mac Pro early 2008 3.1 with eight cores...running Leopard 10.5.8 I've read on this forum at times that FCP does not use more than 4 cores when rendering. But when I render 1080p pro res 442 in FCP 6 all eight cores run up over 90%, and it does indeed render almost three times as fast as my Power Mac g5 Quad. So I'm just curious why FCP is actually using all 8 cores. Any help is appreciated, as always.

Fay Krause wrote:
... I've read on this forum at times that FCP does not use more than 4 cores when rendering....
You are confusing cores with RAM.
FCP is a 32bit app. This means it can not make use of more than 4 GB of Ram (2.5 GB for the program and 1.5 for the frameworks).
FCP will use all the cores in a machine, how MUCH they are used, depends on a lot of factors - including the version of OSX you are runnning.
10.6.8 (snow leop) has a full 64 bit mode that will do a better job of allocating system resources to 32 bit tasks than 10.5. I ran 10.6.8 set to boot into 64 bit mode along with FCP 7 for a long time with great performance. If I hadn't needed 10.8 for other software, I'd still be running 10.6.8.
Best,
x

One eight core xserve, will it handle what I need it to do?

My new xserve specs are eight cores @ 2 ghz, 4 gig ram, 2 TB raid 5.
I will have 150 macbook clients, that will not be on netboot. I want to store user home folders, and authenticate. Will this server be able to handle ichat and ical servers for about 20 users? Do I need another server for just ichat and ical or will one handle authentication, home folder storage, ichat(20 users), and ical (20 users)? Apple salesman says that he suggests another just for ichat/ical, but I have been told that I can get away with just one.
I eventually want to get another for backup directory server and can migrate ical/ichat but would like to put it off until later.
Thanks for help on this.

Try posting your question in the Xserve forum (http://discussions.apple.com/forum.jspa?forumID=854). Users there will be more knowledgeable about your question.

Eight core boot problems etc...

Worked the morning. Closed and returned. Start up message, that the machine, which did, I watched it, didn't close down properly... Do I want to open with last open yes or no ....?
Eight core Mac Pro desk top. I loaded the update security patch, maybe it shouldn't have. I am NOT running Maverick on that machine (deliberately). I also loaded a new update for flash player so I could continue to upload to Society six. Also, updated iTunes, which, when I was able to get to check permissions later was very corrupted. Yet repaired, it said!!
All the hard disks, 3 of them, says they are fine.
I have screaming fans, just like with the laptop Mac Pro after Maverick loaded.
I have had, by managing to select the one drive I use at the moment, the others are empty still, to get the desk top back on both screens, I work across two screens, and I opened photoshop, graphics fine. Once there was a little blocking. So all the hard drive are there. The files had reverted to full size on one screen, the desk top, otherwise all was okay. Yet close it properly and then try to boot back is the problem. It just will not!
I have a back up time machine drive separate external, I hope. Who knows what is going on?
It's so similar to the laptop, which, if I am lucky and after a few tries, I can get the desktop back as I left it. It's just there. So that drive would also appear to be okay. I otherwise get the crazy patten treatment, which I get now on the pro desktop!
I have even tried start D, with a disk in with the hardware check. It freezes after five and a half minutes. Tried three times. Gave up. Disk stuck in the drive as the door does not open to key board demand at the moment!
So I am completely down now. In rural France, with no back up machine for my pads either.
Must admit to being a little depressed about it.
No place near an Apple Centre.
Any feedback towards a fix maybe welcome. Thanks!
OSX 10.8.5

Thanks for that. I just had a conversation with another Mac user over the phone, and discoursed the fact I could pull the first drive out. In fact I could just have the one drive. Load an OS and work up to mountain lion as a proccess. You are on my wavelength here. Well as part of the checking disk integrity, I started to check the outboard back ups. Froze half way through having checked all the others. Screens switched off, yet machine was still running. Would not let me see in. Had to abort by power switch off. So I hope the backups okay?
Yes, I have one bay free and two empty, as yet drives! Have to get down to this with a day spair as best laid plans of mice and men, it'll take either an hour or a week!
Early-ish. Geforce. Nice. Fast when it's awake. Good work hoarse when it is!
18gb if I rember right. Still have two slots free!
Any more suggestions welcome!

GeForce GTX 680 Mac Edition Graphics Card advice wanted 2008 Mac Pro. Eight core desktop.

I have read some threads yet it is not clear to me if it is a good move to upgrade an Mac Pro eight core 3.1- 2008 to use GeForce GTX 680 Mac Edition Graphics Card. I ask as my GeForce 8800 GT 2008 card has given up the ghost, and it has done sterling service R.I.P.. The machine is in the repair shop for a service itself, and this problem. So I thought an upgrade, as I am at it. Daunting choice out there. Um, learning curve and all that!
I mainly do 2D graphics, Canvas, Adobe stuff, yet a little amount of video, which may grow some. No games on this work horse!
So here I am fishing for experienced advice were my own is not, from anyone who has done this. Has it held up, do you get a boot screen, does it run two monsters easily via DVI.
If you have one or something good fitted please share the skinny!
For me it is turning into the year of the video card. My laptop looks like it got the disease first!
Thanks.

#1: AMD 7950 Mac Edition, or not. $425
#2: GTX 680 Mac $625
#3: MacVidCards - various but worth a look
http://www.ebay.com/sch/macvidcards/m.html
#4: GTX 285, no idea how 'safe' as often read someone (not Macvidcards) flashed PC card and sold as "Mac" and they are old, and may not be supported in Mavericks (and that would apply to a 8800 too).
Information purposes only:
http://www.amazon.com/EVGA-Geforce-Gtx285-Graphics-Pci-express/dp/B00G9TQMOE/
Check out Barefeats, again, for ideas if you want 'near best.'
A new gpu is $5000 cheaper than an overhaul and new MP.
A 2008 though will never perform as well as later models. Ideal is 2010 or later.
Even a top of the line iMac with GTX if you are having a lot of trouble and thinking of ditching the 2008.

IDVD encoding -- not using eight cores

Went from an iMac to a Mac Pro this weekend to heavily decrease the encoding times of movies (been making a lot lately). My current iMac (2.8ghz, 4gb ram) takes roughly two hours to encode (professional quality) an iDVD. I figured that with an eight core Mac Pro, this would be around 40 minutes (4x the number of available processors).
After cranking the encode, only four of the cores were lit up, not all eight. Has anyone else noticed this?

Compressor, which is bundled with Final Cut Studio, can be tweaked to use all 8-cores. I don't think Compressor comes with FCE. Adobe After Effects will make use of 8-cores. Some functions in Aperture (and I THINK Motion) will use 8-cores. There may be more applications, but again, not many. It is difficult to write and debug multiple core applications:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-core_(computing)
http://www.barefeats.com/octopro1.html
But can't stress how effective your workflow is improved by having a "better" computer. OK, it takes an hour to compress a video... I can still be working during that hour instead of waiting.
Mike

Eight Core Mac Pro

Just a post in case someone wants to know; Logic 8 with the new Mac Pro 8 core machines rocks. I got the stock 2.8GHZ machine (2GB RAM). Screen redraws and meters are smooth, no studders or core overloads. Upgrading from dual 2Ghz G5. Just have to replace my UAD-1 cards now - bummer...
Oh yeah, after the migration from the old Mac, the Apogee ensemble worked straight away without reinstalling the drivers, etc.
Paul

Good luck with those bigger projects, Paul. I just posted this message on the UAudio forum. I sure hope I'm missing something simple because this is completely unacceptable:
So I decided to upgrade my old dual 2.5GHz G5 with the dreaded AMD-8131 PCI chipset to one of the shiny new 8-core Mac Pros that were announced last week. Of course, this meant that I also had to upgrade my 2 UAD-1 cards to UAD-1e cards. The cards are installed in slots 3 & 4 - the PCI Express 2.0 slot is open. I have a project with the following plugin instance counts:
4 Cambridge
5 SPL Transient Designer
1 Pultec Pro
1 Precision Maximizer
Would anyone have any idea why I would receive the "One or more Powered Plug-Ins have been disabled. CPU load limit exceeded" when opening the project on the new Mac Pro but not on the old G5? Both computers have 2GB ram. The old computer was running Tiger but the new one is running Leopard. I'm using Logic 8.0.1.
The thing is, all the plugins appear to be loading. If I unload the Precision Maximizer, the reload it, I get the error message as soon as I select a preset. Again, in this case, the plugin seems to be loading.

Why is my Premiere Pro CC 2014 program the wrong resolution(looks huge on my screen) while Premiere Pro CC looks fine? CPU AMD FX(tm)-8350 eight core processor, GPU GeForce GTX 650, Memory 16gb, Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit

Premiere Pro CC 2014
Premiere Pro CC

Hello Ashraf,
Sorry you didn't get any help on this post. In the future, please contact Adobe Support for 1-1 assistance on issues like this: Contact Customer Care
Thanks,
Kevin

Running new 10.8.2 on my pro 2x3 Ghz Quad core with 32 GB DDR2. everything seem to slow and frezze up some time

I had fresh installed 10.8.2 on eight core with 32 GB of Ram. Everything seem to slow and frezze up sometime. but running OSX 10.6.8 is fine. Can anyone help
System Spec:
Mac OSX 10.8.2
Pro: 2x3 Ghz Quad-core Intel Xeon
Memory: 32 GB 667 MHz DDR2
Hard drive Raid 1-0: 500 GB

I am certainly confused. 10.8.2 is not supported on pre-2008's. There was an 8-core 2008 that has 800MHz DDR2 FBDIMMs (and can accept 667MHz as well).
A clean install is the safest and best way, you can migrate or let Setup Assistant import your settings.
Old PowerPC apps, drivers and plugins are a no-no, no Rosetta. Check Roaringapps.com
Put your system on an SSD.
Put your data on a non-array or if you must use a mirror only. Stripe is fine. Both should have 2-3 backups and extra redundancy instead of trying software based 1+0 with four drives.
Upgrade to new(er) drives. And format them with ML. Build or rebuild the arrays in ML.
Where is SL located compared to ML? same drive with different partition? or different disk drives?
10.8.5 is current and other than support for 3TB drives, you should not be using anything less than 10.8.3.

First 6 core MP results with Logic...and they're worse than the quad

Starting a new thread for this...
Here's the first report I've seen of 6 cores on Logic. Logic shows 6 bars in the CPU meter. But he ran the "evan" benchmark and performance was worse than on a quad at a lower clock speed, only 47 tracks. For comparison, 4 cores (with HT enabled) at 2.26 gave 50 tracks - the new machine has two more cores and 47% higher clock speed.
http://macperformanceguide.com/Reviews-MacProWestmere-LogicStudio.html
For comparison, a while back I simulated six cores by disabling two on my eight core MP 2.26 and got 32 tracks. The difference matches the difference in clock speed. In my test the result for six cores was identical to that of four cores with hyperthreading disabled. My guess is that with the current version of Logic, the six core machines might get a big speed boost if two of the cores are disabled, basically turning it back down to a quad - my estimate would be about 73 tracks.
Logic has lacked support for new machines before, but this is the first time I've actually seen performance get worse with a new machine with more cores (and much faster clock speed). If this doesn't provide incentive for Apple to update for better support of cores, I don't know what will.

Exactly. You would think that if the app wasn't programmed to support four cores, the worst case scenario would be that it would just use four of them and provide the same performance as a quad. But instead it seems like the extra cores confuse the app and it actually performs considerably worse than a quad.
No question they are due for a Logic update asap or get some bad press once word gets out.

No more quad core?!?!?

OMG. I have been waiting 2 years for an update to the Mac mini, only to find that their highest end model will still likely be less powerful than the one I've got. The Mac mini is (or used to be) an awesome alternative to the all-in-one iMac or the super powerful (and expensive) Mac Pro. But come on — no quad core option? Why would you cripple the mini like that? I don't want an all-in-one. I like separate components (ever have to lug an entire iMac to an Apple Store when the problem is just the motherboard?). This is a major blow. I am severely disappointed, and definitely not buying a new Mac mini.

I totally agree with the original poster.
After 2 years with no update, these new Mac Minis are a major disappointment to anyone who has used the previous models. What is Apple thinking? Last week, £649 would buy a Quad-Core i7 and this week £799 (£150 more) buys you a Dual-Core i7!?!?!
Also, before anyone posts anything to do with speed tests, it's not just about how fast these newer Minis are (or aren't) compared with the 2012 models. It's about load distribution over multiple cores and the lack of Hyper-Threading, which (correct me if I'm wrong) requires the i7 chip to have four cores, to get another virtual sub cores on top.
As a user of Apples Logic Pro X, it's performance is greatly enhanced when it can distribute it's audio engine over multiple cores - using the Quad-Core i7 2012 model - Logic shows eight cores, which is fantastic for a machine that (previously) cost £649.
What would it cost me to get equal or better performance now?
£1,359 for a build-to-order 21.5-inch iMac
£1,599 for an entry-level 15-inch Retina MacBook Pro (or more on a build-to-order)
£1,789 for a build-to-order 27-inch iMac
£1,999 for a top range 15-inch Retina MacBook Pro (or more on a build-to-order)
£2,499 for an entry-level Mac Pro (or more on a build-to-order)
This is unacceptable. Apple aren't trying to offer Mac Mini users the ability to stay within Mini range, as they seem intent on forcing users to switch to a different product line, which (if they cannot afford it), could ultimately make them switch altogether to a PC.
I truly hope that if the Mac Mini line does continue into the future, that Apple will regain the common sense to listen to their end users. I've been a Mac user since 1992 and would never think of switching, but this is truly an epic mistake in Apples design decisions and one I hope they fix, sooner rather than later.

Quad core upgrade.

Is it possible to upgrade a single quad core MacPro to a eight core? It is a 2.8Ghz single quad core mac pro.
Thanks,
Scott

Scott Yes but is not worth the trouble. Sell the single and buy a Dual. I have a single and if you do not
do video it is speedy enough (Macworld benchmarks).
lechtmmgg

Eight Core or Quad Core??

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