Mac Pro Harpertown or Nehalem?

Time to upgrade dual 2.7Ghz G5 to a new quad or dual-quad Mac Pro. Should I be only looking at the newer Mac Pro's with the Nehalem processors? A friend of mine shared this information a few months ago (before 64-bit Logic Pro 9.1 arrived):
"you can save yourself a large amount by getting last years topmodel. Its plenty fast and if you are using Logic you will be pleased to find that it does use all 8 cores-something that isnt the case with the new Nehalems due to the fact that 2 cores share one floating point unit on that processor. So basically 4 cores will sit idle in the Nehalem if Logic is the only app running."
Is this fact still true ? I think LP 9.1 would work better with the newest computers compared to the harpertown Intel 5400 processors but want to double-check before writing a check.
Thanks !!
John "Skippy" Lehmkuhl

Forum search turned up:-
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=10776437&#10776437
"An earlier thread covered this.
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=10777515#10777515
In short, on an 8 core machine Logic only uses 8 cores and not 16 (including the HT cores). But on a quad core i7 machine, it does use the HT cores, showing up as 8 cores in Logic (and giving performance close to the 8 core mac pro).
So it seems that Logic doesn't need an update specific to HT (it's using them already on the quad), it just needs an update from a max of 8 cores to 16."
And in conclusion, for Erik:
"Just to reinforce: I've been on this forum for the past 16 months, about 6/6 (not 24/7) and in this time I've seen no OP, or even any of the seasoned pro's with an 8-core machine that has ever reported seeing and/or being able to use more than 8 cores in Logic, 8 or 9. That is the closest you'll come to reliable online info.
You could post a thread asking if anyone has ever been able to successfully use more than 8 cores with Logic; my bet: you'll get no replies, or the replies say no."
I don't see any specific problems with Nehalem specifically...

Similar Messages

Mac Pro Harpertown vs Nehalem

Hi there
Today I am a lucky boy indeed - we will be hiring a new designer and as the perks of being top of the designer chain of command they inherit my Mac and I get to buy a shiney new Mac Pro.
My quandary is this:
I currently have a 2008 Mac Pro with Dual 3.0ghz Harpertown Intel Xeons in it. I noticed that the new Mac Pro's have the Nehalem Chips in them running at 2.26ghz, 2.66ghz and 2.93ghz. I know these chips are no doubt better and faster than the Harpertown's however which is going to be best for me based on my previous 3.0ghz Harpertown config. In basic terms I don't want to sacrifice any speed or performance just to get a new system ie I want the same or better performance from the Nehalem when compared to the harpertown system. I'd like the 2.93ghz but that does bump the price. (DRAMATICALLY)
Most of my work is Photoshop, Illustrator and Dreamweaver based (Mixture of web and large scale print work - hence the need for "Grunt") however I do do some Final Cut work and TV res Flash Work.
So just to recap my question is thus:
Which of the new Mac Pro systems is the closest to my current Dual 3.0ghz Harpertown configuration?
I spoke with Apple and they recommended the 2.66ghz with 12gb Ram - opinions?
Thanks in advance for your advice.
Best Regards
Stu

None of the above.
Wait for new models to be announced eventually.
4 DIMM slots is the biggest drawback of single socket, though there are 8GB DIMMs to let you go to 32GB now it has been cheaper to go DP.
The 2.66GHz should do fine and you can save from Apple Store Specials. There isn't a huge difference in 300Mhz, so invest in memory and SSDs instead. I'd like to see SSD as BTO eventually (it was included in the Xserve).
You realize this gets asked and there are a number of benchmark tables @ MacSales, Barefeats, MacRumors and others.

4 Questions re installing a second Optical Drive in a Mac Pro (Harpertown)

For years I have owned and used a Sony DRX-810UL-T optical drive as an external unit with my Mac Pro "Harpertown" purchased on February 19, 2009. It was connected to the computer using the firewire cable and it worked correctly.
Some Background
Today it dawned on me I had an empty optical drive bay in the Mac Pro so I should move the Sony drive in there and eliminate a bit of the clutter on my computer desk. I read the section on installing optical drives in the little Apple manual that came with my computer but it only discussed a single drive installation.
Checked on line and found several sources describing how to do this and a couple of YouTube videos also showing how to do this. (Oddly only one of the videos mentioned the need for plugging in the power cable).
I made sure I plugged the cables into the proper units as both had helpful legends on them indicating which was for the top drive and which was for the bottom drive.
After installation I powered up and found neither drive would appear.
Checked the About this Mac item in the Apple menu and got confirmation that the system didn't see any drives. Opened the computer again and unplugged the Sony's power and data cables then closed the computer and fired up again.
The original Super Drive again appeared and worked correctly.
The Questions:
1. Since the Super drive came with the Mac Pro and was in the top space can I assume it needed to stay there and not get moved to the lower space?
2. Since the Sony DRX-810UL-T has the correct connectors does this indicate this drive can be used with the Harpertown Mac Pro?
3. If it can, did I miss setting some jumpers? I noticed both drives have one jumper in place but each appears to be in a slightly different spot than the other.
4. Since the Sony drive worked correctly with my current OS (10.6.6) using the firewire cable can I assume it does not need a firmware update to be used internally.
Wrap up
Since the original Super Drive is working properly I am sure I did no damage to it or the computer. It would be nice to be able to get the Sony DVD drive to work internally, however.
Thanks, in advance, to anyone who can offer some help with this situation.

hatter,
Thank you for this added information. Here's the current status of things.
Just to check that the Sony drive would work internally I disconnected the superdrive (ata cable and power cable) and made the Sony drive the only drive plugging it in as if it was the top drive. The jumper for it was set to cable select.
The Profiler found it and listed is in both the ATA section and the disc burner section.
I checked the jumper on the superdrive to be sure it was also set for cable select and plugged both drives back in using the top connections for the super drive and bottom connections for the Sony,
Again only the SuperDrive appears in the ATA list and and the disc burner list.
I am beginning to wonder it the problem may actually be with the ribbon cable that snakes back to the motherboard.
Since that cable has a set of dual outlets at the drive end and has them labeled for top and bottom, is it possible to plug in only one drive using the bottom connector as a test to see if data flows to the motherboard?
Is it possible some part of that cable has somehow become disconnected at the motherboard?

Mac Pro 8 core Nehalem RAM upgrade

Hi All,
I own a 8 core 2.26 mac pro. Its Ram configuration is the most basic, 6G.
I am looking to do some upgrade, and would love some pointers to do so. I work mainly with music, and I have been getting out of memory message from Logic Pro so I assume I need more RAM.
The default configuration is 6 X 1G RAM, so that means i have 2 more RAM slots left. As I understand, its best to assigne a RAM to each core for the best performance, so should I:
1. Buy 2 more 1G Ram and put them in the slots and have 8G?
2. But 2 x 2G Ram have a total RAM of 10G, would this work? Would this case any inbalance in RAM, because assuming if I have to assigne a RAM to each CPU, that would mean, 1G for 6 and 2G for remaining 2?
3. Ripe all 6G out and get 2G for 8 slots, meaning a total of 16G?

Memory isn't 'assigned' to anything.
I'd rebate to OWC and pick up 6 x 4GB probably.
Mac Pro Memory 1066
The other, to see what upgrading to 8-core 2.93GHz or above in some manner.

Wee Problem with Parallels Desktop and the Westmere Mac Pros

Just got my new Westmere 8-Core Mac Pro last Friday, and spent the last four days in agony.
I used Migration Assistant to transfer over my accounts from my old Mac Pro, but it crashed hard -- so hard that I had to reformat the hard drive and do a clean install of the system. So I decided to do a clean install of all of my programs as well, and the Westmere crashed on the Parallels Desktop installation. And, again, it crashed so hard that I had to reformat the hard drive and do a clean install of everything all over again.
Today, I read a review of the Westmere Mac Pros in Macworld (http://www.macworld.com/article/153704/2010/08/quad8_core_macpro_2010.html?lsrc=top2), and learned:
We ran into a problem running Parallels on the Westmere-based Mac Pros, so we could not complete the Speedmark 6 suite of tests. When booted into 64-bit mode (as the new Mac Pros do by default) the systems would crash with Parallels installed. Booting into 32-bit mode would allow the systems to start up, but we still couldn’t use Parallels. We eventually tried a complete wipe and reinstall from the Mac Pro’s systems disc and downloaded the very latest version of Parallels to eliminate any other potential problems, and had the same issue. Apple and Parallels are aware of the problem and assure me that Parallels is working diligently on a fix. The application worked just fine on the new quad-core Mac Pro with the Nehalem processor.
Hoped I saved somebody some time.

Hi akapod,
Looks like they may have the fix out.
Mac Pro (Mid 2010): Kernel panic when installing or restarting Parallels Desktop 5 for Mac
Please let me know if it's available and fixes it.
Thanks,
ivan

Mac Pro 8-core too slow for Multiclip editing

I have a Mac Pro 8core (pre-Nehalem), with 4 gb of memory. I'm doing some multiclip editing,and even with RT set to the lowest preview quality, my system stills blocks from time to time. I don't want to invest in a RAID-system, because I don't do multiclip editing that often. Is there an other - not expensive - way to speed up my Mac? Would adding memory - say to 6 gb - help?
I also have the impression that since I upgraded to Leopard Snow, the computer is much less stable. FCP shut down twice unexpectedly yesterday.

You don't say what format of HD you're editing but the fluidity of playing multiclip sequences is really dependent on the system's ability to provide all the streams of video in a timely manner. This means hard drive throughput is essential. A good quality sata drive in a MacPro can read somewhere around 115 MB/sec when empty. It will spool material less effectively as it fills.
Very good quality esata RAID systems can provide 5x that - which is why people utilize them. (fwiw-I've run 16 streams of 720p24 DVCProHD off of a Caldigit HDOne in a multiclip sequence without a hiccup. )
What can you do if you don't want to pay the price for the right gear for the job?
1. populate all your internal bays with fast hard drives
2. empty the drives
3. spread your captured files across all three (non system drives)
This will distribute the load as much as possible without going to a RAID setup.
Once you have all the drives empty, you could try setting up a RAID 0 set using Disk Utility and see if that works for you. One caveat - if you decide to go the internal software RAID 0 route, recognize there is no failsafe should you encounter a serious system crash. Everything on all drives that are part of the RAID set can be compromised.
Good luck,
x

OpenCL for 2008 mac pro

Hello,
I have a 2008 Mac Pro Harpertown along with the ATI Radeon 4870. According to Apple, those 2008 mac pros with the Radeon 4870s are supposidly compatible with the new opencl technology. Is this true? How do I find out whether or not I am getting OPENCL support on my 2008 mac pro?

Nadav,
http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/32266/opencl-benchmark
Scott

New 2009 Mac Pro, Software Update never finishes (finds no updates/result)

I have a brand new 8-core Mac Pro (new 2009 Nehalem-based model). The configuration is stock, 2.26GHz CPUs and 6GB of RAM. Bought this at the Apple Store yesterday. It is fresh out of the box; I have not even installed anything yet.
When I run Software Update, the "Checking for new software..." sheet appears, and the progress bar gets about 10% done, and then it just hangs there. For hours, so I assume infinitely.
The Software Update program is not crashed--you can still pull down the menus, and if you click Cancel, it will. It just never finds any updates. Nor does it finish the process and tell me my system is up to date.
I tried it on the command line too, and it hangs in the same way:
*IT-PC-MACPRO-1:~ mason$ softwareupdate --list*
*Software Update Tool*
*Copyright 2002-2007 Apple*
...also apparently forever.
Other than this, I haven't seen any problems with it in one day of use. This obviously seems like a software/configuration problem, not a hardware problem but still... not the best out-of-the-box experience. I am hoping this turns out to be a known issue with a simple fix. But has anybody else seen this issue?
The one thing I did try was moving the Mac to an entirely different network (from home to office). Other Macs here don't have any problem, just this one.
Clues appreciated.

Hi, thanks for the reply.
1) I found updating worked as expected if I created a another admin account, and used that to run Software Update. However, Software Update still would hang infinitely if I ran it using my main account (again, a fresh account created by unboxing the Mac and doing the first-use interview wizard thing).
2) Being curious, I tried removing each file you suggested independently, and trying Software Update (without restarting). None had an effect until I removed the ~/Library/Caches/com.apple.SoftwareUpdate
After moving this folder aside, and launching Software Update again, it worked normally (no reboot required).
So that's some data, posted for posterity. I saved the corrupt cache file that seems to have caused the problem, so I'll file a bug report with Apple if I have time.

Should I upgrade to a Mac Pro?

I currently have a PowerMac G5 1.8Mhz dual processor and I'm considering upgrading to a new Mac Pro. To decide on this I have a few questions.
1. How much of a performance increase can I expect?
2. What's the best value in the current Mac Pro lineup?
3. How has the reliability been of the Mac Pro's so far?
Thanks for your help.

Do you want sugar or cream, too?
ANALYSIS
The "early 2008" 4-core 2.8GHz Mac Pro is pretty much the equal of the "2006" 4-core 3.0GHz Mac Pro. However, if you plan to run Compressor, After Effects, Photoshop, Cinema 4D, or any app that uses all available cores, we recommend you get the 8-core version of the Mac Pro "Harpertown," regardless of the core frequencies.
And we know the 3GHz 2006 was 14% faster than the 2.66. If you search the forums, there was more discussion as well when the 2008s came out. Me? I usually just type "Apple Mac Pro" into google and see what gives.

WORKAROUND! - Sluggish Motion V 4.0.1 on Mac Pro Nehalem 2.97 GHz 16 Vcore

Hi guys, like several people on this forum and others I been very frustrated with the performance of both Motion.app version 3 and now Motion.app V4 .0 .1 (latest update) on my 2009 Mac pro Nehalem 2.97 GHz 16 Vcore 12GB with the ATI Radeon 4870 graphics card.
I have two workarounds that may be of assistance in relieving this issue. They work for me however before I discuss what they I'd like to set the scene.
Like many of us, I have trawled this forum and many others including COW and so on mostly relying on those 10-12 (the dozen or so) excellent tips from people like Mark Spencer and others. This includes the usual things like turning off rendering options that make heavy use of CPU/GPU etc.
Caveat: I'd also like to note here that this performance sluggishness has absolutely nothing to do (and is completely unrelated to) I/O performance nor is it related to memory usage. The reason I say this is because during some testing and the normal practice I keep all a Motion.app cache files (autosave, cached files etc) out on a very fast PROAVIO EB8NS disk array with ATTO R380 HBA onto SAS paths where this box is capable of over 450 MB per second measured with Kona system test tool. Additionally I have 12 GB of memory on this Mac pro which I assigned 70% of it to be available to Motion.app V4. The sluggishness Motion.app V4 is not manifest itself through the usual items such as excessive virtual memory page in/out or swap in/out activity. In fact in this scenario I describe below in my system when nothing else is running the former is non-existent! Additionally I also want to know that Motion.app V4 in my scenario/situation/environment is definitely and certainly NOT impacted by insufficient I/O bandwidth..
However, like many people, who have the same or similar setup to myself, we experience severe delays the most basic Motion.app UI such as: selecting an item, scrubbing through the timeline, performing any kind of transform etc etc. Many of us trying to diagnose this problem (looking for any kind of diagnostics or messages etc) have noticed that with the exception of one single core, the remaining cores to do very little (idle or just barely moving) whilst the remaining single core is taking out at 100% constantly.
Many months ago whilst really bogged down with this problem trying to complete a project, I contacted Mark Spencer who politely explained that notion exploits the on-board graphics card (in my case the ATI Radeon HD 4870). After frustratingly trying to improve the performance of this and completely reinstalling Final Cut Suite in a different brand-new (at the time MacOS X 10.5.6), I found that there was little difference.
I am mentioning all this because, I know that a few colleagues have had a similar problem and have not found any satisfaction in looking at this despite many well-informed forum users who offer excellent advice.
At my wits end (currently), I took a few days to try and isolate what the problems may be caused by (what exacerbates this severely degraded performance). This user interface sludgy degradation is manifested through the UI also has the (spinning beach ball).
I isolated pieces in some of the Motion.app projects and started to ISOLATE (Control-I) what I thought were quite complex layers and individual objects but to no avail. I then resorted to completely deleting them with some improvement in performance (noticeably less sluggyness) however it still was not lightning fast as I expected considering it I was in draft mode, 720 p resolution, with lighting, shadows and reflections completely turned off in the view.
*Motion.app BEHAVIOURS*: after some hours and a great deal of trial and error (non-productive work time I might add) it occurred to me that some of the Motion.app behaviours in particular place in the layer with as few as five objects in the layer (behaviours such as "Motion.app path", "wriggle", "oscillate" and even good old trusted "throw" seem to be the culprits in this particular layer.
I will note well here at this point, but of course "camera layers" does seem to be affected at all with the basic movements such as Dolly, frame, sweep etc. I have some sets up to 4 or five cameras which seems not to bother Motion.app at all!
*OBJECT SELECTION (S):* yes this also seems to have some degrading impact on playout, scrubbing and so on. Interesting I thought.
Workarounds: here are a few things that I know that work to get around some problems of working where Motion.app is extremely SLUGGY in the user interface (UI). Perhaps someone has already noted these on a forum or posted on however I couldn't find them.
So my workflow/practice here is to do the following when I'm manipulating objects (placement, set up, applying filters, adjusting timeline, and so on):
+WORKAROUND #1+: *DISABLE the behaviours* in the layers where you are performing any object manipulation. In fact we have many objects in many layers where the topmost layer (a group of nested layers) contains any behaviours, I would suggest you disable those whilst you work on that particular layer.
It's a very simple stylus click to enable the BEHAVIOURS layers that you have been working on to see what the effect of those behaviours when you want to play them out in the player/canvas.
I have no idea why such trivial behaviours cause my very expensive Mac pro to nearly lock up whilst in Motion.app version 4 and also version 3. Anyway is definitely works on me.
+WORKAROUND #2+: *DESELECT ANY ITEM IN THE CANVAS* (in any view) when attempting to play out whilst in the canvas. Again I don't know why having one or more items (including the camera) insert would have such a drastic impact on the performance of Motion.app to play out what I think is a frivolous range, however this really works for me.
*How to measure the performance or how to monitor the performance/usage of the ATI Radeon HD 4870 graphics card from MacOS X?* I would like to know exactly what this is doing on my system when one of the CPU cores is pegged out in 100% servicing requests from Motion.app. I can't find utility (which am willing to pay for) that sees the ATI Radeon HD 4870 graphics card. One I thought would have is an application called atMonitor.app (http://www.atpurpose.com/atMonitor/) which seems to do a pretty good job on my uni body MacBook Pro and wife's Macbook Air.
It would seem that any of the utilities don't seem to see the ATI Radeon HD 4870 or if they do and they initiate commands to it that the ATI Radeon HD 4870 and doesn't respond or send any replies status information. (Beats me I'm not a technical person these days)
Summary: I would be very interested if other people who have a similar if not pretty near exact setup as myself have found these two suggestions useful. I have tried some of these Motion.app projects on my MacBook Pro uni-body and with some difference the MacBook Pro exhibits similar sluggyness to this Mac pro.
W
Hong Kong

Mark, I took your advice and reinstall Final Cut Suite Version 3 (including Motion.app version 4.0.1) onto a completely different and I'm used file system including a brand-new install of MacOS X snow leopard 10.6.1, which I believe is the most recent update.
To be clear, I have all the latest Pro Applications updates as well apply to this brand-new system.
So here is the *bad new*s.
*Using exactly the same hardware configuration as I described in this theme of woe, I launched Motion.app V4 .0 .1 and opened up several of the projects that I'm having trouble with that is issued.*
Simply, the symptoms and observation I described in this thread exists with a brand-new installation.
Anyway looks like I have a backup/another instance available Final Cut Pro in case my main production image has trouble.
Once again, as I described initially in this thread, I used the two workarounds to overcome the consistent and overwhelmingly an exaggerated 20 seconds lag on average interactions with Motion.app with the success that I'd described previously.
In another thread back in September 2009, a forum poster mentioned that he felt that the camera framing behaviours were the root of this problem. And to this end he advised converting these behaviours to keyframes using the command-K ("convert to keyframes") to overcome his misery.
This indeed does work very well. So this is the third workaround and I'm starting to use.
Further I have done some more hard comparisons with my 2009 MacBook pro uni-body 2.93 GHz with a standard arrangement of 4 MB of memory and the usual disk internally. *To my great surprise*, I found that the projects that I'm having a lot of trouble with were much more responsive not only with the camera framing behaviours (which I'm not particularly having any trouble with), but the layers that contains a simple transform behaviours such as "motion path", "wiggle", and so on did not seem to bother the Mac book pro.
I watched the CPU cores on the Mac book pro maybe go to 80% while the project was loading, and also whilst I gingerly navigated through the project although feeling a little sluggy was far less in orders of 10 to 20 seconds faster than this Mac pro Nehalem with all the bells and whistles on my earnings embedded within it.
Now I'm starting to wonder, as Andy pointed out, +maybe there is some trouble with the hardware in this system+. I really could not know how to determine if this is the case. However before I draw this conclusion finally, I noticed that there are a lot more people out there with the same consideration as I have that have this same problem. It's not narrowed down to those owners with the ATI Radeon HD 4870 graphics card, however these seem to be the bulk of the people who are trying to do things that are getting a fair amount of forum time (like me).
There certainly seems to be something of an issue as there are some symptom dumps for Motion.app but only one or 2 to over this period that seemed to be triggered by something on this machine. And like many on this forum I gave up reading dumps for a living back in the 1990s.
I would really like to know how I can diagnose this problem before I had to pack this Mac pro up and carted back to the local Apple care centre here in Hong Kong (which means I won't have it forever while, which means no income). Yes I can use my Mac book pro uni-body which is I might end up doing.
_Oh, and this little gem._ I find that if I invoke the "timeline pane/window" (command-7), that it can take up to 2 seconds to refresh the screen. It is amazingly slow and feel like there is definitely something wrong.
If I have a simple motion project by that I mean some simple plates some moving text and no real 3-D except for one little camera Motion.app V 4 seems to work quite okay.
The sets that I'm working in at about eight or nine cameras over the timeline and maybe three or four sets in the project. This is not the work I think especially when most of the moving here is a few objects wobbling around in 3-D space and quick camera moves using the camera framing behaviour.
In summary, having spent what seems to be 40 or 50 hours messing with this issue are not doing anything productive, I've come to the conclusion that there is definitely something wrong with this setup that I have. However having had no problem with that up until now (I know actually I had some problems back in May 2009 with it but it seemed that install a Final Cut Suite version 2 completely fixed it.
And I am totally surprised that my Mac book pro uni-body if pressed can do the job that I want.
Therefore Motion Forum users, I really don't know what else there is to do other than to poke around over time and eventually something will fix this because it is really very frustrating and like many of us on this forum I did endeavour to pay for/put capital funds into a system highly recommended by many that uses Apple production applications than I expected it would work.
By the way, I noticed when I use Nuke version 5 and Shake V 4.1 and even Maya PE, I don't have these issues but will concede that I doubt whether the use applications take advantage directly of the GPU arrangement in the graphics card like Motion.app does.
That's all I have.
Any other thoughts are most welcome.
W

New Mac Pro 2.66 Ghz Nehalem Quad and FCP and Compressor

When something goes well for a change it deserves its rightful place in the posts of this discussion forum. I just completed my hook-up and an initial test on my new Nehalem quad Mac Pro, and I must say that once in a while things do work out.
1. The noise level is non-existant. I literally had to check to make sure that the unit was on. This in comparision to my G5 which sounds like the SST on take off. I might now actually hear the audio on my video monitor.
2. The speed is INCREDIBLE! Prior to shutdown, I ran a test by sending an hour's worth of mixed XDCAM EX/HDV footage to Compressor on my G5. At the highest quality 2 hour setting for DVD encoding (double pass) it took the G5 12.5 hours to encode. Running the same clip through the same version of Compressor in the Mac Pro took approximately 45 minutes. This roughly translates into a 16.5X increase in speed over my dual 2.5 Ghz processor G5. I'M SOLD! And for now, the Honeymoon continues.
The only drawback (besides the price) is that I had to buy a $100 adapter/power supply to enable my old 25" Cinema screen run on the new video card.
Thanks
fastfreddy

Mac Pro 1,1 (all Mac Pro models come with Xeon).
What matters is cleaning the X1900 of dust and from clogging intake and exhaust - every three months.
Run Apple Hardware Test from your OEM DVD.
Install SmcFanControl 2.x and keep the fans rpm to 800-900 instead of 499-599 base as minimum at least.
Monitor temperatures with Hardware Monitor or similar.
Have you been looking to see in System Profile: Memory if there are any errors?
Normally, clone backup update weekly and running Disk Warrior at the same time should be done to spot disk directory and file system problems before they get worse. Or any time your system freezes.
Freeze... and what you have 90% of the time is a corrupt directory and other errors.
At which time you may need to restore if you can't fix the problem. And don't rely on only Apple DU First Aid to find and repairs any and all errors.
For Snow Leopard maybe a flashed ATI 4870 to replace the X1900.
You may need to start over from scratch to get things stable once you find what is happening, and work with a test system until then with some trial and error. Format/initialize and clean install of 10.6.x for the OEM 10.4.7+.
At nearly 4 yrs now since it came out, not sure if you have plans for a new one.

Final Cut Studio is crashing a lot using a Mac Pro (nehalem) 2009

Greetings,
I have a video workstation based on a Mac Pro (2x2.26GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon Nehalem, 6 GB RAM, 640 GB HD, 512 NVIDEA VRAM) with a Blackmagic Decklink HD Extreme 2009 and an Highpoint RocketRAID 4322 card (properly connected to a RAID 5 array).
I'm editing, with Final Cut Studio 3, a big TV project with some TGA and loads of HD XDCAM EX 35mbs video footage.
*What is happening wrong?*
Final Cut Pro is crashing to many times and dont let me work with the flow that is supposed. I start to work and i do a bit of scrubbing in the timeline and suddenly the rainbow spyral starts to spin and kaput! FCP just crashes.
I've tried to many things. Re-installing everything from the baseline, plug out the 2 PCIe cards (and not even the drivers are installed). Even so FCP still crashes with the project.
Funny thing is... This symptom only happens with the Nehalem Mac Pro. I have another station based on a Mac Pro 2x2.66 GHz Dual Core Xeon 3 GB RAM 2006 and when i run the project... everything works fine. FCP here doesn't crash.
This is what makes me believe that the problem must be with the new Mac Pro.
I have the reports generated by the FCP after the crash. You can find it here:
http://www.ideiascompernas.com/reports/
I'm getting frustrated because i've invested big in this workstation, safe in the knowledge that it was going to be stable to complete my requirements.
Is there anything that i or Apple can do to resolve my problem. Is it the processor? Extended Hardware Test says that everything is ok.
I'll be waiting,
best regards, thanks,
Pedro

You may want to also post here:
Final Cut Studio forum:
http://discussions.apple.com/category.jspa?categoryID=123
Content creation with Final Cut Studio
http://discussions.apple.com/forum.jspa?forumID=1137
I see you have the GT120, not a very nice card really but maybe it is 'enough.' I'd upgrade. To ATI Radeon 4870, once you get it stable and working.
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=10251193&tstart=0
I see your crash is kernel panic actually.
Exception Type: EXCBADACCESS (SIGBUS)
Exception Codes: KERNPROTECTIONFAILURE at 0x0000000000000000
Crashed Thread: 194
Almost always that is memory related, are you seeing parity errors?
Watch System Profile - Memory tab
Replace the RAM (I'd even up it to more memory, 6 x 2GB is what I would have configured for)
Have you tested your RAM? run Apple Hardware Test?
Disabled ALL USB and Firewire devices?
Is the RR4322 okay to run in slot #2 (16x) rather than in slot 3 or 4 (4x)?
Getting RAM replaced, advanced exchange, or go out and getting some Kingston or Crucial etc for your system, and swapping, really is one good method, trial and error, to find the cultprit or rule out RAM.
Errors like this can mean flushing your caches is a must, and possibly due to errors and crashes, clean system install, checking data (both time consuming) and being careful to recheck your drives with Disk Warrior and/or TechTool Pro 5 to insure there are not any corrupt files (not perfect either which is why restore the system from known good backup image can be a must).

About Mac Pro RAM and one "Nehalem" Processor 2.8 vs 3.2

Hi,
Unfortunately I don't have so much money to spend but I find Apple products very high quality and in same time very expensive, specially for my country (Russia), according to statistic, it’s less then 1% of people that using Mac Pro in here, my country really poor :/
I never use Mac before, but I think that time is come and I would like to buy one on my birthday soon (22 November). I really tired of my crazy PC with Vista, it’s always bugs lags, and so on, it’s poor machine. I can buy new PC with i7, nice performances or buy Mac, but I think, Mac will be more quality and stable.
I'm web designer and programmer and using my PC with Adobe programs, normally Photoshop, Illustrator, Dreamweaver, very rare with After Effect (1 day per month). Sometimes I’m playing games like Dragon Age or CS:Source, Starcraft2. But I got PS3, but unfortunately it’s connected to our main home TV, and I can’t play PS3 because all day this TV watching my family :/ lol
I’m not sure if there are any way to connect PS3 to TV and computer screen at the same time… but it’s another question.
Now about Mac I'm wondering of buying cheapest Mac Pro 2010:
# One 2.8GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon “Nehalem”
# 3GB (3x1GB)
# 1TB 7200-rpm Serial ATA 3Gb/s hard drive
# ATI Radeon HD 5770 1GB
# One 18x SuperDrive
But at the same time, I wondering about how long time I will be able to use this Mac, and enjoy it before it will come too old. Because I just can’t spend and buy Mac every 2-3 years.
I’m looking forward to use it for 4-5 years I think or so. I know it’s very hard question and I’m not really sure if it’s right to discuss it, but I’m saying just what I think.
And maybe because of this, it’s better to order processor with 3.2Ghz, and a bit more RAM (8GB (4x2GB))? What you think?
And what will be the different between this 2 processors and more RAM? Because it will be +800 USD or so, and it’s very expensive for me (pay addition 800 Dollars), I just want to ask you if it will costs this money. Unfortunately I can’t spend more money on Mac to buy 6-core Westmare and more RAM But I think cheapest Mac, for my tasks already very powerful and awesome, what you think?
And if you’ll advice me, not to pay addition 400 USD for +0.4Ghz, and the different is very little, then what you think about addition Ram for stock MAC?

Thank you hatter.
I'm appreciate for your help and answer, and this amazing links! They are very helpful.
I find some interesting information. And most interesting is SSD thing. But unfortunately it's very expensive for me
I got 2 ways to go, and I really confused now. I take a look what you said, about making a PC with i7. And here is what I find on our Russian market - only 1 company which offers high quality custom PC's with up to 3 years guarantee.
What they can offer:
Price: $2060
(Basic Config: DEPO Ego Z71i)
OS:
Microsoft® Windows 7 Home Premium RUS 32-bit
or
Microsoft® Windows 7 Home Premium RUS 64-bit
MotherBoard:
*ASUS P6T, Intel®X58 chipset , DDR3, ATX*
CPU:
*Intel® Core™ i7 Processor 930 (4-Cores, 2.80GHz, 4.8 GT/s, 8Mb)*
Intel® Core™ i7 Processor 950 (4-Cores, 3.06GHz, 4.8 GT/s, 8Mb) +$365
Intel® Core™ i7 Processor Extreme Edition 980X (6-Cores, 3.33GHz, 6.4 GT/s, 12Mb) +$1150
RAM:
*3Gb DDR3-1600 Corsair Dominator, Triple Channel*
6Gb DDR3-1600 Corsair , Triple Channel +$40
12Gb DDR3-1600 Corsair , Triple Channel +$260
HDD1:
*1TB SATA hard drive (7200rpm)*
2 x 1TB SATA hard drive (7200rpm) +$80
4 x 1TB SATA hard drive (7200rpm) +$230
2 x 2TB SATA hard drive (7200rpm) +$355
4 x 2TB SATA hard drive (7200rpm) +$790
HDD2:
WD VelociRaptor 150GB, 10000rpm, 16Mb cache, SATA-II +$175
2.5" 64GB SSD SATA II +$205
WD VelociRaptor 300GB, 10000rpm, 16Mb cache, SATA-II +$285
2.5" 128GB SSD SATA II +$405
RAID:
RAID0 (required minimum 2 HDD) +$10
RAID1 (required minimum 2 HDD) +$10
Optical Drive 5.25":
*DVD±RW/CD-RW/DVD 16x4x/5xDL/16x4x/16x/48x/24x/48x*
BD-ROM&DVD RAM&DVD±R/RW, 5x/5x/12(R9 6)x/6x/12(R9 4)x/6x/12x/24x/24x/32x +$130
SuperMulti Blu-Ray ReWriter +$235
Card Reader 3.5":
*Card Reader/Writer 50 in 1 (CF/MD/SM/MS/SD/MMC)*
Video:
*ATI Radeon™ HD 5870 (1024МБ, PCI-E TV-out DVI+HDMI)*
1536MB NVIDIA GeForce 480GTX PCI-E DVI +$110
2x ATI Radeon™ HD 5850 (1024МБ, PCI-E TV-out DVI+HDMI) +$230
2x ATI Radeon™ HD 5870 (1024МБ, PCI-E TV-out DVI+HDMI) +$490
Sound:
*Realtek 7.1 (integrated)*
Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi™ Titanium Fatal1ty Champion Series +$400
Power:
*800W (12sm)*
1000W (14sm) +$50
1200W (14sm) +$55
WiFi:
*WLAN 802.11bg*
Mouse + KeyBoard: (lol)
Without mouse and keyboard -$75
Cordless Desktop® Wave Pro™ +$75
Maitance:
*1 Year*
2 Years +$10
3 Years +$20
Ok, that’s it.
DEPO - It’s our Russian company so I can’t give you link on English web page, but if you are interesting to view it, maybe with Google translate:
http://www.depo.ru/H/MDL658/1000004953/zconfigurator.aspx
And I’m not really sure, if they offer high quality components, and I can’t check it.
I just don’t want to repeat same experience like with my previous computer – I bought top computer for very high price with top components, but everything was bugging, it’s terrible, I’m working with this computer 3 years now (it’s cored 2 duo with radeon x1900 and vista :S video card - without supporting DX10-11, 2 Hdd 500Gb RAID 0, - maximum lags – I cant’ even make a diagnostics… crazy). And I’m so sad about this computer, and I don’t want to repeat same experience. That’s why I wonder about Mac Pro or any other quolity PC, but price is too high, or if I buy just normal Mac Pro:
• One 2.8GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon “Nehalem”
• 3GB (3x1GB)
• 1TB 7200-rpm Serial ATA 3Gb/s hard drive
• ATI Radeon HD 5770 1GB
• One 18x SuperDrive
• Apple Magic Mouse
• Apple Keyboard with Numeric Keypad (English) & User's Guide
For 2499 USD, I still need to add more RAM, and It will costs 2874 USD with 8 Gb, but without changing Processor and/or HDD for SSD to speed up computer like **** and enjoy it every minute. I maximum can spend 3000-3200 USD for new computer. And all I want, to enjoy it’s stability and speed. To load photoshop in less then 5 seconds, working with AE a bit, 3dmax a bit, play a bit. Maybe I want to much :/

XP 64 bit constant crashes on Nehalem Mac Pro 8 core

We have recently purchased 4 additional Mac Pros to add to our existing render farm of older 8 core Mac Pros. We run both Mac OS and XP 64 bit on all of our Mac Pros so that each machine can be used for our Motion Graphics artists running After Effects as well as by our 3D artists. For the last 3 years we've had no problems with the 64bit XP installs on the older Mac Pros.
Now we are unable to get a stable install of Windows XP 64 bit on any of the new machines. It constantly crashes especially on any Acrobat application such as Adobe Reader 9.
We have tried this on 3 of our 4 new Nehalems so its not a hardware fault. We have even gone back from 16gb RAM to the original 6gb Apple RAM.
We have used an XP 64bit SP2 disc and the Bootcamp x64 Ethernet and Intel Chipset drivers on the MacPros system disc. We then tried to download alternative Ethernet and Chipset drivers from the Intel site. Still the same crashes. All of this happens before we even bother trying to install the graphics drivers so we know that its not that.
The blue screen error we get is:
Disk.sys
Page fault in nonpaged area
Surely we're not the only ones trying to run 64 bit XP on the Nehalem MacPros?
Message was edited by: martyn pot2

Did you try W7 x64? Apple never provided XP x64 drivers so it was always something you had to find for yourself. And seems you were successful there.
Seems like just building some Core i7s would have been suitable for your needs.
I have found that extended disk testing and zero/long formt is essential anymore with hard drives.
PCs can be fussy and tempermental with RAM though Mac Pro you are pretty much forced to use qualified chips.
I would do all your driver updates first, before anything from Apple. And try to live w/o any Boot Camp. Always install graphics drivers, ethernet chipset from Intel. BC does add some help to power management, or did.
You may just need to wait and see if those Snow Leopard DVDs have anything good on them, and hopefully bring drivers into the present instead of early 2008 era.

Photoshop performance on new Mac Pro Nehalem

If my current comparison is a dual quad core 2.66GHz "old" Mac Pro, and want new "Nehalem" Mac Pro, where Photoshop performs equally.
Should I get a 2.66 Quad Core Mac Pro (given I accept the 8 GB RAM limit)?
Should I get a 2.26 Dual Quad Core Mac Pro?
Where is Adobe going in the optimizations of Photoshop application and filters?
Will optimizations be done for CS4, CS5, or even later?
Please show me the path.
Søren

Correct
not acceptable.
Phil-
Of course any 4-core Mac Pro with 8 GB RAM and appropriate graphics card will run any version of Photoshop very well, but you miss the point.
"just buy the most machine you can afford" is actually quite complicated.
The point is that we have
multiple Mac Pro computer investment
choices
and prices to choose among:
boxes from 2006, 2007, 2008 and 2009 with various graphics cards and other architectural parameters to consider when choosing the "best" one for any given workflow and financial situation.
With 11 Mac Pros (further complicated by confusing graphics cards combinations) it behooves us to quickly remove what may be
unacceptable investment choices from consideration. The one box of 11 that limits RAM to 8 GB is - IMO - easily identified as "unacceptable" and removed from consideration.
Moving forward :) as app vendors evolve apps to better utilize available cheap RAM, OS 10.6 and boxes with more RAM access (like all the other Mac Pros ever made) ever-larger amounts of
cheap RAM will become more useful. E.g. I paid US$450 to upgrade my 2007 Macbook Pro from 2 GB to 3 GB, and it was worth it. Today that much money will put 24 GB in a MP, and RAM prices continue to fall.
Under OS X Photoshop can already take advantage of at least 32 GB installed RAM. We do not know what 64-bit Mac PS will bring us in a year or so, but odds are pretty high that having lots of RAM available will be very desirable. IMO buying a 4-year-lifecycle pro tower in 2009 that is constrained to 8 GB RAM would be a poor purchase decision.
All the above comments assume heavy graphics app usage like CS3/4/5.
-Allen
P.S.
We agree about the new Mini. Even with its limited RAM (and consequent shortened life cycle) the low price makes it a viable choice for less than the heaviest graphics work.
The new Mini IMO is the sleeper of the new Macs. iMacs are hamstrung by their glossy displays intolerable to many (not all) graphics pros but the Minis are not. Running OS 10.6 with FW 800 connectivity, 9400M graphics, 4 GB DDR3 RAM and third-party displays a Mini can now actually drive a desktop Aperture or Photoshop workflow (although obviously not like a 4x-the-price MP would drive such apps) at a very cheap price.

Mac Pro Harpertown or Nehalem?

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