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Apple new 8-core Mac Pro uses special 3GHz quad-core Intel Xeon version

Thursday, April 5, 2007 · 10:24 am · 25 Comments

“Apple’s updated Mac Pro uses a special version of Intel’s Xeon workstation-class processor, the semiconductor company said in an e-mail note. The 3GHz quad-core CPU at the heart of the fastest system is currently an unannounced model that sits at the top of the company’s performance range and is presently used only by Apple,” Electronista reports.

Electronista reports, “The model in question is the Xeon X5365, according to additional comments by Intel’s Italian PR director Ruben Simpliciano. The chip currently outpaces the official fastest quad-core processor from Intel, the 2.66GHz Xeon 5355, while maintaining the 8MB of total level 2 cache and 1333MHz system bus of its predecessors.”

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Comment Feed

25 Comments

macaholic

Thursday, April 5, 2007 - 10:29 am · Reply

Gota love that “special” relationship they were talking about.

AMD? whatever!
Tommy Boy

Thursday, April 5, 2007 - 10:31 am · Reply

“Only by Apple”. Heh.
M@c

Thursday, April 5, 2007 - 10:41 am · Reply

That’s fast buddy….Mail and Safari should FLY.
WiseGuy

Thursday, April 5, 2007 - 10:48 am · Reply

Octo Mac Pro, no OEM BlueRay DVD drive, no HD movies, lame.

But I lust for all that power anyway.

I’ll wait for the “Night of the Lepoard” and get 10% discount off the Mac Octo Pro monster.

Hopefully by then we will get OEM BlueRay drives.
Truth

Thursday, April 5, 2007 - 10:52 am · Reply

The funniest part is that Dell’s system using only the 2.66GHz version still costs close to $1,000 more than the 3GHz 8-core Mac Pro.
therepguy

Thursday, April 5, 2007 - 10:56 am · Reply

If I was the boss at Intel I would make sure that Apple had the best of everything that the company makes – reason being how else is the boss going to be able ,to show off just what his company (Intel) can do

He sure isn’t going to get that job done by relying on Dell or any of the other want to be companies out there.

GOOD MOVE INTEL !
WiseGuy

Thursday, April 5, 2007 - 11:13 am · Reply

It’s obvious the 3GHz Xeon 5365′s are the low yield “cream of the crop” of the massively produced and stable 2.66GHz Xeon 5355 models or Dell would have gotten them first.

They 3GHz’s could run hotter than normal and if they fail, would require a replacement Mac Pro instead of a simple processor switch.

Buy AppleCare when you get the Octo Pro.
Dumb Question...

Thursday, April 5, 2007 - 11:13 am · Reply

I know this is a dumb computer newbie question – but isn’t the speed of the machine limited by the bus that the chips is plugged into?

In other words, if the chip processes at 3Ghz but the bus is limited to letting stuff go through at 1.6Ghz, isn’t it, in effect, a 1.6Ghz machine?
macman

Thursday, April 5, 2007 - 11:21 am · Reply

OS X is the only OS out there that can keep up with the ever-changing and ever-improving hardware designs. Windows is too bloated and antiquated with backwards compatibility to be able to keep up. I bet Intel is glad to have Apple on their side finally so that they can show off their latest and greatest designs without having to wait a year for Microsoft to release a Service Pack.
DLMeyer

Thursday, April 5, 2007 - 11:24 am · Reply

This is actually just “good business sense”. The “OctoMac” is likely to be a low-volume item. The top of the modestly-selling Power Mac line. Great for visibility, no need for high productivity. Chips that can’t hack the full speed can still try out for 2.66 status and be sold in Dells. Everyone wins. Except Dell … boo-hoo.

DLMeyer – the Voice of G.L.Horton’s Stage Page pod-cast
DLMeyer

Thursday, April 5, 2007 - 11:34 am · Reply

I know this is a dumb computer newbie question – but isn’t the speed of the machine limited by the bus that the chips is plugged into?

In other words, if the chip processes at 3Ghz but the bus is limited to letting stuff go through at 1.6Ghz, isn’t it, in effect, a 1.6Ghz machine?

The answer is both “yes” and “no!”. It depends on a number of factors.
First thing is that most systems are most limited by their users/uses.
Second thing is that most uses are not data-intensive.
Third is the use of “cache RAM” everyone includes – L2 & L3.
The first two work together, the third eliminates many of the problems faced by data-intensive tasks. I have Folding@Home running on this computer. Data-intensive, but totally contained in L2 cache, thus avoiding the bus entirely. It uses every cycle I don’t – and I never miss them because it always lets my pitiful usage go first.

DLMeyer – the Voice of G.L.Horton’s Stage Page pod-cast
Emil

Thursday, April 5, 2007 - 11:45 am · Reply

“In other words, if the chip processes at 3Ghz but the bus is limited to letting stuff go through at 1.6Ghz, isn’t it, in effect, a 1.6Ghz machine?”
Well that depends on how memory hungry the applications are and the width of the bus. If they produce alot of memory traffic then the cpu is limited by the frontside bus or the northbridge but if that was the case then you wouldn’t be able to utilice the cpu fully. I wouldn’t worry about it.
You go ahead and sequence that human genome before lunch
I don’t like the memory tough, it would be great if it ran at the same or atleast half the fsb :/
Dr. Evil

Thursday, April 5, 2007 - 12:39 pm · Reply

This is better than frickin’ sharks with frikin’ laser beams on their foreheads!

Mini me, get out of that Mac Pro!
Steve Jobs

Thursday, April 5, 2007 - 12:42 pm · Reply

WiseGuy,

You don’t now diddly. The processor can be swapped out no problem. You just have to know what you’re doing.

Oops. Guess I shouldn’t have said “you.”
Steve Jobs

Thursday, April 5, 2007 - 12:42 pm · Reply

WiseGuy,

You don’t now diddly. The processor can be swapped out no problem. You just have to know what you’re doing.

Oops. Guess I shouldn’t have said “you.”
Steve Jobs

Thursday, April 5, 2007 - 12:42 pm · Reply

WiseGuy,

You don’t now diddly. The processor can be swapped out no problem. You just have to know what you’re doing.

Oops. Guess I shouldn’t have said “you.”
Steve Jobs

Thursday, April 5, 2007 - 12:42 pm · Reply

WiseGuy,

You don’t now diddly. The processor can be swapped out no problem. You just have to know what you’re doing.

Oops. Guess I shouldn’t have said “you.”
uhhh

Thursday, April 5, 2007 - 1:28 pm · Reply

2 links on the same thread ! DL youve outdone yourself !
Driver

Thursday, April 5, 2007 - 2:13 pm · Reply

But the more important question…..

Is that chip Pin-compatible with the existing motherboards in the current Mac Pro’s so we can upgrade to it in a few years when the price comes down?
Sum Jung Gai

Thursday, April 5, 2007 - 2:42 pm · Reply

For a good time, go to dell.com and to store.apple.com, and try to configure a pair of semi-matching workstations with two Quad processors. Since only Apple has the 3.0 GHz quad, you’ll have to use 2.66 GHz quads for the Dell configurations. I didn’t even bother to try to load the Dell machine with software, because it would only be Windows software anyway. But I did find that the slower, inferior Dell machine costs about 50% than the Mac. Interesting times, indeed.
ken1w

Thursday, April 5, 2007 - 5:14 pm · Reply

> It’s obvious the 3GHz Xeon 5365′s are the low yield “cream of the crop” … They 3GHz’s could run hotter than normal and if they fail, would require a replacement Mac Pro instead of a simple processor switch.

What are you talking about? They COULD be low yield. They COULD run hotter. They MIGHT require replacement of the entire Mac Pro IF they fail and IF it is cause by heat and IF that happens to break the whole Mac.

Your speculation does not even deserve to be called “speculation.”
Infomercials

Thursday, April 5, 2007 - 8:40 pm · Reply

I can’t wait to try out MS Word at the Apple Store on one of these 8-Core bad boys!
Billy Mays

Thursday, April 5, 2007 - 9:18 pm · Reply

Microsoft Excel for me! Those spreadsheets are going to scream!
3rdKidney

Friday, April 6, 2007 - 1:34 pm · Reply

Dumb Question
“I know this is a dumb computer newbie question – but isn’t the speed of the machine limited by the bus that the chips is plugged into?

In other words, if the chip processes at 3Ghz but the bus is limited to letting stuff go through at 1.6Ghz, isn’t it, in effect, a 1.6Ghz machine?”

Actually that’s a very logical question. Not dumb at all.

The short answer is, data is funneled into and out of the processor at the 1.6Ghz data bus rate but there are many calculations that must be performed on this data before it’s ready to send back out.

The 3Ghz is the clock rate of the processor and is a measure of how many ‘cycles per second’ the processor runs at. Three Gigs is equal to 3,000,000,000 cycles per second.

Consider that a single ‘process’ (or instruction) may require many multiple cycles for the cpu to execute. Also consider that many process on a group of data might have to happen before the data is actually ready for use.

So basically you need a fast data buss to deliver the results of all this multiple processing, but you also need a cpu that’s running faster than the data buss.

So they both effect the overall speed (in addition to a bunch of other system components), depending on the type of task being executed.

Somtimes the cpu speed is the important factor in the task, other times it’s the more so the data buss speed (or the video card, or hard drive speed, or other dedicated processing units etc.)

Gee. I thought this was going to be the short answer. Sorry.
Exposed

Friday, April 6, 2007 - 7:27 pm · Reply

“AMD? whatever!“

I hope you’ve been keeping up with tech news (other than this site). You’ll be singing a different tune in about 2 months when Barcelona, a true native Quad core chip, becomes available and.