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The Mac ProA while back I noted that I was going to have to buy a new computer as my old one was ... just that, old. I alluded to that when I discussed my recent acquisition of an Apple Cinema Display. Well, I've been doing my research and counting my pennies and decided it was finally time to make the move. I've actually been watching the processor scene since March 2006 when the Core 2 Duos were announced. First I waited for a Core 2, then they immediately announced a quad, then the blogs started hinting that perhaps Apple would drop two quads into a Mac Pro ... The actual final straw was that I got down to around 5 gigabytes of free disk space on my old computer. I was throwing out stuff I didn't need but previously just filed away. Definitely time to get a new drive or... I purchased a Mac Pro, 3 GHz, 8 core computer with 4 gigs of ram and a pretty nice ATI X1900 graphics card. The processors are Xeons not Core 2 Quads. This makes the processors more expensive and the memory has to be FBDIMMs which also cranks up the price a bit. (Just Added 4 more Gigs or ram) For the record, this is an upgrade from a Dell Dimension XPS purchased in May of 2003. That computer was on the leading edge of computing at the time. It has a P4 3 GHz processor. It was the second processor (by a few days) that included something new called hyper threading. I was pretty pleased to see two virtual processors in my Windows XP Pro task manager. Hey, I knew it was just a scheduling thing but it did make a bit of difference when running multiple apps at the same time. Anyway back to the new computer. Apple stores for some reason don't have the ability to upgrade systems in store and so, you have to order online. Well, I've purchased 3 Dell computers that way, so no problem. But this time, instead of being shipped from someplace in Texas, my computer started its journey to me from Shenzhen, CN. That's just outside of Hong Kong. Let me tell you I was pretty surprised to see that when I was notified it had shipped and I went to FedEx to watch the computer's progress towards me. It seemed like a long way to come in a 2 day delivery but, no problems. Hey airplanes are fast right? Here is the tracking page from the FedEx website showing its journey across the globe after the computer arrived.
If you want to actually read that sheet click on it or CLICK HERE, for a 100% scale image of the web page. The arrival of the computer was a bit disturbing. There was a rather large rupture in the cardboard shipping box.
The tear is under "Pro". That's tape stuck to the box above.
I insisted that the FedEx person hang around while I unpacked the computer. Hey, it only takes a minute or two and I didn't want to accept a dented box as this thing was expensive. I poked around, pulled the computer out and examined everything. Not a sign of a scratch or dent on the side of the computer aligned with the ding. In fact, I found it extremely difficult just to get my finger to pry open the ding.
So, no problem. I signed for the delivery and the FedEx lady noted that the box was significantly damaged in case I should turn up any problems with the computer once I'd installed it and checked it out. I've been to the Apple stores and looked at the Mac Pros, but they sell the entry level boxes there and I wasn't all that interested in that. So I never really looked carefully at the construction. I figured a PC was a PC regardless of who made it. Well, I couldn't have been more wrong. I know it makes absolutely not a wit of difference in performance or reliability but this Mac Pro is so beautifully built. Take a peek at a series of photos.
Three USB ports Wow this thing is pretty speedy. But right here at the start I will forthrightly state that 8 cores is probably pretty much overkill. I only have one program that actually uses all 8 cores efficiently (MS Flight Simulator SP1). Oh, some of the other programs I got for the Mac probably will use some processor power but I think the 8 core thing will only really be useful when I'm doing stuff like compressing video. There are definitely times when you know you're no longer using a P4 3GHz machine. For instance, I'm running Vista in Parallels right now creating this web page in FrontPage. Meanwhile, in the background the computer is backing up it's OS X drive to an external Firewire 800 drive. I had to do some editing of the pictures I placed on this page so I fired up Photoshop (CS3 in OS X). That also meant firing up Adobe Bridge. Hey, on my old machine Bridge alone would practically bring it to its knees. And when my backup program was running on that machine it also consumed so much processor time that everything slowed appreciably. Here I am running all this stuff and each new program opens as fast as if it's the only thing running. Even programs running inside Vista which is a Virtual Machine running inside Parallels VM desktop manager pop open significantly faster on the new computer with all that other stuff running. So, some tasks get done a bit faster, some a lot faster if the program has been written to take advantage of multiple cores and everything runs smoother as there is lots of memory and processor power to run lots of threads. So, I'm a Windows guy. You can see that right here on this website by the fact that I write programs and they are all in developed in Visual Basic 6. Definitely a Windows programming environment. How can I go out and buy a Mac? Well, it's pretty easy now that computers have become so fast and Apple switched to Intel for their processors. You see, I installed Vista on a second hard drive using Boot Camp, Apple's multi OS boot loader and polisher. And it works great. I actually did a bunch of testing at a friends house using their iMac and Parallels before taking the plunge for this expensive machine. I wanted to be sure my programs would run. A possible big problem, many of my programs use the serial port to communicate with external modems (RF modems, not telephone ones). So, the question was, would I be able to get a serial to USB adaptor to work in a virtual machine or just in Windows on bare metal. The delightful answer was yes to both. Once that hurdle was surmounted, I was pretty much a sold camper. Initially I decided to run both a pure VM of Vista and a bare metal version. A bare metal version boots Vista as the sole OS. However, I have experienced a few hiccups with the pure VM version. A pure VM version is my coinage of a term meant to describe a virtual machine that exists solely in software and in virtual machine files on the hard drive of the Mac OS. In other words the OS isn't installed onto a hard drive it is installed into a virtual hard drive that is simulated by a large file that Parallels creates to hold the virtual machine. I don't know why but this method doesn't seem to be as reliable as giving Windows it's own hardware home on a hard drive (or partition). With Parallels for the Mac you can still open the hard drive installed version of Windows, so other than the fact that you can't suspend the OS like you can in a pure VM, it's no big deal. So, for the perfect setup I wanted to install a new hard drive into the computer and place Vista on that drive exclusively. I should note I could have used Boot Camp to partition the existing drive, but I wanted to segregate the bare metal Windows onto it's own dedicated hard drive. Hey, I just ran out of HDD space on my last computer so I'm being overly pragmatic and cautious on this new machine when it comes to storage space. I've installed dozens of HDDs over the years, CDs and DVD drives too. So I wasn't expecting any problems. What I found was exactly the opposite. A 5 year old could easily accomplish this task. Take a look at these photos.
These pictures don't really do justice to the interior of the computer. It's so VERY PRETTY inside there. Well, the back of the case is to the right the front to the left. That red card is the ATI X1900 graphics card. It has a vent to the rear out of the extra slot it occupies. To the far right top and middle right top are two aluminum sheets of metal perhaps 1 inch tall and 5 inches wide. Those are metal drive carriers. Grip one and pull gently on it and it slides out.
Here is the missing drive carrier (from the photo above) waiting for its new drive
One more pretty picture from the interior ...
In the first interior shot you could see an opening below the graphics card. This is the location where memory is installed. There are 8 slots available for DIMM memory. You have to install the sticks in pairs. Currently there are 4 one gigabyte sticks installed. As long as the memory comes in pairs of sticks you can load this thing up. The Apple site only offers up to 16 GB of ram but I've seen folks suggesting you might be able to get 32 gigs in there. One really nice thing about the Mac is that the OS is 64 bit. Well perhaps not all of it, yet but as far as memory goes, you can jam in as much ram as you want. I fire up OSx and it tells me I have 4 gigs of ram. I fire up Vista and it thinks I only have 2 gigs. This is a limitation in the way Vista works with ram. For instance, got a video card with 512 megs of ram, that counts in to the total amount of addressable ram windows can handle. Because it is considered priority memory you usually find that 32 bit windows just subtracts that ram right out of the total amount available. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing so, rather than take my word on this since I may have totally flubbed it, zip about the web and read about memory management for 32 bit windows and see for yourself. But, Vista (32) is definitely limited to 4 gigs of ram no matter what. That's a hard limitation based on how much address space you can genearate with a 32 bit binary number. Gotta go on to Vista 64 if you need more ram. Now folks are going to say, who would need more than 4 gigs, and I have to agree pretty much that you are entering specialized territory when you move beyond that magical limit. But, I like knowing that I can if I ever discover I need more than 2 gigs of ram for OS X when I'm also running Vista with it's 2 gigs accounted for I can pump up the memory to any reasonable (in 2007 anyway) amount I might desire. Regardless, the main thing about that picture, it just shows off more nice engineering. Look at those rounded corners. It's all so durned pretty. So, why go Mac anyway? Well, believe it or not, it's cheaper when you are buying a workstation class computer. I priced out similar systems from Dell and Apple and yep, the Mac Pro was substantially cheaper. Remember, these things start at $2500 and go up from there. I figured I'd be buying my dream machine and that was the price comparison I was making - $4000 plus workstations. Initially I was pricing quad core systems (two dual core Xeons). I'd work up a system with the same processors, memory and all around comparable components. Mac was always cheaper. That engineering isn't anything to sneeze at either. My old P4 3GHz machine made one awful racket. About the only good thing that can be said for the old P4s is that they were great supplemental heaters during the winter months. But during the summer the fans howled incessantly trying to keep that thing cool. The fans in the Mac Pro are so quiet that I rarely if ever notice them. I hear the DVDs spin up. If it is very quiet in the room I can hear the HDD as it does its seeks, reads and writes. But that's it. No video card fan noise, no power supply fan noise, and those big fans in front, well they're spinning all right ... let's see the top one pushes air over the hard drives and it's spinning at 500 rpm, the lower fan is cooling the CPUs and the memory and it's running at 553 rpm. Minimum speed for those fans is listed as 500 rpm. If you stick your ear right beside them you can hear them but that's about it. The max speed for those fans is listed at 2900 rpm so they are just idling away moving air through the case to make a good showing. Current temperatures, well ambient is 29° C, yep its summer in Colorado. The cores are running around 72° C. The northbridge is 92° C which is the hottest spot in the Mac. Most everything else is substantially cooler from just under 70° C to as low as 36° C for an empty hard drive bay, filled bays are 38° C. As a test ... I just measured the sound levels coming from both computers. The Dell XPS, 77 dB at 12 inches from the loudest emitter of sound (rear power supply fan). The Mac Pro, 52 dB 12" from the front fans. I have a 500 GB LaCie Firewire drive on the desk. It makes more noise. But it's also closer to my ear. Let's see, yep, from 12 inches it's humming along at 57 dB. But it sleeps when not in use and so isn't that bothersome. Also, I tend to play music at ... hmmmph, I thought it was quieter but around 75 dB measured. I hear nothing from the Mac. I seem to recall hearing the fans from the old computer while listening to music. Probably that was because music is dynamic and occasionally it becomes quiet and then those turbines in the old computer seem to roar. Ok, while testing that a song just ended and I did note that I can hear the computer humming along. But it's just that a quiet hum not a roar that the old machine presented. Here are a couple of MP3s recorded with a Sony ICD SX-57 handheld recorder.
Just to drive a nail into it... I could actually hear the old computer's fans from the living room. I have to come into this room and sit at the computer with no ambient noise before I really notice any noise coming from the new computer. The exception, if it's busy doing stuff with the drive I may hear some HDD noise once I've entered the room and am within 7 feet of the computer. So, point is, it is much much quieter than the previous box. A very welcome change. And one I note would probably exist if I'd purchased a Dell Work station too. It's the new chips cooler operating mode that create cooler and thus quieter machines. Here is an interesting screen capture. I thought I'd start up a bunch of programs at the same time.
Running on the Mac clockwise from the upper left iTunes, Parellels running Windows Vista Ultimate (inside Vista are Solitaire, Excel and DU meter running as well as the sidebar with a clock, calendar, weather and CPU monitor along with the usual complement of background processes), back to the Mac Applications, Activity Monitor at the right. moving down, the thumbnails and larger image are contained within a PathFinder window (like Windows Explorer), the grid with the green bars is another activity monitor window, this one showing the usage of each of the 8 CPUs in the MacPro, to the left, a Mac card game, in the lower left corner is Net Monitor (bandwidth monitor), and then moving up the left side Quicktime with an HD movie of me (1280x720), above that is the iChat client and above that is the iSight camera monitor window showing a "live" image of me in iChat. I'm not connected to anyone, just thought it would be fun to add that to the desktop, and it is handling video from two sources thus adding a tiny bit of stress to the system. Even with all this open the system has 650 megabytes of free ram. Nothing opens appreciably slower with all this running than it might with no other applications running. I've still not really saturated the 8 processors. But sometimes they all kick in and cooperate on a job. For instance, I notice that when ripping CDs in iTunes, all 8 cores are working. However, they don't seem to exceed 30 or so percent of use on each CPU. Regardless, I recently ripped a 10 track CD and the entire rip was finished before the first song finished playing. I think the bottleneck here may actually be the speed of the CD player. That is pretty cool. I am always saying I'll come back and update these little reviews and I never do but ... perhaps over time I'll discover other goodies or headaches owning a Mac Pro. If I do I'll try to remember to document it for you here.
UPDATEMore RAM I was getting close to the 4 gig border when running multiple OSes.
So, I meandered to the Apple store and grabbed an additional 4 GB of ram.
It is way fun to think about this in terms of my own evolution as a computer user. I don't think I could actually rememeber every computer I've ever purchased but I'm guessing here that this single computer has 1.) More disk space than all previous computers combined and 2.) More ram than all previous computers combined. And folks my first computer was purchased in 1977 or maybe 1978 (Radio Shack TRS-80). To give you an idea of the capability of this thing, here is a screen shot of 5 operating systems running simultaneously.
The screen capture was taken through Dashboard and one widget is showing off some of the specs of the machine. Click the picture or link below to see the details of memory usage, processor usage etc. Now, I just popped all these OSes up as an example. In every day use I ALWAYS have Vista running and frequently fire-up a third VM if I'm going to go web page exploring. I like to see how websites infect computers. When a VM becomes corrupted, I just trash it, and create a fresh version from a backup copy I keep for this purpose. I should also comment that 'some' programs run much better inside a Vmware VM. That is because you can specify 2 cores for use by the VM. Parallels only permits the use of a single core. Frankly, with 8 cores, I'd be happy to let a workhorse VM have 4 cores to itself. I might amend that opinion if things in OS-X slowed down appreciably, but I don't think that would be a problem. The biggest speed killer is RAM. Any swapping to a page file and you're dead (well slow down to a proverbial crawl). I imagine Parallels will get back on board with multi-processor capabilities in their VMs soon. In the meantime, VmWare themselves scared me off of using their product on a boot camp partition. So, my main VM that runs from a partition is still in Parallels. Too bad to as I use that VM to work on programs. A spare core would be really nice when compile time comes around. But, it's not like I can't switch to the Mac OS or another VM to get something else done while the compilers consume massive quantities of compute cycles in the development VM. |
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