Mac Pro 6-Core or 8-Core, which would you buy?

Now that Apple has made the new Mac Pro available, I’m wondering which would be the better buy.  The 6-Core 3.33GHz Intel Xeon “Westmere” or the 8-Core 2.4GHz Intel Xeon “Westmere”.  The price of the 6-Core is $3699 and the 8-Core is less at $3499.

I’m really interested in a Macworld test of these new systems to see what they can do.  Macworld said they would have them for testing very soon.

New Mac Pro comes out next month with a roar.. 12 processing cores.

If you can afford the top of the line, you need to set aside $5k for the right to claim the fastest Mac ever.  This monster gives you a 50% boost in processing prowess compared to the previous fastest Mac Pro.

The new Mac Pro desktops feature the latest quad-core and 6-core Intel Xeon processors, all-new ATI graphics and the option for up to four 512GB solid state drives (SSD). The processors run at speeds up to 3.33GHz and use a single die design so they can share up to 12MB L3 cache, improving efficiency while increasing processing speeds.

“The new Mac Pro is the most powerful and configurable Mac we’ve ever made,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. “With up to 12 cores, the new Mac Pro outperforms our previous top-of-the-line system by up to 50 percent, and with over a billion possible configurations, our customers can create exactly the system they want.”

The systems include an integrated memory controller for faster memory bandwidth and reduced memory latency; Turbo Boost to dynamically boost processor speeds up to 3.6 GHz; and Hyper-Threading to create up to 24 virtual cores. The Mac Pro now comes with the ATI Radeon HD 5770 graphics processor with 1GB of memory and customers can configure-to-order the even faster ATI Radeon HD 5870 with 1GB of memory.

source:appleinsider

Some of the Apple rumors came true. New iMac now and Mac Pro in August.

The new iMac line is the fastest ever with dual-core processor speeds up to 3.6 GHz, quad-core speeds up to 2.93 GHz and discrete graphics including the ATI Radeon HD 5750.

“We took the world’s best all-in-one and made it even better,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. “With the latest processors, high-performance graphics and signature aluminum and glass design, customers are going to love the latest iMac.”

Dual-core Intel Core i3 and Core i5, and quad-core Core i5 and Core i7 bring the best performance yet to the iMac line, Apple said. The processors feature an integrated memory controller to access the system memory directly, allowing the new iMac to take full advantage of its faster 1333 MHz memory.

New discrete ATI Radeon HD processors deliver incredibly smooth, crisp graphics for the most demanding 3D games, creative software and technical applications. iMac displays feature IPS technology to deliver images across a wide 178 degree viewing angle.

The SD card slot on the iMac now supports the SDXC format to handle the latest high-capacity storage cards. Customers of the 27-inch iMac have the option to order a 256GB solid state drive (SSD) as a primary or secondary drive. The iMac SSD supports up to 215 MB/s data transfer rates for faster startup and application launch times.

The rumors of faster firewire and USB 3.0 have not materialized though.

source:appleinsider