Mac Pro Slow? Need more RAM?

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Hi All,

first of all greetings to all the mac community out there. I just moved from more than 15 years in the PC (DOS/Windows) arena to the Mac. I purchased a MacPro (new one), a 8-core machine with 2 GB of memory. I moved from a quad-core Q 6600 with 4 GB and I feel this Mac slower than the PC. Is this normal? Applications take some time to load, disk access seems slower. Is there any tweaking I should do? Is 2 GB of RAM not enough for a 8-core machine? Any tips?

Best regards,

Joster Macedo
Florianopolis - Brazil
 
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If you're not running out of RAM opening apps (you can't be), adding more RAM won't help. Adding more RAM will actually get the RAM to work at full speed though. The Mac Pro needs at least 4- DIMMs installed to work at full speed.

Apps won't be using all 8 cores to do something simple like open an app. If you're comparing how fast your quad core PC opened XP apps to the Mac Pro opening Leopard apps, that isn't a fair comparison, is it? And really, it's not about how fast the app opens, is it? The Mac Pro and its 8-cores is designed for what happens after the app opens.

The speed of the machine is determined by how fast it gets the end job done not the time it takes to open an app.
 
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Did you get the new firmware update? Mine came in last night. Runs better now. I used to get the pinwheel on everything no matter what i did.
 
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What apps are you running?
 
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Hi,

I´m running Microsoft Office 2008, Parallels Desktop and the usual applications (iTunes, iPhoto etc.). I´ll install Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Premiere too. I already know that Photoshop will need more memory, but my expectations were high for this machine.

I did the firmware upgrade as soon as I turned the machine on, so I don´t know how the speed was before this update.

Best regards,

Joster Macedo
 
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Well, you are running two operating systems and and a bunch of other apps. The only two apps that will make use of more than 1 core are the Adobe products.
iTunes, because it is not threaded for 8-cores actually runs faster on Core 2 Duo Macs than a Mac Pro. This is probably the same for all of the simple apps.
The apps that will make use of the 8-cores are high end apps like Final Cut and Adobe products.
 
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Well, you are running two operating systems and and a bunch of other apps. The only two apps that will make use of more than 1 core are the Adobe products.
iTunes, because it is not threaded for 8-cores actually runs faster on Core 2 Duo Macs than a Mac Pro. This is probably the same for all of the simple apps.
The apps that will make use of the 8-cores are high end apps like Final Cut and Adobe products.

Bryan, I can't resist asking - do you know if Photoshop CS3 is optimized for multiple cores, and if so, how many? Would it work best on a quad core or an 8 core Mac Pro?
 
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I will get back to you Mac57. It has to be threaded but I don't know how many cores it utilizes.
 
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Great, thanks. You know where the question is coming from, I am sure!! :D
 
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2GB of RAM ? why would you build such a powerful machine and only run it with 2GB of RAM, even my macbook pro has 4GB of RAM ! I run illustrator photoshop CS3 and lightroom, very often all at the same time, whilst listening to itunes and flicking through various webpages while I work.
My previous windows based machine really struggled to do this with 2GB of RAM, even though the processor was almost as fast as my macbook pro's, and it had twice the graphics card memory. apples operating system is efficient but I think its wrong to expect it to be so good it compensates to the tune of your current setup having half the amount of RAM of your previous setup ? Personally I would take advantage of all those RAM slots and be running at least 6GB of RAM if you've got a machine with such huge amounts of processing power.
 
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I was doing some browsing. I didn't come up with much. A dated early 2007 article said Photoshop was dual core threaded.
Mac World- This is a good article even though it relates to the previous generation MP.
Really, the 8-cores will only be used for video and 3D editing. I think Photoshops real limits are the graphics and RAM, not the processor. As seen in the table on the Mac World link, the 8-core only beat the 4-core by two seconds in a CS3 test.
I know you really want the 3.2GHz 8-core, it will go unused. I am so happy with my quad 2.8GHz. It's a beast; 8-cores are overkill.

Edit- Here's the other: CNet
 
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sirjamesofmac, I will put more RAM. The problem is that I live in Brazil and memory prices for the Mac Pro here are ridiculous. I'll be in the US soon and I'll buy some memory from Macsales to make things better.

Joster Macedo
 
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fair enough, everythings cheaper in america it seems, especially if you come from england like me haha
 
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I was doing some browsing. I didn't come up with much. A dated early 2007 article said Photoshop was dual core threaded.
Mac World- This is a good article even though it relates to the previous generation MP.
Really, the 8-cores will only be used for video and 3D editing. I think Photoshops real limits are the graphics and RAM, not the processor. As seen in the table on the Mac World link, the 8-core only beat the 4-core by two seconds in a CS3 test.
I know you really want the 3.2GHz 8-core, it will go unused. I am so happy with my quad 2.8GHz. It's a beast; 8-cores are overkill.

Edit- Here's the other: CNet

Thanks Bryan, more or less what I expected. As to the 3.2 going unused, well yes and no. I agree that most of the 8 cores will go unused, but the ones that are used will go much faster than their equivalent on a slower machine. Sort of an obvious statement, but obviously true. A 3.2 GHz single core is that much faster than a 2.8 GHz single core - hence Photoshop tasks (filters and the like) should run faster on the 3.2 than on the 2.8, even if most of the cores are loafing.

I WISH Apple would release the 3.2 GHz configuration in 4 core as well as 8 core. That would be the machine I would ideally like to have. I agree that 8 cores is massive overkill.
 
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For some reason after the new updates my computer has been running slow.

I have an iMac 24 inch, 2.16 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo with 2 GB Ram. I also running Leopard.

Even when I am running relatively nothing, things seem to slow down a bit and stop responding. Especially when watching videos online, it stops playing the video in some parts while the sound keeps going. My Firefox app has crashed a few times and doesn't seem to close properly. None of this happened in the past, even when using more stuff at the same time. What could be the cause of this?
 
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sirjamesofmac, I will put more RAM. The problem is that I live in Brazil and memory prices for the Mac Pro here are ridiculous. I'll be in the US soon and I'll buy some memory from Macsales to make things better.

Joster Macedo

If you're worried about paying high prices for RAM, www.MemoryAmerica.com has better prices than MacSales (OWC) and the service is better too.

I think international is 20+ US but MA's price difference should be able to cover that...maybe just maybe.
 

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