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8-Core Mac Pro (Clovertown)

AnandTech took a Mac Pro, which comes with two Dual-Core Xeon (Woodcrest) processors and replaced them with samples of two Quad-Core Xeon (Clovertown) processors.

We grabbed a pair of 2.4GHz Clovertown samples and tossed them in the system, and to our pleasure, they worked just fine. Our samples used a 1066MHz FSB, although we're expecting the final chip to use a 1333MHz FSB, but the most important part of the test is that all 8 cores were detected and functional.


The Mac Pro appeared to run fine with the Quad-Core processors, effectively giving them a 8-Core machine. While they are unable to give performance numbers due to non-disclosure agreements, the machine was reportedly stable. It also gives hope for current Mac Pro owners that they will be able to later upgrade the processors on their machine in the future. Clovertown Quad-core processors are expected to be available in late 2006.

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71 months ago
The folks over at Anandtech have dropped engineering samples of the quad core cloverton into a Mac Pro - http://www.anandtech.com/mac/showdoc.aspx?i=2832&p=6

and it worked ... all eight cores were recognised.

The rest of the article was interesting too.
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71 months ago

The folks over at Anandtech have dropped engineering samples of the quad core cloverton into a Mac Pro - http://www.anandtech.com/mac/showdoc.aspx?i=2832&p=6

and it worked ... all eight cores were recognised.

The rest of the article was interesting too.


This willl probably be the update I purchase next year - if it makes it into the Mac Pro - thanks for the link.
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71 months ago
I was going to buy the quad-core Mac Pro 3.0 GHz when it hit the mid-price point, but I think I'll wait out for the dual quad-core (8 core) Mac Pro, instead. :) Hopefully by then, FB-DIMM will be cheap enough to buy 8 GB worth of RAM without breaking the bank.
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71 months ago
Very cool. Now to find apps (os10.5 direct blind support?) that can make use of all those cores. :cool:
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71 months ago
Its good to know that you will be able to drop in the new processors into an exisiting Mac Pro.

Expensive.... but good to know.
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71 months ago
A bit pointless given that no software utilises the extra cores yet. But nice to know, I guess.

I'm still getting used to having two cores in my laptop!
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71 months ago
This development isn't surprising, but reassuring nontheless that Apple didn't cripple the expandability of these machines.
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71 months ago
I could do with multiple cores. I render HDV in the background, render projects in After Effects, compress videos in Compressor for DVDs, burn Toast images, download with BitTorrent, while surfing the web and watching 1080i H.264 material. Those extra cores would come in real handy. :)
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71 months ago

I could do with multiple cores. I render HDV in the background, render projects in After Effects, compress videos in Compressor for DVDs, burn Toast images, download with BitTorrent, while surfing the web and watching 1080i H.264 material. Those extra cores would come in real handy. :)

It would be nice if 10.5 would allow a more 'blind' method to utilize these cores, versus having programmers specificly program for multi-core. Now that would be extremely helpful and allow a more simultanous workflow.
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71 months ago
Seems like someone in Anantech has managed to do just that with the upcoming Clovertown chips.

It is like the iMac/Mac Mini -> Merom all over again!
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