Replies

“For running a single-threaded application (which most are), YES, a 3.2GHz Core 2 Duo will be faster than 8 Xeons. And for right now, your applications like a word processor or a web browser are...you guessed it, single threaded.”

A Core 2 Duo at 3.2 gHz is not faster than a Xeon at 3.2gHz.

“#3: IO, the hard drive is usually the speed bottleneck, not the CPU. Apple has the standard drives or the expensive SCSI option. I have 10k RPM SATA drives. They’re noticably faster than the standard; sometimes just as fast as the SCSI options. But certainly cheaper.”

Outdated info, as is to be expected from a PC user, I suppose... Apple uses SATA in all currently shipping products, with the exception of the MacBook Air. In addition, the Mac Pro and the servers have the option of SAS 3GB drives at *15,000* RPM, which makes your 10K drives look, well, slow.

A Core 2 Duo at 3.2 gHz is not faster than a Xeon at 3.2gHz.

Please read the post I was replying to. He said 2.8GHz. There are numerous benchmarks out there where a 3.0 or 3.2 GHz CPU beats an 8 CPU beast of slightly slower speed. “#3: IO, the hard drive is usually the speed bottleneck, not the CPU. Apple has the standard drives or the expensive SCSI option. I have 10k RPM SATA drives. They’re noticably faster than the standard; sometimes just as fast as the SCSI options. But certainly cheaper.” Outdated info, as is to be expected from a PC user, I suppose... Apple uses SATA in all currently shipping products, with the exception of the MacBook Air. In addition, the Mac Pro and the servers have the option of SAS 3GB drives at *15,000* RPM, which makes your 10K drives look, well, slow.

I'm going to ignore the personal dig. You said "SAS 3GB drives". Do you know what SAS stands for? Serial Attached SCSI. What did I say in my post? SCSI. I never implied that Apple doesn't use SATA drives; anyone would know this as Intel doesn't even have PATA support in their chipsets anymore. However, I digress: simply put, the 7200RPM drives the Macs have are fast. But something like the WD Raptors are faster. And yes, you can pay $800 a pop for fast 15k drives. But no, they don't make the 10k drives look slow, because rotational speed isn't everything. If you *really* think I'm wrong, then please show me something that gives the same level of in depth breakdown as http://www.storagereivew.com. I'm willing to be convinced that the SCSI option for a Mac *could* be good, and is probably better (although marginally) in many if not all applications. But at more than $2 a GB., it better be.