The Apple News That Got Buried

An anonymous reader writes, "Apple's Showtime event was all well and good, but the big news today was on Anandtech.com. They found that the two dual-core CPUs in the Mac Pro were not only removable, but that they were able to insert two quad-core Clovertown CPUs. OS X recognized all eight cores and it worked fine. Anandtech could not release performance numbers for the new monster, but did report they were unable to max out the CPUs."

Comments

So fast, I got first post!

[GrahamCox]

Typing this on an 8-core Mac pro, I manged to get first post! Wow, it IS fast!

Apple Cores

[dotslashdot]

Shouldn't they be calling them "Apple Cores?"

Re:CPU upgrade market

[mr_neke]

Not until they lift the NDA, methinks!

completely impossible statementt

[Desolator144]

"they were unable to max out the CPUs" that is ridiculous! On PC's in VB it's pretty simple:
dim Processor1Thread as new thread(addressof sub1)
dim Processor2Thread as new thread(addressof sub2)
Processor1Thread.start()
Processor2Thread.start()
dim x as integer
sub sub1()
for x = 0 to 1000000000000000
end sub
sub sub2()
dim x as integer
for x = 0 to 1000000000000000
end sub
and repeat for 6 other threads and subs. So they either proved it doesn't really work well at all or programming on a mac is impossibly hard...or they're lying to make it sound more dramatic. So whether they're lying about not maxing it out or they're lying and you just plain can't use all 8 cores at once, it's not as good as it sounds.

Re:completely impossible statementt

[Desolator144]

I'm 19, been in college since I was 17 cuz they made me go early since I was so smart. And forget that CS theory bullshit, the department is called IT and that's what's written on the degree. People that go to 4 year colleges for programming are beyond stupid and I've heard many stories of how all that theory and little experience forced them to go to my college for a year before anyone would hire them. But gee, at least they know when C++ was invented and how they decided to name memory addresses. And thank God they got to learn a language that's not used 4 years later when they graduate. Or maybe they got lucky and wasted thousands of dollars on learning about Shakespear, atoms, Africa, grammar, and how to turn on a computer instead and finally got to programming in year 3. I on the other time don't mess around. By the time I have my degree in PC programming/Web Development with a certificate in Web Design, I'll be better at doing my job than any 4 year idiot with a CS degree. Anyway, you sort of missed the entire point of my post which was to show how easy it was to max out the cores. I could have pasted in pages of "usefull" code but then people wouldn't have gotten it as fast.
P.S. My sig says that because the teacher, a 15 year programming veteran, and some other crazy expert with natural skills like me all couldn't design the project we were working on as fast as I could and only one other person's was virtually crash proof. If I knew every command there was, I'd be the best at programming in the world but just give me a few years hehehe

Re:completely impossible statementt

[Desolator144]

way to make the 4 year assumption there. I'm going to write and sell software myself. I looked at the badly designed crap that's out there and decided to become a programmer because I can do infinitely better. That same theory applied to computer repair and that business is running pretty well for me at the moment too.
And 4 year colleges rerun all that info from high school and middle school because they assume you paid no attention and must have cheated on the SAT/ACT's or something to get in. It's an insult really.

Couldn't max out the CPUs?

[brundog]

..."but did report they were unable to max out the CPUs."

Try installing Vista.

Re:Great!!

[mctk]

Sure, we can upgrade the CUP. But Apple has really got to work on that CUPHOLDER. Mine snapped off 2 days out of the box.

I guess

[Anonymous Coward]

with 8 cores, that no one cares about Beowulf clusters anymore. :(

Re:I guess

[heatdeath]

with 8 cores, that no one cares about Beowulf clusters anymore. :(

I suppose you could run 8 VMs on the machine and make a Beowulf cluster out of those.

Re:I guess

[ThatsNotFunny]

Tell ya what, this scientist could use one for quite a few things that *are* nicely parallelizable.

Congrats! You win today's "Best Euphamism for Downloading Porn" award!

Re:Great!!

[mrchaotica]

Except for the Mac Pro, Macs don't even come with cupholders anymore (cheap bastards)!

Re:have to ask

[phalse phace]

If you mean Windows Vista, then the answer is no. You'll need 16 cores for that.

Re:can't max out CPUs? uh oh

[jZnat]

I think they were running the wrong program. All they had to do was launch Terminal, type in "yes", press enter, and watch as their cores blew up.

Re:have to ask

[arjun]

i think what you _really_ wanted to say was "640k cores ought to be enough for anybody". oh dear lord...