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BARE FEATS LAB - real world Mac speed tests

DaVinci Resolve and Diablo III:
2013 Mac Pro 4-Core vs Old Tower

Originally posted Saturday, January 18th, 2014, by rob-ART morgan, mad scientist
January 20th, added dual Radeon 7970s and dual GTX 680s to DaVinci Resolve graphs
Also added corrected GTX 680 in games

Thanks to The Mac Store and PowerMax, we were able to run some real world graphics intensive benchmarks on the 'late 2013' Mac Pro 3.7GHz Quad-Core. And, once again, we used our trusty 2010 Mac Pro Hex-Core with three high-end graphics cards for perspective.

GRAPH LEGEND
R7970*2 = 'mid 2010' Mac Pro Xeon W3680 3.33GHz 6-core with 24G of 1333MHz DDR3, dual 'Flashed' Radeon HD 7970s, and 480G PCIe flash storage
G680*2 = 'mid 2010' Mac Pro Xeon W3680 3.33GHz 6-core with 24G of 1333MHz DDR3, dual EVGA GeForce GTX 680 'Mac Editions', and 480G PCIe flash storage
D300*2 = late 2013' Mac Pro Xeon E5-1620v2 3.7GHz Quad-Core with 12G of 1866MHz DDR3, Dual FirePro D300s, and 256G PCIe flash storage
R7970 = 'mid 2010' Mac Pro Xeon W3680 3.33GHz 6-core with 24G of 1333MHz DDR3, 'Flashed' Radeon HD 7970, and 480G PCIe flash storage
R7950 = 'mid 2010' Mac Pro Xeon W3680 3.33GHz 6-core with 24G of 1333MHz DDR3, Sapphire Radeon HD 7950 'Mac Edition', and 480G PCIe flash storage
G680 = 'mid 2010' Mac Pro Xeon W3680 3.33GHz 6-core with 24G of 1333MHz DDR3, EVGA GeForce GTX 680 'Mac Edition', and 480G PCIe flash storage

 Both Macs were running OS X Mavericks 10.9.1.

DaVinci Resolve 10

Using the popular Candle project (1920x1080), we offer you the results of DaVinci Resolve's 'render-on-the-fly' playback of blur and noise reduction nodes. (LARGER number means FASTER in frames per second.)

Diablo III and other games

Diablo III at 2560x1440, Fullscreen, Vsync Disabled, High Quality with Anti-Aliasing Enabled. (LARGER number means FASTER in Frames per Second.)

World of Warcraft (Mists of Pandaria) - "Narache Village Run" at 2560x1440, Ultra preset, 1X MSAA, Vsync Disabled. (LARGER number means FASTER in Frames per Second.)

X-Plane 10 - "Phantom Jet in a Lightning Storm" at 2560x1440, Fullscreen, Best Settings ("fps_test=3003"). (LARGER number means FASTER in Frames per Second.)

INSIGHTS
The new 2013 Mac Pro proves to be a strong 'on the fly' blur and noise reduction renderer in DaVinci Resolve 10. Keep in mind that the FirePro D300s in the quad-core are not the best GPU option. When our octo-core with dual D700s arrives, we expect its Resolve results to exceed all contenders.

However, if you plan to use the low-end 2013 Mac Pro for GAMING, it will do a decent job but won't be as fast as the fastest tower GPUs. Why? Only one of the dual GPUs is operational in games. None of the current OS X compatible games use more than one GPU. This could change if game developers alter code to use multiple GPUs.

Or. . . if you create a Boot Camp partition and run your games under Windows OS, you CAN use both GPUs. What? How? Because the dual D300s are "CrossFired." Oh yes. And we plan to test that scenario in the very near future. To tantalize you, we CrossFired a pair of Radeon R9 270s in our 2010 Mac Pro tower. Under Windows 7 64bit Ultimate, it registered 145 FPS in the Diablo test.

Feedback or comments? Contact me , mad scientist.
Also, you can follow me on Twitter @barefeats

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Help support Bare Feats by clicking our Apple display ads or THIS Apple USA link when ordering any Apple product.

Twelve Core Mac Pro towers are still being sold by various parties on Amazon. For other models of Mac Pro tower, search on "Mac Pro desktop" on Amazon.

OTHER SOURCES FOR iMacs and Mac Pros

MEMORY UPGRADES for the 2013 Mac Pro

WHERE TO PURCHASE PCIE FLASH STORAGE FOR MAC PRO TOWERS

  • Other World Computing has the Mercury Accelsior_E2 PCIe flash storage card.
  • Sonnet Technologies has the Tempo SSD Pro PCIe SSD card.

WHERE TO BUY AN UP-CLOCKED 12-CORE MAC PRO TOWER

  • Visit EditBuilder.com's eBay Store. Or you can email them or call them (1-855-EDIT-BAY). They are offering both tray replacements as well as complete setups with 1-3 year warranties. They also offer up 128GB 1333MHZ RAM and graphics card upgrades for Mac Pro towers.
  • Also, check out Other World Computing's Processor Tray Upgrade Program.
  • Live in the UK? Visit ScrumpyMacs for 'fire breathing' Mac Pro options.

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copyright 2014 Rob Art Morgan
"BARE facts on Macintosh speed FEATS"
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