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Understanding the Mac Pro's FB-DIMM memory architecture
Apple's new Mac Pro is a high-performance workstation that brings with it a host of new innovations. The most controversial of them is the use of a new memory technology known as the Fully Buffered DIMM or FB-DIMM. No Apple has used this memory before, and only a very few PCs have thusfar. FB-DIMMs dispense with traditional memory's wide, parallel bus for a more narrow, higher clocked, serial approach. It's an approach that should scale nicely over time, but is not without its performance implications in the present.
A recent AnandTech article evalauting the Mac Pro takes a very close at, and offers a superb explanation of, FB-DIMM memory as used in the Mac Pro. Have a look and call yourself educated on the topic. A separate article, also from AnandTech, offers further information and provides some FB-DIMM vs. DDR2 memory benchmarks. This page from the same article is worth a glance, as well. SPOILER: FB-DIMM latency puts DDR2 in the lead.
It seems that a Woodcrest workstation based on DDR2 memory would outperform the Mac Pro, at least with the current FB-DIMM Would a Conroe + DDR2 Mac outpace Apple's latest pro system?
One tip to take away from all this for the prospective Mac Pro user: The fastest Mac Pro memory configuration consists of four (4) FB-DIMMs. Not more. Not less.
Unable to select DBA recent AnandTech article evalauting the Mac Pro takes a very close at, and offers a superb explanation of, FB-DIMM memory as used in the Mac Pro. Have a look and call yourself educated on the topic. A separate article, also from AnandTech, offers further information and provides some FB-DIMM vs. DDR2 memory benchmarks. This page from the same article is worth a glance, as well. SPOILER: FB-DIMM latency puts DDR2 in the lead.
It's not Apple's fault, but FB-DIMMs absolutely kill memory latency; even running in quad channel mode, the FB-DIMM equipped Mac Pro takes 45% more time to access memory than our DDR2 equipped test bed at the same memory frequency. Things don't get any prettier when we look at memory bandwidth either.
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FB-DIMMs are simply not good for memory performance; the added capacity allowed by having 8 FB-DIMM slots on the Mac Pro had better be worth it, because if Apple were to release a Core 2 based Mac chances are that it could give the Mac Pro a run for its money in a number of memory sensitive tasks.
...
FB-DIMMs are simply not good for memory performance; the added capacity allowed by having 8 FB-DIMM slots on the Mac Pro had better be worth it, because if Apple were to release a Core 2 based Mac chances are that it could give the Mac Pro a run for its money in a number of memory sensitive tasks.
It seems that a Woodcrest workstation based on DDR2 memory would outperform the Mac Pro, at least with the current FB-DIMM Would a Conroe + DDR2 Mac outpace Apple's latest pro system?
One tip to take away from all this for the prospective Mac Pro user: The fastest Mac Pro memory configuration consists of four (4) FB-DIMMs. Not more. Not less.