Octomac - is there a point?

[dcw@pr]

http://news.com.com/2100-1006_3-60961

so RevB intel powermacs might have 8 cores. I will be looking to get a new powermac around this time, but can't help thinking that 8 cores are uncessesary? I am not going to be doing 3D rendering or somethign that uses huge amounts of parallel processing, only photoshopping relatively small files, and wanting to be running a few programs at once. Would money be better spent on a 4 core machine with lots of extra RAM?

[cyberface]

Too much is never enough

I've got a Quad and I'd love an Octo... but yes, unless your primary workflow involves heavily multi-threaded apps, it's just dick waving.

If you're a heavy Photoshop user and you use Altivec plugins then you're probably better off waiting for the new universal CS3 and your plugin vendors to re-optimize the code, the old Quad G5 will be faster on Altivec optimised code than any proposed Intel box running Rosetta.

[dcw@pr]

there is no way I would ever "upgrade" before CS3 - I run CS2 on my macbook pro and it crawls at an unbearably low speed

[thebluemonkey]

We have a dual 1.8 running photoshop on 80 megapixel captures and can't do anything to make the machine slow down so I think the for most Photoshop users there will be little use in an octo core machine for that. Aperture is another matter however. . .