What Are The Key Differences Of A Server To Non Server ?

HI EVERYBODY !
THAT QUESTION IMPLIED ITSELF ON ME . I AM SEARCHING FOR SOME HIGH PERFORMANCE MAC ! TO RUN SOME GRAPHIC APPLICATIONS.
I FOUND THE MACMINI 5,2 Z0M9 , WITH THE CPU i7-2620M / 2.7GHZ / 4MB CACHE / 2 CORES . FOR $900.
BUT STILL NOT SATISFIED AND WANTED EVEN SOME HIGHER PROCESSING POWER .
THE NEXT AVAILABLE AT THE APPLE STORE FOR $1000 (JUST $100 MORE ) IS A SERVER MACMINI 5,3 MC936LL/A THAT CPU i7-2635QM 2GHZ 6MB CACHE / 4 CORES HAS MUCH BETTER BENCHMARK RESULTS.
SO, FOR A SINGLE USER AND HEAVY APPLICATIONS ( PHOTOSHOP , ILLUSTERATOR , 3D MAX , MAYA .. )
1) DO YOU THINK THE SERVER ONE WILL DO ANY BETTER ?
2) COMMONLY THINKING, WHAT ARE THE KEY DIFFERENCES OF A SERVER TO NON SERVER OS AND MACHINE ?
THANK YOU

 

I just cannot read that.... please use proper capitalization or many people will just ignore your posts altogether.

 

Is this any better?

But to answer your question, for Photoshop and Illustrator the difference in performance will be negligible.

 

and the mini isnt exactly what I would call a performance graphics unit for photoshop or illistrator, for learning and some weekend editors sure. but it would help to know how hard large of edits you want to do here

but as said above there will be no real world performance increase, just alot of extra network settings or benchmark bragging rights

 

I am so sorry if my writing is seemingly frustirating to anybody.
My excuse is that :
1) I did not ,by all mean, intend to hurt or annoy anybody.
2) I used to write all in capital since I ever remember even in my official business letters . Never got a comment back on that. my intention is merely I think that writing in capital would be more readable .
3) I am used to read even misspelled words writen by native english spoken fellows and I never commented on any of such mistakes.
again I am sorry.
L ast allow me to write my name all in capital .
MOBARAK ZAYED

 

Mobarak, don't take it personally. Typically, writing in all caps is the equivalent of shouting. Just make a mental note going forward.

Back to your question. I have no experience with the machines you are talking about, but start off by looking at the following link:

Compare Intel® Products

This will show the differences between the two processors you are asking about. Next, take a look at these 2 links:

2635QM - 6520 CPU Mark - PassMark - Intel Core i7-2635QM @ 2.00GHz - Price performance comparison

2620m - 3930 CPU Mark - PassMark - Intel Core i7-2620M @ 2.70GHz - Price performance comparison

Comparing the benchmarks of the 2 CPUs, the quad core processor offers much more potential maximum performance due to the additional 2 cores (4 threads). A 64% advantage, under full load, will be a noticeable difference. However, this is to the extent that your activities utilize all cores simultaneously. If not, the higher turbo and base clock speeds of the dual core cpu may prove to be faster.

There is also a difference in hard drive configuration with the two of them. Even if you configure RAID 1 on the server, a 7200 rpm drive will perform at a higher level than a 5400 rpm drive. RAID 0 will yield even higher performance, as will putting in one or two SSDs (extremely expensive through Apple).

Next thing to consider is that the server only comes with the integrated Intel HD 3000 GPU, while the dual core model comes with a discrete AMD 6630M.

Lastly, the server doesn't come with an optical drive while the dual core model does.

 

You mentioned Photoshop, Illustrator, 3Ds Max, and Maya.

If you process 1 image or 1 render at a time, it will run on 1 core (mostly). So you will only use 1/2 of the i7-2620M or 1/4 of the i7-2635QM. The dual-core i7-2620M will perform these tasks faster because of the higher maximum clock speed (3.4 GHz vs. 2.9 GHz).

If you are batch processing multiple images or multiple renders at a time, then the quad core i7-2635QM will be faster because the other cores can be used.

 

So you are the one sending me all those mails? Did my money transfer go through yet?

Actually, it's the other way around. The reading speed slows down significantly because all-capital letters have roughly the same shape and size.

There's also the shouting aspect, but that's less of a typography thing and more of an internet (Usenet) convention.

 

I was in a somewhat similar dilemma earlier this year when I was picking up a 2011 MBP. I could have either gone for the entry level 15" MBP with a quad-core processor or buy a 120GB SSD and 8GB of RAM to install in a 13" 2011 MBP. The main difference between the two (since I don't do any graphically intense tasks) was the quad-core processor in the 15" model while the 13" had a dual-core i7 (this is also ignoring the display sizes of each model).

In the end, I went with the 13" because it was more portable but also because I have never found myself to be in a situation where I required a quad-core machine. Even now, I can encode a video in Handbrake, play music back in iTunes, and browse Flash heavy websites all without any noticeable slowdown and that is just with a dual-core processor. I can even have a 3D model open in AutoCAD 2011, iTunes playing music in the background, Word 2011, Keynote '09, and Safari open at the same time all without issues too. In other words, it really takes a lot to bog down the Sandy Bridge dual-core processors and, unless you are going to run multiple CPU heavy programs at once, you don't need a quad-core machine. Just remember that benchmark numbers aren't everything especially if you aren't actually going to notice a real world performance increase.

Who cares if one CPU scores 1000 higher CPU marks than the other if you are just going to run those programs one or two at a time? Benchmarks don't always translate to real world performance gains that people will notice.

 

First thank you all for the care you gave to my question .
Some concept was mentioned here more than once "If you process 1 image or 1 render at a time, it will run on 1 core (mostly). So you will only use 1/2 of the i7-2620M or 1/4 of the i7-2635QM. The dual-core i7-2620M will perform these tasks faster because of the higher maximum clock speed (3.4 GHz vs. 2.9 GHz)."
Before I thought that " Multi core concept " is that the OS divide running program into parts and each core runs a part ahead to gain some time. That leads us to ; even when running a single application ,it runs faster on a Multi core CPU.
Which concept is the right one ?

 

The concept of having a multi-core CPU is that the OS can load different programs on different cores (not different parts of programs). However, if the OS can load two or three programs on a single core, it is going to do so in order to conserve power. You are forgetting that not every program out there is going to require the full performance of a single CPU core (that especially holds true with the Sandy Bridge Intel processors). That is why it takes quite a bit to even bog down a Sandy Bridge dual-core Core i5 processor and that, unless you are going to perform some type of extreme multi-tasking, you won't notice a difference between that and the quad-core Core i7.

Now, an OS can load different parts of a program through multiple cores. That is what happens when complex photo or video editing comes into play where there are multiple video sources, multiple photos, etc. Again, it takes a lot for this to happen. Otherwise single programs will be run on only one core at a time and not be split up. The OS does this to conserve power. After all, is it better to have one core firing up to 20% power or have four cores operating at 5%? The former is more power efficient.

 

The OS can run multiple programs at the same time on different cores, or multiple threads from a single program on different cores. A thread is sequence of program instructions that execute in order, one at a time.

A simple example of a program with multiple threads might have one thread responding to user input while another thread performs calculations in the background. A program like that will not be able to use more than one core effectively. The thread which is performing calculations may max out one single core but the other thread will be mostly idle waiting for user input.

A more complex program might use a parallel algorithm to break up the calculation into multiple parts that can executed at the same time by multiple threads on multiple cores. But only certain kinds of calculations can be broken up this way. And it can be difficult to do it efficiently, so many application programmers don't attempt parallel processing unless it's trivial to do.

In the case of Photoshop, some of the filters & plug-ins are multi-threaded and can make use of multiple cores, but many are single threaded and only use one core. And a lot of the processing in Photoshop is limited by memory bandwidth, so even the multi-threaded plug-ins might not run significantly faster. In my experience, it's better to get a faster dual-core processor and/or faster memory if you want to improve Photoshop. I don't have any personal experience with Maya or 3Ds Max, but a quick Google search found a lot of complaints about Maya not utilising multiple cores. 3Ds Max seemed to fare better. The only time I've ever come close to maxing out all 4 cores of the quad-core i7 in my VAIO desktop replacement was when using dBpoweramp to batch encode a lot of audio files.

 

I'm sorry, too.

Anyway, if your budget is $1000, you should probably increase your budget slightly more and get an iMac.

If your budget is strictly $1000, I would look at something other than a mac mini. If you're going to get a mac mini, get the cheapest one they have. Keep in mind that for $1000 you still need to get your own monitor/keyboard/mouse. You're looking at $200 for that anyway. That's what the iMac would cost anyway, and you'll be WAY better off with a base iMac than a maxed out mac mini and $200 worth of keyboard/mouse/monitor. If you get an iMac, be sure to get the magic mouse (or maybe the trackpad) so that you can resell it and get something good instead.