Calculating Pi – Mac Pro Edition
After pushing my 2011 Mac Mini to the edge of thermal detonation with a Pi benchmark, I wanted to see how the infamous 2013 “trashcan” Mac Pro held up doing the same thing. This machine gets a bad rap, but it’s got a lot of cores and memory so I wanted to see how it fared.
Check out the Calculating Pi to see the MacMini run.
🖥️ System Specs
| Component | Details |
|---|---|
| CPU | Intel Xeon E5-1680 v2 @ 3.00 GHz (Turbo up to 3.9) |
| Architecture | 8 cores / 16 threads (Ivy Bridge-E) |
| RAM | 32 GB DDR3 ECC |
| OS | Debian 12 (Bookworm) |
| Cooling | Stock spaceheater |
| Benchmark Tool | y-cruncher v0.8.6.9545 |
⚙️ Benchmark Settings
| Setting | Value |
|---|---|
| Digits Calculated | 1,000,000,000 |
| Mode | RAM Only |
| Algorithm | Chudnovsky (1988) |
| Threads Used | 16 |
| Twiddle Tables | 58.9 MiB |
| Working Memory | 4.52 GiB |
| AVX Support | ✅ (AVX1, no AVX2) |
⏱️ Results
| Metric | Result |
|---|---|
| Total Time | 2.75 minutes |
| CPU Utilization | 1314.17% |
| Multi-core Efficiency | 82.14% |
| Final 50 Digits of π | 7139868209 3196353628 ... 5483278746 |
| Validation | ✅ Spot Check Passed |
File: Pi - 20250605-103136.txt
Note: The terminal output has been cleaned up for clarity. Timings and values are accurate, but the format may differ slightly from what y-cruncher prints.
📊 How It Stacks Up
| System | Time (1B Digits) | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 🔥 Mac Pro (2013) | 2.75 min | All 16 threads, no GPU used |
| 💾 Mac Mini (2011) | 12.12 min | Not bad for a garage PC |
| M2 MacBook Air | ~4 min | Fanless wonder |
| Intel N100 Mini PC | ~9–10 min | Efficient and cheap |
| 2015 MacBook Pro (i7) | ~12–13 min | Surprisingly competitive |
| Raspberry Pi 5 | ~30 min | ARM respect |
🧠 Final Thoughts
This machine might be old and awkward, but it still rips. 16 threads of Xeon power made quick work of a billion digits of Pi. And no, y-cruncher doesn’t use the dual FirePro GPUs — it’s all CPU.
📎 Want to Try?
wget "https://cdn.numberworld.org/y-cruncher-downloads/y-cruncher%20v0.8.6.9545-static.tar.xz"
tar -xf "y-cruncher v0.8.6.9545-static.tar.xz"
cd "y-cruncher v0.8.6.9545-static"
./y-cruncher
📼 Video That Inspired This
Linus Tech Tips on YouTube – “This World Record took YEARS (and a Million dollars..)”