New Mac Pro: Even Crunchier

Barefeats keep testing the new Mac Pro, and with time and benchmarks results, those new Mac Pro appear to be a true and important evolution performance wise.
The new 8 cores Mac Pro 3.2GHz is 25% faster than the previous 8 cores Mac Pro 3.0GHz, and around two times faster than the Quad Core Mac Pro 3.0GHz. Performance gains remain unchanged in almost all applications tested, so this is not only related to a SSE improvement. The entry-level 8 core Mac Pro 2.8GHz is almost as fast as the previous 8 cores Mac Pro 3.0GHz which was much more expensive...
Concerning power consumption, the new Mac Pro are also very interesting, with the 8x3.2GHz model requiring 25% less energy than the previous 8x3.0GHz model. For the lower models clocked at 2.8 and 3.0 GHz, TDP of 80W vs. 120W for the 3.2GHz unit should be even more environment friendly.
Last but not least, a memory test to evaluate the impact of using 800MHz modules vs. 667MHz modules demonstrated that lower memory bus frequency will only marginally affect performance, 4.2% at the most. So if you can not invest in expensive 800MHz RAM modules, recycling 667MHz memory would not affect performance.