MAC vs. PC

[Paul Schneider]

Also. Def agree on the SSD. As for raid, I'm looking into that as well.

[Jaakko Rinne]

The stats on my new MAC PRO, are double of everything you have posted here, and I have a ROCKET and I don't get smooth 5k 1/2 res. playback on a full timeline. 1/8 res, yes maybe, if I'm not running anything else, and if the timeline isn't a mile long. If you get smooth 5k at 1/2 res without a rocket, either there is only 1 clip on your timeline or you pre render. Otherwise it's not true.

There's something wrong with your machine if you can only get 1/8 res playback.

If your getting a new video card I would go with a GTX 690, I mean it's fairly cheap and you get tons of video ram, and enough cuda cores to fill a small wheel barrow, and that's saying something!

You don't actually want a 600 series nVidia card as the 500 series cards offer similar/better Cuda performance.

He recco's the newest Intel E5 chipset over the I7.

Seeing how you need to choose Xeon to be able to have two CPUs I'd recommend the E5, too. But if you can only afford to build a system with one CPU, I'd definitely go for an i7.

[Jon MIchael Puntervold]

Mac vs. PC - i don't really care about the hardware, it's more like:

OSX vx. Win7 - I hate windows with passion, i HATE IT, I can't stand it... And I would be willing to do almost everything to avoid going back to Windows, including start smoking again and introducing longer render breaks...

[Mike Halper]

The stats on my new MAC PRO, are double of everything you have posted here, and I have a ROCKET and I don't get smooth 5k 1/2 res. playback on a full timeline. 1/8 res, yes maybe, if I'm not running anything else, and if the timeline isn't a mile long. If you get smooth 5k at 1/2 res without a rocket, either there is only 1 clip on your timeline or you pre render. Otherwise it's not true.

There's something wrong with your system then. I have a 2011 Macbook Pro 17" with i7 2.2GHz and 16GB RAM and can play 4K footage fairly moothly at 1/2 and really smooth at 1/4. 5K is usable at 1/4, and completely smooth at 1/8. And that's with no Rocket. It sounds like on your system is not taking advantage of the Rocket for playback of the R3Ds.

[Les C.]

If you're going to spend the money on an SSD, the Intel 710 is not where it's at. The Samsung 830 and OCZ Vertex 4 are twice as fast.

The higher speeds are generally due to the Sandforce or other controllers that compress.

Text, XLS, DOC, etc. - compresses well.

R3D files and other video temporary output formats don't.

So the higher speeds may be a bit misleading.

Also consider the Crucial M4. I was initially mislead by the transfer rates quoted by the other products.

Then I also looked at NewEgg customer ratings for problems.

The Crucial M4 won out for me.

--- BTW - one thing you're going to have to deal with is that R3Ds take over 2GB/minute of storage, depending on your compression rate. That adds up pretty quickly.

Any file that isn't backed up in two places, doesn't really exist in our space/time continuum.

I'm pretty anal, and have a backup server with RAID (actually, all my computers use 3ware/LSI RAID, even my Mac Pro) dedicated to backing up files on my other boxes (Mac and PC) using Retrospect.

I then export backups from Retrospect onto 2TB drives (using an external USB/eStata enclosure with a fan on the bottom where I never put the top on and can drop the drives in and out), and those get rotated into my safety deposit box.

I also image my boot drives with Acronis and Farstone (I use both as I hate the idea that one might have an issue).

The rabbit hole of necessary hardware just keeps getting deeper and deeper!!!

One other thing. Get a very large power supply, and get one that you can replace yourself.

If the main power cable is routed in a fashion where you have to remove the motherboard to get to it, this is not good.

I'm considering the Antec HCP-1000 - as it has modular connectors for the main motherboard power as well as the PCIe, SATA, etc. - but I'm open to suggestions about power supplies.

[Jon Jones]

For those of you saying there's something wrong with my system, you obviously did not read what I wrote. I'm talking about real time functionality not just one clip sitting in redcine. I'm talking about a full timeline. Anyone can have full 5k playback in redcine if they wait long enough for it to buffer. I have dual xeons 64gigs of ram, quadro 4000 and a rocket card.

[Jeff Kilgroe]

The higher speeds are generally due to the Sandforce or other controllers that compress.

Text, XLS, DOC, etc. - compresses well.

R3D files and other video temporary output formats don't.

So the higher speeds may be a bit misleading.

This is indeed true -- SandForce controllers are some of the worst offenders. Not in their performance, but in the advertised speeds and marketing behind them. That said, I still stand by what I said in regards to the SSD and the speeds I quoted are pretty much on par with what you can expect from the latest batch of units on the market. Intel's upcoming 720 series of SSDs is also up there in performance too, but also in price. The OCZ Vertex 4 is the current king of the hill in 2.5" SSD's. Over 90K IOPS and it can still hold over 365MB/s for read and write on incompressible data. Samsung, Intel, Crucial and now OCZ all have done away with using SandForce controllers in their newer products. Samsung and Intel develop their own -- Intel 710 has an Intel controller, as does the upcoming 720 6Gbps units. The Intel 520, 310 and 320 series all use SandForce controllers. Crucial/ Micron have their own controller. OCZ bought out IndiLinx...

The whole incompressible data thing as it pertains to larger video files like R3D, H264 and similar is somewhat of a non-concern when the SSD is being used as a primary OS / system drive. You really won't be using it for workspace or to shuttle those sorts of files around. What you do want is consistent performance and a stable product, fast reads are a bonus. The newer controllers, including SandForce, are much better at cacheing and compressing data on the fly than before. Even "incompressible" data can be cached and/or compressed with other data on internal transactions.

Also consider the Crucial M4. I was initially mislead by the transfer rates quoted by the other products.

The M4 is a great SSD. It's not very fast compared to what else is out there, read times aren't bad but the write times stink. That aside, iit's a solid and reliable product and makes a great option for a primary system volume containing OS and apps where read speed is the primary concern.

[Les C.]

This is indeed true -- SandForce controllers are some of the worst offenders. Not in their performance, but in the advertised speeds and marketing behind them. That said, I still stand by what I said in regards to the SSD and the speeds I quoted are pretty much on par with what you can expect from the latest batch of units on the market. Intel's upcoming 720 series of SSDs is also up there in performance too, but also in price. The OCZ Vertex 4 is the current king of the hill in 2.5" SSD's. Over 90K IOPS and it can still hold over 365MB/s for read and write on incompressible data. Samsung, Intel, Crucial and now OCZ all have done away with using SandForce controllers in their newer products. Samsung and Intel develop their own -- Intel 710 has an Intel controller, as does the upcoming 720 6Gbps units. The Intel 520, 310 and 320 series all use SandForce controllers. Crucial/ Micron have their own controller. OCZ bought out IndiLinx...

The whole incompressible data thing as it pertains to larger video files like R3D, H264 and similar is somewhat of a non-concern when the SSD is being used as a primary OS / system drive. You really won't be using it for workspace or to shuttle those sorts of files around. What you do want is consistent performance and a stable product, fast reads are a bonus. The newer controllers, including SandForce, are much better at cacheing and compressing data on the fly than before. Even "incompressible" data can be cached and/or compressed with other data on internal transactions.



The M4 is a great SSD. It's not very fast compared to what else is out there, read times aren't bad but the write times stink. That aside, iit's a solid and reliable product and makes a great option for a primary system volume containing OS and apps where read speed is the primary concern.

If used for your main drive, compression would be useful. However, I wouldn't use SSDs for my main drive unless RAIDed, and that makes things a bit more complex with the TRIM command, compatibility etc. to think about.

The published write times may deviate sharply from the benchmarks, especially when using randomized data, so ... you really have to be careful in choosing which benchmark.

Bottom line ... if you go with a reliable SSD (reading customer reviews on NewEgg is pretty useful for determining which are going to have problems, as a super fast SSD with problems, or one that slows down very quickly after a bit of use, isn't going to make for happy campers this Summer), you're going to be happy with the speed, even if it's not the absolute fastest.

ECC RAM is probably slower than non-ECC RAM, but ... I sleep better. Go for quality. Crucial and Intel are certainly among the most reliable.

Definitely stay away from any 3rd tier smaller vendors like PNY.

[Jaakko Rinne]

For those of you saying there's something wrong with my system, you obviously did not read what I wrote. I'm talking about real time functionality not just one clip sitting in redcine. I'm talking about a full timeline. Anyone can have full 5k playback in redcine if they wait long enough for it to buffer. I have dual xeons 64gigs of ram, quadro 4000 and a rocket card.

At least I am talking about realtime functionality while editing in Premiere. And unless a "full timeline" for you means that it has multiple streams of video playing back at once, then I'll repeat myself and say there's something wrong with your machine. My 2010 iMac easily does 1/4 res 4K playback on sequences with numerous edits and dissolves in Premiere and Resolve.

[Mike Halper]

For those of you saying there's something wrong with my system, you obviously did not read what I wrote. I'm talking about real time functionality not just one clip sitting in redcine. I'm talking about a full timeline. Anyone can have full 5k playback in redcine if they wait long enough for it to buffer. I have dual xeons 64gigs of ram, quadro 4000 and a rocket card.

At least I am talking about realtime functionality while editing in Premiere. And unless a "full timeline" for you means that it has multiple streams of video playing back at once, then I'll repeat myself and say there's something wrong with your machine. My 2010 iMac easily does 1/4 res 4K playback on sequences with numerous edits and dissolves in Premiere and Resolve.

I agree. Something definitely wrong. I get playback in Premiere Pro also at the resolutions I listed previously, and without a Rocket.