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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

8 Core 2.26 Mac Pro R3D processing

Steve Freebairn

Steve Freebairn

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So, I'm sure there are tons of reports out there, but I just wanted to post my initial experience with the new 8 core 2.26 Core i7 based Mac Pros.


They are fantastic!

I was concerned about the price jump between just getting some used 8 core 2.8 GHZ penryn based mac pros, but, the new mac pro is everything you've hoped for (not quite, come on apple, give us independent FW800 busses and E-sata and two full size DL-DVI) for R3D processing. a stock 2.26 machine with absolutely no upgrades is processing footage from it's own internal drive back to it's own drive (ie, not optimal conditions, but it works for a quick test) at over 12 fps. Details below

4k 2:1 RC 36 B17 with 1 scratch track of audio

processed at a 1/2 Res normal (so 2k) debayer then scaled to 720p ProRes HQ, timecode and reel name burned in with 2 files being processed at once. Obviously things will speed up some when the new ram arrives and it's hooked to a RAID, but for a stock machine, this is pretty fantastic in my eyes. On the same footage I get around 7fps from a stock 8 core 2.8 ghz for reference. You could buy the 2.66 or 2.93, but depending on how many total machines you're getting, the 2.26 has a much higher performance/dollar for R3D processing than anything else (mac wise).
 
171% then. But I guess you are limited by the drives so the question is how fast were your original drives and how fast are the new ones. Right?
 
We get about 9 frames/second using Clipfinder on 4K HD files using our Intel Quad with a big RAID via Fibre.

Not sure that improvement is worth the money for us to upgrade yet. While that is nice, it still means overnights for every shoot to export...
 
He is getting 12fps off the internal single 7200rpm drive/s, these are not numbers that would tell you what you'd get with your "big RAID". I am really hoping to hear more once Steve gets a faster drive set up.
 
Hmm...I'm not sure how much difference there would be...I've wondered myself and need to do some tests.

We have 2 different RAIDs, 1 Apple 5 TB XRaid and 1 Infortrend 14TB RAID, both via Fibrea. I'll try and see the max fps we get in either of those or desktop scenario.
 
2.26 versus 2.93 is also substantial. wonder what the mac daddy does?

FCP Studio 10th Anniversary Edition... Shipping Summer 2009 with Snow Leopard ??
 
Especially when you are talking 16 cores. If FC 10th edition, or anything else, used all 16 cores effectively you'd have an additional 10.72 GHz at your disposal. But that remains to be seen.
 
So to post a follow up, it doesn't really matter what your drive is that you're reading from or writing to is, this is total cpu crunching, not even the RAM plays a large part in redline, it's only cpu.

Another test I did was with a new Quad Mac Pro Core i7 2.66. It gets 6.61 fps doing the exact same settings I put in my first post. I've since hooked the 8 core i7 up to a speedy raid and the fps don't change. The other thing to note is that h.264 exports seem to be a lot faster.

So, I know there are times when people need the highest end mac pro, but I am positive that dollar for dollar, the 8 core 2.26 is faster than the 2.93 8 core. Take the extra 2600 dollars you'd need to spend and invest (600 more) and you'd have more than real time speeds on 2k material, I know that the 8 core 2.93 won't meet that 24 fps. No way, not happening. Hans-Georg's clipfinder has some awesome stuff coming that makes multi machine network rendering easy and very accessible. I did some tests with a Gigabit render farm setup and 1 fast raid shared out over the network and clipfinder worked perfect.

Let me say it again, the new 8 core 2.26 is the workhorse you want, and if you feel you need more speed, buy a second one.
 
Steve, thanks for the followup!

If I understood correctly, the new Mac Pros are not what we all dreamed they could be. But please, let me ask you a few things, to make sure I understand perfectly. I don't want to misinterpret this.

1. Do you also have a single Quad 2.66Ghz i7 Mac Pro?

2. And that second computer you bought (single 2.66) gives you 6.61 fps, when making a 720p ProRes HQ at 1/2 (2k) from a 2:1 4k R36 file, using the internal 7200rpm drives? And this is on REDLINE?

3. Also, you hooked up the dual i7 2.26Ghz Mac Pro to a fast RAID it did not give you any gains?

If so it seems single Quad Nehalem Mac Pros give you a bit more performance than dual CPU versions. That is expected... but since you are comparing a 2 x 2.26GHz to a 1 x 2.66Ghz we can't get an actual % number. Still I see your point. And at these super high overcharges you are 100% right on the money side if the render farm deal is as straight forward as you say it is.

The question will be, how much will the prices drop once PCs get in the game. However, you also make a good point about what the 2 x 2.93 might (not) handle... it seems real time 2k out of 4k RC36 will be far from within it's reach. But at this rate it seems you would need about four 1 x 2.66Ghz Mac Pros in a render farm to get RT, and you wouldn't have much headroom at that...

I am surprised that the 7200rpm drives were not a bottleneck... I guess you still need a lot more power put together to get to that point.

On a side note: WTF is Redline? I obviously haven't been exposed to Red post enough... :unsure:
 
REDline is the command line rendering tool from RED, it's what REDrushes, REDAlert and Clipfinder use to process R3D files.

The dual quad 2.26 is everything you've hoped for, it uses less power and processes footage nearly 70% faster than the previous 8 core 2.8.

Hard Drive speed isn't an issue, think of it this way, RC36 is a variable bit rate codec, but just to be on the safe side, pretend it never goes above 50 MB/sec. If you're processing footage at 12 fps, then you only need to be able to read from the Disk at 25 MB/sec and writing ProRes HQ won't take more than the original 4k R3D files, so the max you could read and write from the disk at 12 fps is 25MB for the read and 25MB for the write. That is nothing for any modern HDD.

To answer your other questions,

1. Yes I had access to a single quad 2.66

2. Yes, (remember that I'd actually get even faster speeds if I wasn't also scaling the processed footage from 2k down to 720p and doing burn in).

3. I know that the raid doesn't speed anything up, because I did the test with the 8 core (which should need data faster) hooked to the raid and not hooked to the raid an there was no difference.

4. The new 8 core 2.26 is everything you've hoped for :) Don't expect the prices to drop, expect that in 6-9 months, Apple will release a 16core 16 SMT beast that takes the spot of the 2.93, that would be worth paying extra for, but don't expect them to drop the price of the current stuff. I love my custom built PCs just as much as the next guy, but when you start pricing out the items in the stock 2.26 (or the 8 core 2.8 from before) you'll see that Apple is only making money on the machines because of their buying power and not some crazy huge markup. Now, that only really goes for the "server" type machines, if you want to talk about the single quad 2.66, then yeah, I can build something just as fast for half the price in PC land, but then again, I'd never consider a single quad Mac Pro a good purchase for R3D crunching.

To sum it up, think of it this way, For 6500 dollars (plus software) you could have 2 8 core 2.26 machines and have real time 2k debayering of 4k material, if you already have an 8 core 2.8, then I can see how spending the extra money might not be worth it, but if you're even remotely hurting for a reason to upgrade, the extra FPS seem worth it to me.

PS: I am still ticked there is no Esata (I bought a separate card so I'm fine) and that the FW800 is all on the same BUS. Anyway, it's almost 1:30 in the morning, so I'm off to bed.
 
Ok... so... and by the way, thank you for your posts!

If you put two 8 core 2.26GHz Mac Pros together, then you could cut straight off the 4k files at 2k? Would that have to be using the Quick time proxies? The one that is half resolution? Would that really work? Real Time? I am not familiar with how it works when you go to Color, would that be possible as well?

If I knew that Apple was releasing a 16 core (32 with HT?) machine in 2009 then I would say we should hold off. But I guess that is just a rumor, and that could turn into mid 2010, easily... correct?
 
USLatin, I don't think we're talking the same thing. I'm saying that with 2 8 core 2.26 machines you could export using REDRushes or Clipfinder to ProRes at Real-time, then you could use whatever machine you wanted to edit the 2k material(in ProRes).
 
Yes, I am sorry Steve, I am getting confused as I try to figure out what is possible.

I guess what I should be asking is what will it take to edit and grade 2k 4:4:4 footage in real time. Be it ProRes or other codec.

I am also getting mixed up as I am still considering other avenues such as Premier native and FC with QT proxies. All with very little knowledge of each... and from that point of view I am trying to see which will be the best workflow (and investment) for me.
 
You've got it all wrong :) The first post of this thread states the process I'm going through, (1/2 Res Normal, same scaling, cropping, and burn in) The only reason why my test was useful for anything is because I did the same thing on the 8 core 2.8 from last Gen, a new 8 core 2.26, and a quad 2.66.
 
Yes but how could've you got 6-12 frames vs. real time with roughly the same machine. And yours was 2k and that was 4k.

Sorry if I don't understand I'm quite new to all this and I want to make use of this info so i can configure the best system for my needs.

thanks,
Mike
 
Mike N said:
Yes but how could've you got 6-12 frames vs. real time with roughly the same machine. And yours was 2k and that was 4k.

Sorry if I don't understand I'm quite new to all this and I want to make use of this info so i can configure the best system for my needs.

thanks,
Mike
Click to expand...

I've never gotten real-time on any of the systems listed with a full 2k debayer of 4k material, it's possible you misread my statement about using 2 of the brand new 8 core 2.26 machines together to output files at realtime (12 fps on 2 machines at once = 24, but you'd be getting multiple files out at a time, not 1 file at real time if that makes any sense).
 
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