1 or 2 slot for a RED Rocket ?

[Jack Colquitt]

Hi !

I'm hesitating between an ASUS Rampage motherboard with 4 PCI lane (x16/x8/x16/x8), and an ASUS P9X79 Pro with 4 PCI lane (x16/x8/x8/x8)
I'd like to use one GTX680 4Gb (PCI x16) + RED Rocket (PCI x8) + BMC Declink (PCI x4) + raid controller card (PCI x8)

My questions are :

1) does the RED Rocket fit in one slot, or does it need more room due to the fan size, so at least 2 slot ?
And the same for the Decklink which also have a fan ?

2) even if those cards fit in only one slot each, is it better to use them (for heat control) in a motherboard
which have more room between each PCI lane ? (the Rampage have the size of 2 slots between each PCI lane)

3) with the new 5K/6K size, do you think if one day RED make a new RED Rocket "2", this card will be PCI x16, or the PCI x8 will still be good enough ?
(because in this case only the Rampage will handle a PCI x16 graphic card and a PCI x16 RED Rocket "2",
but I don't know if it can work with Resolve by example, which need the RED Rocket to be in the second slot.... the PCI x8 slot !!)

4 and subsidiary) to your point of view, with an i7-3930K overclocked at max 4,5GHz, with 64Gb of RAM and 1 SDD + 7 HDD Barracuda 3Tb
(and of course, only for editing / VFX / 3D, and no gaming or other personnal stuff) what is the best between those 2 card ?
Because if the Rampage is really only useful for mega-nitrogen-overcloking-addict (and multi SLI GPU),
and if the P9X79 is more than "good enough" for our professional needs, well... :wink:

 

[Will Keir]

The REDROCKET is already dated tech. Three years. If you don't have to transcode, wait. They are also extremely delicate. Hopefully they have a RR2 in the mix but I haven't heard of anything in the works. So the wait is still 6-9 months minimum?

You won't get full rez playback from a RR in Dragon 6k, you can't even get full rez in 5kFF. I can think of many better ways to spend 3.5-5k.

 

[Jack Colquitt]

And about the size (because I think it will be the same size for the next RED card), it's better to let 2 PCI slots for the actual Rocket ?

 

[Gunleik Groven]

Rocket only needs 1 slot. SDI breakout takes another...

 

[Jack Colquitt]

Thanks. And there will be no benefit for the card to let it more room for air cooling ?
In letting one PCI slot free behind the card ?

This is the same questions I'm asking myself for the BMC Decklink, because I think (but I'm not sure)
that those video card will suffer in long work, so if I can give them longer life......

 

[Gunleik Groven]

The Rockets seem to Die quite frequently, for unknown reasons.
It's not much commented on.
What I'd do, was to contact RED on best practices.

 

[Jack Colquitt]

The Rockets seem to Die quite frequently, for unknown reasons.

$5000............... :badputer:

Ok, I'll ask directly to them, but in the meanwhile if any of you have an advice about the motherboard or the PCI slot, don't hesitate !