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Adobe Premier Pro Mac Specs

Steve Johnson

Steve Johnson

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Hey,

Really tempted on the Adobe Premier Pro discount but just wondering from those working with PP5.5 the system specs for running this with r3d files...

Currently I have a MacPro 8 Core (2009) 2.26GHz with 32GB memory. I've got the the ATI Radeon HD 4870 Graphics card installed.

Am I right in saying that I need to replace this with the NVIDIA Quadro FX4800 1.5GB PCIe card for r3d real time playback?

I take it I can run with:

Slot 1: NVIDIA 4800
Slot 2: Red Rocket
Slot 3: Black Magic Decklink 4K card (for viewing output)
Slot 4: 8GB Fibre Channel Card (linked to Storage)

Anything I need different from those using already or can recommend?

Thanks

Steve
 
PPro will work fine with the ATI card (especially with RR in the system). It'll just get better with the 4800. But from what I'm hearing, the 4000 card is about the same bang for considerably less buck.
 
Same here. The expensive FX4800 isn't faster than a GTX 285. Plus, GPU only counts for effects. De-bayering is strictly CPU or RR. The 4000 card needs less dollars, space and power.
 
Hold yer fire-
It used to be the case with cs5 that if the nvidia card met the minimum spec, it was just as powerful as the most expensive nvidia card. However, I hear that cs5.55 has changed - it makes good use of the extra power, esp. for exporting. There is a nice article with a chart that covers this, I've got it copied to my home computer. Cuda will only take over effects while editing, but the RR will take over debayering. Both affect export speed.
Fwiw, the cheap way to go cuda atm, and have power of the most pricey quadros, is the gtx 570...
 
Todd Kopriva said:
That's not accurate.

See these two articles that I wrote about what CUDA helps with in Premiere Pro:
"CUDA, Mercury Playback Engine, and Premiere Pro"
"Adobe Premiere Pro CS5.5 improvements in CUDA processing and the Mercury Playback Engine"
Click to expand...

So Todd, from the specs I mentioned at the top of this page, what would you recommend for us if we are editing R3D files and also doing some work on these files in After Effects?

Thanks for the great response. This is why I am seriously looking at Adobe, you ask a question and they guys at the actual company respond in a public forum. GREAT!

Thanks in advance Todd.
 
The things that you did mention look good, but you didn't mention a few things:

RAM, multiple fast CPUs, and multiple fast hard disks.

You want to make sure, if you're working with After Effects especially, that you have 3-4GB of RAM per CPU processor core for maximum performance. And this isn't just for After Effects; the RED importer itself is a bit of a RAM guzzler.

I work with a quad-core (which with hyperthreading is 8 cores) and 24GB of RAM. I keep source files on one disk, run programs and OS on another disk, and export to another disk; disk I/O is often the bottleneck in many people's systems, especially if you're just running everything to and fro with one disk.

Here are links to lots of respurces about performance with After Effects and Premiere Pro:
http://blogs.adobe.com/toddkopriva/...nce-adobe-premiere-pro-and-after-effects.html

(BTW, don't expect much responsiveness from us this week. We're all on vacation---and I'm about to take my dogs to the park.)
 
Todd Kopriva said:
The things that you did mention look good, but you didn't mention a few things:

RAM, multiple fast CPUs, and multiple fast hard disks.

You want to make sure, if you're working with After Effects especially, that you have 3-4GB of RAM per CPU processor core for maximum performance. And this isn't just for After Effects; the RED importer itself is a bit of a RAM guzzler.

I work with a quad-core (which with hyperthreading is 8 cores) and 24GB of RAM. I keep source files on one disk, run programs and OS on another disk, and export to another disk; disk I/O is often the bottleneck in many people's systems, especially if you're just running everything to and fro with one disk.

Here are links to lots of respurces about performance with After Effects and Premiere Pro:
http://blogs.adobe.com/toddkopriva/...nce-adobe-premiere-pro-and-after-effects.html

(BTW, don't expect much responsiveness from us this week. We're all on vacation---and I'm about to take my dogs to the park.)
Click to expand...

Thanks Todd - what's been your experience with premiere/os disk on ssd as opposed to hdd?
 
> Thanks Todd - what's been your experience with premiere/os disk on ssd as opposed to hdd?
Click to expand...

This answer will become obsolete soon, as the technology is advancing, but...

SSDs are hideously expensive per GB, so using them for storage is, um, silly.

SSDs are (at the moment, from what I understand) not so reliable---i.e., they fail after a shorter time, especially after many write operations (which is what happens on media drives).

SSDs are wicked fast. (OK, that part won't change.)

So, from these factors, I recommend not using SSDs for anything that you care about.

Your OS and programs are things that you can reinstall, so you can consider them disposable and therefore safe on the less reliable SSD. Also, to directly answer the question, programs load faster with SSDs. But how important is load time of a program, really? "Hooray! I saved 25 seconds!"

Maybe other folks have had different experience, but so far I'm not bothering with an SSD. When they come down in price and go up in reliability, I'll be happy to use them. That may happen really soon. Heck, it's been nearly a year since I did a test or any research on the matter, so I may already out of date.
 
From the start, I've heard the ssd situation described as 'intel and everything else'. That is, that intel had performance and reliability well ahead all other makers. With the 320 series, 128gb can be had for $250, and I'm thinking about giving it a spin for my next workstation os drive. I was wondering if speeding up the random read/writes of the os/cs5.5 will affect premiere's responsiveness on various operations.
 
I think you are right, Alex. Apart from a few beefy MacPros, I use my MB Air with it's SSD system drive every day and it definitely feels much snappier than you should expect from it's decent CPU and graphics. AFAIK, all modern software is loading chunks of it's code for different operations all the time, so it makes sense.

Regarding Intel SSDs: Our new Ninja ProRes recorder is working reliably ONLY with these!
 
With good wear leveling technologies, you will most likely not reach the write limit of SSDs (more info here).
Intels SSDs run circles around the others in terms of reliability:
Edit: found Source here:
Code: 
			 Intel	 Corsair Crucial Kingston OCZ
 Failure Percentage	 0.59%	 2.17%	 2.25%	 2.39%	 2.93%

I think Anandtech Storage has one of the best coverage on this topic out there.
 
Todd Kopriva said:
The things that you did mention look good, but you didn't mention a few things:

RAM, multiple fast CPUs, and multiple fast hard disks.

You want to make sure, if you're working with After Effects especially, that you have 3-4GB of RAM per CPU processor core for maximum performance. And this isn't just for After Effects; the RED importer itself is a bit of a RAM guzzler.

I work with a quad-core (which with hyperthreading is 8 cores) and 24GB of RAM. I keep source files on one disk, run programs and OS on another disk, and export to another disk; disk I/O is often the bottleneck in many people's systems, especially if you're just running everything to and fro with one disk.

Here are links to lots of respurces about performance with After Effects and Premiere Pro:
http://blogs.adobe.com/toddkopriva/...nce-adobe-premiere-pro-and-after-effects.html

(BTW, don't expect much responsiveness from us this week. We're all on vacation---and I'm about to take my dogs to the park.)
Click to expand...

Todd,

Thanks for the reply. Loving Adobe's response (never get that from Apple on here!) :-)

RAM = 32GB
CPU = Octo (8) core 2009 MacPro 2.26Ghz
Only got the one hard drive in the system at the moment
Storage - got 1 internal 7200rpm drive, so have another 3 slots left.

So given I have 8 cores, I have got the equation of 4GB memory per core = 32GB

With the graphics card, I've got the the ATI Radeon HD 4870 Graphics card installed. Am I right in saying that I need to replace this with the NVIDIA Quadro FX4800 1.5GB PCIe card for r3d real time playback? or can I still run with the 4870? The guys above are saying that it works for them, and the only thing I'd get is a speed bump.

As for I/O, my plan was to use the local internal MacPro hard drive for programs, a 8GB Fibre Channel Card to local storage of 12-16TB RAID for storage and another 8GB fibre link to another storage to export (or Thunderbolt if I get an updated MacPro when there released).

It would be nice to see an Adobe Recommended system with specs for an "ideal" edit suite for R3D / workflow diagram - have you got one? Searched the website but cannot find anything...

EDIT: Have found the workflow link http://www.adobe.com/content/dam/Adobe/en/products/premiere/pdfs/red-workflow-guide.pdf but it would be nice to see an ideal system spec e.g.

MacPro 12 Core
64GB RAM (or 3-4GB per core)
NVIDIA 4800
RED Rocket
Blackmagic card
Storage card if going to external storage - 4GB or 8GB fibre recommended / Thunderbolt

Thanks in advance

Steve

EDIT 2: Here is the spec of the system I would build http://www.futuristdigital.com/_documents/adobe_edit_system.pdf
 
Hmm, it would be very useful indeed, but please not just the ideal system specs because that would probably run like: get the most of everything. I have an 8 core macpro 3,1 (2008) with a quadro 4000, 16gb ram. I know I should just get a red rocket as well but can't spend the money right now; I didn't know about the 4gb per core; I get mixed advices about that. Right now--I have the production premium installed--things are very, very slow. Maybe three layers of r3d's with magic bullet looks is too much; I wonder if 16 extra gb's of Ram would help?
 
from my experience SSDs are a huge add when used as a system drive, you simply remove a huge amount of stress and frustration off the person who uses the computer.. and the computer becomes more responsive as you go faster with it, especially when you load and switch between multi adobe apps together, most of us do this normally for everyday work..
this is my system after installing an SSD for the system, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m-c7yny181U

This an OCZ Vertex 2, 240GB
the rest of the system is a 2009 i7 920 with 12GB RAM.. and another 120GB of the same kind to boot OSX 10.6.7.. performance is amazing too..
if you are considering it for use with Mac OSX 10.6.x you'd need a tool to enable TRIM support.. its very important..
 
I'd say it's either 12 core or RR if you want a fast system for RED. Neither the RAM nor the CUDA card alone won't cut it. But even then, three layers of R3D is a lot!

BTW, Lion is supposed to offer TRIM support.
 
I appreciate the way Adobe does make use of all of the CPUs even the hyper threading. Watch the CPU meter. On a four core you first see the four main cores then the hyper thread cores kick in and pegs all eight. i7 laptops kick butt and thunderbolt is about to make the disk I/O sweet. Thanks Adobe. Enjoy the vacation.

Todd Kopriva said:
The things that you did mention look good, but you didn't mention a few things:

RAM, multiple fast CPUs, and multiple fast hard disks.

You want to make sure, if you're working with After Effects especially, that you have 3-4GB of RAM per CPU processor core for maximum performance. And this isn't just for After Effects; the RED importer itself is a bit of a RAM guzzler.

I work with a quad-core (which with hyperthreading is 8 cores) and 24GB of RAM. I keep source files on one disk, run programs and OS on another disk, and export to another disk; disk I/O is often the bottleneck in many people's systems, especially if you're just running everything to and fro with one disk.

Here are links to lots of respurces about performance with After Effects and Premiere Pro:
http://blogs.adobe.com/toddkopriva/...nce-adobe-premiere-pro-and-after-effects.html

(BTW, don't expect much responsiveness from us this week. We're all on vacation---and I'm about to take my dogs to the park.)
Click to expand...
 
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