Custom Old Mac Pro Build vs New 2013+ Mac Pro

[Björn Benckert]

Yes I also thinks the trash cans are more impressive than what people seam to think. The only thing I think it´s lacking is the graphics pipe but if thats sorted with a tb solution then it´s a really nice package. like having a trashcan with a rocket X must be blazing. But yes they are a bit costly and the 5k screens are tempting and as I understand the 5k imacs are more capable when it comes to the GPU stuff, or?

 

[Hans von Sonntag]

...the Imac 5k is pretty much unbeatable, or not many other swing 5k screen and for us running Flames OSX is a must. So can I add a Thunderbolt Dual slot PCI expansion box and put two titans in it (or what would be best solution)? Are people doing this?...
.

Flame on OSX lacks RT debayering and has problems with separate Action outputs, AFAIK. I believe its an issue with consumer grade GPUs and cards from AMD. Perhaps a M6000 in a Mac would solve that. But who runs a 6k GPU board in an old MacPro? Otherwise Flame Assist on a 5.1 Mac Pro and a GF 680 is pretty capable and reliable, so should be Flame on OSX

Hans

 

[Scot Yount]

I am not sure the 5k iMac is more capable for graphics over the MacPro with the D700 cards. The iMac can get up to 4gig in graphics card, the D700s are 6 gig and there are two of them. I could be wrong about this but both DaVinci and RCX take full advantage.

 

[Joel Voelker]

Problem with the trashcan is definitely the price. If you need portability, you can't beat it. If you can just park the system and not move it, a mac pro tower with SSD, RAID, expansion chassis for GPUs is going to smoke the nMP.

 

[Nick Morrison]

I am not sure the 5k iMac is more capable for graphics over the MacPro with the D700 cards. The iMac can get up to 4gig in graphics card, the D700s are 6 gig and there are two of them. I could be wrong about this but both DaVinci and RCX take full advantage.

True, but not sure those two 6gig cards could match a Titan.

I had Tekserve in NYC install a Titan Black and extra power supply into a 5.1 12 Core, and the lead tech there was pretty certain that config was "considerably" more powerful than even a top of the line Trashcan, at least for GFX.

 

[Björn Benckert]

True, but not sure those two 6gig cards could match a Titan.

I had Tekserve in NYC install a Titan Black and extra power supply into a 5.1 12 Core, and the lead tech there was pretty certain that config was "considerably" more powerful than even a top of the line Trashcan, at least for GFX.

So what happen if you put a titan in an expansion chassi on the trashcan?

To me part of the magic with my trashcan that I have not seen on any other mac where I can render and not feel a thing while doing other things while rendering... I guess that means it is far from using all the CPUS and GPU power, but still that thing is far faster than any of our other macs. With a dedicated render GPU, like a rocket X or titan or such in a PCI expanshion I'm just think it would be unbeatable, But no I have not tested it with such setup. As I have it now I got an expansion box with a fiber card running tiger san and then a 8 bay pegasus. which all runs very reliable and faster than most.

 

[Nick Morrison]

So what happen if you put a titan in an expansion chassi on the trashcan?

Again, I believe 8 lane cards (like a Titan or RRX) are LIMITED BY 50% on a Trashcan. Thunderbolt 2 is only equivalent to 4 lanes.

But maybe a Titan at 50% is still enough to make the 5K Imac formidable!

 

[jake blackstone]

So what happen if you put a titan in an expansion chassi on the trashcan?

To me part of the magic with my trashcan that I have not seen on any other mac where I can render and not feel a thing while doing other things while rendering... I guess that means it is far from using all the CPUS and GPU power, but still that thing is far faster than any of our other macs. With a dedicated render GPU, like a rocket X or titan or such in a PCI expanshion I'm just think it would be unbeatable, But no I have not tested it with such setup. As I have it now I got an expansion box with a fiber card running tiger san and then a 8 bay pegasus. which all runs very reliable and faster than most.

It would help, if you compare apples to apples Using RRX completely negates the need for multiple CPUs and powerful GPUs, as RRX does the decompression and debayer on a card itself. Of coarse your computer will not struggle with such a load, when using RRX. I think, the conversation here is about using a computer, that utilizes on board CPU(s) and GPU(s). If you take an $8k trashcan and compare it to a ($4K-5k?) tricked out MacPro 5.1 with Cubix, couple of 980ti, dual 3.46Ghz Procs, it's simply unfair. 5.1 will smoke trashcan in almost every performance metrics. And finally, there is no reason to worry about not being able to render your Resolve session on a Mac Tower. i'm not sure about you, but to me it's kinda important
https://forum.blackmagicdesign.com/search.php?keywords=render+glitches&fid[0]=21

 

[Björn Benckert]

Again, I believe 8 lane cards (like a Titan or RRX) are LIMITED BY 50% on a Trashcan. Thunderbolt 2 is only equivalent to 4 lanes.

But maybe a Titan at 50% is still enough to make the 5K Imac formidable!

Aha so what would be the most suited GPU to that could push more then enough to make the TB 2 the bottle neck. As I understand the trashcan has 3 busses for TB so it would be possible to have two GPU´s and then fast storage on the third buss. The imac 5k I think only have one buss and two ports, or is it 2 busses?

 

[Nick Morrison]

Aha so what would be the most suited GPU to that could push more then enough to make the TB 2 the bottle neck. As I understand the trashcan has 3 busses for TB so it would be possible to have two GPU´s and then fast storage on the third buss. The imac 5k I think only have one buss and two ports, or is it 2 busses?

Yes, but regardless of busses, I believe you're bottleneck is still Thunderbolt 2. As far as I understand, it's equivelant to 4 lanes. Most high end GFX cards (and RR-X) are 8 lanes, yes?

I think the answer is TO WAIT.

By all accounts, Apple is releasing a NEW Trashcan in Spring 2016. Several DIT's in NYC I spoke to confirmed this. From what people are saying, it should come with Thunderbolt 3, which should be able todo 8 lanes.

So - that seems to be the future (which is only a couple of months away): THE NEW TRASHCAN.

 

[Nick Morrison]

It would help, if you compare apples to apples Using RRX completely negates the need for multiple CPUs and powerful GPUs, as RRX does the decompression and debayer on a card itself. Of coarse your computer will not struggle with such a load, when using RRX. I think, the conversation here is about using a computer, that utilizes on board CPU(s) and GPU(s). If you take an $8k trashcan and compare it to a ($4K-5k?) tricked out MacPro 5.1 with Cubix, couple of 980ti, dual 3.46Ghz Procs, it's simply unfair. 5.1 will smoke trashcan in almost every performance metrics. And finally, there is no reason to worry about not being able to render your Resolve session on a Mac Tower. i'm not sure about you, but to me it's kinda important
https://forum.blackmagicdesign.com/search.php?keywords=render+glitches&fid[0]=21

Yes, I'e spoken to a number of DIT's in NYC, and these render glitchers in Trashcans were a real thing.

New Trashcans seem to be better, but even then...some DIT's told me they kept fans on at 100% just to be safe.

And...all the while...RR-X can only do HALF-DEBAYER on a traschan.

It can do FULL DEBAYER on a Mac 5.1 tower.

 

[Björn Benckert]

It would help, if you compare apples to apples Using RRX completely negates the need for multiple CPUs and powerful GPUs, as RRX does the decompression and debayer on a card itself. Of coarse your computer will not struggle with such a load, when using RRX. I think, the conversation here is about using a computer, that utilizes on board CPU(s) and GPU(s). If you take an $8k trashcan and compare it to a ($4K-5k?) tricked out MacPro 5.1 with Cubix, couple of 980ti, dual 3.46Ghz Procs, it's simply unfair. 5.1 will smoke trashcan in almost every performance metrics. And finally, there is no reason to worry about not being able to render your Resolve session on a Mac Tower. i'm not sure about you, but to me it's kinda important
https://forum.blackmagicdesign.com/search.php?keywords=render+glitches&fid[0]=21

Im not in resolve I would use it for flame. Then my renders are days long at times and I would then use CPU´s and GPU power in the flame render engine at once. Far from everything in flame is GPU supported. And I would like them to suport rocket X I think they have it in the works but even when using the rocket that would only be that first debayer everything downstream from that would need to be something else. So for that reason I´m thinking some other fast graphic pipe would be more suited for what I do.

But no joke I don't know enough about these things to understand what would be the best, thats why I ask here.


What I want to do is run flame on 3 macs with 24Tb TB storage on each and have all hooked to tiger san and running stone&wire and then I also have some PC /HP / 3D Nuke boxes also connected to the same san where I got a bit above 2k uncompressed playback between all the machines / over san.

But two of the macs are a few years old mac pro´s and they are simply not fast enough, I guess I can upgrade them but I don't want to have to deal with fiber arrays and all that, as I really like the TB storage and also all our source drives that we work from are TB raids so I need to be able to hook those up to any of the workstations and cash the media from them... So I really need TB connection and I might be wrong but I don't want to upgrade the old MP´s, rather sell them. But then the question for me is, I think, if I get Imacs or trashcans. For the one trashcan I got I paid about 12k USD for that I would get a pretty fledged out Imac 5k with expansion box and a pretty beefy GPU and I think I would enjoy the 5k screen, especially if it´s now kicking in 10 bit.

I have not seen those glitches you mention in that forum but I had some odd behaviour in resolve, I don't use it much on that machine. So that might be why. I have not heard flame users having that problem, but then again I think resolve max out the graphics much more so possibly thats whats choking it.

 

[jake blackstone]

Trying to use an iMac for color grading is kinda insane. It's not a workstation caliber, it uses mobile variation of GPUs, its limited in the amount of RAM and it overheats easily. Said that, I see no problem using iMac to run Flame or Nuke. All that stuff gets rendered, before it is reviewed and at most you work on a single shot at a time. It's pretty easy and VFX workflow doesn't tax your system anywhere close to what real time performance the color grading process requires. Color grading is simply a different animal. You must be able to play whatever you have back in real time without the need to keep hitting the render button. Frankly, comparing VFX and color grading hardware requirements is counterproductive. Trashcan is perfect for everything, like editing, compositing, image manipulation etc, but color grading... well that's different...
The new version of Lustre supports GPU debayer and AD finally ported ALL color tools to a GPU. Additionally, Lustre now is a Full Float, which again, is a huge development. So, good GPUs now are even more a must and trashcan is not it...
So again, Flame, Flare on a trashcan not too bad. Lustre, if it was available on a Mac would be in the same boat, as Resolve- in my opinion, a big no go.

 

[Scot Yount]

It would help, if you compare apples to apples Using RRX completely negates the need for multiple CPUs and powerful GPUs, as RRX does the decompression and debayer on a card itself. Of coarse your computer will not struggle with such a load, when using RRX. I think, the conversation here is about using a computer, that utilizes on board CPU(s) and GPU(s). If you take an $8k trashcan and compare it to a ($4K-5k?) tricked out MacPro 5.1 with Cubix, couple of 980ti, dual 3.46Ghz Procs, it's simply unfair. 5.1 will smoke trashcan in almost every performance metrics. And finally, there is no reason to worry about not being able to render your Resolve session on a Mac Tower. i'm not sure about you, but to me it's kinda important
https://forum.blackmagicdesign.com/search.php?keywords=render+glitches&fid[0]=21

Like I said, my machine doesn't struggle at all. Not a blip. Lots of talk here by people who don't own one. It cost a lot. Yes it did. But so does a RED Dragon. I would like to see some metrics on Cinema 4D renders. Nothing in my workflow, Premier, AE, FCPX, RCX or Resolve comes close to requiring the horsepower of C4D. But that's just me. Adobe of course is in bed with Nvidia and that means my D700s get ignored by AE.

 

[Scot Yount]

Yes, I'e spoken to a number of DIT's in NYC, and these render glitchers in Trashcans were a real thing.

New Trashcans seem to be better, but even then...some DIT's told me they kept fans on at 100% just to be safe.

And...all the while...RR-X can only do HALF-DEBAYER on a traschan.

It can do FULL DEBAYER on a Mac 5.1 tower.

Nick,
What makes you say it can only do HALF-DEBAYER? Unless I just don't know what I am doing, I can tell you mine hums along faster than real time on full res.

 

[Nick Morrison]

Nick,
What makes you say it can only do HALF-DEBAYER? Unless I just don't know what I am doing, I can tell you mine hums along faster than real time on full res.

Sorry I meant a RR-X is limited to HAF-DEBAYER via Thunderbolt.

 

[Scot Yount]

Sorry I meant a RR-X is limited to HAF-DEBAYER via Thunderbolt.

Ah. I've never had a card connected to mine, because I haven't needed it. However, I do know of another RU in my town who has problems (he has a six core with the basic graphics cards I think), and if you check red.com you will see that there have been problems with nMPs and Thunderbolt. I don't know about RRX, but for RR it says this "NOTE: You may experience interrupted audio playback or slow data transfer rates over Ethernet and Thunderbolt when using the RED ROCKET with newer Apple® Mac Pro® models (Late 2013 or later). These issues are not present on earlier models of the Mac Pro."

As I said, I play everything at full res, and I don't transcode for work on my machine. I edit the .r3ds in FCPX for example with no ProRes. They just work. Your mileage may vary.

 

[Björn Benckert]

Trying to use an iMac for color grading is kinda insane. It's not a workstation caliber, it uses mobile variation of GPUs, its limited in the amount of RAM and it overheats easily. Said that, I see no problem using iMac to run Flame or Nuke. All that stuff gets rendered, before it is reviewed and at most you work on a single shot at a time. It's pretty easy and VFX workflow doesn't tax your system anywhere close to what real time performance the color grading process requires. Color grading is simply a different animal. You must be able to play whatever you have back in real time without the need to keep hitting the render button. Frankly, comparing VFX and color grading hardware requirements is counterproductive. Trashcan is perfect for everything, like editing, compositing, image manipulation etc, but color grading... well that's different...
The new version of Lustre supports GPU debayer and AD finally ported ALL color tools to a GPU. Additionally, Lustre now is a Full Float, which again, is a huge development. So, good GPUs now are even more a must and trashcan is not it...
So again, Flame, Flare on a trashcan not too bad. Lustre, if it was available on a Mac would be in the same boat, as Resolve- in my opinion, a big no go.

My friend runs an Imac with flame on it and as I understand he can pipe a 2k 10bit clip into a row of colorwarper nodes with one master and 3 selective (keyed layers with blur on the keys)... not one of those nodes but five in row with 3 selective and one master in each node... now that is like 5x4 layers of keyed color transformation with 15 layers of blurred alphas, and flame does not ask to render it, just plays it out without lag. That I can not do on My HPz800 linux machines, not even possible to do half of it.

But again have not tested my self.

Also just talked to Stephane Labrie at autodesk, he told me latest version of flame unleashed suport both rockets. So even if it does not max out the rocket X it would be a full thunderbolt 2 throughput and I assume pretty slippery delayering if I used such.

 

[Brian Merlen]

Sorry I meant a RR-X is limited to HAF-DEBAYER via Thunderbolt.

Mine always does full debayer encodes but it does warn me capacity is throttled running over tb2 on launch. What do you mean, it only playbacks at half or encodes? In either case very happy with my rocket X and a laptop for media management and encodes on set. I think it will remain important even with my weapon

 

[jake blackstone]

My friend runs an Imac with flame on it and as I understand he can pipe a 2k 10bit clip into a row of colorwarper nodes with one master and 3 selective (keyed layers with blur on the keys)... not one of those nodes but five in row with 3 selective and one master in each node... now that is like 5x4 layers of keyed color transformation with 15 layers of blurred alphas, and flame does not ask to render it, just plays it out without lag. That I can not do on My HPz800 linux machines, not even possible to do half of it.

But again have not tested my self.

Also just talked to Stephane Labrie at autodesk, he told me latest version of flame unleashed suport both rockets. So even if it does not max out the rocket X it would be a full thunderbolt 2 throughput and I assume pretty slippery delayering if I used such.

As I said, for VFX work iMac is fine. Although, I would be a little suspicious on the renderless claim of your friend. But for color grading, I wouldn't recommend using anything less, than a workstation class computer. iMac just have too many places for possible bottlenecks. But that is just me...