GTX 285 getting hard to find...

[albert rudnicki]

Switching priority of the cards should be done by the utility software and not physical switch.
Ideally it should be a part of Mac OS, at least on Mac Pro...

 

[hans de vries]

I bought a gtx 260 from a company that claimed the computer would recognize it as a gtx 285, and would therefore be recognized by premiere pro to use its mercury engine; all this is true. I lost interest in it however, because I'm sometimes a sucker for easy solutions and want to be able to use magic bullet; the gtx 260 somehow seems to be one of the things that crashes magic bullet (footage with magic bullet applied will not render in premiere pro); if anyone's nevertheless interested in this card, I'll sell it for 100 dollars (which is less than half of what I payed for it)

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

I got tired of all the monitor switching. My DaVinci system is now as follows:

Slot1: GTX285
Slot2: RED Rocket
Slot3: DeckLink HD Extreme 3D+
Slot4: Quadro 4000

Life is good, everything is happy with the GTX285 again. Resolve uses it for the UI and the Quadro for processing. Speed-wise, it seems the same as when using the GTX285 for processing. I think they're close enough that it would take specific benchmarks to see the difference.

I'm pulling aux power for the Quadro from my rarely used optical drive in the top optical bay. Seems to work just fine so far and it was a trick getting the cable from the power adapter from the optical bay down to the slots. Plus I have my boot HDD in the lower optical bay to work around and I already have two HDMI cables running through there and out the bay slot on the front (for the Decklink Card). I ran the SDI connectors for the rocket out two holes on the rear of the case. I snipped the BNC connectors off to run the cables out and put on new ones. I've found that to be the cleanest for Rocket installs if you don't want to use (or can't use) the accessory slot space. Apple has given us a few hundred tiny holes to choose from, may as well use them and it doesn't void any warranties.

I'm thinking I may buy a Cubix or Cyclone and another GPU. I could put two Quadro4000's and a Rocket in the expander and that would let me put the SAS card back in the tower so I can have my external RAID and LTO back. Having only the internal RAID-0 and backups via ethernet or FW800 makes me all twitchy.

 

[Tom.Wong]

not to mention you lose the esata connections too, essential if you are offloading from any red station. or just off the shelf esata externals you need to drag from. fw 800 feels like usb 2.0 to me these days it's so slow.

i'm probably gonna end up with a gt 120, rocket, decklink, quadro 4000, firmtek 4 port esata. redo my internal hd's for internal raid 4 bay raid 0, with my boot drive in the bay. and use the raid only for grading, and keeping ample backups via esata and external drives. than when more work comes in i can upgrade with an expander, get some more performance and slots back, and hopefully get a panny plasma for client viewing

 

[Dustin Cross]

Are there any known problems with the flashed PC GTX 285 cards?

There seem to still be lots of flashed cards on Ebay.


Dusty

 

[Tom.Wong]

if i can find a gtx 285 flashed, i'm going that route, i just don't want refurbed. a lot i've been finding on ebay are refurbed and i don't know if i can trust them or not. with a big job lined up at the end of this month I can't risk it. and macvidcards the most know reseller for newly flashed cards have been sold out, don't know if they are in stock yet. I might just stick with the 4000 just cause it saves more space in the case, and are more readily available to buy when i get pci expansion for multi gpu rendering. don't know what the supply is going to be like 6 months from now with the 285's... i still have a few days before I buy, so i might change my tune by then.

 

[Paul Nordin]

Speed-wise, it seems the same as when using the GTX285 for processing.

I'm thinking I may buy a Cubix or Cyclone and another GPU. I could put two Quadro4000's and a Rocket in the expander and that would let me put the SAS card back in the tower

Just curious why you wouldn't switch to using the 4000 for GPU and get a second 285 for your exansion chassis? Would save some bucks and if they are equivalent performance...

At least that's the direction I'm heading.

Cheers,
paul

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

Just curious why you wouldn't switch to using the 4000 for GPU and get a second 285 for your exansion chassis? Would save some bucks and if they are equivalent performance...

I'm considering that too, as buying one or two new 285's would be cheaper... But my hunch is also that the Quadro 4000 performance will improve a bit over the next couple CUDA revisions, technically it should be about 10% faster than the GTX285, it's just not at the moment. Moving forward it has a future, the GTX285 does not as nVidia, EVGA, etc.. have all discontinued production and further driver development.

 

[Tim Hole]

.. have all discontinued production and further driver development.

Understandable but still pisses me off

I really am loving my GTX285. I was waiting for one of newer Nvidia's this time last year and dived in with it instead. I think on you recommendation actually.

I really couldn't be happier. Its a great allrounder for film, 3D and FX (obviously the processors and ram are a big part of that too but you understand my point).

Having said that its working great now, until some software is released that really harnesses cuda properly or I am put in a position where real world benefits are going to be gained by upgrading I see no point in doing so.

I'm a happy camper now, No point throwing my coffee in the fire...

 

[Jan Prochazka]

GTX285 flash

GTX285 flash

Just for info - I tried to reflash PC ver. EVGA GTX285 to mac, but failed. My PC version has only 64kb ROM and mac image is 128kb.
Solved in hackintosh :thumbup1:

 

[Tom.Wong]

decided to go quadro 4000 all the way. I wanna eventually do multi gpu, I don't want to go crazy hunting down 285's when it gets to that point. Should have the system up and running in a few days. Just configured my 5 drive internal soft raid. 1 tb Samsung f3's. many are they zippy. Getting average 427 mb/sec write, and over 500 mb/sec read!

got another 1 tb as a boot drive, gonna swap that out with SSD when prices come down a bit and I can get capacity over 500 gb...

Jeff what's your performance with grading r3d in resolve with your setup? I"m gonna have almost similar, but gt 120 for GUI instead, but performance should be near equal to year setup. With rocket, quadro 4000 for gpu acceleration off your soft raid. I wanna get a general idea of how "real time" i can give to my client. rocket should accelerate the playback, and the gpu should take care of all the node attachments no?

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

Tom,

I'm finding performance to be real-time for RED 4K footage @ 1/4 debayer. Half seems just out of reach, but may be possible if I can tweak the system when I have more time. 6 nodes or so seems just fine most of the time, but with an occasional stutter. 8 nodes is do-able before it starts to crawl. Depends on what is being done though. I really haven't done any hard testing with it yet. I'm still trying to just get the system configured right.

I had to put the GT160 back into the system. Too much power draw to also support the Quadro with my system drive in the optical bay. I'm debating if I want to go the expander route now or just dedicate this system to Resolve and leave the GT160 where it's at.

I would love to get the expander with a second Quadro card, but just can't budget for it at the moment.

 

[L Wachowski]

CUDA Core Conundrum

CUDA Core Conundrum

Been holding out on building my Resolve system, getting ready to in the next few weeks. Getting hard to track down a gtx 285 for mac right now... used to be able to find brand new ones flashed on ebay from "macvidcards" but they seem to be sold out, and every other site i'm looking online seems sold out.

All that's left are refurbed ones on ebay, and I'm wondering if anybody has bought these and can vouch they work properly. I'm wary of refurbed products from vendors I don't know.

quadros are out of my budget too.

http://cgi.ebay.com/Mac-Pro-2008-20...o_TV_Cards&hash=item415515d3b4#ht_3222wt_1141


any review on these or alternatives that would be great. Or if anybody knows how to flash a gtx 480 or 580 for my Mac Pro?

Would this be enough CUDA Core power for DaVinci to run multiple streams of RED 4k in real time?

 

[Tom.Wong]

Well Da Vinci only handles 1 layer of video at a time, so you really wouldn't be doing multiple streams. But I think that might be enough cuda power for half debayer, MAYBE. if a single quadro 4000, can only give you 1/4th, that's all debatable.

While on that, I actually find that performance rather disappointing. Where's the rocket acceleration? It can give you full debayer in RCX, I don't see why you can't get at least half debayer with a rocket installed... So I'm thinking the only way to get close to full debayer real time is have 2-3 quadros and a rocket... would be crazy if you needed 4+ quadros to get real time...

 

[L Wachowski]

Well Da Vinci only handles 1 layer of video at a time, so you really wouldn't be doing multiple streams. But I think that might be enough cuda power for half debayer, MAYBE. if a single quadro 4000, can only give you 1/4th, that's all debatable.

While on that, I actually find that performance rather disappointing. Where's the rocket acceleration? It can give you full debayer in RCX, I don't see why you can't get at least half debayer with a rocket installed... So I'm thinking the only way to get close to full debayer real time is have 2-3 quadros and a rocket... would be crazy if you needed 4+ quadros to get real time...

The lowly Quadro FX 5800 only has 240 CUDA Cores and cost 10x as much as the GTX 470. I have a feeling the GTX 470 will perform much better than that $3000 Quadro. Just a hunch anyways. :biggrin5: Obviously there's a reason BlackMagic updated DaVinci to allow multiple GPU's in OSX or is there?

 

[Tom.Wong]

talking about the quadro 4000, it has 256 cuda cores, still less than the gtx 470, but i got too many well paying clients to mess with flashed cards and hackintoshes. one update to the da vinci or mac os that breaks the flash compatibility and than what? gonna explain tot he client you can't have your session with them because your video cards aren't working? if even there's a small chance of that, I'm not risking it.

but hopefully the gtx 500 series will be mac compatible in the future. (they run cooler and more quiet than the 400 series cards)

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

I'm going to test Resolve with a GTX 480 here shortly, just haven't got around to it. There's another report on here stating that it worked with the 480 as the primary, and only, video card in the system. I want to see if it will take some of the other nVidia cards as GPU processing cards, without needing Apple EFI or other intermediate identifiers and processes. If it works, then it may just justify an expansion chassis or hackintosh with 3X GTX580's. ;-)

Tom also raises a valid point -- hackintoshes are fine to experiment with. But when it comes to real support and paying clients, sometimes it's best to just take the certified hardware path.

 

[L Wachowski]

talking about the quadro 4000, it has 256 cuda cores, still less than the gtx 470, but i got too many well paying clients to mess with flashed cards and hackintoshes. one update to the da vinci or mac os that breaks the flash compatibility and than what? gonna explain tot he client you can't have your session with them because your video cards aren't working? if even there's a small chance of that, I'm not risking it.

but hopefully the gtx 500 series will be mac compatible in the future. (they run cooler and more quiet than the 400 series cards)

Oh ok, so it has nothing to do with the actual CUDA specs then? It's just the fact that it's not running on a real Mac Pro and the whole stigma thing associated with Hackintoshs? Multiple copies of the exact same OSX drive rule out updates "breaking" any Hackintosh. If one goes down you just pop another one in it's place, but that's a whole other discussion.

I guess there's only one way to know what this little Hackintosh is capable of and that's to put some FPS tests up here. If DaVinci relies on CUDA count, memory bandwidth and GFlops to do it's work then the results could be "very interesting" indeed.

 

[Joel Kaye]

talking about the quadro 4000, it has 256 cuda cores, still less than the gtx 470, but i got too many well paying clients to mess with flashed cards and hackintoshes. one update to the da vinci or mac os that breaks the flash compatibility and than what? gonna explain tot he client you can't have your session with them because your video cards aren't working? if even there's a small chance of that, I'm not risking it.

but hopefully the gtx 500 series will be mac compatible in the future. (they run cooler and more quiet than the 400 series cards)

I got a used 285GTX flashed for Mac and all is good so far. It's about 18FPS at 1/4 rez (which looks really good out of the decklink). After caching to my RAID it's 24 fps.


For the money, I'd be inclined to get 2 refurb GTX285's and keep the second on hand as insurance. As a flashed card it functionally is a Mac 285 and BlackMagic would be really shortsighted to break that as they know a lot of people are set up with it.

3 Up there as I type this:
http://cgi.ebay.com/Mac-Nvidia-GTX2...135?pt=PCC_Video_TV_Cards&hash=item35af4acef7

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

Oh ok, so it has nothing to do with the actual CUDA specs then? It's just the fact that it's not running on a real Mac Pro and the whole stigma thing associated with Hackintoshs? Multiple copies of the exact same OSX drive rule out updates "breaking" any Hackintosh. If one goes down you just pop another one in it's place, but that's a whole other discussion.

You're missing the point. It's not about reliability of a hackintosh or CUDA specs. Yes, there is a stigma. When you have real clients who pay real money, they expect things a certain way. When they walk into your facility and sit down with you in a color or editing session, they don't want to see a hackintosh. Many bigger clients want the full hardware tour to see who and what they're getting into when choosing a provider.

You may want to watch the attitude. Your response here smacks of another hackintosh proponent that has been banned from these forums. Not because of the hackintosh discussion, but because he was a total douchebag. Hopefully you are not that guy.

I guess there's only one way to know what this little Hackintosh is capable of and that's to put some FPS tests up here. If DaVinci relies on CUDA count, memory bandwidth and GFlops to do it's work then the results could be "very interesting" indeed.

Uh, OK. So put Resolve on there and show us what it can do... You're going to want some more RAM and you're running 4-cores too light. Just sayin'