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Help with Machine Spec | Move to Mac Pro or update current machine |

Jonathan Petts

Jonathan Petts

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Hello All,

I am in a bit of a difficult situation - I am starting to get a very large amount of DIT work.
I currently have a small set-up of a Mac Book Pro 13in Retina (for more data wrangling jobs) and then for when I need on set transdcodes and grading a -

Intel 4930k
Nvidia 780ti
64gb Ram
Asus X79 Deluxe Mobo
Various SSD's
Various HDD's
Liquid Cooled
Small Case


Which seems to handle Alexa and Red Footage pretty resonably. The one thing thar does annoy me is the Da Vinci and Pro Res ... well lack off! I have started using scratch a bit for a few jobs but Da Vinci is much faster in offloading footage so would really like to work within this if I could. Which is what is tempting me to jump over to a Mac.

I also really really like how small it is. I could pretty much use it for every job and not have to work about lugging around my current system.
But then the downsides are that the GPU's are not upgradable so in a few years I would need to spend a large amount again to get good cards or is this not true?

I think if I did make the jump I would go for -
6 Core
16GB (but purchase a third party 32gb kit)
512gb PCIE Storage
Dual AMD D700's

Which would be £4000 + £300 or so for a Ram Kit

On the flip side I do love how easy windows is upgrade and modify - I was thinking I would upgrade my 780ti to a Titan X as for the money this seem like a beast of a card and would get much better performance throwing out Dailies and on set work with RAW Alexa and Dragon. It's also cheaper to upgrade over time (cpu here, Mobo there). Then get a Titan X - Sell my Macbook and Purchase a 15in Retina when the new ones come out.


So what would your two cent be currently - do you think a Mac Pro is really worth the higher cost? I would sell my current machine somehow (either through parts or as a fully system) and put that money towards the Mac Pro.
Im really just totally on the fence at this point and would just like some opinions from both sides as to what I should go for.

Looking forward to any help.

Jonny
 
Well right now the PC/Windows and X99 are the way to go for Davinci and other GPU acceleration apps. The performance with Cuda still far outperforms Open CL. Also the X99 brought DDR4 to the table which significantly impacts GPU acceleration especially with Davinci and Adobe. The Titan X card is by far the best video card out right now as well. I would really suggest you look at that since you already have a PC that could be upgraded to the new platform or used as a render system if you get a new DIT X99 system.
 
It doesn't help in all situations, especially non-R3D situations, but you can export ProRes on Windows now from REDCINE-X.

As for the Mac Pro, it's a nice system and portable enough you can build a kit that fits in a reasonably compact Pelican case. 6-core is fine, 8 is better, 12 better still in some situations... I think 10-core is the sweet spot for these series of Xeons, but Apple doesn't offer that because it's the same price as the 12-core and the consumer doesn't see it being better. So you have to buy the quad-core and then upgrade yourself, so may as well buy the 12-core knowing that you do get 2 more cores, but maybe not quite as an efficient of a CPU...

Really though, a 6-core is pretty decent for a lot of things. The GPUs are good, but under-utilized by drivers and OpenCL support. They come across as weak -- which is often typical for AMD GPU hardware that looks awesome on paper. The Mac Pro GPUs are upgradeable, but we don't know when or even if any upgrades will be made. I'm expecting an update to the Xeon CPUs, and the Mac Pro, probably about middle of next year when Intel ships 14nm Broadwell/Skylake Xeons. It is possible that Apple could offer an update this year around WWDC, but that seems kinda pointless to me. They are one Xeon iteration behind, so they could move from E5-V2 to E5-V3, but all we would gain is a couple more cores for even more money and more expensive DDR4 memory. So I think an interim update is unlikely.

You would definitely want 64GB in that Mac Pro.

Also, you'll be able to build a lot more powerful PC for less money. I'm not a big fan of the upgrade over time philosophy... Usually leads to problems and odd configurations or unintentional bottlenecks.

A Titan X would be a bit more than 2X as powerful as your current GPU. Not sure what that would translate to in your current workflows... Maybe a 10% boost overall... Not sure that's where I would spend my money unless you were going to build a currently supportive system to host it. If accelerating R3D workflows is your primary concern, you would probably do best to get a Rocket-X card for your current PC.

All things considered, I would agree with Eric here and just build a new X99 8-core PC with a Titan X GPU and it will run circles around that Mac Pro, or pretty much anything else you can buy right now for under $10K. But yeah, that doesn't really solve your ProRes dilemma. You can probably find a copy of Miraizon out there, but bleh... I'm not that happy with it and it's now defunct. If I end up on PC and then need ProRes later, I can have a lesser Mac re-encode from DPX or DNX or whatever to ProRes.
 
I had my finger on the trigger for a New MacPro 12 Core 2.7 , 64 Gig Ram and the AMD 700 GPUS. As a designer and animator, I am hearing that I should wait for the next 12 core config. which would be something near 3.2 GHz E5-1680 v3 vs. the 2.7 12 core.
I am actually on a MAXED OUT MacPro now and am not super stoked with the 3D and animation software, After Effects runs fairly well and it TEARS through Dragon and Epic footage, which is pretty awesome.

I think I will wait. anyone else on the fence on MacPro Trashcans?


Best
 
I doubt Apple will release v3 Xeon updates for the Mac Pro. That would be silly -- and they may do it, but whatever... The v3 Xeons have been out for 8 months now and offer little performance gain, other than memory throughput via the DDR4 memory and the CPUs and RAM cost a good bit more. Next Xeon iteration is 12 months out. I'd rather see Apple wait. Or keep the current systems and offer updated GPUs. Would really like it if they switched to nVidia. Dual GTX970 would fit in the Mac Pro power allotment with the current PSU, they might even be able to pull of dual GTX980's with the system's centralized cooling.

My Mac Pro I upgraded to a 10-core runs great. It handles 6K Dragon with ease. The 8K does well, but stutters here and there. 6-core seems to also work, but it's not as up to snuff as the 8 or 12 core [or 10 core] systems.
 
Its sounds like upgrading my current system would be a better option.

In terms of Pro Res I do currently use Miraizon and Scartch to get Pro Res out of my PC and through Red Cine - X.

In terms of selling a current machine then - would selling on REDuser be a resonable option or would you suggest the usual routes such as Ebay and other similar sites? (Im UK based by the way).

So lets say for a new system I went -

Titan X
5960x
Corsair Dominator 64gb kit

A suggestion for a Mobo would be very nice (as many USB3's as possible or even some thunderbolts!)
Would an upgrade in Liquid cooling be suggested? I have a H110 from corsair at the moment.

Then I would just use my current array of SSD's - I may ditch HDD and stick in some 1TB SSD's and use External RAID's for the DIT work.

Any other suggestions ?


In terms of the Titan X performance - what FPS would be be talking for Dragon 6K 5:1 roughly to a 422 proxy ? Also Alexa 4444XQ to Pro Res as well ? If you happen to have one.


Really appreciate all the help and advice guys!

Jonny


 
I'm waiting for better X99 Hackintosh Mac OS support, thunderbolt3, and usb3.1, before investing in another system build. MBPR and Z87 TB2 series Win/Mac rack system work fine for now. But I also have a rocket-x in a TB2 chassis, transcodes much faster than realtime.

The upgraded Mac Pro six core is pretty decent, for the price, for the foreseeable future.
 
Last edited:
What say you?

What say you?

Seriously considering the following move, notes appreciated:

I have a 2008 4,1 MacPro tower with a RR-X, Quadro4000, CalDigit eSATA/USB3 HBA, 1066RAM. I recently acquired a GTX 980 4GB card.

Option 1) I have a chance to pick up a newer tower, 2.66 12core 5,1, 1333RAM for $2,000. Would put the 980 in slot #1 (flashed by MacVidCards if it's too wonky without EFI), the RR-X in #2, likely a solid state storage card on #3 and a newer USB3 HBA in #4.

Option #2) Throw down for a 6-core, D700 NeoMP cylinder and get a Magma TB2 expansion chassis for the RR-X. Don't have the exact prices in front of me, but I'd guess $7,000 all in.

Obviously there are portability, power consumption, etc issues, but, objectively - is the $4,000 or so cost delta between #1 and #2 going to yield enough benefit to pay off? I should note that I plan to get a second generation NeoMP next year if it offers the right value proposition. Obviously, part of that cost delta is the price of the expansion chassis which would presumably still be relevant with the 2nd gen NeoMP but not with the tower. In addition, the expansion chassis could pair with a late model rMBP for fly packs.

If Apple would release a truly PRO, MBP, then I'd just roll a laptop solution with the horsepower in the expansion chassis. Note to Apple: at least support 32GB of RAM as an option, offer the 750M GPU with 2GB of VRAM and an HDMI 2.0 port so it can connect to most monitors at up to 2160 x 3840 at 30P, some even at 60P. But until or unless they do...

Cheers - #19
 
The loaded 6 Core is just under $6K with your own RAM and the TB chassis runs a grand, so $7K is pretty close. What you lose in cost, you gain in density with the nMP, so you have to decide if that's a worthy investment. The cylinder really transformed my cart setups and allowed for a modular approach to a lot of my jobs. I can easily repurpose the machine to VTR duty or DIT or simply data management because it's so tiny, I don't have to worry about the heft on even small jobs. SKB makes a nice 4RU case that holds the Sonnet Rack Chassis inside and a laptop on top for monitoring or further I/O. You'd never get that with a tower.

IMO, having stretched my dollar out of the old tower, I'd consider going the PC route. 4 Slots just isn't enough and you're constantly playing this game of GPU downsizing to meet power requirements and PCIe slot arrangements. Say you want USB3 AND 10GbE plus a SAS HBA? What about that PCIe SSD? Not to mention the RAM is quite aged at this point. A good pair of 6 Core 5,1 Xeons is still pricier than an i7 and a nice motherboard plus you've dropped $2K on the chassis to begin with.

I find the cost of the nMP is excellent when a job calls for it and your kit works a decent rate. In the meantime, these X99 PC builds are essentially what a Mac Tower would be anyway - compiling parts that work well together, modifying the case a little and not necessarily having that silky turn-key arrangement you get with the trashcan. The difference is for the same money, you can grab off the shelf GPU's and they actually function at full speed and don't need custom ROM's plus you have native USB3, more PCIe Slots, a custom case that can house more drives, M2 slots, i7's that overclock easy and so on and so on. Windows is the only tradeoff. You'll spend that same money or more on making the old tower "work" and feel upgraded. If ProRes were native to Windows, I feel like there's very little to consider on the old towers anymore other than them being the lowest cost of entry for Pro OSX use, which boils down to preference vs performance anyway.
 
Thanks for the notes Jason. I do find it difficult to put even one more dollar into an old MP tower. Sadly, sinking $6K into the current NeoMP cylinder is not as much better on that score as it needs to be to justify the cost (PCIe2, DDR3 RAM, HDMI 1.4, older AMD GPUs). Obviously I could build a Win-tel screamer for $6K, but my last foray into a Windows PC required several thousand dollars of IT support to keep it running correctly - not too mention hours of stress and frustration.

I would also note that much of my work is for ad agencies and in house media/marketing folk who still do most of their creative work on Macs. For them, HFS formatted drives and ProRes are preferred.

Cheers - #19
 
@ JONOTHAN......I CURRENTLY HAVE THE NEW TRASHCAN 6CORE, D700, 64 GB RAM AND I AM HAVING PROBLEMS WITH DRAGON FOOTAGE SO I AM SELLING THIS SETUP TO GO WITH A 12CORE 2012 MACPRO TOWER.

I WAS WORKING IN DAVINCI AND MY TRAHSCAN WAS CHOKING AND STUTTERING. I HAVE BEEN TO MANY THREADS AND THE 12CORE TRASHCAN WITH THE D700S IS WHAT I PROBABLY NEED BUT I DONT HAVE THAT KIND OF MONEY......SO I WILL BE GOING THE OLD ROUTE.

THAT BEING SAID, IF YOU GO TRASHCAN.....GET 12 CORE WITH D700S.......THE RAM YOU CAN UPGRADE YOURSELF PRETTY EASY.
 
I have the 6 cores trashcan and I kinda really regret getting it. For the same price I could have a super windows PC with a dual Xeon that would get the job done pretty easily.
 
A single CPU 8 Core i7 5960X with Nvidia Titan X cards and 64GB of ram would far outperform the nMPro at this point and would be far more stable. A single 12 to 14 Core Xeon would allow even greater realtime capability.
 
people always cling to the price/performance argument when bashing the nMP but it really doesn't hold up. I can't name any other PC that a) does not sound and feel like a hair dryer even at idle and b) I can pickup with one hand and take to set with me.
 
Saumene Mehrdady said:
people always cling to the price/performance argument when bashing the nMP but it really doesn't hold up. I can't name any other PC that a) does not sound and feel like a hair dryer even at idle and b) I can pickup with one hand and take to set with me.
Click to expand...

Actually it does hold up in the current Media Content Creation industry since the Open CL development is so far behind the Cuda development. Along with this PC is a generation ahead of the nMPro, which includes DDR4 on PC. The Gen 3 could not and cannot playback 4K media at full resolution preview in all of the editing applications. Gen 4 with DDr4 can with the right configuration. The software supports the PC better because of the Nvidia card options along with far less restrictive development time frames on Windows. We ship systems for Pro level audio and media production that are quiet enough for the clients which tells you it can be done on PC.
 
Saumene Mehrdady said:
people always cling to the price/performance argument when bashing the nMP but it really doesn't hold up. I can't name any other PC that a) does not sound and feel like a hair dryer even at idle and b) I can pickup with one hand and take to set with me.
Click to expand...

If you need a PC that you can pick up with you then use a Macbook Pro and a RRX ? It will work like a charm.
 
In my May 5th post, I was on the fence about getting a used 12 core MacPro 5,1 tower for $2,000 or getting a NeoMP cylinder. Ended up getting the old tower; GTX980 in #1, RR-X in #2, no auxiliary PSU required. Sure, there are X99/v3/DDR4 based Windows builds that can outperform it, but it's strong in key areas. When scrubbing or transcoding R3Ds, the RR-X takes a load off the CPU cores so they are available for other duties. The CUDA cores in the nVidia GTX980/4GB make Adobe/Scratch/Resolve/etc quite responsive and it drives 4K monitoring easily.

FWIW, not only was I able to put a viable pro system to work for only $2,000, but I am able to get full performance (or very close) from the RR-X in the internal slot and utilize the CUDA cores in the nVidia GTX980 that the AMD cards in the NeoMP lack. Best of all, I can wait patiently for the right time to get a system based on meaningful advances in price/performance.

IMO, there are 3 key areas of improvement that would justify a brand new system:

1) DDR4 Ram sticks at reasonable prices
2) 40 or more PCIe3 lanes direct to the CPU
3) TB3 and/or USB3-TypeC I/O natively supported

In a perfect world, process shrink will yield affordable high performance/low TDP chips sooner than later. Then Apple can leverage the unique design of the NeoMP cylinder to host 2 fast GPUs and a 16 core CPU with plenty of PCIe3 lanes to offer a compact screamer that sips power, keeps me in OS X and can travel in a backpack.

Cheers - #19
 
Blair S. Paulsen said:
In my May 5th post, I was on the fence about getting a used 12 core MacPro 5,1 tower for $2,000 or getting a NeoMP cylinder. Ended up getting the old tower; GTX980 in #1, RR-X in #2, no auxiliary PSU required. Sure, there are X99/v3/DDR4 based Windows builds that can outperform it, but it's strong in key areas. When scrubbing or transcoding R3Ds, the RR-X takes a load off the CPU cores so they are available for other duties. The CUDA cores in the nVidia GTX980/4GB make Adobe/Scratch/Resolve/etc quite responsive and it drives 4K monitoring easily.

FWIW, not only was I able to put a viable pro system to work for only $2,000, but I am able to get full performance (or very close) from the RR-X in the internal slot and utilize the CUDA cores in the nVidia GTX980 that the AMD cards in the NeoMP lack. Best of all, I can wait patiently for the right time to get a system based on meaningful advances in price/performance.

IMO, there are 3 key areas of improvement that would justify a brand new system:

1) DDR4 Ram sticks at reasonable prices
2) 40 or more PCIe3 lanes direct to the CPU
3) TB3 and/or USB3-TypeC I/O natively supported

In a perfect world, process shrink will yield affordable high performance/low TDP chips sooner than later. Then Apple can leverage the unique design of the NeoMP cylinder to host 2 fast GPUs and a 16 core CPU with plenty of PCIe3 lanes to offer a compact screamer that sips power, keeps me in OS X and can travel in a backpack.

Cheers - #19
Click to expand...
Apple world is not perfect right now. I'm about to take an iPhone 6 back to them that likes to type on its own, open apps on its own, etc. I too am hoping to stay with them though if the nMP checks off some of those things you mentioned. Then again, I just cut a feature length doc in FCP X on a very old machine (with a decent GPU) and it worked and that old machine still making money. And when I say old machine, I mean old. I love the new design for portability. I think they need a few tweaks. But I might be all in on the next gen if they get it right.
 
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