Welcome to our community

Be a part of something great, join today!

Log in
  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

How Much CPU power to handle Red Footage?

S

Stephen Moyer

Member
Joined
May 20, 2013
Messages
8
Reaction score
0
Points
0
Hi, I've got a shoot coming up that will be shot on the Red Epic that I will also be editing, and I was wondering how much CPU power I will need to handle the footage?

I've got an early 2009 Mac Pro with:
12GB RAM
Intel Xeon Quad-Core 2.93GHz processor
256GB SSD for OS
6TB of HD space
ATI Radeon HD 4870 w/512MB RAM
NVIDIA GeForce GT 120 w/512MB RAM

I will be upgrading my graphics cards for sure since they are ancient, any suggestions on which one to buy?
If I upgraded my graphics cards would I be able to handle 5k footage from the Epic?

Thanks,
Stephen
 
I used to have a 2009 model, then flashed to 2010 to use their 6core processors. The bottleneck here seems to be both processor, ram, and graphics. Total upgrade cost should be around $1000 if you are serious about editing R3D on this system.

W3680 3.33ghz Hexacore Processor - $280 ebay
32GB or more of 1333 ECC ram - $300+
GTX 780 Flashed for mac $500+

With the listed specs above, I was able to edit 5k footage on premiere without any issues. I also use a Velocity PCI SSD adapter for faster performance.
 
Without upgrading to a new system the CPU upgrade to the 6 Core is the best you can do in that Mac. You really need 24GB of ram as well. The video card definitely needs an upgrade and the suggestion for macvidcards is the best option.
 
Well only if you want the Powermanagement and PCI-E speed to work correctly for the card. Outside of that the display will load when the driver loads on one of the PC cards. You wont get the boot display.
 
Yes that ram should work based on specs. Ram compatibility is not always certain but it looks fine. I would suggest looking for registered dimm's if the price is in the same range. Normally includes higher grade chips and compatibility is often more certain.
 
Thanks for the help everyone! Just purchased the 3.33GHz 6 core processor, 24GB of ram, and the GTX 780 from macvidcards. Will flash my firmware and should be good to go. I heard that in order to flash the firmware I need to be running MT Lion... supposedly won't work on Mavericks. Is this true?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top