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  • 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 :)

HP 820 Tower - RED EDITION

What is it about the way one interacts with any OS that creates this "holy war" where tech forums are the collateral damage?

For those of us who need our computers to do more sophisticated and demanding tasks than typical users, there are preferences/settings that must be managed. Because these admin type functions are accessed less often and mostly by IT savvy folks, they are often buried deep in the menu structure or require command line/terminal/etc aptitude. Moreover, the advanced settings often use arcane terminology, that like legal jargon, can mean the opposite of what it seems. Intense frustration often results.

Yes, when properly set up either platform can virtually disappear for the user and all they need to learn is the app. That said, somebody with the requisite IT skills who understands your needs/usage is necessary for that to be true - OR - you have to know enough about the OS to do it yourself. Hence the rectitude (pissing and moaning) displayed when switching is suggested.

IAC props to RDC for stepping up.

Cheers - #19
 
Mike Halper said:
What's the GeekBench and/or CineBench scores on these?
Click to expand...

Forget CineBench on these newer systems -- their benchmarks aren't stressful enough to throttle up the CPUs, let alone actually get all 32 threads pumping. Running the CPU score for Cinebench dry will score you just over a 25. If you run it a few times in a row it can bump up to 27.something. If you tweak your CPUs to run at full turbo right out of the gate and/or run something intensive that uses all cores to get to that point, then launch the CB CPU benchmark and kill the other process, you can score over 30. Maxon needs to re-evaluate their benchmarking system -- it's not even a semi-accurate representation of how their own renderer will operate on these systems.

Marcos Montenegro said:
Any chance of a rack version? Can anyone answer whether is comes with e-Sata ports?
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The z820 is rack-able, HP sells a rail kit for it, not that expensive if I recall.

z820 does NOT have any eSATA ports standard. However, there are tons of SAS/SATA channels internally and they can easily be piped out to the rear with properly grounded connectors. One of the biggest drawbacks to this system is that with all the SAS/SATA channels, only two of them are 6Gbps and you won't want to pipe them out for eSATA because you'll want them internally if you run any SSDs.
 
Paul E. McCarthy said:
Looks nice and convenient for heavy lifting if you are cutting with an avid and only need DNXHD . This machine is not able to make Pro Res.
There is no professional way to make a Pro Res on a Windows PC. You can go through FFMeg Freeware but its a science experiment.
Does RED and Adobe have some way of making a Pro Res in windows.
Or does RED has a new cross platform editting Codec?

What Codec do premiere cutters use.

Pro Res on a PC that would be the greatest thing that ever happened to the Finishing world.
Click to expand...

Try Cineform...$300
Will run circles around prores...active metadata, LUT's, embedded 3d
If you want to center your workflow around a codec, then use one that is cross platform....can be used in Avid, FC, and Adobe, can be written in MOV or AVI....and is a 64 bit codec.

Adobe cuts in native anything and can export to anything (other then prores on a windows)
 
I wrote this article back in 2010. About A week later I received an email from an HP representative who wanted to talk with me about my needs and how they could fill them. I shrugged it off at the time and thanked the rep, telling her that the only thing keeping me from pursuing it further was Windows.

Even though I brushed it off, I was silently impressed. HP was certainly listening.

I believe that Apple is listening too. I have no doubt that plenty of high-ranking Apple folk read my half-coherent rant. Apple may be listening but I'm not convinced that they're actually hearing us. I didn't receive an unsolicited email from Apple after writing that post. Frankly I've never received a response to any inquiry I've made to Apple's professional team.

It's a shame.

I seem to have a penchant for writing thoughts with good intentions that are received poorly. I'm sure I made no friends at Apple by writing what I wrote. Yet that post generated 1,000x the traffic of anything else I've ever written and was cited in more than 100 different articles across the internet. That's what happens when companies clam up and abandon their closest followers.

About a year ago I wrote a followup to that article which I never posted. I may dust it off and finish it.

Why not? It can't make them any more distant than they are already.

And I bet I'll get another email from an HP rep.
 
Question... does anybody know how big the difference is between this Z820 and my Z800.... is it what I guess a 20/820 difference in speed or?

Though I had the fastest one...the happiness caused but computer speed only last that long. LOL...
 
Apple is definitely listening and I think they do hear what we're saying. The problem is, they have their own agenda and what we want is only relevant if it fits within their paradigm of computing as it continues to evolve. Apple may be secretive, but it's not too difficult to see where a lot of their ideas and ideals are headed. It's not so simple as to just say they only care about consumers and iDevices. Not true at all, the professional user is still very much an important part of their target user base.

IMNSHO, it was pretty obvious that Apple would not support this iteration of the Xeon platform. It goes against most of what they are trying to achieve. The chips are significantly larger and more power-hungry than the previous generation. They were released long after they were ready, due to chipset hold-ups. The Ivy Bridge Xeons will be the last lines of 32nm CPUs to be fabbed by Intel and they're having trouble supplying the channel since most of their primary lines have made the 22nm transition. This is keeping the cost higher than it needs to be.

I don't mean to sound like an Apple apologist, I'm not. I'm just pointing out that they think differently and that's just how it is. As less power-hungry workstation CPUs enter the market early next year, I'm confident we will see a new Mac Pro offering. Until then, if the current model doesn't do it for you, then this HP Z820 surely will help. There's still a lot to be said about the previous "Westmere" class of Xeon CPUs -- available on the current <cough> 2010 </cough> Mac Pro. They're 15% slower per clock per core than the latest Ivy Bridge models, but they're significantly cheaper and eat less power.


As for the HP Z820, as I've posted elsewhere, I like it. Nice system overall... There are a couple things about it that I would change, nothing deal-breaking. A Thunderbolt port sure would've been nice and I know Intel can't allow completely open use of the interface just yet... Soon... There is a flood of Thunderbolt equipped notebooks about to hit the market. While I'm sure the legacy PCI slot in the system is there to appease the corporate buying structure, it's seriously misguided and really has no place in this system. Thankfully it sits just below an X16 PCIe 3.0 slot and can be covered for dual-width card use. However, that's a problem due to all the connectors running along the bottom edge of the motherboard -- connectors and cables make it difficult to install a double-width GPU. It's totally do-able, but not the most friendly location. Once it's in there, it's still a problem too as there's not enough room for proper airflow between the card and the bottom of the case -- I tried a Quadro 6000 in that slot and got it to fit after a little patience and perseverance. Only to find that it ran hotter than it should have because it couldn't suck in enough air. I would have arranged the PCIe slots differently, IMO... Something to better accommodate two double-wide GPUs in X16 slots.

...Why is the second 4-port SATA header not bootable?

...Why is the 8-port LSI SAS/SATA RAID host limited to 3Gbps per port? Why does this RAID host seem to be capped at about 500MB/s? I can't get above 495MB/s whether I have 5 drives or 8 drives connected.

So, the Z820 isn't without its design flaws, but all things considered it's a great system.

I'm getting better performance across the board with the GTX690 video card than with Quadro cards. For those who absolutely need Quadro features, I would recommend a Quadro 4000 as primary GPU and a Tesla C2075 as a secondary if you have apps to support it. If you don't need a secondary, then a single Quadro 6000 is the way to go. If you don't need the extra Quadro features, the GTX690 is proving very effective, especially since it's a dual-GPU arrangement. The GTX690 is performing admirably here for CS6, especially in AE with multi-GPU support and in Resolve as well.
 
Björn Benckert said:
Question... does anybody know how big the difference is between this Z820 and my Z800.... is it what I guess a 20/820 difference in speed or?

Though I had the fastest one...the happiness caused but computer speed only last that long. LOL...
Click to expand...


Z800 uses the prior generation of the Xeon platform. So 5500 series CPUs and chipsets. That chipset is 3 years old, the CPUs are 2 years old if you bought anytime within the past 2 years. The RAM is 6 GT/s 1333MHz, CPUs max out at 6-cores each... If you bought the year prior to those options, then it would be the "Nehalem" series with 1066MHz RAM, up to 4 cores per CPU. The Z800 is cut from the same Xeon hardware as the 2009 and 2010 Mac Pro models. Feature for feature, the Z600 is the most similar to the Mac Pro.
 
I'd love to see an iMac with 4k and, let's say, 32GB of RAM and dual processors, that would be truely revolutionary...

Still: Right now, Windows-Workstations give more options and power.
 
I believe Apple will offer a new „Super-Pro-System“ when everything is „Retina-Ready“ and they can package it in a smart design and sell it in millions for less than $4k. That should happen somewhere in 2013 and at that time new 4K DSLRs from Canon etc will enter the market as well. Then external bus powered 1TB Thunderbolt SSDs (500 MB/s+) will be priced for less than $500. So I expect a new modular and not desktop design that would be too much pc-like and would not fit their streamlined hardware strategy.
Until then some of us need something else for today but many of us can or have to live with other solutions like the Retina Macbook Pro.
 
Jarred Land said:
There is only one reason why this tower does not have Thunderbolt.. because someone won't let Thunderbolt out of their grasp. Once they do, it will likely be a $50 card that you can slide in on a PC. That said.. thunderbolt really hasnt caught on.. probably for the same reason. I can count on one hand how many external thunderbolt drives there are, and half of those don't run fast enough to outpace USB 3.
Click to expand...

Yes, I think Apple having that period of exclusivity with TB was a very bad thing and hurt TB a lot, especially when Mac Pros weren't going to have Thunderbolt. But Intel is starting to license the tech to other companies and Asus has a motherboard with TB on it now. And is HP not going to include TB simply because there's not that many drives and peripherals that have it? What about a year from now when there's numerous TB drives and peripherals that can utilize the full capability of TB? TB is capable of being much faster and is daisy-chainable. USB can't be daisy-chained. Everyone that buys these towers will wish they had TB.
 
Hmm, if Apple have no more interest in high-end market, why don't they just remove the hardware limitations in OS X? It's ridiculous how people build their own custom Hackintoshes and buy completely legal copies of Mac OS X just because they love the way Apple made their OS and all what is related to that. I completely understand all that "build your own hardware" motto Apple sticks to, but times they are a-changin'. After all they use the same chipsets, same *cough* Gigabyte motherboards *cough*, same video accelerators etc. As for hardware drivers I'm sure it's not really a problem anymore.
 
Easy, transcode on a imac using compressor ;)
 
Cineform might have already eaten ProRes's lunch but for their pricing/licensing scheme. Now that they are part of GoPro who knows.

Where oh where is RedCode RGB??????????????

Seriously, this industry could really use a popular, scalable and platform agnostic codec for everything from initial transcoding to deliverables.

DNxHD and ProRes are too tied to their respective NLEs.

Cheers - #19
 
I NEVER thought I would EVER move back over to a PC after being a loyal Mac supporter since 2001. Over the past year they have let me down so hard that it pains me to say that I am making that jump. I haven't touched a PC in several years but maybe it won't be that painful. It is clear that Apple is nowhere near the company they once were when they enthusiastically catered to working pros in the film, photo and graphic design industry. Now they are all about tablets and phones. I guess HP is our next best friend.
 
Florian Stadler said:
So what do you do with your new HP machine if the client asks you deliver Quicktime Prores? Until there's an answer to that question there is no way.
Click to expand...

You use all the extra time you have to run the final product through a Mac? Seriously, a system like this plus Adobe's suite will run circles around Apple's current offerings.
 
Florian Stadler said:
So what do you do with your new HP machine if the client asks you deliver Quicktime Prores? Until there's an answer to that question there is no way.
Click to expand...


I agree 100% and for those who haven't been on a PC platform yet or are about to go to one now are in for a rude awakening. PCs are riddled with i/o issues and gamma shifting, it sucks, ask anyone.

Ask Assimilate how many PC based Scratch licenses they have sold in NYC in the last 2 years... the anwser is Zero.

What ever happened to that Matrox Hardware based Pro Res Encoder for PC. Thats what the world needs in a big way, that and world peace.
 
I like the idea of a RED OS, or if not a third party making a 'Pro OS'. Perhaps a linux based system that is stripped to the bare bones and optimised for all of the high end cards and works with the latest chipsets, interfaces etc.
Now that OSX is dirt cheap it's got me thinking that I'd cheerfully pay a few hundred bucks to a small company who just does the OS well. Not saying that OSX isn't awesome, but now I have my iPad and iPhone, I don't really need it on my workstation anymore.
 
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