HP 820 Tower - RED EDITION

[Axel Mertes]

I don't!!



I want several...

Hi Ketch,

guess you should stay with not to many visions at once, otherwise someone will call the doctore...

Cheers,
Axel

 

[Eric Santiago]

For those researching the Z820, HP has it for $4999 base. Thats the 8-Core without a display card, 4GB RAM and 500GB HD.
Its also on sale here LINK

 

[Detlev Eller]

Just out of curiosity, I have seen several people on this thread claim that MAC OS is better than Windows. How so? I love Windows 7. It does everything I need it to do. The few times I have tried to use a Mac, it seems like a toy to me, like it's somehow been dumbed down a little bit, for people who are not good with computers? I don't mean this to sound offensive. I have actually seen this as a selling point. "It's so easy to use." Am I wrong about this?

Obviously people who are very expert users and builders tend to work on PCs, mainly. I am talking about gamers, overclockers, etc.

... i used to build boxes and stuff back then ... until i overheard someone saying ... "if this guy knew what he knows about pc on the mac, he would be invaluable" ... got me thinking .... about the "why" ...
it was a JUMP back then ... and i personally never looked back.

I cannot speak for anything windows of today .... since i don´t touch it. this is not marketing talk or something, it is just lived reality and productivity over the years.

it may be, that the latest "windows" is more stable, doesn´t eat system files or behaves "normal" when adding a new card or stuff ...
and HP of all companies would be rated very high on the "trust factor" side of things ... ;-)


still,
i prefer to have a little less powered machine for the time being and work with it, rather than having to "live under the table" fixing "windows boxes" again.


lifestyle choice as someone put it.


Rule number one (the only one): it must work.

this rule means, "it" must work as i think as a creator, not make me bend to think and work within the limited worldview of a techie. (speaking only for myself here).

the mac was liberating - and i never forget. this experience is nothing that anyone without the experience of both worlds could ever speak about.





(amen)

lol



P.S: i remember well, it took me 3 months to UNLEARN the complicated system stuff thinking on the windows machines ... and get used to the "easy stuff" .... then it was all up to the sky and i started creating.



Anyhow, this is just to chime in and have someone at Apple read and listen to RED, as i take it, there is communication going on.

I love it, that HP stepped up, took the ball and provides this machine. great. For many users - excellent (!).

 

[Axel Mertes]

I'm still rocking my HP xw8600 dual Xeon - best designed case I ever saw.

We have tons of xw9300 and xw8400 around. The case is great yes (and 19" fitting...).

Even better is the z800 case (we have 3 around), but the PSUs must be from HP which can become a problem in future.

I prefer the PCs for their expandability. With just 4 slots most machines we have would not work.

Example: In the grading suite we have Quadro 5800 + SDI, BMD SDI card, FC controller, PCIe SSD, optional Rocket... That does not work on a MAC, in a single case, no way. And I still have slots free and can add more drives. And its SOOOOOOO CALM.

Honestly, no MAC PRO stays calm under action. HP has watercooling...

Axel

 

[Elsie N]

Maybe we look at reducing demand instead of increasing supply: Design better compression algorithms that have less demand on computer resources. Kinda like developing cars that get 100mpg rather than "drill baby drill". We should not need PC's with their 14 card slots and gigaporn specs. The answer to everything is to think of a more efficient, sustainable way to proceed - not a more powerful one. Computing power produces size and heat - Epic et all does not need more raw power. It's needs ever improving math to reduce it's resource footprint in my workflow.

I kind of use your approach in everyday life... led light bulbs, using fans instead of air conditioning, flipping the breaker on my oven and clothes dryer to use instead an outdoor clothes line to dry my wash and a magnetic induction hot plate or glass bowl infra red cooker or microwave to cook my food.

But when it comes to shooting footage, I will forego sustainability and use the 6k Dragon sensor in the super computing Epic X and whatever Horse Power (so THAT'S what HP stands for... just realized) I can afford that saves me time and labor to get my projects off the floor and out the door to whatever destination they are intended.

The sooner that's done, the quicker I can get back to shooting new content.

 

[Brian Merlen]

I have used PC's since DOS, but after years of troubleshooting I went to Snow Leopard and I am very pleased with the stability of it, and even Lion. Compared to a decade of blue screens I am quite happy with my current system. I have been using a windows 7 system at my current freelance position (provided by them, a Z400 HP) and surprisingly it has also been fairly stable. Still crashing once in a while, but better then vista and some of their recent PC OS options.

I am glad to see Red and HP making this new workstation and hope to use one some day, but in the mean time I am going to hold out on purchasing decisions as long as possible. I need write offs this year so something will be bought, just not sure yet if its a workstation or scarlet... but in the mean time waiting is my current strategy until I meet with my CPA and find out exactly how much write offs I will need. You gotta love the IRS and how they let you buy production toys instead of paying the gov't. Yes I love the IRS, I said it...:sifone:

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

OK, Jeff.
Looking forward for your new benchmarks. This HP Z820 seems a really good workstation, except for that "design flaw" which leaves no room for another dual-slot GPU.
By the way, If I had to choose between the Quadro 6000 and GTX 690, I'd go for the Quadro simply because its driver enables 10-bit output.

You can install two dual-slot GPUs, it just eats up other slots. All in how you choose to configure the system. With one dual-slot GPU in there now, I also have a BMD Decklink HD Extreme 3D card, RED Rocket and an ATTO H680. I plan to replace the H680 card with a bigger/better RAID card. After doing that, I still have one free X16 slot.

I've attached screenshots for the BMD tests. One for the Vertex 4 SSD, but it still needs the firmware upgrade. The other is for the onboard LSI RAID with 5 x 2TB Hitachi UltraStar HDD's connected in RAID-0.

 

[Eric Santiago]

You can install two dual-slot GPUs, it just eats up other slots. All in how you choose to configure the system. With one dual-slot GPU in there now, I also have a BMD Decklink HD Extreme 3D card, RED Rocket and an ATTO H680. I plan to replace the H680 card with a bigger/better RAID card. After doing that, I still have one free X16 slot.

I've attached screenshots for the BMD tests. One for the Vertex 4 SSD, but it still needs the firmware upgrade. The other is for the onboard LSI RAID with 5 x 2TB Hitachi UltraStar HDD's connected in RAID-0.

Jeff are you testing a base Z820 not an actual RED HP?

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

This system was ordered from HP, it's not a RED HP. Same thing, but I don't have the internal SSD readers.

If RED / Tekserve are bundling the Rocket and SSD readers with these systems at about the $10K pricepoint and there's a Quadro 4000 or better GPU in there, it will be a steal. I paid over $8K from HP (after their usual 20% BS discount and whatnot) to get a system with NO GPU, dual 8-core E5-2687W liquid-cooled CPUs, 64GB RAM, Blu-Ray writer and a single 2TB HDD. I've upgraded the RAM, added HDDs, added GPUs, etc... Found out the hard way that to use the empty front bays you have to order drive trays separately at $40 each...

 

[Jarred Land]

Ok...who wants one of these? :devil:

heh heh heh sexy. I Like your little Thunderbolt RED ROCKET. If only thunderbolt was fast enough for the Rocket...

 

[Eric Santiago]

heh heh heh sexy. I Like your little Thunderbolt RED ROCKET. If only thunderbolt was fast enough for the Rocket...

The only thing I would change/add is an extended keyboard. cant use them minis with other pro apps

 

[Alan Skinner]

Now if we could only get the HP logo replaced with a RED logo.

I'm going to glue my RED SawBlade badge over it!!!

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

The only thing I would change/add is an extended keyboard. cant use them minis with other pro apps

Yeah the mini keyboards suck for anything but general typing. Too bad Apple doesn't make a wireless version of their full size keyboard. Just about every "pro" Mac user I know wants such a thing. Anyway the Logitech K750 is a pretty good alternative and no batteries to replace.

If/when Apple does update the Mac Pro, I want a whole new design. The current tower design is almost 11 years old now -- yes, seriously! That design == do not want!

 

[Zeb B]

I kind of use your approach in everyday life... led light bulbs, using fans instead of air conditioning, flipping the breaker on my oven and clothes dryer to use instead an outdoor clothes line to dry my wash and a magnetic induction hot plate or glass bowl infra red cooker or microwave to cook my food.

But when it comes to shooting footage, I will forego sustainability and use the 6k Dragon sensor in the super computing Epic X and whatever Horse Power (so THAT'S what HP stands for... just realized) I can afford that saves me time and labor to get my projects off the floor and out the door to whatever destination they are intended.

The sooner that's done, the quicker I can get back to shooting new content.

You both missed and made my point. In LED light bulbs you get the same lumens for much less wattage consumption that hot wire Edison era technology. You can have both high performance AND low resource demand if you focus on innovation rather than brute horse power (HP, horse power . . . as in buggy whips . . . just realized that). Do you think for a second that the current RED Code compression is the ultimate technology of all times? My point is this: rather than continuing the arms race of bigger more powerful CPU's maybe we find a way to have a 50mbs bandwidth be all we need for stunning 5K images in a camera that does not need a fan. If owing a RED means that I have to get a PC gamer scale, liquid cooled boner box then I don't own a RED anymore. I'll be looking for a more elegant solution, with better math behind it, that can run perfectly on computer that I can buy off the retail shelf at a reasonable cost.

The problem is not with Apple and it's tower in waiting - it's a mindset of bigger is always better . . . but in the gear selling business that's what you do.

Efficiency of Resource Utilization always wins in the long term - be that finances, energy or human potential.

 

[Steven Caesare]

RED trying to move me to a PC is like the tail wagging this dog. No thanks. Movie cameras don't determine my work habits or lifestyle choices. I hope it never comes to a choice of who to support: RED or Apple?

Odd. I don't consider using the approriate tool for a professional job a "lifestyle" choice.

-sc

 

[Adam Welch]

Ok...who wants one of these? :devil:

That is like a dream come true!

 

[Tom Lowe]

NTFS vs HFS. Everyone backs up there mags with Mac laptops on set so you get your footage on HFS drives. PCs are NTFS so you need special software to see the drives, MacDrive. This software is better now but it sucked a couple years ago. Now you have to copy the footage. PCs and FW800 don't play nice. FW is created by apple so go figure... I never was able to use FW on any of the PC.
Esata worked ok but was not stable at all, lots of bad copies and unmounting, most of the time I would be getting footage on a Rugged drive and there is no Esata, FW didn't work so I would have to use USB, very reliable but very slow. USB saved my life more times than 1

Why use firewire? I have been using aSATA for the last two years, even when I was in the field shooting "TimeScapes", and it has never let me down. I also now have the USB 3 Red Station and it's fantastic! How long will Macs continue to be the computer of choice on set as more and more and more switch from Mac/FCP to Windows/Adobe?

So I had all kinds of I/O issues getting files in and more importantly getting renders out. Tons of renders not completeing due to I/O fallout. I can't tell you how many morning I would walk into my Color grade suite thinking that the machine would have completed rendering all night and it would be sitting there idle on the start up screen. CRASH. its a horrible feeling and way to start your day.

Ok you made it through your render now you need to copy to your footage to a drive, Great here we go again, Cant use the Esata, cant use the FW, ok Ill use the USB, at 7MB/sec. That'll take 17 hours....
now there is USB3 thank god.

In short, My biggest gripe with Windows is it just doesn't command the I/O to professional standards. maybe USB 3 will cure this disease.

Defragging,
We move tons of data in and out of these machines, if you throw a TB onto your raid on a PC, you better give it another couple of hours to defrag or you will not get good playback or perfomance. (non issue with MAC)

Pro Res Gamma Shifts

Your Client wants Pro Res, sorry not going to happen here you need a mac. Ok I realize this an I'm prepared for it, I have a mac sitting in the same Rackbox as the PC, they are networked, I can render to DnxHD and then batch to ProRes in FCP or compressor.
This works but if you have a client in the session grading and then give him the Pro Res that is a render from a DnxHD, there will be gamma shifts, and contrast issues and your client will be pissed and disappointed. This issue has plagued the Finishing world ever since ProRes and Dnxhd came to the market.

With my 2008 Mac with a Nvidia 4000 card it a hit on the cuda cores but everything works, everything copies first try, renders properly, if the client asks for pro res and dnxhd they match. I can hot swap drives. I can have FCP projects open on the same system and grab clip name from cuts that I'm conforming.

In general everything works, renders, copies. The only issue I have had is Nvidia Driver related, and that not PC or Mac.

I'd love to run my 6000 card again, if this HP is awesome and a hardware based Pro Res encoder comes out for PC, Id think about switching back to PC for the cuda cores but until then I'd rather guarantee the least number of problems.

Mac just seems like a toy because its so well streamlined and user friendly.

I actually see ProRes as part of the problem. Why is not available on PC? That is the question. In my opinion, you cannot take an operating system that only accounts for 10% of computers and expect everyone else to comply with its standards. My feeling is that Apple is too controlling. Why not use Cineform? Why not use DnxHD? I for one will not work with Prores at all, because it's a closed standard. Also, quicktime gamma is horrendous. I don't get those problems with Cineform AVI, for example, and obviously not with DPX. Even Jim has ranted and raved here about Apple's gamma issues.

But thanks for this post, Paul. It does help me to understand better why people prefer Mac to PC. I just think some of these ideas, like bluescreens, are outdated. I have not seen a bluescreen in years on my i7 machine. Then again, I skipped Vista. I just kept using XP until Windows 7 came out, so things have always been stable for me. I do admit that Vista sucked.

 

[Brad Webb]

Yeah the mini keyboards suck for anything but general typing. Too bad Apple doesn't make a wireless version of their full size keyboard. Just about every "pro" Mac user I know wants such a thing. Anyway the Logitech K750 is a pretty good alternative and no batteries to replace.

If/when Apple does update the Mac Pro, I want a whole new design. The current tower design is almost 11 years old now -- yes, seriously! That design == do not want!

They used to, and I have two of them. Might be willing to sell 1.

Here's a link to what I have http://www.amazon.com/Apple-Wireles...0300&sr=8-13&keywords=apple+wireless+keyboard

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

Yeah, Brad they used to... I have a few of those myself. The new style is so much better, IMO. Too bad they didn't continue the full size wireless trend when they changed keyboard designs. I used to think I liked the older style better with the larger keys with greater range of motion, but now prefer the newer ones. They're more ergonomic, or have proven to be after a heck of a lot of use.

 

[Axel Mertes]

You can install two dual-slot GPUs, it just eats up other slots. All in how you choose to configure the system. With one dual-slot GPU in there now, I also have a BMD Decklink HD Extreme 3D card, RED Rocket and an ATTO H680. I plan to replace the H680 card with a bigger/better RAID card. After doing that, I still have one free X16 slot.

I've attached screenshots for the BMD tests. One for the Vertex 4 SSD, but it still needs the firmware upgrade. The other is for the onboard LSI RAID with 5 x 2TB Hitachi UltraStar HDD's connected in RAID-0.

Consider something like the OCZ RevoDrive 3x2 or better. Here a benchmark of our OCZ RevoDrive 3x2 240GByte running on a HP z800 dual i7 sixcore 2.66 GHz:

We get easily up to 1,000 MByte/s writes and up to 1,500 MByte/s reads. And thats just one of these cards, we can easily stripe 2. Or get the newer once, we go like 2.8+ GByte/s each. Or use a 6in1 front loading 2.5" in 5.25" frame with 6 OCZ Vertex3 MAXIOPS and get in the same realm...

We have them in every workstation now.

Cheers,
Axel