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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

Thanks for weighing in guys...

Jeff you always have such fantastic input on this end of tech and much appreciate every input you give!!

Blair, that sounds like an insane machine,and as for last time I was at Luma Forge.... The Lab, I have seen what they can do... Question is, how big is that system and what is the cost...


But yeah that is what I have been struggling with Jeff, and I now see that the Mac Pro is really NO longer an option...

And while I am currently talking to the guys at Devil and Demon over at Silverdraft, which are reporting some serious results off my 6k Dragon R3D files I shared with them post NAB to build a Super computer capable to chew off Dragon like chocolate on a sunday afternoon while RRXless... This using Dual 9100 cards...

Their systems are big and NOT cheap...

But I'll follow up as I get ahed...

Fact is I need a system and I needed it now...

Traveling with it, will be inevitable...

So I'll need to get a super strong padded Peli style case for it end of story, same as with the 4k Monitor for the DIT station end of story.
 
Just hooked up my new 12 core MP . . . running Dragon 6K in RCX w/o RRX. Very workable throughput for small productions. Fuq PC's still - this is a real cool product
 
You can get a $70 add in card for the 820 to add Thunderbolt 2 ports to the HP 820! Woot.
 
I thought the New Mac Pro would bring back apple into the Pro Tower World again? I just dropped over 10 Grand for the New Mac Pro and you guys say its not that great? I have heard people saying that it handles 6K no problem and 4k with a ton of effects. Can someone on Mac side defend my purchase :)
 
Maingear makes custom Rocket-ready PC's... worth a look: https://www.maingear.com/custom/desktops/quantumshift/customize.php

I've been considering, but I'm going to wait for Intel's X99 refresh in June.

I don't understand people's various obsessions about Apple towers. Apple is not about power, it's about style. Always has been, always will be. When it comes to hardware, I could give a s**t about style: I want power.
 
Thomas Koch said:
You can get a $70 add in card for the 820 to add Thunderbolt 2 ports to the HP 820! Woot.
Click to expand...

It's $200 -- might be less if you configure with a new system. It only has *ONE* Thunderbolt 2 port and *ONE* DisplayPort connector. That is handy though as the DisplayPort signal is separate from TB bandwidth, so we can run a monitor through the card without cutting into the TB bandwidth. I would've preferred two TB2 ports sharing the same host as Apple did on the new MP.

EDIT> The DisplayPort connector is a pass-thru and to use it, it requires an internal DP output on your GPU. Most GPUs don't have this. It's somewhat of a curious design choice from HP.

That said, it's only just become available and it's kinda flakey. It forces us to run Windows 8.1 (A.K.A. Vista 2.0) for full functionality.

Yes, every Zx20 workstation owner should have this, IMO. Can't complain too much for a retrofit solution and I'm glad HP is offering these.

Still wish it was an X8 v2.0 card or X4 v3.0 card and had two full TB2 ports...

Tim Morten said:
I don't understand people's various obsessions about Apple towers. Apple is not about power, it's about style. Always has been, always will be. When it comes to hardware, I could give a s**t about style: I want power.
Click to expand...

Totally disagree with this statement. Apple does care about style, that is true. But they also care about build quality, and they're second to none in this department. They also care about performance. While they're not at the front edge with the most crushing benchmarks, they tune their hardware like crazy. The new MP will trounce any other single Xeon CPU workstation out there. Period.

Then there's OSX. A nicely refined and mature unix OS. As opposed to Windows, which is still a steaming pile of dog shit that is maintained as a highly insecure, busted-ass OS on purpose so as to perpetuate what has now become the multi-billion-dollar industry of secondary protection for your PC.

Windows is the necessary evil we must all face in order to have the freedom to assemble our ideal hardware configurations. Such is life...
 
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Jeff, your Windows opinion is... extreme. I had the privilege of spending some time with the systems group at MSFT. Deliberate crippling is a conspiracy theory. The MSFT systems team includes some of the finest engineers I've worked with, and the kernel is far from the 'stinking pile' you make it out to be. There is more than marketing behind its longevity and success - it is actually a remarkably well architected codebase.

It's okay to have a subjective preference for OSX... I don't share it. I also don't believe that Apple will ever be a performance leader in the areas that matter most to me. In the last two decades, I've yet to see Apple equal much less surpass PC graphics performance. This is in part due to lack of market share to spur driver development, but also in part due to a philosophy of walling their garden.

I have a lot of respect for you, I just don't share your opinion on these particular points.
 
With the way I stated it, it may seem a bit extreme, even a bit of a conspiracy theory. That said, I harbor no love for what Microsoft or their products -- Windows, Office, et. al. -- have become. Call it a conspiracy theory if you want, but I have spent the better part of my life building, maintaining and using computers, the vast majority all running some incarnation of a Microsoft OS. From the early days of MS-DOS up to now. If I had to put a number on it, I would wager that I have personally assembled more than 2500 computers in the last 15 years alone, with close to all of them being installed with Windows. I can also attest to the large number of Microsoft people I know and have known over the years. Some who are with the company today, some who are not.

Yes, the Windows kernel is a rather impressive piece of software engineering. Unfortunately, the conglomeration of crap surrounding it ranges from elegance to anything but, with the latter taking the lion's share. Entire industries have been built upon the shortcomings and inadequacies of the Windows OS. Every time Microsoft has spawned a new initiative to address some of these inadequacies, they are faced with law suits from multiple directions. Windows is also an OS that has gaping security holes and there is little to no effort from Microsoft to actually address them. We have constant little updates and fixes, most of which address the security issues by re-dressing them or attempting to disguise. One of the core motivational forces behind Windows development is to preserve backward compatibility at almost any cost. Poor development practices from third parties have been allowed and encouraged from the start. With the shift to the NT kernel in the mainstream Win2K product, some attempts were made at heightened security, but compatibility with Win9x practices were also maintained, circumventing most of the progressive advances. Microsoft gets sued every time they try to alter functionality of key security components, close back doors or offer up their own solutions to a problem where third parties already have a commercial solution in place. Call it industry coercion, that's a more apt description than intentional hampering of security development, and definitely more proper than calling it an outright conspiracy.

With that, it makes one wonder if Apple, or anyone else, had become the dominant OS provider, if the world would treat them any differently or if they would face most of the same issues. I believe they would face most of the same issues. Look at the state of the Mac OS before the transition to OS X. It suffered many of the same ills that have always plagued Windows, and at times in a more severe way.

I'm not an Apple fan-boy by any means. I don't pull any punches when discussing their shortcomings, inadequacies and outright blunders. The new Mac Pro is a really nice workstation, but as you say it's just not powerful enough for what many of us need. As is typical with many fresh Apple designs, it is already starting trends and I think Apple is on the right track here. But also in typical Apple fashion, it's too much, too soon. Many professionals still have a need for PCIe expansion or the need to connect legacy devices without expensive external converters or expansion boxes. Thunderbolt or similar external interfaces are indeed an ideal future, but that future isn't here just yet. Even if we're willing to try and make it happen, it's just not. The interfaces can't live up to their own bandwidth abilities with the way they're currently supported. Even if they could, the bandwidth is inadequate for many peripherals still used out there.

I do agree with you on PC hardware and the need to run Windows (and Linux on occasions where it fits). I own 8 to 10 PC's for every Mac here. Of the companies I own and run, I place Macs where it makes sense, PC's everywhere else, typically running Windows. A Linux server here and there.

…The only Microsoft software I dislike more than Windows is Office, or Office 365 in particular. Microsoft has become so complacent in their monopoly that the software has stagnated into an insult to modern productivity. They have the industry by the short and curlies, attempts by others to produce alternative products fail to woo the masses away from the de-facto turd that is MS Office. And yet the core product has not evolved in 20 years. The code base is mostly older than that. It's buggy, disorganized, lacking modern functionality, ugh… And the father of the whole Office 365 pay for the privilege of using our old software concept, Satya Nadella, is now in the driver's seat at MSFT. Oh, goody…
 
Windows vs Mac aside,

Jeff, I don't think I've ever seen you mention the SuperMicro systems. Their 4 GPU motherboards seem pretty unique in that they have double spaced x16 slots that don't block all the other slots in the system. The only downside seems to be the lack of native USB3.0, no?
 
Quite the contrary, Paul. I mention SuperMicro all the time -- or at least have in the past. Most all my Xeon builds are on SuperMicro motherboards. Haven't talked of them much recently, nor about any other Xeon motherboards specifically, as there hasn't been anything new to talk about. The E5-V2's and 1866MHz RDIMMs came along about 5 months ago or about there, but still all using the same hardware otherwise.

The lack of USB3.0 on the 4-way server boards is pretty much because they're targeted at the server market. I'm not sure why specifically or if there is a genuine reason for the USB3.0 host to be eliminated. Direct support for it is part of the C6xx chipset. OTOH, there are plenty of slots to add in a USB3.0 card. Would love to see a PCIe v2 X16 or v3 X8 GPIO card that adds 4 x Thunderbolt-2 ports. Not sure if that's plausible/ possible. HP went the way of a single port and we can only have one such card in a Z workstation. ASUS seems to be doing the same thing, but hasn't shipped anything yet, other than a similar proprietary card for a couple of their i7 desktop motherboards.
 
Paul J Steinberg said:
...I stand corrected. :)

I'm currently on a SuperMicro system, two generations old running dual Xeon X5650's and am waiting for my Dragon number to be called before I upgrade to a new SM system full with 3x Titan's and Rocket-X.
Click to expand...

With 3x titans, would you need Rocket-X? This relationship between Rocket and GPU processing is confusing. I've been working with a Rocket for three years now, but with Dragon coming, I (like many others) am trying to figure out the best bang for limited bucks between a system with a couple of fast GPUs and a RocketX-powered system. Anybody have any idea where the line is now?
 
I'm anxiously awaiting a Rocket-X here. No idea when it will arrive. So far, all the performance numbers I've seen don't say much. As of the last time I really paid attention, RED had not enabled all of the abilities or processing pipelines on the card and support for it in the SDK for apps other than Redcine-X was only just released about 60 days ago. With that, I think it's way too early to try and guess as to how it will perform.

That said, I think a Resolve system built atop dual Xeons with a Rocket-X and two or three powerful GPUs, could possibly chew through just about anything. We don't know specifics on performance, but it stands to reason that the Rocket-X will offload the bulk of the R3D decoding from the CPUs/ GPUs, freeing them up for everything else.
 
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