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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 :)

Im buying a new MAC PRO but what cards and computer would you get?

B

BigLu

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So im going to buy a new MAC Pro this weekend designed around RED workflow.

Biggest question whats the benefit of the graphics cards out there.
NVIDIA GeForece GT 120 512MB or get the
ATI Radeon HD 4870 512MB Price difference is $180 which does not bother me but whats the difference between the 2 cards anybody?

And whats the deal with RAM
im buying lots of after market ram but is that a bad move?

Thank you.
Luis
 
Thank you Blair
Im going with the ATI.
now how about RAM im going to buy After market ram and go all out 32GB
there is a set of 32GB after market ram for about $1,000
can i be buying cheap crappy ram???
such a thing
what are your guys thoughts and experience with that.
running following apps

FCP 09'
Color
CS4 lots of AE
Red Alert
Red Cine
Red Rushes
Primere
Compressor
Red Rocket

Thanks.
Luis
 
My suggestion is to contact Torrey at Silverado. They build custom Mac towers specifically for Red workflows and AFAIK they are the only authorized Red Rocket dealer besides Red itself. If they can ship you a MacPro with a tested and fully functioning Red Rocket, or at least the promise to support that combo as it evolves they could save you a ton of headaches. The other good thing about a VAR that knows their stuff is that they know which 3rd party RAM is reliable.

just my 2 cents.

Full disclosure, I know the Silverado guys but I would just keep my trap shut if I didn't think they knew their tech.

Cheers - #19
 
Most folks I know use OWC (www.macsales.com) for RAM. Apple has dropped prices recently on RAM but it still way cheaper to go third party if you are putting in a bunch.
 
I also recommend the OWC RAM. There are some cheaper options out there, but you have to be careful with those, especially with the 1066MHz DDR3 for the Nehalem Mac Pros. Many of the cheaper options have slower timings and higher latency.

I have the nVidia GTX285 in my new Mac Pro. It's an awesome card... when I boot into Windows. ;) On OSX it's still faster than the ATI 4870, but doesn't run as smooth and the drivers are garbage with lots of little issues. Unfortunately, I don't expect any driver updates coming anytime soon. Possibly with Snow Leopard, or at least I hope so. The system came with an ATI 4870 and I pulled that to put in the GTX. I'm seriously thinking of going back to the ATI, but for now I'm waiting because I have two 30" displays hooked up to this system. And the 4870 doesn't have two DVI ports, but rather one DVI and one DisplayPort. Unfortunately, the only DisplayPort to DVI|DL converter on the market comes from Apple and it's junk -- it won't properly and reliably drive a 30" LCD at 2560x1600 resolution -- not even their own cinema displays. What a joke.

I think I'm going to ditch the second 30" LCD and the nVidia card and go back to the ATI card. And then I'll get a 52" Panny plasma to use as a second display and also feed another input on that monitor from the RED Rocket.
 
Another plug for OWC. The only time I bought RAM from someone other than OWC, my system crashed. I'm sure that's not the norm, but OWC seems very diligent about making sure you match the right RAM for your system. Not everybody does that.
 
Anybody have thoughts on which Mac pro for the buck? I'm thinking the 2 x 2.26GHz quad core myself.

Thanks
 
Another vote for Torrey and Silverado. I bought my system from them last year and have had great service and support from Torrey himself. He will give you great advice based upon good experience and knowledge of what is available and not try and oversell you what you don't need.
 
Thanks Mark!!

TL
 
OWC RAM works great. I bought some from them for my Macbook Pro and I haven't had any problems with it. Not trying to steal business away from Torrey, just speaking from my own personal experience.
 
torster said:
Jerrod,

Actually...we use Crucial RAM whenever we can. They are the only RAM vendor we've never had a crash with--and that includes stock RAM from Apple.

Tor
-----------------------------------------------
Torrey Loomis
President & CEO - Silverado Systems, Inc.
(916) 760-0032 • FAX (916) 404-5258
torrey@silverado.cc
http://www.Silverado.cc

Silverado Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/silveradosys
StudioBuilder blog at http://silveradosys.blogspot.com
Click to expand...

Hmm, I'll have to keep that in mind when I eventually upgrade my MBP.
 
torster said:
Thanks Mark!!

TL
Click to expand...

Silverado rocks for sure. BOught my 17" Im typing this from them and hope to order 3 systems when we complete buildout.

Question Torrey.

Will the ATI 4870 work in a MAC PRO? with
1. RR CARD
2. KONA CARD
3. RAID CARD
4. ATI CARD

IF yes, what order? I have RR breakout box on order with my original RR which we have and havent opened yet.

Right now we have a 2.93 Nehalem with 16GB RAM

?? I read on here somwhere there were space limitations and some PCI-e and PCI-x were lane challenged ??

cant find the thread. Jeff Kilgore mentioned some suggestions, thanks
 
Last edited:
Tim Whitcomb said:
Question Torrey.

Will the ATI 4870 work in a MAC PRO? with
1. RR CARD
2. KONA CARD
3. RAID CARD
4. ATI CARD

IF yes, what order?
Click to expand...

Tim,

RAID card on top, then Kona, then RR, finally ATI on the bottom.

"The Mac Pro (Early 2009) computers implement PCI Express revision 2.0 for all four slots. Slots 1 and 2 are x16 slots, and slots 3 and 4 are x4 slots."

That came from here:

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2838

All the slots mechanically work with 16-lane cards, but RR requires 8x speed.

The Kona card actually doesn't need that much speed. As a nostalgic note--you could drop a Kona 1 card in a Power Mac G4 tower and get uncompressed HD out of a SCSI array way before PCIe.

Also--just noticed the RR manual is posted here:

http://reduser.net/RedRocket_Install_Guide.pdf

Torrey
-----------------------------------------------
Torrey Loomis
President & CEO - Silverado Systems, Inc.
(916) 760-0032 • FAX (916) 404-5258
torrey@silverado.cc
http://www.Silverado.cc

Silverado Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/silveradosys
StudioBuilder blog at http://silveradosys.blogspot.com
 
No. Spend the dough on RAM, it serves you much better when transcoding in RR or CF.
 
torster said:
Tim,

RAID card on top, then Kona, then RR, finally ATI on the bottom.

"The Mac Pro (Early 2009) computers implement PCI Express revision 2.0 for all four slots. Slots 1 and 2 are x16 slots, and slots 3 and 4 are x4 slots."

That came from here:

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2838

All the slots mechanically work with 16-lane cards, but RR requires 8x speed.

The Kona card actually doesn't need that much speed. As a nostalgic note--you could drop a Kona 1 card in a Power Mac G4 tower and get uncompressed HD out of a SCSI array way before PCIe.

Also--just noticed the RR manual is posted here:

http://reduser.net/RedRocket_Install_Guide.pdf

Torrey
-----------------------------------------------
Torrey Loomis
President & CEO - Silverado Systems, Inc.
(916) 760-0032 • FAX (916) 404-5258
torrey@silverado.cc
http://www.Silverado.cc

Silverado Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/silveradosys
StudioBuilder blog at http://silveradosys.blogspot.com
Click to expand...

Thanks Torrey good to know. Before we order 3 systems from you we
are testing the config we have now...

Really appreciate this...
 
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