Mac Pro / Red Rocket Configuration Advice...

[Claudio Bautista]

Hi guys,

I'm thinking on getting a battle tested Red Rocket Card, but before doing so I want to make sure my setup is correct.

I have a MacPro 5,1 configured as follows:

Slot 1: ATI RADEON 5770
Slot 2: Quadro FX4000
Slot 3: Decklink 4K Extreme
Slot 4: Decklink HDMI in/out card

So for all you savy RR card users… if I add the RedRocket card, where should I put it and what do you suggest I move or rearrange.

Thanks in advance,
claudio b.

 

[Eric Santiago]

You will need a CUBIX PCI Expander box.

Or something close to it.

 

[Bing Bailey]

Claudio

save your money. the red rocket card is about to become a paperweight. red have started doing gpu debayer with the latest version of redcinex and I'm getting 1/2 res on a GTX680. jarred said soon with a good graphics card the gpu debayer will outpace the original red rocket card. I own an RR card. as soon as GPU debayer is up to snuff I'll probably replace it with another graphics card.



if anything I'd replace the ATI card with 2 GB NVIDA GTX 680 for mac or a 4GB if you can get it flashed. if you have mavericks you can use a Titan CARD

 

[Adam Johnson]

Get a Titan and use it with Mavericks. Stunning results!

 

[Claudio Bautista]

Hi Eric, I have been giving thought to buying one but wanted to explore internal options at first.

Thanks,
c

 

[Claudio Bautista]

Hi Bing,

I've been looking around and am considering going the Titan route, however, do you guys think I would get any benefit from having that Quadro 4000 already there? I

If I get rid of the ATI card and keep both Nvidia cards, how will that add up and also, which would you use as the GUI card?

Thanks!
c

 

[Claudio Bautista]

Adam,

Have you implemented this setup within your workflow (adding a Titan and using it with Mavericks?) If so, what does your setup look like? And also, what are you cutting with?

Regards,
c

 

[Nick Timmons]

Depending on what applications you're running, the Rocket certainly isn't a paperweight yet, as much as I'd like it to be. I run a Titan on a 16-core Windows machine, and I'm still CPU-bound for the decode before the GPU does the debayer. My performance, at least for 5K full debayer in RCX for transcode, is superior to the Rocket, but for grading, I don't think losing the Rocket will be the best option, as you're gonna max out even a top-end system's CPU. Time will tell.

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

Hi guys,

I'm thinking on getting a battle tested Red Rocket Card, but before doing so I want to make sure my setup is correct.

I have a MacPro 5,1 configured as follows:

Slot 1: ATI RADEON 5770
Slot 2: Quadro FX4000
Slot 3: Decklink 4K Extreme
Slot 4: Decklink HDMI in/out card

So for all you savy RR card users… if I add the RedRocket card, where should I put it and what do you suggest I move or rearrange.

Thanks in advance,
claudio b.

Hmmm…. Quadro FX4000… If you have one of those, you may as well throw it away, it's not doing anything for you. Does not support CUDA or OpenCL acceleration in any meaningful way. If you happen to have a newer Quadro 4000 or K4000 -- yes, these are all different cards, then you're in better shape. However, the K4000 (current Kepler based model) and 4000 (last-gen Fermi based model) are on the weak side of things.

Best to not have mis-matched video cards if you can help it. I mean not mis-matched by brand or platform unless you keep them completely separate in their tasks. Now that we no longer need separate GUI cards for Resolve or other apps we get better results by using two of the same GPU to provide both GUI and dual GPU acceleration. Or use one powerful GPU for both GUI and acceleration and we can free up one of those precious slots for other things.

The 5770 card is actually not bad and does a decent job at providing OpenCL acceleration. Not as good as a newer model like the 6970 Mac Edition card. You may do best to replace both of those video cards with a single GTX680 or GTX780. That would free up your second slot for a Rocket card. At this point, I would recommend the Rocket-X, although they're not fully enabled and shipping in quantity just yet. If you decide on the original Rocket that's fine too, however I see its lifespan being limited. A GTX Titan seems to yield similar results to an original Rocket card for 1/3 the price of a battle-tested unit. Of course, GPU acceleration hasn't proliferated into the general R3D SDK and other apps just yet and the GeForce card doesn't give us 10bit output or SDI interfaces. The Titan is another consideration for the system as well, but you will want to add a supplementary power supply to do it right. For the GTX780 and Titan you will want to be running OSX Mavericks.