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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 :)

MacPro 5.1 / Cubix setup for Resolve and Premiere

Ulf Krentz

Ulf Krentz

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I currently use a cMP 5.1 and have a GTX Titan 6GB (Mac flashed) in Slot 1, Cubix card in 2, Decklink 4K extreme in 3 and a Sonnet SSD Raid0 in Slot 4. The Cubix is equipped with an EVGA GTX 980 4GB SC and is speeding the system very well (I tested a couple of weird FX nodes in Resolve and speed rises from 11fps to 20fps) So now I´m tempted to fit a second one of those (which would be easy to find and reasonably cheap). Any ideas what to expect or advice against it? Suggestions to one or two other cards to fit the Cubix? Do graphic cards need to be the same type in the expander? Looking forward to hear some hands on experience.


Cheers, Ulf
 
We have same setup, with RR-X and 980 in a Cubix.

It works well.

But it's outdated tech - the Mac Pro 5.1 is OLD.

Ultimately, looks like PC or Linux for us...down the road.
 
Thanks Nick, sure it´s legacy stuff and I don´t want to waste too much more money into it, just wondering what to expect from an additional card which I probably find around 300 bucks. If this adds another significant speed bump this would be a no brainer and sufficient for now. I´m a Mac guy for decades but seriously lurking at PC as I unfortunately don´t see any new "pro stuff" coming from Apple.
 
Wait for the new GTX Titan X card that's coming out, should be beastly. You will definitely see an advantage with 2 cards in the expander.
 
Thank you for your replies so far :-)

Joel, so two of those would mean some serious investment in an old system, according to Jake´s comment they would only be able to use 6 GB of Ram if I keep my Mac flashed Titan and being limited by the PCI 2.0 of the cMP I am wondering if this will have a significant advantage over just a second 4GB 980. What specific GTX Titan X are you referring to?

@Jake: The 6GB Titan and 4GB 980 share the same Type GPU? At least there is a good performance boost adding the expander vs the single Titan even if it drops to 4GB of usable RAM.
 
jake blackstone said:
Not if you use 980 as GUI only (don't tick "use GPU for compute")
Click to expand...

Ok, got it. So if I keep the Titan for a proper EFI screen and GUI only, what´s your advice for the expander? Wreck the 4GB 980 and get something else or just have the Titan with use GPU for compute and two 4GB 980 to share the tasks?
 
Ulf Krentz said:
Ok, got it. So if I keep the Titan for a proper EFI screen and GUI only, what´s your advice for the expander? Wreck the 4GB 980 and get something else or just have the Titan with use GPU for compute and two 4GB 980 to share the tasks?
Click to expand...

If you use Titan for GUI only, this will be a huge waste of a card. If you use all three, than your Titan will be used as well, but you'll be using only 4GB of the RAM on that card.
 
Ulf Krentz said:
So, just adding another GTX 980 4GB and use all three will be the sweet spot for me?
Click to expand...
Sure, it will work just fine. Although, have you tested how much better performance you get, when you use only Titan vs Titan+980? I suspect the difference will be very minimal. Try it and see for yourself. I suspect, adding a third card will not be that dramatic increase in the overall system performance, as may hope. I would recommend running a standard candle test, designed by your countryman Sasha Haber. You can find here:
http://www.carousel.hu/standardcandle/
It will help you in assessing the overall Resolve performance.
 
Jake, thanks for getting back. The speed values in my first post refers to Titan no Cubix vs Titan+Cubix with 1x 980 4GB. So the increase from 11fps to 20fps is not bad, I hope to reach realtime with a second 980. My question still is what to expect from two even more advanced graphic cards vs the two 980 4GB. My guess would be that it might not be worth the extra expense due to the PCI 2.0 and old hardware.
 
Ulf Krentz said:
Jake, thanks for getting back. The speed values in my first post refers to Titan no Cubix vs Titan+Cubix with 1x 980 4GB. So the increase from 11fps to 20fps is not bad, I hope to reach realtime with a second 980. My question still is what to expect from two even more advanced graphic cards vs the two 980 4GB. My guess would be that it might not be worth the extra expense due to the PCI 2.0 and old hardware.
Click to expand...

Yes, that is a good speed bump. Unfortunately there are other issues at play like CPU speed, RAM speed, buss speed, hard drives speed. If any one of those becomes a bottleneck, then the whole thing will come down like a house of cards. Optimizing the system is complex task, as you can go crazy with GPUs at the expense of your CPUs and all this GPU expense will go to waste. Unfortunately, 5.1 is very old computer by computer matrix. It has outdated CPUs and slow bus. You may be able to get a realtime playback at full resolution on some very low compression RAW images. But because de-compression is done by CPU and with those old CPUs, no matter how many GPUs you end up using, you will never be able to achieve realtime performance with high compression files. Also, I can't remember, but I think OS X limits number of GPUs to 2? I could be wrong on that one. If I'm right, then third 980 will definitely not work.
 
I was told those maxwell based GPUs won´t work with Adobe but should be fine for Resolve and also support multi GPUs, guess there´s only one way to find out ;-) So I´ll get another 980 and give it a try, probably a waste to get higher end cards and sink too much money in this legacy hardware, thank you for your advice. Will post my experience if anyone is interested. Cheers!
 
Received my second 980 today, another speed bump as expected, running nice and smooth with the three cards. For the record this is on OsX 10.11.5 with the Nvidia Web drivers.
 
Ulf Krentz said:
Received my second 980 today, another speed bump as expected, running nice and smooth with the three cards. For the record this is on OsX 10.11.5 with the Nvidia Web drivers.
Click to expand...

Curios as to how much of a bump you got with a third card...
 
jake blackstone said:
Curios as to how much of a bump you got with a third card...
Click to expand...

It went from 11 fps for the single Titan 6GB to 20fps for the Titan and one 980 up to real time (25fps) with the Titan and two 980 4Gb. The cache is filling up a bit faster than playback so my guess would be around 27/28fps. So this reflects what I was roughly expecting, I am very happy, much more fun to work with.
Thanks again for all your input!
 
Joel Voelker said:
Wait for the new GTX Titan X card that's coming out, should be beastly. You will definitely see an advantage with 2 cards in the expander.
Click to expand...

There is no assurance that there will be an Nvidia driver to support the new cards on the Mac.
 
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