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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 :)

MBP retina running hot with Prores 442 render FCP X

Daniel Meador

Daniel Meador

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Anyone with recommendations regarding using a thunderbolt expansion chassis with a nvidia card to speed up 4K rendering? My new 4 core MBP goes to 96 degree core temp and shutdown in 1 minute of rendering. I could beef up my Maingear pc for $3k but no prores 422.
 
i'm taking my MBP retina to the Genius Bar this morning to have it checked out. Your right. When I get that warning message to shut it down and I see a core temp of 96 that comes up after only 1 min of rendering Prores 422 I shut it down to protect my MBP. So we will see what apple says and I'll get back with you. But this brings up another issue. First, I love mac. I use FCP X and am looking forward to adding Autodesk Smoke 2013. All Mac only programs. To deal with rendering times and heat issues I worked all night trying to figure out the options. They are as follows. I'd love feedback......

1) buy a new Mac Pro 2013 when it arrives. Serious drawbacks. Poor expandability. Only one processor socket (killer drawback). No upgrading video card (what?!). Don't get me wrong, I am anxious to see this computer. But in the meantime "arrives later this year" is holding me up. So buy it or not I still would pursue ......

2) upgrade my 2010 Mac Pro currently benchmarked 2.8 Ghz quad core xeon w3530 nephalem at 4213. (I mean that's pathetic!). Unfortunatley i can only max out at 6 cores as I have only 1 socket. But I can move up to a intel i7-980-x 6 core benchmark 8745. That double the speed and more cores along with power for GPU processing which FCP-X and Premiere like.

3) add a Red Rocket to #2.

4) use my MBP retina (with overheating resolved somehow) and add a thunderbold expansion chassis and a really big mean nVidia cuda card that hopefully will unload the CPU and existing graphs card.

5) Hackintosh a big bad 4K Maingear PC if that's possible.
 
Thanks to Bob. MBP on stand now. Just rendered a 5 min 4K R3D to animation codec in FCP X. Took only minutes (this MPB is fast. Benchmarks around 11,000). Temp with MBP off the table 90-93 degrees. Acceptable. Still interested in above options.
 
Noticed in the Red Rocket threads. And there goes option #4....

"Even with that, remember, Thunderbolt is basically the equivalent to a 4x lane PCIe. The RedRocket uses 8x (so you're only getting about half performance over Thunderbolt, which isn't horrible, but it isn't ideal). A graphics card uses 16x. So you'd get about a quater performance. Using both over Thunderbolt simultaneously is a whole lot of money for not much performance.

it is stated that you get lower performance from a GPU attached through Thunderbolt. Completely honest and upfront. The limitations of the throughput mean that such a setup is only advantageous if you've already got the GPU, maybe an enclosure, and so your'e spending almost nothing to get a boost in performance. If I have $1k-$5k to spend on gear, it wouldn't be for either GPU or Red Rocket over THunderbolt, but then, I have a lot of other stuff I need to buy before I consider either of those in any capacity.]"
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Yeah even with Apples's new Mac Pro with new double speed thurnerbolt the thunderbolt is the bottleneck.

So a new Mac Pro will never be as fast as a Linux, Windows or Hackintosh machine with wide PCIe 16x slots.
 
The Rocket is a Gen1 x8 lane card, while TB is dual Gen2 x4 lane (bi-directional), so the Rocket isn't losing much, if anything, by running over TB.
 
just rendered r3d to 4k prores 444 on MBPR. Now with cooling fan. Never hotter then 92 degrees. No more warning too hot messages. Rendered 5 minutes of 4K in about 25 min.
 
Just a little update on what I have learned. First, the warning of overheating was coming from an app I downloaded on the apple app store. The user manually puts in any top temp that will result in the app alerting you to the high temp and shutting down computer. It comes set at about 90 degrees. The point is that my MPBR wasn't alerting me too over heating, the third party app was. Second, I've read that the MBPR is built to handle up to 105 degrees. Once I removed the app and let the MBPR render ProRes 422 it never climbed to more that 92 to 96 degrees. Well within the acceptible specs. I use a laptop fan which helps. I'd prefer to set in on a block of ice instead. I think I read somewhere where Apple will not allow it's machines to burn up processors.
 
I've run CPU's on MBP's for years in the 120ºish range without issue. Which sensor are you reading? There are several in any modern computer. Front Side Bus, CPU 1, CPU 2, GPU, North Bridge, South Bridge, Back Plane, Hard Drive... The list can be extensive depending on configuration. Some components can get much hotter than others as well so 96º for one component might mean the other is much higher.
 
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