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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 :)

New Mac Pro today ..?

Jeff Kilgroe said:
If you're going for a new Mac Pro, get the ATI 4870 card, unless you need to connect more than 2 monitors
Click to expand...

Jeff - is this based on a Red-specific reasoning (e.g. RedCine)? I'd like to find a card that plays well with Red apps, plus FCP, AfterEffects, Maya, etc. Also plan to do windows stuff via bootcamp or parallels on a regular basis.

Never owned a Mac (PC since '89, boyee) - but it seems like every time I research this, I end up with a collection of data pointing in both directions (ATI/NVidia). I think the conventional wisdom on the last round of Mac Pros was to get whatever's cheapest, and replace it with an ATI that wasn't available from Apple.

Anyone care to provide a summary of the GPU discussion, or link to one?
 
I say go for the ATI 4870... It's the superior option. Both it and the the nVidia GT-120 should run REDCINE and the other apps just fine.

With the last round of Mac Pros, the Geforce 8800GT and the aftermarket ATI 3870 were both good cards and offer very similar performance.
 
Just ordered the 2.93 with ATI 4870 (my pockets are feeling shock & awe)... 4-6 day shipping time. This time around will go with a third party RAID card as Jeff stated. I sure hope shipping doesn't get delayed... I have a terrible tracking OCD.
 
What happened to that other thread about Apple's new macs?
Did it turn into a anti apple slug fest and get deleted or something?
 
Dominique Grenier said:
I think I'll go with the GT-120 and wait for something better to come to the market.
Click to expand...

Considering Apple's previous GPU release schedules, you may be waiting for quite some time. I would definitely recommend you invest that extra $200 in the 4870. You can always sell it later on when you do upgrade....
 
J Davis said:
What happened to that other thread about Apple's new macs?
Did it turn into a anti apple slug fest and get deleted or something?
Click to expand...

I believe it did, I posted on there as the only person excited about the new release and it looks as though that thread has vanished.

Like many others who have been holding out for this new mac, I just trying to figure out which one will be the best to purchase, and will the 2.9 performance boost will be worth the price jump. Look forward to seeing some of the RED app crunch test to surface in the mean time. I usually buy my macs as stripped down as I can and just add the 3rd party goods along the way so I am not too concerned about what apple did or did not offer with it.

Also, 500 bucks for 16GB ram? Is this a typo?
 
J Davis said:
What happened to that other thread about Apple's new macs?
Did it turn into a anti apple slug fest and get deleted or something?
Click to expand...

Yeah I was very surprised it was deleted. I could see the thread getting locked but someone deleting the entire thread is kind of rude.
 
J Davis said:
What happened to that other thread about Apple's new macs?
Did it turn into a anti apple slug fest and get deleted or something?
Click to expand...

Unfortunately, it did. Thread totally blew up. :bye2: Oh well, we already have several threads on the topic. Some consolidation or locking of a few of them may be in order.

I'm still awaiting a response from CalDigit about their RAID card in the new systems. I don't foresee a problem just yet, but they also drug their feet on fixing some of their drivers for 10.5.6. I couldn't configure my SV2R in 10.5.6 until yesterday... :whistling:
 
Actually they're $624.99 each. The $5K price tag you have there is for 8 of them -- a full 32GB kit. So yeah, expensive, kinda...

In January '08, I paid $2200 for 16GB from OWC. In July, I paid about $750. Now it's under $300... :)

IMO, 16GB is plenty in these systems right now for most anything. In our industry, pretty much all the software is still 32bit anyway. 32GB will probably make sense as soon as we can have 16 physical cores in a box, which should happen by the end of this year.

Curran Giddens said:
Actually, the 4GB modules are still very expensive.

$5k

http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other World Computing/85MP3E4M32GK/
Click to expand...
 
I posted a link for cheap apple memory, maybe on previous page. Datamem.
They might be cheaper
 
Dont start telling me about physical 16 core, I cant hold out any longer! Thanks for the info Jeff, I also feel 16GB is more then what I need (for now ;). From what I gather there is no SDI graphics card I can put in this puppy? Is Kona 3 still my best way to go if I need SDI out?
 
I think the Kona3 is the best bet for SDI out right now, but no CS4 drivers yet. Not sure how well it works with the native R3D support in FCS or if it does and I'm interested to see how it works with the RED CS4 workflow once drivers are available.

Not sure what to recommend there. I'm hoping some options will pop up around NAB -- perhaps a new Kona board announcement or more software for the current hardware. You could theoretically put a Quadro 5600/5800 in the new Mac Pro that is flashed with the proper EFI. It has the SDI board option, but you would have to boot into Windows to use that SDI option -- no OSX support for it.

Something still tells me that yesterday's system update was just a preliminary release to get them on the market ASAP. I'm expecting some more options in the next month or two. Anyway, if you need one then you need one. If I had to buy right now, I'd go for the minimum RAM and HDD options, the ATI 4870 video card. Then do 4X 1.5TB HDDs and 16GB RAM on my own. I'd consider the CalDigit RAID card if I wanted a good solution that still supported boot camp with decent external RAID options. If bootcamp isn't important and I want more RAID options, then there's some other options out there.
 
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