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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 Pros are here!

Does anyone if multiple GPUs will speed up rendertimes (in OSX or bootcamp)

Gunleik

As in doing multiple renders at once or just all the GPUs on one render?
 
I'm confused, I thought this was happening at Macworld. Does this mean no new MacBook Pros?

There may be an announcement of new MacBook Pros, but the mobile Penryn chips haven't been released by Intel yet.

The desktop Penryn was released by Intel weeks ago.

Curran if you put any of the nVidia cards in your shipping times goes up to 3 to 5 weeks.

I see. Nvidia is about 3x slower on OSX unless they wrote better drivers. I would have to see some testing results before getting the Quadro FX 5600. Or, maybe get the 5600 and just boot into Windows XP when using RedCine.
 
I'm confused, I thought this was happening at Macworld. Does this mean no new MacBook Pros?

Probably means that there's gonna ba tons of fun at MacWorld, but MW is usually more consume oriented. My guess is that this is timed now because

1. it was overdue
2. apple wants to be 1st with "all 8-core"
3. to spread publicity
4. to not take the spin away from whatever they plan for MW

As to my multiple GPU question, I would love to see some kind of distributed rendering pipeline for macs in generall and RedCine specifically.
It would be better to speed up single renders, but parallell renders (with 4 cards) sounds good too... :)

The new pricepoint makes it viable to buy two 8-core "base" machines and dedicate one to Shake (and other) renders while working on the other.

Me like.

Gunleik
 
I'm confused, I thought this was happening at Macworld. Does this mean no new MacBook Pros?

Those are coming soon. Intel decided to unleash all of it's new CPUs today after holding the first ones back. They now have 32 CPUs based on the new 45nm technology coming on the market in the upcoming quarter.
 
Doesn't seem like a huge speed jump over existing 8 cores... it'll be nice to see where this goes.
 
Doesn't seem like a huge speed jump over existing 8 cores... it'll be nice to see where this goes.

It's a lot more cycles pr $, though.

About 1/2 price for similar setup as the previous 8-core.

Gunleik
 
Probably means that there's gonna ba tons of fun at MacWorld, but MW is usually more consume oriented. My guess is that this is timed now because

1. it was overdue
2. apple wants to be 1st with "all 8-core"
3. to spread publicity
4. to not take the spin away from whatever they plan for MW

As to my multiple GPU question, I would love to see some kind of distributed rendering pipeline for macs in generall and RedCine specifically.
It would be better to speed up single renders, but parallell renders (with 4 cards) sounds good too... :)

The new pricepoint makes it viable to buy two 8-core "base" machines and dedicate one to Shake (and other) renders while working on the other.

Me like.

Gunleik

I think having multiple renders distributed to the cards will be easier to implement than having all of them focus on one since there is no interconnect between the cards apart from the PCIe bus. Unless the MacPro board can utilize Crossfire or Nvidia SLI (all the cards support their respective implementations) you're looking at a 100% software-based solution which might be pretty unstable or poorly performing without as much memory as you can cram into the box. The previous upper level MacPros did quite well when you did multiple video renderings but the single rendering performance wasn't much better than the ones with less powerful CPUs. As for MacWorld, Apple is likely to focus attention on the new mobile devices that they have been working on with Intel as well as the next generation iPod and iPhone as those are the bread and butter of Apple's business these days.
 
And still no Blu-ray. WTF:angry03:

Apple won't go Blu-Ray until the media creation software is up to par with what the replicators are supporting (many of the homemade discs are made using software that does not support the latest standards that the replicators require) and they can get a Blu-Ray based SuperDrive for a reasonable OEM price.
 
I'm confused, I thought this was happening at Macworld. Does this mean no new MacBook Pros?

Don't buy now! Wait just one week until the announcements on Tuesday to see what else they have coming.

Why now? This is "just an upgrade". Apple does it all the time to not waste time with the announcement.

I say don't buy now because they may be announcing new monitors at Macworld (multi-touch / 4K) who knows. They haven't upgraded in a long time so I wouldn't put it past them. If you buy the monitor at the same time, you can get the 3 year warranty (recommended) for both the monitor and the computer for the same price as the computer alone--so it is best to buy them together.

If you buy now then you end up buying a different monitor and you'll be pissed if something magic is coming.

Also, There isn't anything saying that it isn't a blu-ray drive. Apple does it all the time when they ship something simple and then at the announcement say "oh, by the way it is a blu-ray in there". I have no idea if it is true in this case or not, but they have done similar things in the past (802-11-n)

Hold off clicking order for just one week! Maybe just a short delay but you maybe very happy you did.
 
I disagree with Thom. There's no reason for them to "hide" Blu-ray functionality, especially since it would cost them at least $100 more per unit. It's possible new displays with iSights are coming down the pipeline (sorry, multi-touch desktop monitors ain't happenin'), but that seems even less impressive than the new processors. Why wouldn't they release them concurrently?

That said, if you've already been waiting for months, maybe another week isn't a big deal.
 
I went with the cheap gfx card until things get sorted out with the drivers.

I just got 3 X brand new 750GB Seagate Barracuda's last week. I'll also pull my Blu-ray drive from my G5 and order some more RAM from OWC.

Congrats Curran! I think you're the first on Reduser to order a new MacPro!
Hopefully you'll give us an update on how it runs Redcine & Red Alert. I'm ready to pull the trigger but I'll wait till Macworld to see what else Apple has to empty my bank account!:greedy:

Well, I went with the free shipping so I may not be the first to get it....
 
I'm confused, I thought this was happening at Macworld. Does this mean no new MacBook Pros?

Intel isn't ready to ship the new mobile CPUs and chipsets. So no new Macbook Pros until that happens... I'm thinking April.

The Mac Pro update is nice, but I'm going to wait until after MacWorld. I was hoping for a Blu-Ray offering. I'm betting we'll see Blu-Ray authoring and Blu-Ray drives available for the Mac Pro as a config option when NAB rolls around. Or I will be very confused if that doesn't happen.

I think it's finally time to unload that G5 quad. I'm going to miss her... A damn nice system really.
 
I went with the cheap gfx card until things get sorted out with the drivers.

Probably a good idea. I'd recommend the 8800GT card as being better, but until Apple fixes their sluggish driver functions that are affecting REDCINE, I'd probably do the same. The 8800GT isn't really that much faster than the ATI 2600 anyway, but the $200 upgrade is nice for the extra video RAM if you're a gamer or do a lot of 3D work.

The Quadro 5600 is overkill for 99% of everyone except for the most dedicated CAD and 3D / visualization workstations. If you don't know why you would need to spend the $2600 upgrade for the Quadro, then you don't need it.
 
Does anyone know if the new MacPros (or even the current ones) have to have ram installed in pairs? My budget just went up on a new computer, but I'm also getting 2x the computer now for about $200 extra. This is really going to help that RedCine exporting to other formats:)

Matthew
 
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