Red Rocket vs Nvidia Maximus

[Jim Woo]

Hi everyone.

Just wondering if there are any lucky fellas working with Nvidia Maximus equipped gear and Adobe Premiere Pro. How does Maximus measures up against a Rocket card playing back R3D files? Thank you in advance for your feedback!

JW

[Les Dittert]

Nvidia does zero for decoding the compression of the r3d, and that is what is slow for pure playback speed.

[Vico Martin]

Sorry Les but Nvidia does what Adobe Mercury Engine said, and it´s saying: De-Bayer fast!
I work with RR and can feel how CS6 and Nvidia aproximate, they are coming really fast.

I think there are threats open about this, like Luigi´s one, comment there or moderators come to scold.

[Jeff Kilgroe]

The two technologies actually work well together as they do different things. As of this time the wavelet decompression only happens on the CPUs or the RED Rocket (if you have it). So having the Rocket will assist in the wavelet decode, which actually accounts for the majority of compute needs on the R3D footage. After that step comes the de-bayer or de-mosaic process. Then comes all the other tasks such as LUT application, transformations, scaling, etc.. This is where the GPUs or compute cards can step in to assist.

nVidia Maximus is really just a marketing name for systems that are "approved" or supported out of the box for use with multi-GPU or compute-card processing. Pretty much any nVidia SLI compliant system will do this.

Looks like CS6 can take advantage of multiple GPUs for acceleration, so we should see a nice boost, but the Rocket is always going to be of assistance until the RED SDK starts offloading wavelet decode tasks to other devices. It should be noted, however, that the Rocket decode is always a full resolution and full quality decode. Doing a lower resolution/quality decode from the wavelet, especially on multiprocessor systems with 8 cores or better right now, can actually be faster than the Rocket if you're looking for lower resolution playback and response while editing. Where the Rocket truly shines is in final render where you do want to pull frames at full resolution/ quality. Also it helps in smaller ways like tweaking looks and RMDs in the source settings panels as it allows for real-time response in an application area not accelerated by MPE. The Rocket is also insanely useful with After Effects.

[luigivaltulini]

The two technologies actually work well together as they do different things. As of this time the wavelet decompression only happens on the CPUs or the RED Rocket (if you have it). So having the Rocket will assist in the wavelet decode, which actually accounts for the majority of compute needs on the R3D footage. After that step comes the de-bayer or de-mosaic process. Then comes all the other tasks such as LUT application, transformations, scaling, etc.. This is where the GPUs or compute cards can step in to assist.

nVidia Maximus is really just a marketing name for systems that are "approved" or supported out of the box for use with multi-GPU or compute-card processing. Pretty much any nVidia SLI compliant system will do this.

Looks like CS6 can take advantage of multiple GPUs for acceleration, so we should see a nice boost, but the Rocket is always going to be of assistance until the RED SDK starts offloading wavelet decode tasks to other devices. It should be noted, however, that the Rocket decode is always a full resolution and full quality decode. Doing a lower resolution/quality decode from the wavelet, especially on multiprocessor systems with 8 cores or better right now, can actually be faster than the Rocket if you're looking for lower resolution playback and response while editing. Where the Rocket truly shines is in final render where you do want to pull frames at full resolution/ quality. Also it helps in smaller ways like tweaking looks and RMDs in the source settings panels as it allows for real-time response in an application area not accelerated by MPE. The Rocket is also insanely useful with After Effects.

Perfect.

[Les Dittert]

Like Jeff and Me said.
Compression decode not helped by Nvidia OR Mercury engine.
All of these companies use the same code to get to the r3d. ( The SDK from RED has the code in it )
Debayer does not take much horsepower to do, but it's still nice it can be offloaded.
It does sound like CS6 is good at multiple threads of RED decoding to get better performance. Uses cores more.

So again, for the sake of clarity and education: Decoding r3d is two steps, wavelet decompression of 4 bitplanes, and then the 'debayer' of those bitplanes to make a color image.


Sorry Les but Nvidia does what Adobe Mercury Engine said, and it´s saying: De-Bayer fast!
I work with RR and can feel how CS6 and Nvidia aproximate, they are coming really fast.

I think there are threats open about this, like Luigi´s one, comment there or moderators come to scold.

[Jim Woo]

Thank you everyone! Jeff, many, many thanks!

[Will Holman]

Hey guys,
I'm putting together my editing/color correcting suite and I need help picking the most effective equipment. I know that there is a lot of hesitation in buying equipment because of the uncertainty around the next generation of MBP's but I need to get to work now! Whether it's a macbook pro with thunderbolt and raid storage, mink R, iMac, or mac pro whatever I get I want to be able to integrate what ever new ted comes in the next 6 months or so. I'm shot with the Epic and I'm planing to with Adobe CS6, Davinci Resolve, and possibly Smoke. I would appreciate any advice. Thanks

Will

[Jeff Kilgroe]

Hey Will, it's a tough nut to crack that's for sure.

If you want to standardize on the Mac platform, your best bet at the moment is probably a second-hand or refurbished Mac Pro. You can always go new if you're feeling spendy, but there seems to be quite a few used ones around right now. The iMac is also a good option too and the current 2011 model iMac can perform some tasks faster than a Mac Pro. Overall the Mac Pro (8 or 16 core) will outperform all the other iMac, mini, MBP options. iMac or used 8-core Mac Pro will probably run about the same price... You get more CPU horsepower from the Mac Pro and you don't need to spend $600~$700 and up on a separate box if you want to add a Rocket card.

Obviously, the advantage to going with the MBP is the mobility... However, that is somewhat debatable. Sure, the MBP itself is mobile, but after you start adding on things like fast external RAID, Rocket, etc.. It's not so portable anymore. Sure you could still fit it all in a large backpack, but I think we're looking at two different approaches here, each with their own applications.

You're talking about an editing and coloring suite, so I think it's best to focus on larger fixed-position hardware.

What do you already have, if anything? Are you starting completely from scratch or do you have some kit already -- monitors, storage, etc..?

Based on the applications listed, the Mac Pro tower seems like your best option over the iMac -- Resolve does best with multiple GPUs, and CS6 supports multiple GPUs now as well. Of course, multiple GPUs in a Mac Pro is another pandora's box yet to open, but at least it's an option. Something you can't do with an iMac. While it's fun to watch people at NAB demo Smoke on an iMac, the reality of it is that it takes forever and a day to render our your projects from Smoke when on an iMac... Same with other transcodes or renders.

You have some more options for CPU power if you want to consider the PC market and running Windows. This doesn't work so well for those who need to work in ProRes a lot. And as much as I like building PCs and having all that power under the hood, I still prefer OSX myself for the actual operating system.

Biggest down-side to the Mac Pro (and even most new PC systems) is the lack of PCIe slots and lanes. People like to complain about the Mac Pro and its slots, but the fact is, it's a problem that plagues most all computers these days. They're just not as expandable as many of us "pros" would like them to be. With the Mac Pro, you lose one slot for your primary GPU. Then based on the apps you have listed, you will want a BMD Decklink HD Extreme card and a good SAS/eSATA card. That leaves you with one slot... Do you install a RED Rocket? Do you use a second GPU to accelerate Resolve and CS6? Or perhaps a PCIe expansion box so you can work both of them into the mix...

[Mike Tiffee]

CS6 supports multiple GPUs now as well.

I have two GTX 580's. Will CS6 now use both of them?

[Jeff Kilgroe]

I have two GTX 580's. Will CS6 now use both of them?

I want to say yes, but I'm going to wait until the official release on monday before I really dive in and see. There are people on here running CS6 and reporting different things, it seems that there's more than one version of CS6 floating about. The Adobe guys keep telling everyone to wait for the release version.

[Artino Ahmadi]

What's the take on the new 690 cards?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130781


will the extra gpu make a big improvement over a single 680 when it comes to our use?

[Will Holman]

Jeff you are the man!
I am starting from scratch so this informations is exactly what I need. I think the expansion box is the way to go but which one do you recommend. And which raid storage works best with 4k red files at the best price point. I'm looking at the Eizo CG275W as a color monitor and a panasonic plasma as my viewing monitor. Along with the Mac Pro and the cards you mentioned I think I'm well on my way until the next wave of new tech comes out.

Thanks again,
Will

[Jeff Kilgroe]

What's the take on the new 690 cards?

For now, I think the jury is still out on that one. Currently the only 680 cards available have 2GB RAM, which comes up short on advanced CUDA processing tasks, as well as intense games or 3D design work. So serious benchmarking has not been done anywhere that I've seen. I'm going to be testing both the 680 and 690 cards myself, but I'm waiting for the 4GB 680's to appear (should be this month) and we should see a 6GB or 8GB 690 card at some point in the next two months or so.

The 690 looks interesting. Even though it's a dual-GPU design, the card can actually run as two independent GPUs (as in two 680's in SLI mode), or it can be recognized as a single GPU. This differs from the design of the GTX 590, which always appeared as dual GTX 580's.

The new Kepler GPU design nVidia has gone with is a radical shift away from the previous Fermi architecture. We have a lot more [smaller, less powerful] cores. In most of the benchmarks out there, the integer performance for CUDA compute is about 10% better on the stock 680 than it is on the stock 580. FP32 is about 1/3 as fast on the new 680 vs. the 580. And FP64 is 1/24th as fast on the 680 vs. the 580. So, the new Kepler cards may or may not be a good choice, depending on what you will do most on your system.

nVidia is working on new Quadro and Tesla products based on the Kepler architecture, but they have hinted at the new pro cards being spec'd quite differently from the Geforce GTX series Kepler cards. No real info out there at the moment other than wild speculation. And even with that, there's not much..


Jeff you are the man!
I am starting from scratch so this informations is exactly what I need. I think the expansion box is the way to go but which one do you recommend. And which raid storage works best with 4k red files at the best price point. I'm looking at the Eizo CG275W as a color monitor and a panasonic plasma as my viewing monitor. Along with the Mac Pro and the cards you mentioned I think I'm well on my way until the next wave of new tech comes out.


For the expansion box, I would recommend either the Cyclone or the Cubix. Cubix is a bit more off-the-shelf and they have several options. The GPU Xpander 4-slot model (4 single-spaced slots) is a good one and that's what I was using until just recently. It was 100% reliable, but I did have to replace the fan, which was way too loud. There is a lengthy discussion around here on these units somewhere.. PCIe v3.0 versions of these expanders should hit the market this year and that will further increase the available bandwidth to installed cards. However, that doesn't help us at the moment, especially with the Mac Pro in its current form and we don't know what the future Mac lineup will offer.

As for your monitors, the CG275W is a fine monitor, but I wouldn't choose it for a grade 1 display. For that, I would try to use the plasma monitor you mentioned and get it properly calibrated. Preliminary reports of the new Panasonic VT50 series look really good and they are shipping the 65" model now, I believe the 50" or 54" is also shipping or will within the next week or two. If the timing on these doesn't work, look back to the older VT25 series if you can find one. The VT30 model that the VT50 replaces has a "feature" where the display will dynamically adjust brightness in relation to how much total voltage is being pumped to the screen. It's a flawed design that you can't turn off.

With the Mac Pro, you will want to install quite a bit of RAM going forward with 64bit apps and doing R3D workflow.

Lots of options out there for RAID storage. The more you look at all those options, the more they all look the same... because, in the end, most of them are. Walk the show floor at NAB and it seems that every other booth has RAID cabinets and storage options and while they all have a few different design tweaks or their own look, they're all still built around the same RAID modules from ATTO, Symbios, and LSI (installed in their cabinets). You connect them via eSATA, but usually via mini-SAS connectors to the proper RAID or other host controller in your system... ATTO, ARECA, LSI, HighPoint, etc...

I feel the same way about RAID storage that I do about computers/workstations. If I'm going to spend the money to buy a pre-assembled solution, there needs to be value there in terms of support, good warranty coverage, excellent build quality, etc.. Otherwise, I may as well buy all the parts and put them together myself. Which is usually what ends up happening in order to get what I want. If you want the more expensive solution, but with excellent support, take a look at MAXX DIGITAL -- their EVO2K and EVO4K products are great. For less expensive products where you'll be on your own in most cases if you need support and warranty coverage (most hard drives have 3 to 5 year warranties from the manufacturers), there are options out there like the Sans-Digital SAS enclosures. $550 for an empty box with SAS backplane and power supply. Connect them to an ATTO R680 controller and throw in a bunch of matched hard drives and off you go. If you want something in-between, there are a lot of options on the "small" end of things. The G-Tech G-Speed ES Pro units are real nice. You can connect two of those to a controller like the ATTO R680 and with 8x 3TB HDDs in RAID-5, you end up with 18TB of usable space that runs at 800MB/s or better.

Once again, RAID storage becomes a question of how much time you have to fiddle with it, your budget, needs for capacity and speed, etc...

I strongly recommend a good backup solution along with your storage. The HP LTO-5 desktop unit along with the ATTO SAS controllers and BRU-PE software has proven to be bullet-proof on the Mac platform. I highly recommend this. And with a proper means of backup / archival, and if you stick to a regular plan or strategy to manage it, you'll find you don't need as much online RAID storage. The main reason to go with 12TB or more in online storage becomes less a question of capacity, but more of performance. To get the MB/s speed up, it takes several hard drives. Current drives in the 2TB and 3TB capacities add up quick, you're at 12 or 16 TB before you know it. :) And that's a double-edged sword in some ways. Great to have the capacity and not worry about micro-managing your storage to keep space open. Bad because we can still usually find ways to fill it up and often with stuff we may not want to simply delete... Takes longer to backup and uses more backup media.

[Artino Ahmadi]

Thanks Jeff, I'm interested to hear what you find with the 680 vs 690. Every review out there seems to be tailored only to gaming so its hard to figure out how any of these translate to ME playback in premiere. I picked up a 680 myself for my new build, after doing the simple 'hack' it works great for me. Although I did upgrade from a 4 year old system with a radeon card.

Please post up your findings after you've done some tests!

[Will Keir]

"With the Mac Pro, you will want to install quite a bit of RAM going forward with 64bit apps and doing R3D workflow."

Jeff, the Mac Pro's, 4,1 version can take 96GB of RAM. Most applications say 8GB is fine. I was thinking about getting 32GB because the 4GB chips are the sweet spot at OWC, so how much ram are we talking for these apps?

24GB, 32GB, 64GB? I'd bet 96GB is just overkill.

[Scott Brown]

Hi Jeff

I'm looking for some advice - I have a 2nd generation, early 2008 Mac Pro (8 core Xeon 5400 2 x 2.8 Ghz) that I'm looking to use for CS6 until such time Apple release a new Mac Pro or we switch over to PC.

What would be the best graphics card to add for CS 6 (currently I have a very old ATI RAdeon HD2600) and also is it worth adding additional RAM - I currently have 8 GB (4 x 2GB DIMM).

I'm also wondering if we'd see much gain in performance if we added a SSD for our primary drive or perhaps a WD Velociraptor?

Thanks Jeff, I appreciate all the help and advice you give to fellow RED user on the site.

Best wishes

Scott

[Jeff Kilgroe]

For the '08 Mac Pro, 16GB would be a good amount for everything to just work. 32GB would be even better... By the time you're running anything that could max out the 32GB, it's going to be straining the system in other ways. '08 Mac Pro, or that generation of the Xeon platform, has a dual-channel memory controller. It performs best with all slots populated with the same type and capacity of modules. So, 8x2GB is ideal, 8x4GB is even better.

The Mc Pro 4,1 (2009) model is the same, but faster. The memory operates at 1066MHz up from 800MHz on the '08 tower. The '09 "Nehalem" Xeons also brought with them a triple-channel memory controller. So even though their are 8 DIMM slots in a dual processor '09 and '10 Mac Pro, you actually get the best performance when you run 3 pairs of memory modules or 6 total. You can populate all the sockets, but then the RAM actually drops back to dual-channel mode and your performance decreases. For the '09 "Nehalem" and '10 "Westmere", I would recommend 24GB as a good amount, but 48GB is much better and ideal. Given the 6 module sweet spot, the next jump would be to the OSX maximum of 96GB, but it is indeed overkill in most situations. Although, I would probably do the 96GB if I had a 2010 12-core Mac Pro and will be doing heavy R3D work.

As a frame of reference, I have one of my new 16-core (32 thread) E5 systems up and running and currently have 64GB installed in it. It's not enough for this system!!! To maximize all 32 threads for heavy rendering tasks in Modo / Maya, etc.. or to load up R3D footage and scrub back and forth, within the capabilities of this system, 64GB is cramped. I actually have more RAM on back-order for it -- total of 128GB for this system and that will help a lot. My inbound HP Z820 workstation will arrive with 64GB. I should've ordered it with the 128GB. Once the 16GB and 32GB modules arrive and drop in price I'm going straight to 256GB or even the 512GB maximum!!! It's amazing what you can do with a lot of RAM when the system and software are powerful enough to thrash through it...

In my 2009 Mac Pro here, I had 24GB installed in it, then pulled that and put 16GB in it to sell it... A couple sales fell through and everyone was wanting more RAM. So now I've upped it to 48GB as of late last night. Still for sale, but I also wouldn't mind keeping it. Great system overall... :)

[Michael Millichamp]

Jeff,

Y u so smartz?

[Jeff Whitehurst]

I propose someone start a "Ask Jeff Kilgroe Anything" thread...

[Scott Brown]

:w00t: Jeff

Your IT knowledge rules supreme on Red User! Thanks for your detailed response and helpful look to the future. I used memory from Crucial in this system so I'll order up another 4 x 2GB Dimms and add them asap.

Any thoughts of what graphics card to buy to help with CS6 performance?

Thanks again.

Best wishes

Scott

[Michael Millichamp]

I propose someone start a "Ask Jeff Kilgroe Anything" thread...

+1 On that.

[Nick Timmons]

I run 32 GB, and it's great for buffering longer playback in Red Cine-X.

[Steve Sherrick]

Running Mac Pro (3.1) with 24GB RAM, GT 120, GTX285, RR , OS 10.7.3 on an OWC SSD drive and seeing some very good performance with CS 6, especially considering the age of the computer. Going to be doing some After Effects testing tomorrow to try the new caching in AE. Still in preliminary stages here with this CS 6 version but got to say, so far it's living up to the buildup. A bigger, faster, stronger machine will probably see huge gains over what I can do.

[Scott Brown]

Been looking at graphics card options for our CS6 setup and it looks like things are very limited on Mac - Quadro 4000 or GTX285 looks like the only viable cards.

Depressing when you see all the fantastic cards available for PC! What's the limiting factor here, is it a lack of Mac drivers for Nvidia cards?

Scott

[Frank Cueto]

Right now I am 100% totally confused. In the PC world i am TORN between the new 690 ($1,000) or a similarly priced quadro card. the issue is that the quadro card seems woefully underpowered when compared to the 690. What to do? Wait for new quadro cards? Buy a 690 (what is the downside in my Lightwave/maya/cs6 application?)

Thanks for the insight

-Frank Cueto

[Clay Glendenning]

Been looking at graphics card options for our CS6 setup and it looks like things are very limited on Mac - Quadro 4000 or GTX285 looks like the only viable cards.

Depressing when you see all the fantastic cards available for PC! What's the limiting factor here, is it a lack of Mac drivers for Nvidia cards?

Scott

You can use most cards. They are not officially listed by Adobe as supported, but they work if:
(a) they are on the list of cuda/opengl cards supported by Adobe in CS6 (even if it says PC only)
(b) the card is supported natively in OSX (as of February the newest OSX lion build added a ton of support)
(c) you add the name of the card to Adobe's text file for supported cards in your CS6 install.

I did this for a GTX 570 with 2.5gb VRAM. Works splendidly. I would not be surprised if it worked without having to modify the text file in the official release.

[Bob Gruen]

Scott: Buy the Quadro, or wait till the next gen Quadro comes out. The Quadros do 10 bit signals, which helps when you start doing color grading (I like my NEC PA Series monitor BTW).

[Subhadip Sen]

Scott: Buy the Quadro, or wait till the next gen Quadro comes out. The Quadros do 10 bit signals, which helps when you start doing color grading (I like my NEC PA Series monitor BTW).

OS X GDI is limited to 8-bit. 10-bit with Quadro will work only on Windows with supported apps.

[Will Keir]

Thanks Jeff.

That RAM pairing for 2009 "Nehalem" is slots 1-6 correct? Leave 7, 8 empty?

If I fill all 8, what's the speed decrease I am looking at? All ram goes down RAM 1066 to 800?


For the '08 Mac Pro, 16GB would be a good amount for everything to just work. 32GB would be even better... By the time you're running anything that could max out the 32GB, it's going to be straining the system in other ways. '08 Mac Pro, or that generation of the Xeon platform, has a dual-channel memory controller. It performs best with all slots populated with the same type and capacity of modules. So, 8x2GB is ideal, 8x4GB is even better.

The Mc Pro 4,1 (2009) model is the same, but faster. The memory operates at 1066MHz up from 800MHz on the '08 tower. The '09 "Nehalem" Xeons also brought with them a triple-channel memory controller. So even though their are 8 DIMM slots in a dual processor '09 and '10 Mac Pro, you actually get the best performance when you run 3 pairs of memory modules or 6 total. You can populate all the sockets, but then the RAM actually drops back to dual-channel mode and your performance decreases. For the '09 "Nehalem" and '10 "Westmere", I would recommend 24GB as a good amount, but 48GB is much better and ideal. Given the 6 module sweet spot, the next jump would be to the OSX maximum of 96GB, but it is indeed overkill in most situations. Although, I would probably do the 96GB if I had a 2010 12-core Mac Pro and will be doing heavy R3D work.

As a frame of reference, I have one of my new 16-core (32 thread) E5 systems up and running and currently have 64GB installed in it. It's not enough for this system!!! To maximize all 32 threads for heavy rendering tasks in Modo / Maya, etc.. or to load up R3D footage and scrub back and forth, within the capabilities of this system, 64GB is cramped. I actually have more RAM on back-order for it -- total of 128GB for this system and that will help a lot. My inbound HP Z820 workstation will arrive with 64GB. I should've ordered it with the 128GB. Once the 16GB and 32GB modules arrive and drop in price I'm going straight to 256GB or even the 512GB maximum!!! It's amazing what you can do with a lot of RAM when the system and software are powerful enough to thrash through it...

In my 2009 Mac Pro here, I had 24GB installed in it, then pulled that and put 16GB in it to sell it... A couple sales fell through and everyone was wanting more RAM. So now I've upped it to 48GB as of late last night. Still for sale, but I also wouldn't mind keeping it. Great system overall... :)

[Kenny Mosher]

Running Mac Pro (3.1) with 24GB RAM, GT 120, GTX285, RR , OS 10.7.3 on an OWC SSD drive and seeing some very good performance with CS 6, especially considering the age of the computer. Going to be doing some After Effects testing tomorrow to try the new caching in AE. Still in preliminary stages here with this CS 6 version but got to say, so far it's living up to the buildup. A bigger, faster, stronger machine will probably see huge gains over what I can do.

Hey Steve
If you don't mind me asking, what slots do you have your cards in? I have a 3,1 Mac Pro with a gtx 580, gt 120, RR an esata card. Right now I have the 580 in slot 1, the RR in slot 2, the GT 120 in 3, and the Esata Card in 4. I think this is best for performance. Thoughts?

[Ryan Hamblin]

Is the nvidia card in the retina MacBook pro supported?