CUBIX Desktop 4 or Cyclone 2707 Expander for Davinci Resolve 5K r3d

[Zack Birlew]

Our Cubix has a love/hate relationship with us at Babs Do Productions. Sometimes it will just stop working and I have to reset the BIOS or re-insert the interface card to get it working on our BOXX workstation. Now, this could be due to several things, I'm thinking it's the funky BOXX computer case that feels slightly too tight for the motherboard and expansion slots, but it's not too big of a deal to fix. Other than that, it's absolutely awesome! It runs a Quadro 6000 and AJA Kona 3G with ease. I've been considering one for my Mac Pro but it's a 2007 model so may not benefit as much under OSX due to the lack of support for nVidia cards beyond the 8800GT and old Quadro 4500. We're definitely keeping our eyes out for alternatives and new PCI Express expansion options (ie. Thunderbolt) but I don't think anyone could go wrong with any of these.

[Asif Limbada]

+1 regarding the Cyclone love.

I had problems getting my 2707 chassis working with Resolve on a 2008 Mac Pro (bottom line: it DOESN'T work, and I wish BMD would be explicit about this fact in their Resolve Config guide), but since upgrading to a 2010 Mac Pro, everything works insanely great with Resolve 8.1.

And Cyclone techsupport is probably the best I have ever experienced in my near-20 years of being in this career.

As mentioned, make sure you get the 1500W version of the 2707 if you want to use it with Resolve.

Thanks Mel, I am glad to see another recommendation for the Cyclone 2707. Mine is waiting in DHL Hub here in Sharjah, will receive it tomorrow morning! YAY!

[Asif Limbada]

Asif,

Anytime you're in the West Hollywood area drop by and we'll show your around ... also, some good restaurants near by!

One quick thing, you may have mis-understood the slot configuration of the 2707 ... there are only FIVE slots available ... two of them have room for double-width cards .... the other three are single width cards only .... the first three are x16 lane PCIe slots and the last two only x8 lane.

However, the Quadro 4000 is a single width card so for optimum performance with Q4000 cards you could actually install 1 x Q4000 in the Mac Pro and then 3x Q4000 in the 2707 (first three x16 lane slots) plus the RedRocket (slot #4) and still have one slot free.

That would give you pretty good performance on DV Resolve 8.1

Let us know how you get on.

Cheers,
Neil

Dear Neil,

I will sure make a visit and how do you know I am a foodie ;-).
My bad on 6 Slot, I should have checked on it that it is 5 Slot. Neil, one more thing, if you put 3 cuda card + 1 red rocket in the expansion slot with 80gbps bandwidth, wouldn't that choke the bus and make it much slower?

I mean how does CUDA cards work in conjunction with Resolve and r3d?

[Asif Limbada]

Our Cubix has a love/hate relationship with us at Babs Do Productions. Sometimes it will just stop working and I have to reset the BIOS or re-insert the interface card to get it working on our BOXX workstation. Now, this could be due to several things, I'm thinking it's the funky BOXX computer case that feels slightly too tight for the motherboard and expansion slots, but it's not too big of a deal to fix. Other than that, it's absolutely awesome! It runs a Quadro 6000 and AJA Kona 3G with ease. I've been considering one for my Mac Pro but it's a 2007 model so may not benefit as much under OSX due to the lack of support for nVidia cards beyond the 8800GT and old Quadro 4500. We're definitely keeping our eyes out for alternatives and new PCI Express expansion options (ie. Thunderbolt) but I don't think anyone could go wrong with any of these.

Thanks Zack for the heads up on Cubix. As far as alternative to PCIe is concerned, I think it will take at least a year for it to be fully supported, Thunderbolt. Hopefully Apple updates Mac Pro's or else we will switch to Windows. hehehe.

[Asif Limbada]

Just got my Cyclone, installed Quadro 4000 in that. And the Mac Pro Slot 1 installed another 4000. I will be testing them soon.

Now my dilemma is that I have a spare GT120. I know in Davinci, I can use GT120 as my GUI Card and the other 2 4000 cards in the Expander will boost performance. However, is it the same for Adobe Premiere CS5.5 or it just uses one Quadro 4000 in Slot 1 of Mac Pro through which my GUI Monitors are connected? I am asking this because, I do not want to buy another Quadro 4000.

[Jarek Zabczynski]

Is it silly to think you can build a RAID array inside the Cyclone case running off a RAID Card? Would be too convenient wouldn't it? LOL!

[Neil W. Smith]

Is it silly to think you can build a RAID array inside the Cyclone case running off a RAID Card? Would be too convenient wouldn't it? LOL!

Funny you should say that .... in one of our Cyclone 2707 expansion boxes we have 3 x GTX 285s and 12TB of RAID .... don't necessarily recommend using the Cyclone RAID for heavy online real time processing with multiple nodes but as near-line back-up it works like a dream. Just put the RAID controller in the 5th slot and put a bunch of 2TB or 3TB drives inside the enclosure.

Cyclone box now weighs a ton but very convenient ... let me know if you try it as your only source of real-time storage.

Cheers,
Neil

[Dustin Cross]

I have 10 drive raid 6 and LTO4 drive inside my Cyclone. I got a different 4u case so I could use drive trays, but it has been working great for well over a year and the speed is great. Here is a pic of my Cyclone below a Mac Tower to get a better idea.

Dusty

[Gabriele Turchi]

nice dustin ...
did yo replaced the cyclone chassis yourself?

thanks

g

[Dustin Cross]

Gabriele,

I did everything myself.


Dusty