Help choosing motherboard for Resolve system PC?

[Paul J Steinberg]

Wow, does my head hurt looking at motherboards.

Spoke with Blackmagic tech support and cards that would be required to work with 4K/5K R3D's in HD resolution would be:
Quadro 4000 - Rendering
Quadro 600 - GUI
Red Rocket - Debayering
Decklink Extreme 3D - I/O


I'd like to go with the new Sandybridge-E processor/MB but Blackmagic say thats both of the Nvidia GPU's HAVE to be on x16 slots, then the RR would need a x8 slot. Blackmagic list the P9X79 Pro (http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/Int...specifications) but that board has as shared X16 lane that would become 2x x8 slots when the 2nd Nvidia card was installed with the RR.

The closest I've found is the Maximus IV Extreme Z (http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/Int...specifications) but it is the previous Sandybridge chipset.


BM made it sound like the absolute most important thing in the whole wide world is that both Nvidia cards stay in x16 slots so my question is, would I expect to see a significant performance hit using the Maxiumus board/4-core CPU vs the newer Sandybridge-E P9X79 board/6-core CPU?

Does anyone know of a X79 motherboard with at least two x16 PCIe slots and two x8 slots?

Man, my head hurts just typing that.

Any insight would be greatly appreciated. I'm at the absolute end of my nerd-rope.

[Rohit Gupta]

On the P9X79, you have 2 x16 slots - use them for a Q600 and a fast CUDA card. For a choice of certified CUDA cards, please refer to the Windows configuration guide on the BMD website.

There is a x8 slot in which you can use the Red Rocket. The Red Rocket is anyway a x8 card so you don't lose any performance.

You can get a USB 3.0 based Decklink card for monitoring - models supported are listed in our configuration guide too.

Do not use the 3rd x16 card as that will cause bandwidth sharing with the CUDA card.

[Paul J Steinberg]

Thanks for the quick reply Rohit but I need HDSDI output for monitoring and I don't see any USB3 cards with HDSDI outputs. Also, this system will be portable so the Extreme 3D card with it's HDSDI ouputs right on the back of the card is much neater than a fantail connector.

[Rohit Gupta]

Well the single-processor motherboards have limitations in terms of PCI-E lanes. I would recommend going for the dual-Xeon Supermicro based configuration if you need all the PCI-E slots. It's also detailed in the Resolve for Windows configuration guide including slot placements.

[Jeff Kilgroe]

If you're willing to consider a dual-processor Xeon solution, I would wait a bit if you can. The current i55xx chipset offerings are 3 years old and the update is literally due in the next several weeks.

For single-processor SandyBridge LGA2011 motherboards, take a look at the ASUS Rampage IV Extreme. All around awesome motherboard. A bit pricey, but it pretty much has everything on it and it performs great (I'm running one in my latest PC and running Resolve with it).

As for the video cards, the suggestion of the lowly Quadro 600 combined with the Quadro 4000 is good for Resolve, but not much else. What do you intend to run with the system in addition to Resolve? I would suggest running a GTX580 as your primary GPU card if you plan to run Premiere or other GPU (CUDA) accelerated apps. Then for Resolve, for a secondary GPU, another GTX580 will outperform the Quadro 4000 and will cost less. The drawback is the GTX580 consumes two slot spaces and two aux PCIe power connectors. It's a monster. The Quadro 4000 is pricey and plenty powerful in most regards and takes up a single slot space.

Anyway, the Quadro 600 isn't going to cut it as your primary GPU if you intend to run other accelerated apps and you will find yourself swapping display connectors over to the Quadro and back if you want to accelerate other things.

[Brian Iannone]

+1 on ASUS' Rampage IV Extreme and Maximus IV Extreme-Z. They work well. Very well...

[Subhadip Sen]

Remember that X79 motherboards have PCIe 3.0 slots, so that is bandwidth equivalent to 80 PCIe 2.0 slots off a single CPU. Yes, as of now the only PCIe 3.0 cards are HD 7970 and HD 7950 but every new graphics card released from here on will be PCIe 3.0. What that means is a 8x slot will get you 16x bandwidth. Might also want to consider Rampage IV Extreme or MSI's Big Bang Xpower II. Today's 6C dual Xeons are not a solution - the PCIe controller is in the chipset, which offers a limited 36 native lanes irrespective of how many CPUs you add. However, Sandy Bridge-EP is incoming in 3 weeks' time as Jeff points out, and it integrates the PCIe controller on the CPU die. So a dual Xeon E5 system will get you 80 PCIe 3.0 lanes (or similar bandwidth as 160 PCIe 2 lanes), quad socket will get you 160. It is the perfect solution for post production although the 8-core CPUs have their appropriate premium over Core i7 6-cores. A month after that, Nvidia will release their first PCIe 3.0 cards. And of course ditch the Quadro 4000 and go for a GTX 580 3 GB which is three times as fast. Are AMD 7900s OK for GUI? Perhaps you can considering putting a 7000 PCIe 3.0 AMD GPU into the x8 PCIe 3.0 slot. Of course, the 7900s are faster and more efficient than GTX 580s for non-CUDA stuff as a bonus.

[Jeff Kilgroe]

In regards to the ATI GPUs. Resolve does support OpenCL as an alternative to CUDA. However, it's not as fully optimized or developed, some functions are not yet supported -- AFAIK, the noise reduction node being one example of that.

[Subhadip Sen]

Yes, it could be OK for the GUI - the CUDA processing can continue on the x16 GTX 580 slot. There's a $150 HD 7770 due next week, that could be a good choice for GUI GPU to go into the X8 slot. Or HD 7950 3GB at $449 which is faster than GTX 580 at everything that is non-CUDA. Once again, HD 7000 are PCIe 3.0 which offers PCIe 2.0 x16 bandwidth over a x8 slot so there's no bandwidth compromised here. And it does leave 8 extra PCIe lanes. So the PCIe 2.0 cards can line up this way - x16 CUDA GPU, x8 Rocket, x8 Decklink.

As a side note, if you are working at HD resolution you don't need a Rocket at all. A Sandy Bridge-E CPU alone will get you 1/2 res real-time debayer, which is already >HD.

[Rohit Gupta]

In regards to the ATI GPUs. Resolve does support OpenCL as an alternative to CUDA. However, it's not as fully optimized or developed, some functions are not yet supported -- AFAIK, the noise reduction node being one example of that.

OpenCL is Mac only - on ATI cards