Need advise for Nvidia MacPro

[Will Keir]

Good to know, thanks Jeff. It's amazing, I got this computer almost two years ago and it's still one of the faster Mac Pros you can build. Good investment at the time. Even then, without a RR card, it's wasn't able to get the job done I was expecting of it.

The physical limit for Ram is 32GB, but I heard you can install up to 64GB with OWC. Is there much of a reason to go from 32gb to 64gb? Will I see a difference?

[Brian Merlen]

some of the newest mac pros can take up to 96gbs of owc ram....128 even, but mac os wont use more the 96...

[Jeff Kilgroe]

Doesn't have to be OWC RAM, just the proper spec. And yeah... OSX locks you at 96GB. :-/

[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

[K. cromwell]

Sit tight with the GTX285. The only faster card that has full Mac support is the Quadro 4000 and when I say faster, I mean it's like 5% faster at some things, mostly equivalent for others. The GTX285 is slower at texel operations, fill operations, memory moves and whatnot, but actually can push more polygons.

Other than that, you could install a GTX480 or one of the GTX5xx series in place of what you have now, using off the shelf cards. Some are reporting success with the GTX580, but I'd be wary of that one -- great card, but it draws more power than the Mac Pro logic board is designed to put out via the PCIe connectors. The nVidia drivers do support them. However, those cards don't have the Mac EFI support, which means you can't do certain things with them, like option-boot to pick which drive to start from. Also by not having the EFI and official support, you will want to be careful about when and how you update OSX and drivers. For example, the current nVidia drivers are incompatible with the 10.7.4 developer beta seeds. I'm sure nVidia will have it sorted by the time the update releases or shortly after, but just one example of potential issues.

So Jeff you're saying either this card -
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...759&Tpk=GTX480

Or a 4000? inside a mac pro?

[Jeff Kilgroe]

The catch with the off-the-shelf nVidia card is that you're at the mercy of nVidia driver support and long-term compatibility with OSX. For the moment, the nVidia drivers from the nVidia web site will work and you can use that GTX480 card. It does not have Mac EFI support on the card though as it's not made for the Mac, so with it as the primary GPU, you won't be able to Option-Boot and see a list of bootable volumes to start your computer from. You won't be able to do a clean install of OSX on that card as it won't drive the monitor from the EFI system...

The other option is obviously the Quadro 4000 card. You can get the Mac-specific version for about $725, less if used. I just sold one for $650 and that seems to be the going rate for used ones...

Personally, I would go with a Mac-specific card like the Quadro 4000 for my primary GPU. Then dabble with other cards as secondary GPUs for Resolve and CS6. Just be aware that there's only two PCIe power connectors in a Mac Pro. So if the Quadro 4000 takes one of them (it does), then for a second card you only have one connector, which means you have to pull extra power from the lower optical bay or an external power supply. There is also only one double-width slot in a Mac Pro. So you can install a card like that GTX480, but you will be wasting a precious slot if you go to install another double-width card.

Should also note that with Adobe CS6, FCPX and Resolve all supporting OpenCL, the nVidia GPU is not as necessary. The readily-available AMD 5870 card that is common in the current model Mac Pro systems is similar in power to the Quadro 4000 or GTX285 for compute functions. I personally have not tried these applications with that card, so can't quantify performance with those app/hardware combinations, however it seems to be a completely valid option now.

[Rainier Raydán]

what about the Quadro FX 4800 for mac? its better than the quadro 4000? in blackmagic desing page say that de Quadro FX 4800 provide the best performance http://www.blackmagic-design.com/sup...id=4448&os=mac

[Sam Edwards]

The FX 4000 is more recent than the FX 4800. But it's from one step farther down the product line.

[Jeff Kilgroe]

The info in the Blackmagic white paper is old... FX4800 is a few generations old now, it's actually a bit slower than the GTX285, whereas the current Quadro 4000 is about the same as the GTX285 to about 5% faster or so. Depending on what you're doing with it. Quadro 4000 is the way to go at the moment -- it has the most current and capable driver support on OSX and is readily available. It also only requires a single 6pin PCIe power connector and takes a single slot width. It's much less of a power hog than the other two older cards. Both the GTX285 and FX 4800 are discontinued and getting harder to find. The FX4800 seems to actually be the easier of the two to locate, but it's expensive since it's apparently still on a lot of corporate purchase or approved hardware lists. By today's standards, it's a crap card, and yet they still sell for $1000 or more in a lot of cases. I kinda wish I still had a couple of them because I could sell them for more today than what I was able to sell them for a couple years ago. haha.

For CUDA acceleration in Resolve (and so it seems in Adobe CS6 as well), you can also use non-Mac video cards. The GTX 460, 480, 580, etc.. all provide superior CUDA acceleration over the Quadro 4000. But before you start buying any of those cards, pay attention to their width and power requirements and know if they're going to fit in your intended configuration or have a plan on whether you need PCIe expansion and/ or additional power.

[Rainier Raydán]

I see... well i'm going to build a Edit/Color-Corrector module but i dont know what it is that you've been talking up there. So... i have a MacPro 12-core with DaVinci Resolve and FCP7 (i can work with Premier CS6 if needed), what do i have to buy to get my module work in real time? i suppose the RedRocket its the first in list but what else?