16 core/32 thread/64GB RAM Mac setup, but not fully working yet.

[Joseph S.]

Well, I got the new system built today, but the drivers aren't fully working yet.

Still, check this out. 16 real cores, 32 threads, 64GB RAM. (EVENTUALLY coming soon to Apple, or not).

[Joseph S.]

Edit Update: CineBench CPU test is 24.5 in Win7.

Problem is, the latest Lion kernel is not made for this chipset yet. But everything is extremely fast in Windows 7.

This is the most recent set up with 128GB RAM and RAID test.

Get a Red Rocket if you need it.

[Jeff Kilgroe]

Which motherboard did you decide on?

I've got a couple SuperMicro X9DAi boards on order. waiting....

[Joseph S.]

Hey Jeff. Yup, same board. X9DAi. This is running dual E5-2690's. Lion loaded like a charm, but driver issues. If I had the patience to keep trying drivers, I'm sure it would work.

I'm only using a Quadro 1800 card, but I'll try running some benchmarks. Let me know if you have any favorites. (windows 7 for now).

[AndrewThomas]

My word.

[Josh Beadle]

I found out tonight that my 2010 Mac Pro 12 core only supports 64GB of RAM. Tried 96GB and the fan would kick on full speed after running low stress work. Would only shut down if I put the thing to Sleep. Did the SMC reset and even took it to the Mac Store (worthless).

Also surprised that 3 SSD 6G OWC drives in RAID 0 off the main docks run at 540mbs while the external G-Speed 24TB with Atto board runs at 800mbs in RAID 6. Seems that the SSD's have some kind of compression going on that slows them down.

Waiting for a BT Red Rocket this week. Thing plays back at 1/4 now. Could be happy with that but looking at transcoding speed as well.

BTW: Jeff Kilgroe is THE MAN!!

Would pay admission to see his workspace

[Jeff Kilgroe]

I found out tonight that my 2010 Mac Pro 12 core only supports 64GB of RAM. Tried 96GB and the fan would kick on full speed after running low stress work. Would only shut down if I put the thing to Sleep. Did the SMC reset and even took it to the Mac Store (worthless).

Interesting... Did you get the RAM from OWC? If so, talk to them about it. Have you rotated modules around to make sure you don't have a bad one?

Also surprised that 3 SSD 6G OWC drives in RAID 0 off the main docks run at 540mbs while the external G-Speed 24TB with Atto board runs at 800mbs in RAID 6. Seems that the SSD's have some kind of compression going on that slows them down.

They do, as all SandForce chipset based SSDs do, use on the fly compression. It's great for the right kinds of files. But for incompressible files, such as H264, ZIP, R3D, JPG, etc.. it doesn't help. And those advertised speeds that seem so amazing on the SSDs will fall to half or even a third of what they claim when you transfer those files. Especially large ones like R3D clips where you can easily have 100's of GB worth!

Waiting for a BT Red Rocket this week. Thing plays back at 1/4 now. Could be happy with that but looking at transcoding speed as well.

Rocket will help the transcodes for sure. Playback at higher resolutions also helps, but you'll find that anything over half is kinda unnecessary unless you're spot-checking for noise/grain or other artifacts. On most systems, RC-X still struggles even with the Rocket at half res playback or better because the GUI interface can bottleneck with scaling and LUT application. They also don't use a whole lot of RAM for cacheing of what the Rocket processes ahead on playback and that can get real annoying at times.

BTW: Jeff Kilgroe is THE MAN!!

Would pay admission to see his workspace

Hehehe.... You would want your money back. ;)

[Josh Beadle]

@Jeff
Yup, OWC RAM. I'll try rotating it tomorrow - worked after removing 2 x 16GB chips so left it at that. Really, 64GB is plenty since, as you say, RCX doesn't seem to utilize all that much.

What is the speed % diff between having 2 chips in each dock vs 3? Heard (probably from you) that best results had from installing RAM in 3 out of 4 slots. Got 2 x 16GB in each dock now. Seems speedy.

[Will Keir]

+1

Good way to waste a few hours.

even took it to the Mac Store (worthless).

[Sven Seynaeve]

really want to build similar system , however I'd like very much to use Smoke for Mac on it. Would this be possible at all???