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Mac Pro for video editing (Premiere, After Effects)
I’m looking at purchasing a new Mac Pro and even after hours of research I have some unanswered questions.
I will primarily be using this computer as a video editing machine, using Premiere and After Effects. I would like to utilize the CUDA rendering engine and also use Dynamic Link without too much lag (I’m used to any linked files being extremely slow to work with, would love to speed this up). I’m looking to speed up my general workflow, rendering, etc as I find I’m sitting around a lot waiting for things to load or effects to render.This is currently what I have configured so far…
Two 2.40GHz 6-Core Intel Xeon processors (12 cores)
24GB (6X4GB) memory
1TB 7200-rpm Serial ATA 3Gb/s hard drive (for operating system and applications)
2TB 7200-rpm Serial ATA 3Gb/s hard drive (for storage and working from)
2TB 7200-rpm Serial ATA 3Gb/s hard drive (scratch drive?)
ATI Radeon HD 5870 1GBMy questions are as follows…
– Would I see a big difference in performance from an upgraded (2.66GHz or 3.06GHz) processor over the base 2.4GHz?
– I’ve done research on the ideal memory slots, setup, etc and it seems 6x4gb is the best option unless I go up to 6x8gb
– I understand the concept of keeping the operating system and applications on a separate drive… but how should I go about storage, working from that drive, should I keep a drive for scratch files/cache?
– What will the performance difference be from the ATI Radeon 5770 vs upgraded 5870?Any information is appreciated! It’s hard to find answers to all these questions in one place it seems… Thanks 🙂
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7 Replies
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[Kalvin Taylor] “My questions are as follows…
– Would I see a big difference in performance from an upgraded (2.66GHz or 3.06GHz) processor over the base 2.4GHz?
– I’ve done research on the ideal memory slots, setup, etc and it seems 6x4gb is the best option unless I go up to 6x8gb
– I understand the concept of keeping the operating system and applications on a separate drive… but how should I go about storage, working from that drive, should I keep a drive for scratch files/cache?
– What will the performance difference be from the ATI Radeon 5770 vs upgraded 5870?”– You’ll notice a slight speed difference between each processor. It’s not going to change the speed of a render so drastically that your brain melts! 😉 It’ll shave off some time, but the added cost may not be worth it (unless your business is tight to-air deadlines then…). For all my Mac Pro, I usually buy in the middle. Not the slowest, not the fastest. RAM is also cheaper to buy second hand rather than from Apple. Check https://www.macsales.com or Kingston or Crucial for other options. I buy all my RAM from Mac Sales.
– Storage is what will determine how well files playback. Obviously, keeping your system drive (OS, apps, etc) separate from your media files is a great move. What type of media do you need to playback? DPX files? ProRes? DV? DNxHD? Animation? Uncompressed? Each of these codecs demand a different data rate. So while your internal hard drive can keep up with ProRes or DNxHD, it’ll probably stutter when playing back Animation, Uncompressed, or DPX files. The best storage is some type of RAID (which can be internal on your Mac) that allows for fast access and throughput for media. Having a dedicated OS/apps drive is good. The other slots in your Mac Pro can be your storage drives but you may look into some RAID options as well:
https://www.g-technology.com/products/g-raid-thunderbolt.cfm
https://www.lacie.com/us/products/range.htm?id=10061&adw=RAID&gclid=CLOjqpvQsrECFclgTAodcj0A9g– If you’re running PPro you’ll notice the best GPU acceleration from a Nvidia card. While CS6 can harness some of the ATI architecture, it really sings under Nvidia’s CUDA. If you want CUDA technology you’ll need an Nvidia card. What I’d do is get the cheapest card from Apple and then swap out for a Quadro 4000 or Quadro FX 4800 (the 4000 is actually cheaper and faster than the 4800….deny’s logic I know, but that’s the way it is! 😉
Caveat: The current Mac Pro is very long in the tooth (upwards of 2 years old). Everyone hoped to see a new Mac Pro at this year’s WWDC in June. That didn’t happen. So many fear it will be killed off as a platform. Others have pointed to evidence which seems to support a new Mac Pro coming out sometime next year. All that to say, I don’t know what’s true. I have about 10 Mac Pros at my shop, so I’m hoping for a refresh next year. But if you gotta have a computer now get what you can afford. Or maybe buy a used or refurbished Mac Pro…
Ryan Holmes
http://www.ryanholmes.me
vimeo.com/ryanholmes -
I appreciate the detailed reply Ryan!
RAM: You suggest buying from somewhere like OWC Mac Sales. I’ve read that it’s best to use a triple channel set up (leaving the fourth slot open) on each side for these Macs with 8 slots. What is your suggestion for spending somewhere around $500 on the memory? It looks like 24gb (4gb x 6) from OWC is my best option but this seems like a waste of money having to purchase the minimum 12gb (6gb x 2) from Apple! Also, for video editing what tasks would I see the biggest difference in performance for 12gb vs 24gb vs 48gb?
Storage: I shoot DSLR right now but eventually I would love to upgrade to RED in the future. So mostly I would be working with H.264 or similarly encoded video files, usually compressed to some degree rather than extremely large uncompressed footage.
Video Card: Again it is unfortunate to waste money on an ATI card if I were to buy an NVIDIA separately (and what am I supposed to do with the ATI then!) but if the performance difference is really that significant it may be worth it. Do you know of any benchmark comparisons that have been done based on this use and specific software?
I’ve heard the rumours (and somewhat confirmation by CEO Tim Cook) of a new Mac Pro coming ‘later next year’ but I’m not sure I can wait that long, unfortunately. Still looking at the price and considering my options!
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Hi Kalvin,
You will absolutely want the Nvidia Quadro 4000 display card from PNY, as this provides the GPU acceleration in Premiere. This will provide the biggest performance boost versus other ways to spend money on upgrades(RAM, CPU, etc.)
Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers -
Sorry, I see now that Ryan already mentioned the 4000 card. I will add that you can put the take-out ATI card on eBay and it will sell very quickly.
Jeff
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Great, thanks Jeff!
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Apple is doing “better” on their RAM prices. For years, they’ve been playing out in left field picking daisies and slapping ridiculous price markups on RAM. The 24GB option may not be a bad route at $450. Since these Mac Pros are so out-of-date the RAM costs have also plunged. If you got the lowest RAM from Apple (12GB) and bought 24GB of third party RAM you’re still saving $250 compared to buying directly from Apple! Put that towards a graphics card. Or if you’re bent on spending $500 on RAM then buy $500 worth of third party RAM – you can get 32GB-48GB depending on your configuration. More RAM always means a smoother running computer.
If you’re working with native DSLR footage then you can probably run that off of an internal drive. If you start transcoding it to a different codec you’ll likely run into problems as the internal drive (unless you’ve build a RAID inside your Mac Pro) won’t be able to keep up.
Adobe built their Mercury Playback Engine around CUDA technology. CUDA is only available on Nvidia graphics cards. The Quadro 4000 runs about $700 on Amazon. Adobe will work with ATI cards but you won’t get any of the CUDA benefits then (more layers of FX playback in realtime, realtime playback of native codecs, encoding, transcoding, etc.). Adobe has expanded their engine to work with Open GL and CL formats so ATI users get some benefits. However, the speed increases really come from Nvidia cards.
https://www.nvidia.com/object/adobe-cs6.htmlRyan Holmes
http://www.ryanholmes.me
vimeo.com/ryanholmes -
Thanks to your replies and some more research I’ve updated my current build as follows. I would love to get any more feedback from you all!
bought from Apple,
Two 2.40GHz 6-Core Intel Xeon processors (12 cores)
12GB (6X2Gb) memory
1TB 7200rpm SATA 3Gb/s hard drive
ATI Radeon HD 5770 1GBand I will purchase and add myself,
24GB (6x4Gb) memory
2 x 2TB 72000rpm SATA 3Gb/s hard drive (RAID 0/striped)
NVIDIA Quadro 4000With any luck I can sell the memory and video card from Apple and make a couple hundred bucks back!
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