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Help Me Build an Apple Editing Powerhouse Machine!
I am getting rid of my old Apple computer, and moving on to their new Mac Pro machines. My old computer was a dual 2.3, and I want to move into their new 8-core system.
What I want in a computer are the following characteristics
A. Graphics Card capable of delivering HD footage to two Apple HD monitors. Is it necessary to buy TWO cards these days, when so many already offer two dual link? I only need to run two monitors
B. It’s not that I want just enough memory to run my programs…I want to be able to SPEED through them as quickly as possible. Is going from 4GBs of memory to 8GBs a noticeable difference in performance? By doubling from 4 to 8, will their be a change in speed with rendering/compressing/DVD burning? If there is a change in speed, is the change significant?
C. I want to create a huge portfolio of HD stock footage. I thought that starting out with 1TB hard drive, and a 320 GB external hard drive would be enough to get me through the year. Raid is definitely an option I want to explore. RAID is horribly expensive, especially when you consider buying the raid & Fiber channel cards. (please correct me if Im wrong) Is The purpose of a raid drive, is to consolidate different hard drives into one file source in your computer? (so you dont have to chase files around in different drives)?….or am I completely wrong on that one? If I am right about RAID..then perhaps it IS best to keep everything as one source…but the price gets out of hand.
Here are the specs of what I am considering:
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Subtotal $4,837.95Specifications
Two 2.8GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon (8-core)
8GB (4 x 2GB)
1TB Hard Drive 7200-rpm Serial ATA 3Gb/s
NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT 512MB (Two dual-link DVI)
Two 16x SuperDrives
AirPort Extreme card (Wi-Fi)
Apple wireless Mighty Mouse
Apple Wireless Keyboard (English) + User’s Guide
Final Cut Studio 2 (already own it. Going to load it on to the new one once I get it)
HP Photosmart C4280 All-in-One Printer, Scanner, Copier
AppleCare Protection Plan for Mac Pro (w/or w/o Display) – Auto-enroll———————-
I know most of you have incredible knowledge that overpowers my computer skills. I would really appreciate your input on all of this. Is there anything that you would change or add to this machine to make it better? I want to stay in the ball park of 4-6 grand. Any help is much appreciated…and any knowledge regarding tactics on getting the best out of your editing machine would definitely help me out.
You guys are the best! I need your help!
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14 Replies
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THis is why we still need VARs…companies the sell preconfigured editing systems. Systems put together by professionals and tested to work properly.
Before now I would suggest ProMax, but they are out of business. I know of a couple other companies, like EVS in Oklahoma. I’ll see if I can track down information for you for them. And there is the DR Group here in Los Angeles.
Any known VARs out there guys?
Shane
GETTING ORGANIZED WITH FINAL CUT PRO DVD now for sale!
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Read my blog! -
I’ve been using Midwest Media Group for years https://www.mwmg.com.
Even though I stay pretty current by reading the trades and monitoring the COW daily, I get great value out of dealing with a trusted VAR.
Bob Auiler | bob.auiler@mvpcollaborative.com
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[Ryan Domis] “A. Graphics Card capable of delivering HD footage to two Apple HD monitors. Is it necessary to buy TWO cards these days, when so many already offer two dual link? I only need to run two monitors”
The most basic graphics cards that come stock in all Macs, including the lowliest laptops, are capable of this, as is your present G5. Displaying to computer manitors via a graphics cards is not a big deal, its the ability to display HD video to an HDTV or broadcast monitor that you need to be think about. A Kona LHe=$1750.
[Ryan Domis] “B. It’s not that I want just enough memory to run my programs…I want to be able to SPEED through them as quickly as possible. Is going from 4GBs of memory to 8GBs a noticeable difference in performance? By doubling from 4 to 8, will their be a change in speed with rendering/compressing/DVD burning? If there is a change in speed, is the change significant?”
FCP will not speed up. Compressor will if configured properly.
[Ryan Domis] “I thought that starting out with 1TB hard drive, and a 320 GB external hard drive would be enough to get me through the year. Raid is definitely an option I want to explore. RAID is horribly expensive”
[Ryan Domis] “C. I want to create a huge portfolio of HD stock footage. I thought that starting out with 1TB hard drive, and a 320 GB external hard drive would be enough to get me through the year. Raid is definitely an option I want to explore. RAID is horribly expensive, especially when you consider buying the raid & Fiber channel cards. (please correct me if Im wrong) Is The purpose of a raid drive, is to consolidate different hard drives into one file source in your computer? (so you dont have to chase files around in different drives)?….or am I completely wrong on that one? If I am right about RAID..then perhaps it IS best to keep everything as one source…but the price gets out of hand.”
Yikes!!! You need to do some serious research in this area Ryan. Lot’s of misundertstandings in the paragraph above.
a) Striping 2 or more drives together to create a Raid creates one large virtual drive, buy more importantly, it substancially increases throughput, thus boosting both overall performance and realtime performance.
b) Raid is not horribly expensive. The newest crop of protected Raid-5 is, but that’s what you shojuld be looking at, you should be considering striping 2 or 3 1Tb drives internally in your MacPro as Raid-0, which will be very fast, and quite inexpensive, as the 1Tb drives are now just $250 each. You won’t have automatic built-in protection, but you can simply backup to inexpenive firewire drives and save your self thousands over a protected Raid-5 in the process.
-0o is not expensive
David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los AngelesPOST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™
A forum host of Creative COW’s Apple Final Cut Pro, Business & Marketing, and Indie Film & Documentary forums.
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I thought that the highest SAS Hard Drive (the ones required for RAID…because it says that ATA wont work for RAID) was at only 300GB….for a price of $484.00 ????
I would be paying an extra thousand bucks if I decide to go with a RAID, because I have to buy the SAS drives…not the ATA drives that run up to 1TB. Is it true that RAID drives only work with SAS drives?…that’s what it says on the website.ATA drive at 1TB (supposively wont work with RAID)
SAS drive at 300GB (Supposively the only drive that works with RAID)
What’s the point of getting RAID…if I can only configure up to 1.2 GB of RAID storage? (as it says on their website).
Also…let’s not forget the extra $720 just to buy the RAID card. Where can I find Apple RAID drives that are over 300GB SAS drives that are RAID compatible?… they are not on the website.
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SAS drives are unnecessary. You simply need SATA drives for a Raid, which at this moment in time do not exceed 1Tb, and which can be had all over for $250 each. Later this year or early 2009 you will begin to see 2Tb and even 4Tb drives.
David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los AngelesPOST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™
A forum host of Creative COW’s Apple Final Cut Pro, Business & Marketing, and Indie Film & Documentary forums.
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You should bear in mind the cost of external HD monitoring which can run well into the $5-10k range. On the cheap, you could get yourself a decent HDMI 1080 capable display for under a grand and a Black Magic card for about $300.
https://hindsightproductions.org
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1TB isn’t going to last long if you want a stock library of HD clips offered.
the 6TB or 8TB Caldigit boxes are what you need. Fibre performance without Fibre costs.
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I cannot thank you enough for your help and wisdom. So…I do not need the SAS drives…I just need SATA drives? This is odd… because when it comes to building your MAC PRO on apple.com…it mentions that only the SAS drives will work with the raid card.
This is what it says under the RAID card description
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“Your Mac Pro includes four hard drive bays and support for either Serial ATA or Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) drives, offering up to 4 terabytes of data storage. Configure each drive bay separately.Please note: Mac Pro systems must be configured with either all Serial ATA or all SAS drives. SAS drives cannot be used without the Mac Pro RAID card.”
———————————-So..they RAID card is necessary….but the SAS drives are not? Does that mean that the regular Serial ATA drives can then be used as a RAID? IF so…I’d grab two-4 TB’s worth.
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I cannot thank you enough for your help and wisdom. So…I do not need the SAS drives…I just need SATA drives? This is odd… because when it comes to building your MAC PRO on apple.com…it mentions that only the SAS drives will work with the raid card.
This is what it says under the RAID card description
———————————
“Your Mac Pro includes four hard drive bays and support for either Serial ATA or Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) drives, offering up to 4 terabytes of data storage. Configure each drive bay separately.Please note: Mac Pro systems must be configured with either all Serial ATA or all SAS drives. SAS drives cannot be used without the Mac Pro RAID card.”
———————————-So..they RAID card is necessary….but the SAS drives are not? Does that mean that the regular Serial ATA drives can then be used as a RAID? IF so…I’d grab two-4 TB’s worth.
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Does using Motion and similar apps affect the choice of graphics card?
John
Dual 2.5 G5 4 gigs RAM OS 10.4.8 QT7.1.3
Dual Cinema 23 Radeon 9800
FCP Studio 5 (FCP5.1.2, DVDSP4.1.1, Comp2.3, STP1.1, Motion 2.1.2)
Huge U-320R 1TB Raid 3 firmware ENG15.BIN
ATTO UL4D driver 3.50
AJA IO driver 2.1 firmware v23-28
Pro Tools HD w SYNC IO, Yamaha DM1000, Millennia Media HV-3C, Neuman U87s, Genelec Monitors, PrimaLT ISDN
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