[AFTER EFFECTS] Best hardware

[Colin Braley]

Hey, I don’t know much about this topic but I will give you the little help I can: Buy as much RAM as you can (probably up to about 4 gigs), and a fast processor. From what I understand (As of AE 6.5) OpenGL isn’t well implemented, so a fancy graphics card isn’t as important. Also, does anyone have any comments about dual-processors? I remember reading somewhere that AE itself is multithreaded but many plug-ins are not? I’m thinking I’m gonna wait for AE 7 before I buy a new computer because I’m hoping AE 7 will have some great OpenGL utilization and will make a high-end graphics card worthwile. Anyone ele’s comments/responses would be greatly appreciated.
~Colin

[Steve Forde]

Obviously we are pitching Nucleo, but the benchmarks in blue are “AE only” and will compare different workstations using different CPU configurations.

https://www.gridironxfactor.com/products/nucleo_benchmarks_tt.asp

Steve
GridIron Software Inc.

[Mike Smith]

Be aware that on a standard 32-bit Windows machine you can only make use of 2 Gig of RAM (though it’s possible to have one set up to use 3 Gigs.)

Current Macs are also 32 bit, and reported to be able to address up to 2.5 Gig; anything more is not directly addressable by 32 bit apps (After Effects) but the Mac OS will reportedly host 64bit apps and allow them to address more RAM directly.

So if it’s just for AE, you might stick with 2 Gig Windows or 2.5 Gig Mac, at least until a 64 bit version of AE appears.

A fast graphics card definitely helps with AE.

The extra speed of twin processors, as Colin suggests, is helpful, though there are some plugins not twin procesor aware. There is a strong suggestion from software developers Gridiron that AE does not make full use of twin processors, and that their plugin can nucleo accelerate it – looks well worth investigating.

The fastest processors around appear to be the AMD Opterons, which go dual very well. A fast twin Xeon machine will also be quick. If you want to be on Mac, no doubt the latest dualp-core dual processor G5 Quad systems are quick too.

[Mike Smith]

Hi Steve

Interesting. I’m divining from your post that perhaps you think the G5 systems are faster than, say, a good Boxx twin Opteron? Though I note that you don’t specify which AMD Dual Core you are using for your test config. Also your page at shows a different ranking https://www.gridironxfactor.com/products/nucleo_benchmarks_rg_knoll.asp

Benchmarks are a fraught area, with marketing types from all sides seeking advantage from identifying benchmarks that show their products in the best life: I think most of us have learnt to “treat with caution” ! In the Windows world, too, there are a great number of system variations which can and do affect performance. Nevertheless, your results do appear to show across-the-board speed gains – it looks like Nucleo could be good.

The Ram issue is perhaps something your company’s developer expertise could shed some light on for me? As far as I know, OSX is fully 32-bit, flat memory address space – i.e. 4 Gig limit on total addressable memory. The only documentation I’ve seen suggests that around 3 Gig of these addresses are needed for the system core – I/O, ROM, disc storage addressing, buses, processor addressing, whatever – leaving only 1 Gig of address space directly available to RAM use.

Yet I’ve been told that an OSX Mac can directly address “up to 2.5 Gigabytes of RAM” – which sounds quite possible. And I’ve seen people specifying up to 8 Gig of RAM for a single workstation, running all 32-bit apps.

Do you have an explanation, or alink to an explanation of OSX memory management / 32 bit and upwards RAM addressing on Mac that you could point me towards?

Thanks !

Mike

[Steve Forde]

I’ll try and remain completely out of any platform vs. platform discussions, as you have noted in our benchmarks, each platform can vary completely on what effects are used, types of projects etc. Alot of time, it is also dependent on what platform a specific effect was originally written on, and then “ported” to the other.

That said, one of the reasons why the Quad G5 routinely outperformed the Opteron in our benchmarks is simply because of a different RAM architecture and a newer (faster) memory bus. The Quad G5 uses DDR2 RAM, whereas our specific Opteron used DDR. This is important as the DDR2 architecture has double the data rate of the DDR RAM, and therefore provides better RAM throughput.

A good example of this is to look at the difference between the Pentium D Dual Core, and The Dual Pentium 4 Xeon with HT systems. Looking at the blue benchmark line (AE only), you can see that in many cases the Dual-Core (with just 2 physical CPU’s) outperformed the Xeon (with 2 physical and 2 logical CPU’s), due to the Pentium D using DDR2 over the DDR of the Xeon.

I’m going to post a new thread called “AE & RAM – the definitive guide” to answer your RAM questions, as I see it as a recurring theme on the COW. Will try to be as complete as possible in that new thread.

Lastly, agree the benchmarks are to be read with a grain of salt (lies, damn lies and statistics!). Many times the marketing folks will distort these type of things to push a product (just look at Apple’s Quad G5 product page!). Obviously, we are pushing a product too, but really tried to create a comprehensive suite (and are still adding more) that gives an “objective” viewpoint. Its one of the reasons why there are so many of them. We wanted to show that “Every project is different”, and that Nucleo will speed up many things, but will not speedup others. (notice a couple of benchmarks posted that show a minor slowdown with Nucleo on certain workstation types)

Hope this helps…

Steve
GridIron Software Inc.

[Mike Smith]

Thanks, Steve. I appreciate your candour, helpfulness and information. I look forward to your upcoming RAM thread!

All best,

Mike