Cubix or Cyclone?

[Jonathon Lee]

Perhaps a BMD person can answer this? I’m very curious about migrating the hardware from Mac to Linux or Win.

thank you,

Jonathon

[Paul Nordin]

In the Configuration Guide, they list Cubix. Why try something outside their recommendation? I’ve got a cubix and it works great.

_______________________
El Mundo Bueno Studios
Film * Audio
http://www.EMBstudios.com
Emeryville, CA
_______________________

[Margus Voll]

I bet it is hard to compare them if you do not have both of them in the shop.

It is not likely many of us have 2 of them.

Maybe you could get both of them to your place and test them out before buying ?

—

Margus

https://iconstudios.eu

[Jonathon Lee]

Yeah, I’ve used the Cyclone with a Linux system and it seemed fine. I’ve heard the cubix is “noisy” but that it may provide more robust aux power…. I could not find specific info on the Cubix website about this. It just says there are 2 sets of PCI-e aux power connectors. I’m guessing that it has enough power for 3x 580’s as I’ve heard people talk about that. The CUBIUX site makes no mention of Linux support on the GPU-Xpander Desktop 4 page. Just says Mac and WIn. It should not need any drivers AFAIK. We’re probably going to go with the cubix since it can take 4x 580’s so if we go linux we can use the 4 GPU’s.

First round is on Mac, but just got the BMD panel so we can go Linux later if we need too. For now the 3 GPU’s will be great. I’m using a single 285 right now so I’m sure I’ll be happy.

Hope the cubix has enough power and that it will work on Linux later!!! I’ll let you know.

[Jonathon Lee]

It’s actually on the supported equipment list.

[Mel Matsuoka]

I went with the Cyclone 2707 chassis instead of the Cubix, since I wanted to run 2x GTX285s (double-wide) and a Rocket card at the same time, and the Cyclone gives you 5 slots, 2 of which can accomodate dual-wide 16x GPU cards. Since the Rocket card is single-wide 8x card, I can have an extra 16x and 8x slot available in the chassis, if I wanted.

The Cubix Desktop 4 only has 4 slots, so I’m not sure if you can stuff 3 double-wide 580s in there, since 2 of the slots get physically blocked by the GPU card itself (at least that’s what the BMD config guide seems to imply)

I had a lot of problems getting the Cyclone to work when I first got it, but it turned out that the problems were caused by some sort if inherent incompatibility with the Cyclone and the 2008 Mac Pro3,1. Since upgrading to a 2010 MacPro, everything works great!

The factory installed fans in the Cyclone are definitely way too loud, and should be replaced. It’s a cheap, $30 fix. I posted more about this here: https://forums.creativecow.net/thread/277/14441

[Paul Nordin]

The model of Cubix I have Desktop 4 Pro has 4 double-wide slots, and 2x power leads for each of those slots. The Cubix website is pretty hard to navigate, so I can understand your confusion!

_______________________
El Mundo Bueno Studios
Film * Audio
http://www.EMBstudios.com
Emeryville, CA
_______________________

[Ola Haldor voll]

So in other words, you can install 3 GPUs and a Rocket?

[Paul Jay]

No SDI out? Better get an bmd extreme 3d in there.

[Paul Nordin]

Yes Ola, that is correct.
Or 2 GPUs and 2 RedRockets, or whatever combination makes sense. Each slot is a generous double-wide so plenty of room for up to 4 double-wide cards. Cooling is great, and the powersupply seems beefy enough to handle any reasonable combination of cards.

I own an Epic and have loaded 2-GTX285s plus a RR and a ATTO H680 in mine. I’m hoping Red comes out with an updated Rocket card as the current RR is just barely fast enough for Epic 5k footage, and I don’t get realtime with HDRx footage. After the dust settles I may swap out my 285s with the new 680s.

_______________________
El Mundo Bueno Studios
Film * Audio
http://www.EMBstudios.com
Emeryville, CA
_______________________