GPU Ram for 4K projects, how much is enough?

[David Pirinelli]

These cards I mod are being added to, nothing is really being lost.

We ADD a Mac EFI, but the PC BIOS remains.

In fact, the cards can reboot into Windows whenever you want.

Even better, if you use your Mac to boot into Windows via Bootcamp, the PCIE fix goes there too. Currently if you boot into Windows with a PC only BIOS, you will have the same PCIE 1.0 2.5 GT/s issue that exists in OSX. FWIW, flashed ATI/AMD cards have same issue. Apple must have left this little trap to keep flashed cards “inferior” to official Apple ones. The PCIE 2.0 switch is a separate part of ROM that has been fiddled with by Apple for this purpose.

So our cards GAIN Mac EFI and retain PC BIOS. It is this “Dual ROM” that requires a new EEPROM chip as the space necessary is never available on retail cards.

So the cards are truly cross platform once the mod is done.

The ONLY exception is with the multi outlet cards. These are BIOS modded to enable only 2 outputs. For the Dual DVI cards, both DVI ports will work, though HDMI will likely NOT work.

For the Dual DVI, HDMI and DIsplayPort cards, 1 @ DVI and the DIsplayport are the only ports working. TO enable all 4 again will require ref lashing with PC BIOS. THis is a result of how Mac OSX Nvidia drivers work. Note that on the PC Quadro 4800 and Quadro 4000 compared to the Mac ones, they REMOVE a port. The PCB still has the traces, they just don’t place the port in . This is why I am very curious to see how the GTX680 drivers will work.

In any case, our new GTX5xx cards work quite well in Windows as well as OSX. If you ever need to use ALL of the ports in Windows, you can ref lash the card in Windows.

[Clay Glendenning]

I’m the guy that picked up a 570 the other day from David. Until our cubix comes in along with a few other things, this is running very nicely in a 2008 3,1 Mac Pro. I’ll be replacing the tower itself soon, but until then it has a few additions you would expect: decent amount of RAM, an SSD, RAID array, etc. I was on my way to pick up a 570 from the store before a Reduser post led me here, then to David, who was extremely helpful given my busy schedule.

The EFI, monitor capability, and general ease of installation make a ton of sense for anyone quickly upgrading a few machines in a post house. I had zero problems. Before I continue, I just want to say that this card works incredibly well with CS5.5 (and photoshop cs6 beta). I have a boatload of 4k and 5k footage. Quite a bit of that footage is high-frame rate including a fair amount with HDR. I’ll try not to veer off topic here, but fashion video and still work with loads of effects and grading has been handled quite well.

We all know that there are better/faster options available, and I will be one of those making some modest additions to speed up my .r3d workflow. However, for a lot of people the 570 is certainly the “sweet spot” David is suggesting. Yes, I could use some super horsepower for tackling 5k HDR, but the system as it stands now “works” in tremendous part due to the card. The addition of the card makes a ton of sense as an affordable addition worth considering before other additions, then iterating upon as you need to.

I’ll be doing some heavy lifting tomorrow in Resolve, and will update with system specs, numbers, etc.

Blows my mind how affordable running a resolve system has become in such a short period of time. Cool time to be making moving images.

Cheers guys.

[David Schweitzer]

Gabriele,

I am trying to figure whether to buy 2 more GTX 470’s or start on GTX 580 and I noticed you config for Resolve…

I snipped your gear below:
Cubix desktop 4
GTX470+GTX470+GTX470

How much vram do you have in each of your 470’s? and when clustered together does the ram accumulate to a total sum or remains on a per card sum? Does your system run 5K well? How many nodes, etc?

I am considering just adding two more 470’s to my existing 470/1.3GB card. Any recommendations?

Oh, yes…DaVinci 8.2 on a MacPro 8 core with 18GB and a Cyclone 2707 mit MacVidCard GTX 470/1.3GB, GT 120, single RedRocket card, HighPoint RocketRAID 4320 8-Channel PCI-Express x8 SAS 3Gb/s RAID Controller w/16TB 7200RPM Spinners, Decklink Extreme 3D

Thanks in advance!

David

[David Schweitzer]

Hi Colin,

You wrote you, “I upgraded to Lion in order to put in a 580 standard Newegg card along with my 120 things work well now for rendering beyond 2K.” What did you mean by put in a 580 standard Newegg card?

Thanks,

D

[Clay Glendenning]

I’m guessing he meant he picked up the “base” version of the card from newegg.com, which looks to be 1.5gb of ram for around $380 at time of writing.

On https://www.newegg.com enter “GTX 580” for your search.

If anyone here is a little confused, there are lower ram versions of these cards, and versions closer to 3gb available as well. I think it is an important thing to note, and I think the extra ram is worth it.

[David Pirinelli]

Based on this thread, it seems that1.5 is bare minimum for 4K.

So the GTX570 should be gotten in the 2.5GB version and the GTX580 should be gotten in the 3 GB version, whenever possible, if you plan to use the higher res files.

[Colin Travers]

Its actually the 3GB GTX580 which i purchased, along with the appropriate adapter cable.

A clean Snow leopard install on the SSD and then an update to Lion w/ the latest Nvidia drivers is necessary for this card to work on a MacPro at least from what I understand as of this week. I am able to render 5K HDR, albeit not in any way fast render times w/out an expander, RedRockets & multiple GPU..but hey it works as opposed to the gtx285 or 470(flashed) which did not.

DaVinci 8.2.1 OSX 10.7.3
MacPro 12-core 5,1 2.66 Ghz
32GB RAM x4 8GB
Software RAID 0 (8TB Internal)
Nvidia GT120/GTX580 (CUDA 4.2.7)
BMD Extreme3D
HDlink3D DisplayPort
FSI LM-2461W / Panny VT25
Tangent Wave / Wacom

[David Schweitzer]

Colin,

Am I correct, you are have installed a STOCK PC (Unflashed) GTX580 and the OS is seeing it? WOW!

Thanks for reporting this.

Building:
DaVinci 8.2.1 OSX 10.7.3
MacPro 8-core Harpertown 2.8 Ghz 18GB RAM
RocketRAID (Ø) 16TB
Cylclone 2707
REDRocket
Sonnet eSATA
Nvidia GT120 GTX470 GTX580
DeckLink Extreme 3D
Panasonic BT-LH1700W
Tangent Element
Logitech Trackball Wacom

[Colin Travers]

Yes.

This is not news..for a couple months this has been an available option with the newest nvidia drivers on Lion – make sure the rest of your system is up to spec however.

DaVinci 8.2.1 OSX 10.7.3
MacPro 12-core 5,1 2.66 Ghz
32GB RAM x4 8GB
Software RAID 0 (8TB Internal)
Nvidia GT120/GTX580 (CUDA 4.2.7)
BMD Extreme3D
HDlink3D DisplayPort
FSI LM-2461W / Panny VT25
Tangent Wave / Wacom

[Gabriele Turchi]

hi david ,
sorry for the late reply

3x GTX470 is pretty powerful , but no , the Ram does not accumulate ,

so if you are going to work on above 2K timeline you will need 580…

about how many nodes , i never counted , but i would say that working on red footage (HD timeline ) i think it sustain more than 15 nodes with blur (i assume that using HD DPX even more)

g

Davinci Resolve Control Surface
MacPro
Cubix desktop 4
2 Red Rockets
GTX470+GTX470+GTX470
24GB RAM
HP Dreamcolor
Panasonic 58PF Plasma
Ultrascope