Mac Pro GPUs and Avid 7.0

[Shane Ross]

[Jody Arnott] “Does Avid take advantage of the Mac Pro’s dual GPUs?”

No, it does not.

[Jody Arnott] “Is it worth the extra $1000-2000?”

IMHO…not at all. An iMac with a second monitor would work fine. The biggest issue is connectivity to hard drives. The iMac has two thunderbolt ports, the tube has 6…although only 3 busses. Neither has firewire, so you’ll need adapters. depends on how many connections you need.

Shane
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[Jody Arnott]

Thanks for the advice.

Connections aren’t an issue for me. I only have 1 Thunderbolt external RAID.

My biggest concern is that the iMac gets very hot and loud. I’m looking for a system that’s going to keep me going for a few years, and the fact that the Mac Pro can keep itself cool and quiet during long renders is appealing.

So future proofing is a consideration. And I do wonder if Avid will support dual GPUs in one of the next updates.

[Tony Breuer]

Hi Shane, I’m thinking about replacing my 5 year old MAC Pro (2.26 GB Quad core tin 32 GB Ram, esata card. Current project I’m using 3 internal 1 TB esata drive and 1 6TB esata G-Raid and 1 4TB Esata G-Raid. (It’s a VERY big documentary feature that’s started shooting 6 years ago and I inherited a year ago).

I know Avid will probably not support using the GPU any time soon and I don’t think I will have any need for 4 or 5k because I’m offline only. So the new MACPro cylinder seems like overkill.

Any recommendations Thunderbolt hubs or bobs? I have a considerable investment in esata drives both internal and external so I would want both Esata and 800 firewire capability.

Thanks.

Tony Breuer

[Trevor Asquerthian]

Don’t forget…

The HP z820 is very fast & now has thunderbolt (if you need that kind of thing). Pricey for doc work though… the z420 probably a better option.

[Shane Ross]

I’m using the Sonnet Echo II Thunderbolt BRIDGE. Have an eSATA and SAS card in there so I can access my drives. There are lots of options, but I personally have only used that one.

Shane
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[Tony Breuer]

Thanks Trevor, but I’m going to stick with MACs. All my software is MAC based plus I can run Compressor and Final Cut Pro,

The PCs are fast, but I am uncomfortable with Windows and since I’m totally on my own and don’t have to put up with the IT types at the major facilities or the cable networks anymore, I’m going with the boxes that are within my comfort zone.

Tony Breuer

[Tony Breuer]

Thanks Shane. That’s what I was looking for. BTW, my exporting problems today were due to a random problem with a G-Raid Drive that un-mounts itself when running on esata. I guess it was feeling cranky and was acting up so I plugged it in on Firewire 800 and voila the sequence exported normally. But I will keep in mind the video mix down as a solution too. I now have two GRaid 4 TB drives that do that on a random basis. I went on the gRaid forums and other people have had the same problem but GTech support doesn’t know why. Sometimes it’s the Firewire connection that does it and sometimes (like with my drives) the esata does it. I used to really like G-Tech but now I’m a bit disillusioned with them.

Thanks again for the advice.

Tony Breuer