Mac Pro spec issues – guidance desired

[Greg Jones]

I would say you could start by upgrading to a minimum of 16GB of Ram, preferably 32Gb. Next step would be to upgrade your video card to a Nvidia GTX570 or Quadro 4000. The video card makes a huge difference in Premiere and the Ram will make a huge difference overall.

Greg Jones
D7,Inc.

[Roel Bus]

I was running very similar specs, if you are on an early 2008 Mac Pro… I actually upgraded to the 5770 graphics card last year, as I could not afford the Quadro (any Mac version). With Mountain Lion, this card will give you Open GL hardware acceleration, which makes some difference in rendering.
I ended up upgrading my RAM to 20 GB, which is beneficial to the entire machine. I keep reading about the fantastic performance of the Quadro cards, and while I don’t doubt that, it’s definitely combined with lots of RAM and a fast enough HD array that it works great.
So first of all you need a RAID array of fast enough HD’s, then lots of RAM, and then the video card. The card really helps with complicated filters, plugins etc, that then play back without need for render
My system now is
2008 Mac Pro
4.5 TB internal RAID 0
20 GB RAM
ATI 5770 Graphics

[Matt Walker]

Hi Roel,

Thanks for the in-depth reply. Indeed, my MP is an early 2008. Info is:

2.8GHz Quad Core Intel Xeon
ATI Radeon 5770
RAM – 8GB 800MHz DDR2 FB-DIMM

So… I’m hoping that I can just go down the route of getting a fair bit of RAM. It’s a shame that fully buffered ram is so expensive in the UK. Where about in the world are you? I was thinking I was going to have to buy a new machine etc as mine must be dying now perhaps?

Does yours render quite well and is it a GL hack in Premiere Pro, or a magic legit one?

Thank you so much for your help!

Matt

I came, I saw, I shall take copious notes.

[Matt Walker]

Hi Roel,

Thanks for the in-depth reply. Indeed, my MP is an early 2008. Info is:

2.8GHz Quad Core Intel Xeon
ATI Radeon 5770
RAM – 8GB 800MHz DDR2 FB-DIMM

So… I’m hoping that I can just go down the route of getting a fair bit of RAM. It’s a shame that fully buffered ram is so expensive in the UK. Where abouts are you

Also, do I need 2 HD’s for my RAID or can I use one? I’ve not used RAID before – I’m pretty new to videography.

Cheers,

Matt

I came, I saw, I shall take copious notes.

[Nigel Beaumont]

I just wonder if you’re expecting too much of your machine? Editing/transcoding/compressing video is serious work for any machine – it takes time and every bit of every core. You can buy a new machine every three months, but some days you’ll always want something faster.

Nigel Beaumont

Mac Pro Quad 3.0Ghz 14GB FCS 3 OSX 10.6.8/MBA 1.6Ghz 4GB FCPX OS 10.8.2

[Tim Kolb]

First…H264 video footage (your DSLR video) is aggressively compressed and takes some torque to work with. Your system could probably work with uncompressed DPX files, or ProRes much smoother than H264. Ideally you’d at least want more RAM and a PPro-usable GPU…some more processor grunt wouldn’t hurt of course.

Keep in mind that your 550 camera was introduced in 2010…in 2008 there was very little DSLR editing going on. What DSLR footage was being handled on Macs was being transcoded to something else.

2012’s Premiere Pro CS6 handles DSLR video pretty well, but it isn’t designed to run on 2008’s hardware and achieve its maximum potential.

TimK,
Director, Consultant
Kolb Productions,

Adobe Certified Instructor

[Matt Walker]

Hi Tim,

Thanks for your reply – I will start transcoding to ProRes. I’m pretty new to all of this and I’m dropping a few clangers – it’s people like you that are a massive help, so thank you.

I’m going to get 16GB more ram and some RAID setup and will see how I go from there.

Thanks again!

I came, I saw, I shall take copious notes.

[Matt Walker]

Morning Nigel,

Thanks for the reply – I will get some more RAM on the go, I think 8GB is not adequate. I’d not say I was expecting too much from the computer – even putting a video into the arrangement and applying fast colour corrector, rendering the frames into the project and then playing I get jittery playback.

I know it’s only quad core but Im only looking to do simple videos – SOME AE work would be nice, but again, I will look to my machines limitations and work around them.

I wasnt sure if I should use what I have and add components suchas another 16GB ram and a RAID setup or save and save and get a more up to date machine. Id probably have to go iMac as I’d really struggle to save the £2,600 the Mac Pro spec I’d like…

Thanks again

I came, I saw, I shall take copious notes.

[Steve Elizondo]

Hi Roel,

I’m thinking about bringing an Early 2008 Mac Pro in our creative
group up to the Adobe Cloud, which would require me to upgrade
it to Mountain Lion.

Are there any issues there I should be aware of? I wasn’t sure that
this was possible, until reading this thread this morning…

Any advice or help you can provide would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

Steve

Steve Elizondo
Digital Media Administrator
WRAL-TV