OT – is the “new” Mac Pro a failure

[Tom Sefton]

Not for us it isn’t. Fast and v. reliable. The GPU and RAM performance when dealing with 4K+ resolution is fantastic.

Co-owner at Pollen Studio
http://www.pollenstudio.co.uk

[Herb Sevush]

I am just shocked to learn that everything I thought about the Trash Can when it was first announced turns out to be true. The only thing Pro about the nMP is the price. And yes Bill, some editors still need something more than a laptop, no matter how nifty-keen they are to edit with around the pool.

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
—————————
nothin’ attached to nothin’
“Deciding the spine is the process of editing” F. Bieberkopf

[Tom Sefton]

I just haven’t seen anything but impressive performance from it. For instance – we shoot a lot of Red Epic Dragon footage. The nMP is encoding 4k r3d files to prores in realtime and editing in FCPX is smooth with raw files. It even works with 6K full frame files and encodes 10mins of 6K footage in less than 16mins.

Co-owner at Pollen Studio
http://www.pollenstudio.co.uk

[Steve Connor]

[Tom Sefton] “I just haven’t seen anything but impressive performance from it. For instance – we shoot a lot of Red Epic Dragon footage. The nMP is encoding 4k r3d files to prores in realtime and editing in FCPX is smooth with raw files. It even works with 6K full frame files and encodes 10mins of 6K footage in less than 16mins.
“

Very impressive, what spec is your machine?

[Tom Sefton]

It’s an 8core 64GB RAM with D700s. Media is stored on a G-tech Studio XL via thunderbolt 2 that read/writes at more than 840MB/s.

The other 2 machines are 6 core machines with 32GB RAM and D700s and they are almost realtime (10mins of 4Kr3d takes around 11mins).

The best performance that we get for encoding r3d to pro-res comes in fcpx, followed by adobe media encoder. it seems that the best way to get maximum performance with the nMP is via lots of RAM, D700s and fast storage.

Co-owner at Pollen Studio
http://www.pollenstudio.co.uk

[Herb Sevush]

[Tom Sefton] “I just haven’t seen anything but impressive performance from it.”

I’m sure that’s true –

… If you don’t mind living in a morass of cables and external boxes
… If you don’t mind having a system with absolutely zero upgrade capability
… If you never have to edit with software other than FCPX

For everyone else it is not quite so impressive, which is why Steve is thinking about buying a 6 year old used MacPro off of eBay. The fact that he’s even considering this option speaks volumes.

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
—————————
nothin’ attached to nothin’
“Deciding the spine is the process of editing” F. Bieberkopf

[Tom Sefton]

[Herb Sevush] “I’m sure that’s true –

… If you don’t mind living in a morass of cables and external boxes
… If you don’t mind having a system with absolutely zero upgrade capability
… If you never have to edit with software other than FCPX

For everyone else it is not quite so impressive, which is why Steve is thinking about buying a 6 year old used MacPro off of eBay. The fact that he’s even considering this option speaks volumes”

True – it’s horses for courses I suppose.

However, we don’t just edit with FCPX and have great performance from all other media programs – adobe, resolve, fusion and redcine x.

The external cables and boxes – yeah that can be a drag, but it’s putting the upgrade outside of the form so to speak. For instance – you can add more GPU performance via a PCIE adaptor, and use this for networked RAID storage over 10Ge so each machine doesn’t need its own RAID attached. We’ve also upgraded RAM in one Mac Pro and found someone in the UK who offers hard drive upgrades to 2TB if required on the nMP. Someone even send a mailshot offering an upgrade on the CPU to a 10core processor. It’s not ideal, but I suppose it can be done. The major worry for me is that apple doesn’t seem to be focussed on its pro market regarding hardware. No updates to the nMP line in 2 years, no 5K monitor and a macbook released that has one connector and can’t use thunderbolt peripherals is not a good indicator.

We are lucky to have plenty of desk space so we can arrange things so that external RAIDs, sound cards, PCIE adaptors etc are hidden away.

I’d love to hear what performance can be achieved in a similar PC rig that has thunderbolt connectivity. If we dropped £6k on a Mac Pro – what could a PC achieve with the same budget?

Co-owner at Pollen Studio
http://www.pollenstudio.co.uk

[Neil Goodman]

There are fast for sure.

My only thing is they havent had an update in almost 2 years. Kind of worries me about he commitment apple has to it. I know they cant be selling that many of them.

I just opted for a maxed 5k iMac instead because there fast enough for my needs and it seems like apple is committed to them.

[Shawn Miller]

[Tom Sefton] “I’d love to hear what performance can be achieved in a similar PC rig that has thunderbolt connectivity. If we dropped £6k on a Mac Pro – what could a PC achieve with the same budget?”

I imagine running the same hardware will yield similar performance. It’s funny, I’ve been having this conversation with a few coworkers for the past few weeks. They are designers who are moving into motion graphics and 3D animation, so they’re looking to upgrade their hardware. They are CONVINCED that an identically speced Mac Pro will be faster than a PC. I’m sort of left scratching my head, as nothing will move them from this notion, not Cinebech scores, not logic, nothing. It reminds me of the thread about DIY PC performance vs the nMP: https://forums.creativecow.net/thread/335/63665#63705

[Phil Hoppes] “…and while you can build a 12 Core Xenon PC with dual Radeon cards I doubt very seriously that it’s performance would even come close to what the current raft of benchmarks are delivering for the MacPro.”

[Oliver Peters] “If you look at the pricing for HP’s best machine, the Z820, and compare equivalent specs to the Mac Pro, the Z820 is more expensive. Yes, it is more expandable, but otherwise is actually a less capable machine based on the internal parts.”

[Shawn Miller] My only question is why you think this. I’m even willing to concede the cost argument (pitting DYI and HP against Apple). 🙂

Shawn

EDIT: I meant to add that you can see for yourself, what sort of machine you can build for 6k US. This will be my integrator of choice for my next computer.

https://www.pugetsystems.com/nav/genesis/II/customize.php

[Ricardo Marty]

Look at these babies:

https://www.pcworld.com/article/2887581/boxx-apexx-5-heres-what-a-36-core-five-gpu-workstation-looks-like.html

https://www.titancomputers.com/Titan-A450-Quad-CPUs-AMD-Opteron-Abu-Dhabi-p/a450.htm

Ricardo Marty