PCI Expansion plans?

[Robert Houllahan]

As far as I understand the PCIe expansion chassis is hardware transparent to the OS and could be easily added to expand the number of slots. I looked at these and they are as expensive as a Mac-Pro itself. Maybe someone makes a two slot box? I would think that having the SDI card and the Red Rocket on a separate chassis would work.

-Rob-

https://www.cinelab.com

[George Bellias]

I know many people are researching various possibilities to expand the number of PCIe slots. The ability to add a Red Rocket card along with an HBA card is an obvious need. The other situation where another slot would be beneficial is to add a 2nd GPU card for additional power, especially when working in 3D. If some additional PCIe slot solution is found, do we know for sure that the Mac version of Davinci would utilize a 2nd GPU like the Linux version?

Just curious.

George Bellias
Jade Productions

[Josh Petok]

Would this work?

https://www.magma.com/2slot.asp

You would only be gaining one spot since you need a card to interface with the other expansion box. The next size up can hold 4 cards. It could also be used with a Macbook Pro 😉

Josh Petok
JoshPetok.com

[Robert Houllahan]

I downloaded the Magma 2-bay install guide and it does have info about the expansion box being supported in Mac-OS so it would probably work to add a Red-Rocket. I doubt that adding a second GPU would be supported on the Mac version of Resolve BMD wants to sell you a Linux system for that.

-Rob-

https://www.cinelab.com

[Rodrigo Silvestri]

I know of post houses that use well-built Hackintoshes, not for saving $$ but for having workstations that perform even better that the best Mac-Pro (using server motherboards which can have more PCIe slots).

Rodrigo.

—
Some people seem to love getting angry. I don’t 🙂

[Misha Aranyshev]

I’ll repeat myself:

“Dear Blackmagic Design, please stick a couple of Nvidia chips inside a Multibridge!”

[Robert Houllahan]

Well, maybe we should expand on this…

I think Apple has left their pro apps and hardware behind… and I own a NeXT cube which still runs from 1988….

I think the Current Mac-Pro is a bit of a slow machine for the $ and I just got rid of the mac-pro 2,1 8x 3ghz I was running Color on…

-Rob-

[Walter Soyka]

I stumbled upon JMR’s BlueStor PCIe Extender a couple days ago. It adds 5 PCIe slots and 16 SAS/SATA disk drive bays in 3 RU, so it could house additional cards and replace my storage in the same chassis.

I’ve only ever seen Magma extenders in use; does anybody have any experience with this JMR solution?

Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events

[Illya Laney]

“I looked at these and they are as expensive as a Mac-Pro itself”

I started researching PCIe chassis last April after NAB and a Mac compatible one suited for your needs should cost between $1000-$2000. A new Mac costs over $4000 right?

If you search through the Color and DaVinci forum posts over the past few months, you’ll find a few threads covering all of this.

twitter.com/illyalaney
Motion Design, Color, Editing
SWGC Incorporated

[Jake Blackstone]

Your question should be addressed to Apple and not BM. BM has nothing to do with Mac hardware architecture. Installing any kind of chassy expander is not a good solution, as South bridge is still the limiting factor on the Mac system. It limits the Mac hardware to 40 lanes of bandwidth and no chassy expander will alleviate that.
I don’t believe, that Hackintosh is a viable solution either for mission critical device. Too many workarounds for a system to depend on.