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Quad systems are here…
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Black Magic already offers PCIe versions of the decklink line, their new multibridge is PCIe, ATTO has several PCIe Fibre controlers, and i believe they have some SCSI PCIe controlers as well but Im not sure. There are already plenty of options available. It will be interesting to see how quikly Aja can respond. They arent known for their fast engineering.
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Hi Tom,
In the long term PCI-e is in many ways technically superior because each slot is independent of the others. No more having to worry about which slot your Kona or Decklink card is vs your RAID adapter. The problem is we will need new cards with new drivers to make use of these benefits. I am sure hoping Apple has a vendors lined up to release RAID cards at the outset. I just saw they are talking about their Fibre Channel card been updated to PCI-e so that might work for me. Here is a link for some more info about PCI-e and PCI-x.https://www.eweek.com/encyclopedia_term/0,2542,t=PCISIG&i=49002,00.asp
Hope that helps,
Gary -
I did see on Apple’s PCI-e fibre channel card on their web site after I first posted. Do you know any of the companies you mentioned have shipping cards with Mac drivers? Or at least an announcement for driver support? I have been looking that Multibridge for a while and now having a solution I can disconnect from my Mac and connect to a PC seems pretty slick. It isn’t shipping yet is it?
I know there will be other cards eventually but the prospect of a system with ALL NEW drivers doesn’t excite me as much. The Apple fibre channel card might be my bet just to hope it works.
I am not so worried about AJA coming up with a card. I know they are smart enough to be working on PCI-e cards. I think their engineering is plenty fastAs someone said it wasn’t a question of if but when for this switch. I just didn’t expect it to be a complete switch.
Thanks for the info,
Gary -
Hi George,
I don’t think the Multibridge is shipping yet is it? I know of several PCI-e RAID cards but those vendors to my knowledge have never said anything about Mac driver support.
Thanks,
Gary -
Apples Fibre card is not so great. ATTO has 4Gbit cards but as you pointed out, no drivers. ATTO works fairly quicly so you can be sure they will have drivers in a few months.
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Well you can certainly call the G5 Powermac a workstation now!
I’m looking forward to some independent benchmarks for these systems, especially how HD performance is improved. It’s certainly good to have the option of more horsepower. Even at the high cost of replacing all your PCIX cards.
I also notice they are still selling the DP 2.7.
Steve Connor
Cardinal HDPlease fill in your profile – it helps US to help YOU!
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Yeah, I think a real opportunity for Apple will be the OpenGL drivers for the workstation cards. It could really make a huge difference from what we had before to have sort of thing done in hardware.
Gary -
[Emery] “Apples Fibre card is not so great. ATTO has 4Gbit cards but as you pointed out, no drivers. ATTO works fairly quicly so you can be sure they will have drivers in a few months.”
I don’t have any issues with apple’s fibre cards (made by LSI) i use them in both mac’s and windows machines. I have found the current celerity drivers to be much flakier.
So today only apples cards are shipping. don’t be too quick to judge.
Gary Adcock
Studio37
HD and Film Consultation
Chicago, IL USA -
[George Loch] “Yes, this is true but have you priced an AMD dual dual core workstation (Intel is not even there yet)? Your lucky to be under $4k”
Not true. Compare the price of HP 9300 Opteron Workstation vs the new G5 Quad.
Configured the same way (2 GB of RAM, 250 GB HD, Quadro FX 4500), the G5 is about $200 cheaper ($5,249 vs $5,432). However, the HP comes with a 20″ LCD, SATA 2 and a built in dual channel SCSI 320 controller. That is about $1200+ value.
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My only question is when will these machines actually start shipping? Before the end of the year or sometime next year? 4-6 weeks is what it says on the Apple site, but reality can be a lot longer than that if history is our guide. Hopefully they actually have them about ready to go so they will be here sooner rather than later.
But I’m certainly not lining up to get one just yet. I want to actually see one running and see the performance enhancements before plunking down $3k for a quad machine.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
https://www.biscardicreative.comNow editing “Good Eats” in HD for the Food Network
“I reject your reality and substitute my own!” – Adam Savage, Mythbusters
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