Seriously though: New Mac or carry on with maxed out 5.1 Tower

[Oliver Peters]

You are probably still getting enough performance to hang in there a while longer. It’s hard for anyone to say you will or won’t get significantly faster results without exactly duplicating your file format and workflow. A new machine – iMac Pro or Mac Pro – will likely be faster/better, but does the cost offset the performance gains? Unknown.

You may get better transcode speeds, if – 1 )you use background transcode, and/or 2) export to ProRes first. If you use background transcode, that optimized media will be used in your export, so the export is faster. If you export to ProRes and then transcode that flat ProRes master file for Vimeo, the total time may be faster than a direct export to Vimeo specs.

– Oliver

Oliver Peters – oliverpeters.com

[Patrick Sheppard]

Terry,

To your note about the OWC drive — which I assume is the Accelsior 4M2 based on the 6,000 MB/s spec — there may be a few things going on there that are affecting the read/write speed.

First, your Mac Pro model uses PCIe 2.0, which is about half the speed of PCIe 3.0. The 4M2 is PCIe 3.0 and therefore achieves the advertised 6,000 MB/s speeds with PCIe 3.0, even though it is backwards compatible with PCIe 2.0.

Second, the 4M2 is an x8 (aka 8-lane) card, so even if you have it installed into one of your bottom two PCIe slots, which are x16 (aka 16-lane), you would only see a theoretical maximum speed of 4,000 MB/s (and in reality it would be less than that due to system overhead).

But based on your stated read/write speeds, it sounds like maybe you have the 4M2 installed into one of the top two PCIe slots? If so, that would explain the 1,300 MB/s speeds you reported. The top two PCIe slots are x4 (aka 4-lane), for which the theoretical top speed is 2,000 MB/s, and in reality is more like 1,500 MB/s — which is very close to the 1,300 MB/s that you’re seeing.

To sum up, it sounds like what’s happening is that the 4M2 card is being speed-crippled three times over:

— first, by the speed difference between PCIe 2.0 and 3.0;

— second, by the fact that the 4M2 card is only x8 and therefore would only get up to x8 speeds even when installed into one of the Mac Pro’s x16 slots; and

— third, if I’m right about the 4M2 actually being installed into one of the top two PCIe slots, then you’d only have an effective speed consistent with PCIe 2.0 x4.

If the third factor is true, then you should see a significant speed increase by moving the 4M2 card to one of the Mac Pro’s bottom two PCIe slots. Or if it is already installed into one of those slots, then there’s something else affecting the read/write speed.

[Terry Flaxton]

Hey thanks – you are right about the top two slots – it’s 22.00 at night here in the UK but will try this tomorrow morning and report back. There’s a graphics card in the bottom slot.

Thanks

Made my first video in 1976, A long term programme maker, DP, editing etc – changing with AR/VR/MR media –

[Bernard Newnham]

Given that Apple look like they are going to dump Intel – I read in The Times – it’s probably a bad time to think of updating. What if they decide to EOL the incredibly expensive new MacPro you just bought and tell you that the even newer MacARM is the only thing to buy? It comes with wonderful new Thunderbolt and Lightning MegaPower (TM) and brand new SuperConnectors (TM), so you’ll be the proud owner of the very fastest and amazingness computer anywhere. And the biggest willie. But you won’t be able to use any of the peripheral gear that cost you a fortune not too long ago.

Bernie

[Terry Flaxton]

Yes I did see the news report and immediately worried about arm chips and how they just might not work with older software that would get modified and lead us down the same apple maze that’s been going on for years. It makes me wonder – because we all might think of Steve Jobs as being the golden era (albeit broken up into different parts and histories what with the head of windows getting hold of it and signing away core ideas), but he was interested in instability too. These days however the costs are huge – but and this always comes right back at you, the other routes are equally unpalatable…

Made my first video in 1976, A long term programme maker, DP, editing etc – changing with AR/VR/MR media –

[Terry Flaxton]

Patrick – I knew there was a reason that I didn’t put the $M2 in the second to bottom slot: The Saphire RX580 graphics card is big and when you add the 4M2 just above it which has two little elements hanging down into the path of the fan blades….

So the only other possibility is a new graphics card with a lower profile – $$ (and I chucked out an nvideo Quadro K2000 for the 580)….

And I hear that the Expansion slot Utility that went is now coming back with the new macs and catalina – I wonder if I should go from Mojave to Catalina just to get that to move slots around with expansion slot utility? But then I have a tempo esata card that still works on Mojave (when I beleive it shouldn’t) will Catalina kill that operability???

Made my first video in 1976, A long term programme maker, DP, editing etc – changing with AR/VR/MR media –

[Steve Connor]

[Bernard Newnham] “What if they decide to EOL the incredibly expensive new MacPro you just bought and tell you that the even newer MacARM is the only thing to buy? It comes with wonderful new Thunderbolt and Lightning MegaPower (TM) and brand new SuperConnectors (TM), so you’ll be the proud owner of the very fastest and amazingness computer anywhere. And the biggest willie. But you won’t be able to use any of the peripheral gear that cost you a fortune not too long ago.”

Not going to happen

[Herb Sevush]

Reasons to upgrade:

Thunderbolt 3, which makes a huge difference when dealing with external raids and drives.
GFX card upgrades, blowing away the performance of the 580.
Catalina compatibility (and all future OSX upgrades)

Are these enough to justify the cost? YMMV.

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

[Oliver Peters]

I think we have to take the ARM stories with a grain of salt. While it may make sense for a replacement for the basic MacBook, these chips aren’t up to the task of the heavy lifting handled by Apple’s current crop of Core i7, i9, and Xeon CPU. Maybe in a few years, but not around the corner. So does it make sense to run a bifurcated approach with macOS?

– Oliver

Oliver Peters – oliverpeters.com

[Terry Flaxton]

Patrick – I tried again and put the 4MT2 above the Saphire 580 and blocked it up enough to clear the blades, put the tempo esata back (which shouldn’t work in Mojave according to both Sonnet and apple) but does and it all now works – I’ll check it for over heating.

Thanks you again, I’ve just got an extra 1000mbs and can watch what I’m doing in 4k in best quality in best performance! Fantastic.

Made my first video in 1976, A long term programme maker, DP, editing etc – changing with AR/VR/MR media –