Upgrading Mac

[Joseph Owens]

See this:

https://forums.creativecow.net/thread/277/13538

jPo

You mean “Old Ben”? Ben Kenobi?

[Ryan Snook]

Thanks I’ll check out the Mac section of that configuration guide again.

Does anyone with actual Mac hardware have any advice or personal knowledge to share about getting a 2k/4k RED footage capable Resolve Machine up and running?

[Robert Houllahan]

For a 4K capable Mac you probably need the 12-Core Mac-Pro and a 4-Bay Cubix expander for GPUs and a high performance storage solution maybe FC or an Atto SAS card and disk array or similar. Plus Red Rocket card(s) if the 4K is Red footage.

-Rob-

Robert Houllahan
Director / Colorist
Cinelab Inc.
http://www.cinelab.com

MAHC-PRO 6-Core 3X GTX285 20Tb SAS Wave Panel Panny 11UK SDI Plasma.

[Ryan Snook]

OK, thank you sir. So what do you have going on in your 3d GTX285 rig? Any SLI type of things or how are your monitors hooked up to each card? Are you running a GTX285 for the GUI in resolve or don’t you need a little GT 120 for that?

[Margus Voll]

In expander you may want to explore something like gtx480 not 285 any more.

As Robert pointed you really need to push everything to get 4k.

Win version would be better option for this imo.
New PC boards may have faster internal io from cpu to memory etc.
On 4k it al really counts a lot as the data you push is insanely big.

—

Margus

https://iconstudios.eu

[Ryan Snook]

Does the 480 replace the 285 and approved for GPU in resolve? Windows… :(. Yeah, the hardware is really there but its nice being on a Mac, and FCP… 🙂

[Robert Houllahan]

I am running a GTX-285 for the GUI which is best for a hackintosh I had tried a GT-120 and two 285 cards at one point early on and eventually just went with 3 X GTX-285’s for that machine which helped with stability. I am running a ASUS P6T7 WS “Supercomputer” board with a rewritten bios that makes it look like a Mac EFI. My disk array on this is a Atto raid to SAS chassis with 12 1Tb Deskstar drives. And I am still just using the Decklink SDI for monitoring. The machine is very very stable and I have graded everything from 2K DPX features to HDV shot Docs with no problems.

I built this machine when Resolve first came out and would run GTX-480’s or 580’s today. I think I am going to build a PC machine sometime this year. I have another chassis which has a 20 disk SAS backplane in it and think an all in one with 3 X GTX-580 cards will be a real screamer…

I think having a PC Resolve for max horsepower and a Mac resolve for an assist station plus writing Pro-Res is a fairly ideal setup.

-Rob-

Robert Houllahan
Director / Colorist
Cinelab Inc.
http://www.cinelab.com

MAHC-PRO 6-Core 3X GTX285 20Tb SAS Wave Panel Panny 11UK SDI Plasma.

[Ryan Snook]

How much would it cost me to build your exact hackintosh today? I’ve wanted to make one but get scared of the BIOS and the video – as FCP and such never seem to work out for me.

[Robert Houllahan]

Same machine but with GTX-480’s would be around $8k today, minus the Resolve Dongle and the Tangent Wave.

-Rob-

Robert Houllahan
Director / Colorist
Cinelab Inc.
http://www.cinelab.com

MAHC-PRO 6-Core 3X GTX285 20Tb SAS Wave Panel Panny 11UK SDI Plasma.

[Ryan Snook]

Wow that was a lot more expensive than I imagined. What is jacking the price up so high? The drives? What if I were to get Case, PSU, CPU, RAM, Video, MOBO, etc and 1 internal SSD and worry about more internal/external storage in the future? The hardware seems a lot cheaper than buying a set Mac Pro isn’t it? What would that cost look like? Also, are there Mac drivers for the 580s? Do they work well on resolve? How difficult is it setting up the Hackintosh – just a BIOS flash away or kext battles?

Thanks!