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Which Mac for resolve?
I’m about to hit the button on a Mac resolve system but wanted to know if there was any substantial performance hit when choosing an 8 core Mac over a 12 core? Like, anything that’s a deal breaker?
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4 Replies
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Hi Kris,
Compressed video formats (e.g. ProRes, r3d, XDCAM, DNxHD) use a lot of CPU power. If you are working with lots of compressed material, then the more CPUs the better. The GPU cards perform image processing once the CPUs have done the job of decompressing the compressed video files. If you’re mainly working with uncompressed video then the 12 cores are of less benefit as they won’t be used so much.
If you’re using a RED Rocket card to work with r3d files, then the RED Rocket has already taken the load off your CPUs so you won’t need so many cores in the Mac Pro. However if you work with r3d files without a RED Rocket, then I would definitely recommend the 12 core model for processing r3d files.
Regards,
Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design -
Thanks Luke.
I plan to go with a RR card, a Cubix extender, the BMD video card and the HBA for my Maxx Digital array, along with the recommended GUI/GPU configs.
Re: the Cubix…. any suggestion on which to get? Ideally it would be as expandable as possible.
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Hi Kris,
We’ve only tested the one model of extender at the moment and you can find it and the other related components in the Resolve for Mac Config Guide on our website. My guess is the other models would also work fine but we haven’t tested them and can’t be sure. The unit we’ve tested is a 4 slot model and should work fine with your proposed cards although we haven’t specifically tested your model of HBA card.
Regards,
Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design -
Regarding the Cubix PCIe extender chassis, it doesn’t really seem like there is much of a functional difference between them, reading between the lines on their website. At this point, I’m really only weighing the pros and cons of the rackmount and Desktop4 upgraded to x16, as several clients have already indicated interest in proceeding into the the world of 3D, and of course the more GPUs, the better. And the price difference moving up for expandibility seems to favor the poly-slot offerings for starters.
jPo
You mean “Old Ben”? Ben Kenobi?
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