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Why A quad is being delivered to me this week….
Maybe no one cares, but this is my rationale and the series of choices I made. Maybe it will help someone else out in their decision, and certainly it will illicit a fire and brimstone dissertation from at least one of the cow members.
Luckily, all the projects I am working on right now are long form and using the DV codec (which is very unusual for me), so I had the option of selling my 2.7 G5 and Kona 2 without completely destroying my workflow. I also have an IO (that I use in conjunction with the Kona 2) so I can always just use the IO for any uncompressed SD job that comes in until Kona 2e is released (which will not be very far off at all)
My main problem is that the Atto UL5D is not released- so I can’t use my Huge SCSI raid.
Also I have a SATA raid (on a Highpoint 8 port card), but Highpoint informed me that to use my raid with their new PCIe card you have to reformat the raid, so even though the card is out- I would still need 500 gigs of space to backup my current long form show before it could be moved to the reformatted SATA raid.
Then I thought – why not just buy a 500 gig Single sata drive, pop that into my “old” 2.7, backup my half filled Huge raid, and just use the 500 Gig drive in the Quad machine until the UL5d comes out or with another SATA card I really like. The single SATA will also do a single 10 bit stream I believe with no problem- at least until it really starts to fill up)
My main motivation for going through all this trouble (including selling gear) is that now I will not feel compelled in any way to want a first generation MacIntel.
The quad machine, though a PCI departure, is still direct descendant of our current platform.
The Intel Machines, I believe will have pro users like ourselves waiting quite some time until every aspect of HD/SD cards and drivers ,storage, etc is rock solid.
And as Jeff Bernstein pointed out, there is pretty much no way that the PCIe cards will not work with the intel Machines (eventually)
So while others end up stuck with dual 2.0’s (invariably when I use a client’s machine and I find myself waiting for renders, lack of RT, etc I check and it’s a dual 2.0) waiting for the intels to be rock solid, or end up jumping in too the Intels early, waiting for drivers and stability, I’ll be quite happy with my shiny, new, “dead end” quad 2.5.
Maybe I’m just a glutton for punishment – I also have a Silence Case coming this week- a custom built huge isolation box that will hold 2 towers and 2 raids.- that should be fun reconfiguring all this at once, extending cables to come out of the box through grommets, etc.
Hopefully when I’m done I’ll have speed, stability, and silence (as well as all my clients!)
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12 Replies
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[Deadhead] ” I also have a Silence Case coming this week- a custom built huge isolation box that will hold 2 towers and 2 raids.- that should be fun reconfiguring all this at once, extending cables to come out of the box through grommets, etc.”
How will this case stay cool? recycling warm air will not be good for your quad. Just wondering if you ahve to ad additional air con to this equation. What has Silent case told you about the possible need for additional cooling?
Regarding your 500gig drive: remember it won’t format out to the full 500 gigs. Maybe get two drives just for safety to make sure you have enough room.
Andy
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The silence case works like most other isolation cases in that it draws in cool air from the outside and exhausts hot air. There is a digital temp thermometer as well, and 3 levels of fan cooling.
I can only get 1 extra drive in the mac, and the 460 or so gigs will be enough – plus I can always use a FW drive if needed. Luckily it’s only DV.
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Which case are you ordering, and from which company-website?
Thanks,
Todd -
Your “main” problem is that you are taking apart your working system in hopes that you will be able to put a new one back together before you get an HD job.
Can you predict the date of your next HD job?
I predict that you will see the UL5Ds ship before the Kona2e (not even announced product).
Last time I looked, a Quad machine is no faster than your current dual 2.7, this will change when Apple updates FCP to use the 4 processors.
Fred
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>>Last time I looked, a Quad machine is no faster than your current dual 2.7, this will change when Apple updates FCP to use the 4 processors.<< Actually, it seems FCP and After Effects are two applications that REALLY benefit from 4 processors (and 4 Velocity Engines). Typically FCP and AE are rendering 50% faster on most functions...and this is without any updates to FCP. Check out this link, A Quad G5 owner made a video of an old G5 dual 2 GHz and a new Quad 2.5 GHz working side by side: https://www.hardmac.com/news/2005-11-29/#4790
I have seen 3 other reports indicating the Quads really benifit FCP, AE and 3D apps. Barefeats.com reports:
>>Not all MP aware apps fully use the four processors. When we ran Apple’s own applications (including iMovie render and QuickTime Player export, and Motion RAM Preview render) we didn’t see more than 160% usage. Some readers reported as much as 230% usage when they did Final Cut Pro renders and DVD encoding. However, when we ran Adobe Photoshop CS (certain filters), Adobe After Effects (render), Maxon’s Cinema 4D (render), and Deep Shredder (Chess game analysis) we saw usage of over 390%. .
Quad processors will help you if you are running simultaneously active apps. Four active applications (rendering, encoding, et.) that use only 100% CPU will complete their tasks in parallel. Run the same four apps on a Dual-Core G5 and they take twice as long to finish.
We think the Quad-Core is an awesome G5 Power Mac. Once new owners learn to utilize its power, I think they will agree.<< I'm guessing Professional Intel PowerMacs are probably a year away, and we know they will emulate PPC software via 'Rosetta' until all the applications, Plug-Ins and hardware drivers are updated - that's going to take quite a while. I'm jumping on the Quad bandwagon and reaping the speed benefits now rather than waiting... JP -
>>Last time I looked, a Quad machine is no faster than your current dual 2.7, this will change when Apple updates FCP to use the 4 processors.<< Thanks for the links and the BareFeats quote, they both support the fact that a Quad 2.5 machine is no faster than a current dual 2.7 with todays applications. Fred
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Sorry, but I beg to differ:
>>However, when we ran Adobe Photoshop CS (certain filters), Adobe After Effects (render), Maxon’s Cinema 4D (render), and Deep Shredder (Chess game analysis) we saw usage of over 390%<< Also, even if an application doesn't use all 4 core's at once, you will be able to run 2 or 3 tasks EACH of which will use one or two cores. So you can (for example) be compressing MPEG2 video and editing without taking a performance hit (compared with a DP Mac). A 3D developer who tested their application (Modo) on a Quad reported a 200% increase in speed over a DP2.5 (without any updates to the software) on his blog. Also, the Quads have PCIe video cards which will bring significant speed advantages to GPU based apps, and in the near future video cards and other cards specifically engineered for PCIe. I don't see Kona releasing a 'Kona3' for PCI-X based systems. You are 100% correct that not ALL applications will run significantly faster on a Quad than a 2.7 today. It depends on the software and the type of work you do. But SOME do, and those that don't probably will do in the near future. Surely it's a good investment now for Deadhead, myself and many others now....I hope so as I've just purchased 9 Quad Macs from Apple. Our current DP2.7's and 2.5's will be moved into a render farm or relocated to Quark and InDesign guys. Shampoo 🙂
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Hi Deadhead
Oh man – if this case can silence clients – please please I want one!!!
Two things – I believe FCP is not optimised to run more than two CPU’s yet – that’s why it does not get close to the boost that photoshop gets in a quad. Apple should release an FCP update to use it better soon.
Lastly – I think your thinking is good – since I think Apple will take a long time to get FCP running on Intel – it will certainly not run using the Rosetta emulator. It will need to be rewritten from scratch to run intel natively, and I would wager that it’s going to take 18 months before that is really stable.
Regards
Francois -
[Francois Stark] “Lastly – I think your thinking is good – since I think Apple will take a long time to get FCP running on Intel -“
I’m not so sure about that. Keep in mind that Steve Jobs noted in his Keynote speech way back in June that every version of OS X has been designed to run on Intel machines. So with that inside knowledge, it would be hard to believe that FCP would not be ready to run either when the desktop towers are ready or very shortly afterwards.
Also remember FCP started out on Windows with Macromedia. It could be a while, but you never know.
Also are we absolutely certain the FCP won’t run with the Rosetta emulation? I can’t find a mention of that anywhere.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
https://www.biscardicreative.com“The Rough Cut,” an original short film premiering December 7th in full High Definition in Atlanta.
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Hi Walter
Let’s take this one at a time:
[Walter Biscardi] “Keep in mind that Steve Jobs noted in his Keynote speech way back in June that every version of OS X has been designed to run on Intel machines.”
Yes, and Steve Jobs also said at the WWDC 2003 that he would have 3GHz G5’s out within a year. That should have been May 2004. We’re still waiting. I have a lot of respect for Steve, but occasionally he goes out on a limb and predicts stuff that is impossible for his engineers to accomplish. By the way – he has not said anything specifically about FCP on intel, but it is implied that we can expect FCP to run on Intel eventually if he wants to move his full line of computers to Intel.
[Walter Biscardi] “FCP started out on Windows with Macromedia.” How many versions ago, without keeping up to date versions developed for Intel?
[Walter Biscardi] “are we absolutely certain the FCP won’t run with the Rosetta emulation?”
Quoting from thinksecret:
“Rosetta is the name of Apple’s technology that seamlessly converts PowerPC code to Intel code on the fly. It is designed so that applications that are not available as universal binaries for both PowerPC and Intel systems can still run on Apple’s Intel Macs. During the WWDC keynote, Apple CEO Steve Jobs demonstrated several PowerPC applications running with Rosetta, including Microsoft Office and Adobe Photoshop. Very fast systems, Jobs said, will be able to take advantage of Rosetta without the user even noticing.Preliminary benchmarks suggest otherwise, but questions still remain about benchmarking Rosetta. One developer wonders how the Intel Mac would score when running Xbench a second time, since Rosetta caches translated binaries in real time, and could presumably benefit from the cache upon an additional run. In addition, Apple’s developer docs say Rosetta isn’t tuned to apps that have “intense” computing needs, though it says software with moderate user interaction and “some high computational needs” are in most cases compatible.
Overall, the Intel Mac are scoring between 65 and 70 with Xbench, a far cry from the 200+ scores higher-end G5 systems reach. The CPU test is landing in the high teens compared with scores of 100 to 200 for G5 systems, but that appears to be primarily due to lackluster FPU scores. According to a recent Macworld story, Rosetta does not support AltiVec instructions, which substanties the results. The GCD Loop score for the Intel Mac, part of the CPU test, is a respectable 110, compared to dual-2.5GHz G5 Macs that score about 140.”
So there are two issues that would cause me to say that FCP won’t run under Rosetta –
1. It causes a performance slowdown which you can not afford in a CPU intensive app like FCP.
2. It does not do Altivec. Here’s a quote from
https://www.macworld.com/news/2005/06/07/gamedev/index.php“What
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