windows or mac for 4K

[Rick Lang]

If the $3,500 is for the machine only, wait for the new Mac Pro if you can so you at least know what you can get their and then consider all options. You may want to add at least one 4K monitor and one fast RAID at a minimum to that machine of course so I assume that is outside the $3,500 budget or you already have that.

Rick Lang

iMac 27” 2.8GHz i7 16GB

[Eric Hansen]

since a price has not been announced for the new Mac Pro, I would wait and see what that is. BMD is saying Resolve performance is pretty good on test machines.

But a DIY Windows system could give you a lot of performance for $3500. You could load up on more GPU cards, which the new Mac Pro won’t allow.

Another thing to consider would be a used current or last gen Mac Pro. Currently a 2009 8 core from Mac Of All Trades is only $1200. I have this machine at work and at home (home machine purchased from Mac of All Trades) and it can handle everything I throw at it. The only downside is lack of PCI slots, which has me looking at the Windows DIY route.

if $3500 includes storage and monitoring, then you’re not going to have enough money.

e

Eric Hansen
Production Workflow Designer / Consultant / Colorist / DIT
https://www.erichansen.tv

[Paulson Lang]

Thanks guys for your reply. May be I am spending too much.can any one tell me the best 4k machine configuration so that I can save some money.

Thanks
PL

[Eric Hansen]

that’s a very broad question. Also, Resolve 10 has a lot of tweaks for 4k and new GPU cards, so it makes a lot of sense to wait and see what hardware works best with this new software.

what is your source? 4k R3Ds, 4k XAVC, 4k DPX, 4k ProRes? each of these will tax a different part of your system, requiring different configs depending on which you are working with the most. If it’s mostly R3Ds, you will want to wait for Resolve to add GPU-based R3D debayering, since RED has recently announced that they’re making debayering available for GPUs, which will save you the cost of buying a RED Rocket. if it’s 4k DPX, then you will need about $20k for fast enough storage. if it’s XAVC or ProRes, you will need to beef up your CPU (and you might want to lean towards Mac if you’re doing mostly ProRes). either way, you will need some awesome GPUs. i would look at Titans.

$3500 is NOT too much money for 4k. depending on what you want to do, be prepared to spend much more.

e

Eric Hansen
Production Workflow Designer / Consultant / Colorist / DIT
https://www.erichansen.tv

[Paulson Lang]

Thanks eric. My source would be mostly r3d and 5d footage.I’ll wait for a while to chk both new macpro and resolve 10 to take a decision.