Greg Leuenberger
Forum Replies Created
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Well….why? Give me some facts, because I need more than that. : )
What is it about transferring data via Thunderbolt that would make it worse than Ethernet? No traffic management if more than one workstation is requesting data from the server? Seems like from a throughput standpoint this would work, but that’s why I’m asking.
-Greg
Greg Leuenberger
CEO
Sabertooth Productions, Inc.
http://www.sabpro.com -
Wow, finally – 10GB switches are coming down in price. I’ve been waiting a long time for a $1K 10GB copper switch. From the reviews I’ve read the Netgear switches are ridiculously loud, but I’m sure that will get fixed and other manufacturers will start lowering prices.
Now…what we need is the 10 GB NICs to come down by a similar amount, for me a $1-1.5K switch and 6-8 $250-$300 NICs would be an investment I would make. But spending $1K per NIC is still over the top for me and I’m sure a lot of people like me.
-Greg
Greg Leuenberger
CEO
Sabertooth Productions, Inc.
http://www.sabpro.com -
I’m running that exact config. except with a Dreamcolor hanging off of a HDLink (UltraStudio SDI->HDLink->Displayport to Dreamcolor). It’s been a **great** FCP system and my Avid Editor installed the Avid demo and was shocked at how fast it was. But for DaVinci? The system’s strengths don’t play towards what DaVinci needs. I’m running the ‘free’ version and it’s fine for one node of CC…but I wouldn’t build a DaVinci system around it..not by any means.
Honestly, I’ll be building my DaVinci system around a Windows machine – nobody know where the Mac Pro’s will be this year (or next) but you can be sure that the newest/fastest CUDA cards will be available for Windows. I expect an Ivy Bridge system with a couple of NVidia Kepler series cards and thunderbolt off the mobo will kill anything Apple has to offer. It will be a few months before the new hardware is available though. My company is littered with Mac Pros but I’m selling another one this week and will replace it with another top-end iMac/Thunderbolt system.
I know a lot of people around here are not crazy about PCs…fact is it’s your best bet in terms of an up-gradable long-term (fast as you want it to be) system. Once you’re in your App (be it DaVinci or otherwise) you’re not dealing with the OS a whole lot anyway (besides….MacOS seems to be going the wrong direction IMO)
best,
Greg
Greg Leuenberger
CEO
Sabertooth Productions, Inc.
http://www.sabpro.com -
I would wait (I’m waiting) – unless you’re actually losing business in the waiting process. Thunderbolt will take care of your RAID situation – and I’ve already seen one vendor announce an external Thunderbolt based PCIe expansion box. Slots are at a premium with DaVince – so I would think that waiting a bit should be worth it. The thought of having an external PCIe expansion box with a couple of fast CUDA cards in it is very appealing….
Not dealing with (yet another) Vendor and set of drivers for a HBA is appealing as well. Know what else is appealing? Sandybridge(!) : ) We may (not exactly crossing my fingers here) get a better BTO GPU as well.
If the new Mac Pro isn’t something you want you can always buy a used 2010 one.
best,
Greg
Greg Leuenberger
CEO
Sabertooth Productions, Inc.
http://www.sabpro.com -
Not to jump all over you Margus but you will gain **a lot** from running on windows. Windows supports the full range of CUDA and OpenCL supported graphics cards – you can get a much newer and faster card for windows and have more of them. I just put together a windows box (to run 3D software) that has 3 16x pciE slots for 3 way SLI or Cross-Fire on a $200 motherboard (with 6GB Sata and USB 3.0 to boot). Simply put you can get MUCH better performance out of a windows box than a Mac Pro (and I have half a dozen Mac Pro’s and Xserves at my company). The only thing more pathetic than the range of available graphics cards on OS X is the actual performance of the crappy last generation graphics cards we are offered. Duel boot into Win7 on a Mac Pro if you want to see what your machine is really capable of.
Now – granted you lose FCP support on the Mac (maybe not be such a big deal anymore..cough cough). But you also lose ProRes 4444 support which is a big deal (Win can read but not write it, if I’m not mistaken). All the AJA and BM cards are supported on Win as well. Plus you can get fast enough Raids on the motherboard without using a slot…or use one of the sweet SSD based RevoDrives that don’t really work on a Mac. So it’s really only a software issue (no ProRes, no FCP and no Smoke) that would prevent a complete Windows based system.
But as far as hardware is concerned – a Win7 machine would blow away anything a Mac has to offer by a (HUGE) margin. The ‘best/recommended’ CUDA card for OSX is like 3 years old (the Qaudro 2000 being handicapped by bandwidth and the usual crappy OS X drivers). Anyway, getting off of my soapbox here but a Win 7 version of DaVinci would be a killer app, but it would also probably render the Linux version meaningless so I don’t think we will probably see it coming.
-Greg
But as far as perform
[Margus Voll] “What will you gain from windows?”
Greg Leuenberger
CEO
Sabertooth Productions, Inc.
http://www.sabpro.com -
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The other issue is cabling. What is it using? If we already have Cat6 in all the walls what is it going to take to install light peak cables and how much does it cost (and what kind of cable/HBA combo are we talking about for that matter). I’m interested, but there doesn’t seem to be a lot of info out yet for out niche regarding LightPeak.
Instead of 100GB ethernet I’d rather 10GB (which has been around for a while) takes off and becomes affordable.
-Greg
Greg Leuenberger
CEO
Sabertooth Productions, Inc.
http://www.sabpro.com -
It looks like a contender, but you’re right – $15K is too much right now. Hopefully we won’t have to wait 3 years – in 3 years LightPeak may be out and an option (I think it can handle long cable runs). I suppose it’s too much to expect it to drop much in 2011 though (fingers crossed – I’d love to see a 12 port switch, enough for 8-10 machines…edit, render and graphics). I wouldn’t rule it out, 8-12 port fiber switches are common.
-Greg
Greg Leuenberger
CEO
Sabertooth Productions, Inc.
http://www.sabpro.com -
I’ve chatted with Bob on this forum about this before and I think we are very close. I’m wiring my new office up with CAT6 in anticipation of 10GB over copper RJ45. The ‘holy grail’ for me is an affordable 10GB switch in combination with a fast affordable array (I don’t care if it’s miniSAS or 6GB Sata… as long as it’s fast and cheap). I want to serve both edit and graphic stations as equal citizens and not have to constantly copy graphics and edits between local RAIDs.
I’d easily pay $5K for a 10GB switch – those things will last 5 years easy, at $1K per year of investment that’s a no brainer. This is the company I’ve been keeping an eye on:
https://www.aristanetworks.com/en/products/7100t
Founded by Andy Bechtolsheim – he’s pretty much a legend here in SIlicon Valley, co-founded Sun and Arista seems to be trying to bring affordable RJ-45 hi-density 10GB to the masses. These switches have Sun written all over them (modular fans and redundant power supplies) – even the hexagonal airflow vents are Sun styling. They will look nice next to my Xserves (don’t get me started on this…).
Anyway, not sure what the street price for the Arista 7100T, I saw a forum post ~$13.5K… not sure if that’s accurate. Really anything a click or two under $10K would make me think very seriously about pulling the trigger.
I seem to remember that some of the issues with RJ45/copper had to do with power and heat – hopefully these have been solved.
-Greg
Greg Leuenberger
CEO
Sabertooth Productions, Inc.
http://www.sabpro.com -
It should blow the 285 out of the water – somebody (at BlackMagic??) should really do some benchmarks. It has 2GB of RAM and Cuda should run much faster on this chipset (Fermi). This should be the card we’ve been waiting for…
-Greg
Greg Leuenberger
CEO
Sabertooth Productions, Inc.
http://www.sabpro.com