Mac Pro 08 Post Processing options / gfx card upgrade

Started by jc, June 20, 2013, 08:53:06 PM

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jc

Hi Guys, first off raw video quality ( from my MK2 ) is amazing!

I have a Mac Pro, specifically the 08 "3,1" model.. this is a very popular machine around here i would imagine.
It has the included gfx card : ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT 256 MB

After Effects :
I first tried rendering a 40 second clip in After Effects, bringing in the DNG sequence, and the controls were exactly what i was looking for, very easy to get highlight recovery, shadow detail, white balance & noise reduction. However when choosing a custom ProRes export it was saying 1 hour 15 mins! This is acceptable .. i can leave it over night, but not ideal

Cineform Raw :
Next option was Cineform Raw converted in a windows 8 vm.. conversion was super fast, and i can use the files "As Is" on my mac with the codecs installed but as far as i can tell i need Cineform Studio Professional at a cost of $300 to grade the footage, and with that the noise performance is not great

Ginger HDR : works fine & can directly play back the files in After Effects, but cant see much in the way of grading options and not affordable

Raw2dng : from http://bitbucket.org/a_d_/magic-lantern/downloads/5D2_OSX_raw2dng_ProRes.zip .. gives me a 10 bit ProRes file.. about 15 mins for 40 seconds.. not too bad tho some of the raw quality / flexibility is lost

Davinci Resolve :
This looks to be a great, affordable, and fast option : the only issue is that my mac pro 08's gfx card does not support OpenCL, so it simply wont run.
So my main questions are A) should i upgrade my gfx card and B) what too
As far as i can tell the performance on an 08 mac pro is not amazing, the processors are very fast & you can fit a very very fast gfx card but the bus between the two is quite slow so for lots and lots of grading it's slower than expected, but just for a simple grade and export it should be quick enough. Also it prefers nvidia cards that have CUDA over just OpenCL ( for example, no noise reduction in open CL ) I also want a card thats quiet, eps at idle, and quite affordable. The official gfx card updates from apple are years out of date & very expensive, you can however with later versions of OS X ( eg 10.8.3 and above ) fit a number of PC gfx cards all which work just fine, except you wont see a boot screen; the logging screen / your desktop with auto login are the first things to show.

So shall i : A) wait for some perfect workflow where its super fast, with the ease and quality of ACR in After Effects, but is mega fast with out needing a new gfx card, or buy a new card for my pro & :
B ) if i buy a card what one, a 2nd hand one off ebay or a a new one? Nvidia or ATI/AMD? i dont need anything super fast, just quiet, affordable & does the job quite well.

J

AnotherDave

I had the exact same issue.

Just bite the bullet and get the ATI 5770 upgrade from Apple.  It's $250 but my system is running a lot better with it all around.

Resolve works great, and it is fast!  I'm outputting at around 18fps (depending on what I do to the clip).  It made the possibility of RAW on my system a lot more possible.

Though, now I'm upgrading again to USB 3.0 because my fastest option for downloading the CF media was 480mbps USB 2.0 - making the whole process of converting .RAW files to ProRes 422 HQ take a total of 1:15;00 (26-29mins to download).  I'm hoping USB 3.0 will cut that DL time to 10-15mins.

rockfallfilms

I have a Mac Pro early 2008 8 core 3.0ghz. I put a GTX 560Ti 448 in it and I get 18-25fps in Resolve. AE renders pretty quickly too. Resolve gives me a GPU not supported warning but still works fine. You could also put a GTX 570 in it.

jc

Hi guys.. thanks for the reply! i thought that this might be a popular topic.. i think apple sold lots & lots of the 3,1 mac pro!

>Resolve works great, and it is fast!  I'm outputting at around 18fps (depending on what I do to the clip).  It made the possibility of RAW on my system a lot more possible.

Great thats exactly what im looking for, just a basic grade to get my white balance set, highlights recovered and shadow detail brought out, and all in a few mins per min.. not into the hours :-)

>Though, now I'm upgrading again to USB 3.0 because my fastest option for downloading the CF media was 480mbps USB 2.0 - making the whole process of converting .RAW files to ProRes 422 HQ take a total of 1:15;00 (26-29mins to download).  I'm hoping USB 3.0 will cut that DL time to 10-15mins.
Thats a great point.. which pci usb 3.0 card are you looking at then? maybe this should be a general "Upgrade your Mac Pro for RAW Processing" thread! Also have you considered Firewire 800 card readers ? like this one http://www.robgalbraith.com/content_paged037.html?cid=7-11673-12298

> I have a Mac Pro early 2008 8 core 3.0ghz. I put a GTX 560Ti 448 in it and I get 18-25fps in Resolve. AE renders pretty quickly too. Resolve gives me a GPU not supported warning but still works fine. You could also put a GTX 570 in it.
Great .. which make of GTX 560Ti do you have ? and does the machine work well with it in? eg any issues & do many other apps benefit from the card? also is it quiet, eg the same as the stock card? .. i code on my machine regularly and don't want an air-con unit sound all day :-) also did you remove the existing card or leave that in too?
I was thinking of maybe a GTX 550 .. its half the price and maybe still far more than i need .. are there any good low price / power consumption last gen cards i can get on ebay that work well for say half the price of the GTX 550? or you think not?

Many Thanks. J

jc

Also was also thinking of a GTX 650 ... tho seems roughly the same price as the GTX 550 .. and would need special power cables for these pc cards?

budafilms

Try the GTX 650 Ti OC

NOT the others 650.

I had the ATI 6850 and this model for da vinci and FINAL X duplicate my machine.

It´s very cheap.


jc

Quote from: budafilms on June 21, 2013, 07:29:39 AM
Try the GTX 650 Ti OC
NOT the others 650.
ok great il make sure to look out for a TI model then.. which make do you recommend?

also i came across this.. any thoughts ?
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/2gb-zotac-gt-640-zone-edition-28nm-1600mhz-gddr3-gpu-900mhz-384-cores-mini-hdmi-2x-dl-dvi-passive-co
It's passively cooled, which looks interesting!

xNiNELiVES


jc

Quote from: xNiNELiVES on June 21, 2013, 08:19:05 PM
Why don't you get a 680 Mac edition.
Hi xNiNELiVES, thanks for your reply:-) well it's about 5x more than I wanted to spend, is a lot more than I need and very big & maybe not that quiet either

Does anybody have an opinion on that passive card? Looks very appealing to my limited knowledge. James