Now that the new iMac Pro has been announced for the 14th, I wonder if
...its qualified by Avid before it has been released? :)
Oups!...
I'm wondering if Media Composer can really make use of a 16GBof RAM on the Radeon Pro 64 GPU....
Is the GPU usage in Avid better than it was ?
Yes, it's better than it was... when there was nothing.
But it's not amazing either.
Wish Avid could do a better use of GPU as it's where the power is nowadays. A Media Composer using CUDA would be amazing for sure!
So, not sure the new iMac "pro" would make a big difference with all this VRAM. Also, not sure an entirely locked machine with no possibility of upgrading is the most suited to our jobs.
Well, if anyone buy that new iMac pro, let us know how well it handle Media Composer...
pierreh:Also, not sure an entirely locked machine with no possibility of upgrading is the most suited to our jobs.
Is this really true?
I mean, do you really upgrade units part by part?
I come from the "use it till it drops" school and so far the only upgrade I've done is adding another display.
We've been going refresh to refresh since Meridien days.
The last one (nMP) has been working bang on with both Pro Tools and MC at same host system.
I do, my Mac Pro from 2009 has had several drives added (it came with 3 empty slot, so it was meant to be able to evolve by its maker), a SSD added, USB 3 when it became available, a much beefier GPU and even a CPU transplant. And of course more memory, the most cost effective upgrade one can do early on. And it still is one of the most powerful machine out there when I compare benchmarks to current machines.
But you're right, not everyone does that. Lots of people plug the machine and then use it as is until they discard it. Which they'll have to do earlier on this machine as even the memory can't be expanded by the user! It's sad to see Apple apply their iPhone philosophy (use it and then discard it once they made it obsolete) to their computers. But it's not new, their laptops have been entirely locked for a while too.
pierreh:I do, my Mac Pro from 2009 has had several drives added
Oh yea I can see that being practised.
We got into the habit of loading it up since in some corp world you get a budget and you have to spend it there and then :P
I used to plan out RAM and HD paths so that we can save money at the start but after numerous updates from Apple (this was during the cheese grater days), we just skipped a few systems and just loaded them up.
My fave is ffrom 2009 to 2012 Mac Pro's. They are still running Adobe and Avid MC in some capacity.
But this latest 2013 has been running strong from the start.
The only thing keeping us from updating to the iMac Pro is a matching display and the possible new MP.
I get to make that call so Ill wait to see what Apple does.
Till then I feel IMHO that Apple is doing okay with what they are offering.
I had a HP Z840 for a few weeks running MC and it was great, but had a lot of issues that I normally would not have to deal with. Cost vs Time did not work with that workstation for me :P
Yep the 2009 - 2012 cheese graters are the best. They still hold up to the new machines (especially with a better GPU and a CPU transplant) - actually, people have tried to put a Vega 64 GPU in a 2010 and it performs better than the version in the iMac as it's not castrated to not over-heat...
The 2013 is a hit or miss, glad yours is fine. I know of several which have fried their GPU, some several times. Apple dealt with it for free, but it still meant a machine out of use for several/weeks. Which is not cool in a pro environment.
For now, I'll stick to my cheese Mac Pro. Curious to see what's the new "modular" model, but weary that it might be another "locked box" except with an external monitor!
Were you able to add Thunderbolt and USB3 support on these old Mac Pro ?
You can add USB 3 via a PCIe card, but you can't boot off a connected USB 3 drive as the cheese grater Mac Pro never had that capability. You can also boot off of a eSATA drive or any internally mounted drive.
You can't add Thunderbolt to any Mac. It's got to be built into the motherboard.
Must think of something clever to go here...
When you say CPU transplant, what do you mean? I have a 2009 (early) Mac Pro with 8 core (2x 2.26GHz) CPU. I still have the NVidia GT120 GPU. I'd love to upgrade its power. Any recommendations? I was thinking of the new iMac Pro, but is it worth it?
Bruceedits: When you say CPU transplant, what do you mean? I have a 2009 (early) Mac Pro with 8 core (2x 2.26GHz) CPU. I still have the NVidia GT120 GPU. I'd love to upgrade its power. Any recommendations? I was thinking of the new iMac Pro, but is it worth it?
I mean replace the CPU with a more recent / more powerfull one. The Mac Pro you have is one of the best for an upgrade. The only downside of the 2009 is that ideally you would install "delidded CPUs". That's ideal. Most people don't bother and just install the regular CPU and then make the heatsync sit above it. That video will show you how it's done:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Z2ZSie7zeU
It's a pretty recent video, and you'll see that the guy also installs a beefy graphic cards and his little export/render test at the end shows how the machine is far from ridiculous vs a 2017 computer.
At the moment, you can get a X5690 CPU for about $100 on eBay - you would need two for your machine. That plus say $500 on a powerful GPU and you'd get way more bang for your bucks than getting a new iMac Pro...
Here is an older video, but it's quite popular and still relevant:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YAdgT-hJuXU
And finally, have a look at what it takes to delid a CPU and see if you want to do it yourself.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPhDfUkll-o
Edit: found that people offer an upgraded processor tray:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Mac-Pro-2009-4-1-Dual-Processor-Tray-Upgraded-to-3-46GHz-Xeon-X5690-12-Core/322726789787?hash=item4b2404029b:g:S9EAAOSwAQBZsyEc
And you could then sell your tray.
Or just have them upgrade your own tray:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/2009-Apple-Mac-Pro-12-Core-3-46GHz-X5690-CPU-plus-Tray-Upgrade-service-4-1-5-1/112725138968?hash=item1a3ef11e18:g:2CIAAOSwa~hZZ3TN
Bonjour Pierre
Merci beaucoup for your tips on adding a new CPU and GPU. I appreciate that.
A bientot,
Bruce
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