Should I buy a new Nvidia card or switch to PC?

[Mariano Puppo]

Hi everyone,

I being working for many years with premiere, I have a MacPro 5,1 2.4Ghz Quad-Core intel xeon 24Gb RAM with Nvidia 680GTX, internal SDD raids.

Everything was amazing until last update. I used to edit HD & 4k with AE dynamic links. Couldn't be happier. but now playback is freezing and can't export using cuda anymore it gives a memory error.

I'm not blaming adobe for this, I understand my system is outdated. my computer is 7 years old.

my question is:

should I tried with a new nvidia card and add some Ram memory to my mac? would it make it any good?

or I really need to spend a lot of money buying a powerful PC from puget system or HP workstations?

Thanks

[Moderator note: moved to best forum]

[excited_Genie16B8]

$2,000 Custom PC vs $4,000 Mac Pro - YouTube

The upshot is that the PC cost half as much and performed 3x better.

[Mariano Puppo]

I agree that PC is a much better option than Mac. I've been working on video post for almost 20 years using Mac and I'm not afraid to say that PC are much better than Mac today.

The thing is should I try to keep updating my 2010 old mac or buy a PC.

By the way I don't think a $2,000 PC will work for what I do, maybe I'm wrong but I guess the cost will be similar to a Mac Pro for profesional postproduction.

the big problem for Mac users is that we are totally stupid at the time to customise a PC, so I guess the safe way will be to buy an HP workstation or a Puget system.

(by the way2 I can't believe my old Mac Pro 2010 benchmark CPU score is 782 vs 648 new Mac Pro from the link you sent)

[RjL190365]

That 782 score from the older Mac Pro versus 648 for the current one is the result of the limitations of the newer model. It is only single-CPU capable whereas the older one had dual CPUs.

And Apple these days is concentrating almost all of its energy on mobile devices, and is more or less letting its desktops and laptops (metaphorically) hang out to dry. In fact, the current Mac Pro is outdated, using only DDR3 system RAM at a time when PCs that use similar class CPUs now use DDR4 system RAM.

By the way, the Mac Pro will be getting a refresh very shortly, and then a major hardware update in the coming years. So keep your fingers crossed.

[smm4774]

For whatever it's worth, I'm in the exact same boat.  I've been an editor for 15 years.  When I'm on a show, I'm using someone else's machines but for development work, I use my early 2009 8 Core Mac.

For Avid, the machine is still a rockstar but recently I've been getting requests to work in Premiere which is a different animal.

The nice thing about Macs is that they last for a long time.  The fact that we are still cutting on 8 year old systems is pretty amazing.  I've been researching PCs, and yes they are cheaper but the machines I'm looking at are still running around $7500.  That's building out machines with several 3rd party companies using reasonable parts like an Nvidia Geforce instead of a quadro.

I am opting to try and breathe life into my old Mac for at least 1 more year when Apple should be releasing an upgrade to the MacPro.  Here's what I am in the midst of doing.

Drives-  I have 3 SSD Drives.  I use 1 for my OS and Programs, 1 for projects and 1 for cache and peak files. For the system drive I splurged for an OWC Mercury Accelsior which is stupid fast.  For the projects drive, a samsung ssd and for the third, an inexpensive off brand since those files can always be rebuilt.

For Media, I have a large hardware controlled raid.  Same RAID I've used for a couple of years.

RAM-  I upgraded to 64mb of RAM, the recommended amount for 4k.  Early 2009 machines were not "approved" for 64 but they do just fine with it.  Just be sure to get all the same kind of ram.  Mixing Ram can create havoc.

Graphics Card-  I recently ordered a flashed GTX 980 TI from mac vid cards.  Google "mac vid cards" and you'll find the site.  They take PC cards and flash them with the mac bios.  People on various sites seem to rave about them so I'm giving it a shot.  I'm replacing my n ATI card which is a great card, but I want to take advantage of NVIDIA's CUDA cores.

For about $1100, I'm hoping to get 1 or 2 more years out of the old girl.  By then, Apple will have updated the trashcans.

Good Luck

[Mariano Puppo]

Thanks, yes I think I will do the same thing. I will try to change my 680nvidia card for something better and newer and add more ram. I already ssd. good to know that someone else is also thinking the same.

[Mariano Puppo]

Hi, I just wanted to let you know that I'm going with a similar decision. I will try to keep my 5,1 mac pro for at least one or two more years. and then I will buy a PC.

I'm buying a nvidia GTX Titan X 12gb I hope this will work on a pc later. (not sure about that) + a PCIe ssd + 64gb ram.

I still need to find a way to increase the amount of space for my media, right now I got 2 500gb SSD for media and a 4T for time capsule.

my last project is 5tb just for media so I still need to find a solution about hard drive space. 5tb of footage for just one project will be really expensive for ssd.

[smm4774]

If you've not bought the card yet, I highly suggest you buy a 1080 ti with the new pascal chip.  The drivers are now available and it's a faster card that is also CHEAPER.  Go to Macvidcards and order from them.  I got mine there and so far it rocks.

Also....SSDs are really expensive for media storage.  They are great to run your os and programs and a second ssd for cache but for video storage you want to go with a RAID.  I use G-Raids for day to day client work and I have a hardware 8disk 32tb raid for everything else.  Redundant array of inexpensive disks....that's what you want.

Good luck

[Mariano Puppo]

Thanks again for your help!

I almost buy the titan yesterday but my credit card didn't work. so I'm glad that I read your reply before trying it again.

last two questions if you don't mind.

this is the card right? :

http://www.macvidcards.com/store/p97/Nvidia_GTX_1080_Ti_11_GB.html

About the hard drives, what I have now is two SSD 500gb Raid 0.

What do you use for external raid? do you have a PCI for usb 3.0 ?

I do a lot of edits on prores422 with many layers in premiere on HD and 4K. So drives speed is very important, my last project was 20 days of shooting on a atomos inferno, so now I need lot of space compare to what I used to need when shooting internal on my fs700.

Thanks

[smm4774]

I use 8 7200 rpm drives in a RAID enclosure striped as a RAID 5 for redundancy.  I have an ARECA pci raid controller card with dual sata connections.  The areca card runs about $1000 but it's well worth it.  There are many third party RAID enclosures with built in hardware too.  Promise and G-technology are two that jump to mind.

I easily get sustained read/write of over 300mbs.  The reason I advise this is because you can get much more storage for your $$$.

And yes, that's the card I have and I highly recommend.  They've raised the price since I bought it a week ago.  The pascal chip is the latest and greatest chip from Nvidia.  Whatever card you get, go with the Pascal chipset.

[Mariano Puppo]

yes, it's 900usd now. but is 699usd on nvidia website I will probably buy from nvidia. hope it works.

Thanks for the info on your system. I will check that Raid system and compare the prices

[smm4774]

NO!!!! The cards are meant for pcs and only work in a Mac if the are Flashed with the Mac bios.  You can't just buy one off the shelf, it won't work!

[smm4774]

Come on man....I hope you weren't going to buy a titan off the shelf!  IT WILL NOT WORK.

[Mariano Puppo]

my GTX 680 I bought it online and it worked. I thought it was the same mac or PC.

I thought maybe missing and apple logo during start up or something like that. but is great to know it will not work. I will have to go with macvidcards then.

anyway, thanks for everything. it was really helpful

[smm4774]

Yup...the 680 was the last card made for Macs.

[smm4774]

FYI....two more pieces of advice.  There's a guy in LA who will upgrade your processors.  I had my 8 core 2.3 upgraded to a 12 core 2.66 for $500.  His company is called ibuildmacs.

Also....on the RAID.  Since we have older macs, we have no thunderbolt.  The most reliable/ fastest connection in my experience is esata.  If you want to really go all out, you can go with a SAS controller.  I believe this is the SAS RAID controller I have.

NeweggBusiness - Areca ARC-1883x SAS Controller

With this enclosure...

NeweggBusiness - SANS DIGITAL TowerRAID TR8X12G JBOD (RAID Supported via Controller Card) 8 Hot-Swap...

I have 8 4tb 7200 RPM WD Black drives and I'm running it at RAID 5.  For more speed, run it at RAID 0.

If you're willing to run at RAID 0 (NO REDUNDANCY) and can back it up, you could also go with a more basic esata 4 disk RAID.  You'll want to add an esata card too.   This is cheaper and at RAID 0, just about as fast.  I'm guessing your single SSD is getting about 300mbs and this will get about the same.

OWC Mercury Pro Qx2 Storage Solution - Up to 40TB 

ESATA Card-

Sonnet - Tempo Duo PCIe

FINALLY.....the fastest single drive you can put in your old mac is this....

OWC Mercury Accelsior E2 PCI Express SSD

I have a 250GB Accelsior that I only run my OS and Programs from.  It's silly fast....over 600mbs.

1 BONUS with going with the 1080TI graphics card that I recently learned.  By using 1 display port to run a 1080p TV, you get a client monitor that does not hesitate with mercury playback!  Works flawlessly with no hesitation now.

[Mariano Puppo]

Hey, thanks for that info.

so here is what I did,

on the graphic card, I changed my 680 for the TITAN X. 1080ti doesn't works with osx10.10

I tried to buy the titan x from Macvidcards, but no answer from them. but I found a UK company called Create Pro, they answer me fast and they got my card ready in a couple of days. great guys.

for the memory I upgrade from OWC 8Gx8 so now I got 64gb of RAM

drive space, I bought a second 4Tb for internal. I already got 2 SSD 500g internal bay, one for OS X one for video. and I bought a  2Tb PCI from owc speeds using     is 1600mb/s !!! I also bought an older version, with no SSD very cheap and I installed a 1Tb G tech SSD I got for my atomos recorder speeds are 530mb/s not bad.

I also added a PCI USB 3.0 sonnet allegro.

this week is going to be my first week working with the upgrades. I let you know if it was worth it.

So far I spent a lot of money but I would say less than half of a brand new PC workstation

[Bill Gehrke]

We just had an forum entry that succeeded in using a new nVidia driver with the GTX 10 seires of cards in a Mac.  You will have to search the forum for it as I did not bookmark it

[Bill Gehrke]

I just found it

Re: Nvidia 10 series in my old 5,1 Mac

[Mariano Puppo]

Thank you ! sorry my late reply. I'll take a look at it.