Mac Pros (and cons)
in [UK Mac]
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From: James Dore on 15 Feb 2010 04:44 On Fri, 12 Feb 2010 23:43:45 -0000, SM <info(a)that.sundog.co.uk> wrote: > James Dore <james.dore(a)new.ox.ac.uk> wrote: > >> >> I equipped my Geforce 8800 and the Radeon HD4870 with these: >> >> >> >> http://www.kustompcs.co.uk/acatalog/info_2855.html >> >> >> >> No issues on the 8800 in the 18 months or so. Not tested the Radeon >> yet; >> >> I'm repainting the office.... >> > >> > I'd be interested how you get on with the 4870 with the passive >> cooler. >> > They're out of stock at the link above but pretty cheap. >> >> Finally, I've got the wretched office painted and cabled, and the kit is >> in. I put the passively-cooled Radeon in last night, and it started up >> without issue. I haven't had chance to throw anything serious at it yet, >> but it has been running overnight rebuilding the Raid1 disk and >> installing >> nearly 1GB of updates. No wobblies from the Graphics card, and the LED >> cinema display is nice :-D > > Thanks for the update and glad to hear it's going well - BTW how loud > was the card before the mod? Dunno tbh - never tried it. > > I've not had a huge amount of use from my 'new' Mac Pro but a 7-instance > local cluster in Compressor went like the clappers compressing for a > DVD. Which was nice. Oooooh. Nice. So you can set up individual processors as some kind of XGrid resource then? I did not realise that. Cheers, -- James Dore New College IT Officer james.dore(a)new / it-support(a)new
From: SM on 15 Feb 2010 08:41 On Feb 15, 9:44 am, "James Dore" <james.d...(a)new.ox.ac.uk> wrote: > On Fri, 12 Feb 2010 23:43:45 -0000, SM <i...(a)that.sundog.co.uk> wrote: > > James Dore <james.d...(a)new.ox.ac.uk> wrote: > > >> >> I equipped my Geforce 8800 and the Radeon HD4870 with these: > > >> >>http://www.kustompcs.co.uk/acatalog/info_2855.html > > >> >> No issues on the 8800 in the 18 months or so. Not tested the Radeon > >> yet; > >> >> I'm repainting the office.... > > >> [snip] > >> nearly 1GB of updates. No wobblies from the Graphics card, and the LED > >> cinema display is nice :-D > > > Thanks for the update and glad to hear it's going well - BTW how loud > > was the card before the mod? > > Dunno tbh - never tried it. Don't suppose you want to sell the Geforce 8800? > > > I've not had a huge amount of use from my 'new' Mac Pro but a 7-instance > > local cluster in Compressor went like the clappers compressing for a > > DVD. Which was nice. > > Oooooh. Nice. So you can set up individual processors as some kind of > XGrid resource then? I did not realise that. The QuickCluster is set up using Apple Qmaster which is installed with Final Cut Studio. There's some debate online about how many instances should be used - most say half the number of available cores. Another approach is to leave one core for the system which is what I've been doing using Compressor to make MPEG2s and AC3s for use in DVD Studio Pro. The compression is divvied up between the seven instances. Stuart
From: James Dore on 15 Feb 2010 09:09 On Mon, 15 Feb 2010 13:41:58 -0000, SM <sundogmedia(a)gmail.com> wrote: > On Feb 15, 9:44 am, "James Dore" <james.d...(a)new.ox.ac.uk> wrote: >> On Fri, 12 Feb 2010 23:43:45 -0000, SM <i...(a)that.sundog.co.uk> wrote: >> > James Dore <james.d...(a)new.ox.ac.uk> wrote: >> >> >> >> I equipped my Geforce 8800 and the Radeon HD4870 with these: >> >> >> >>http://www.kustompcs.co.uk/acatalog/info_2855.html >> >> >> >> No issues on the 8800 in the 18 months or so. Not tested the >> Radeon >> yet; >> >> >> I'm repainting the office.... >> >> >> [snip] > >> >> nearly 1GB of updates. No wobblies from the Graphics card, and the >> LED >> >> cinema display is nice :-D >> >> > Thanks for the update and glad to hear it's going well - BTW how loud >> > was the card before the mod? >> >> Dunno tbh - never tried it. > > Don't suppose you want to sell the Geforce 8800? As it happens, I do - I'll mail you off-list. Do you want the modded one, or a stock one? I have both. The stock one is in my Mac Pro at work, which I was going to swap for the silent one, but it's not noticably noisy above the switch and the external HDD which seems to TM Backup my virtual machines constantly. >> >> > I've not had a huge amount of use from my 'new' Mac Pro but a >> 7-instance >> > local cluster in Compressor went like the clappers compressing for a >> > DVD. Which was nice. >> >> Oooooh. Nice. So you can set up individual processors as some kind of >> XGrid resource then? I did not realise that. > > The QuickCluster is set up using Apple Qmaster which is installed with > Final Cut Studio. There's some debate online about how many instances > should be used - most say half the number of available cores. Another > approach is to leave one core for the system which is what I've been > doing using Compressor to make MPEG2s and AC3s for use in DVD Studio > Pro. The compression is divvied up between the seven instances. Clever. Can you get it to use the GPU as well? One of our academics has rewritten some of his analysis programs to use his Graphics processor (a feature available in 10.6) and reduced the time taken to run jobs on his datasets from months to a day or two. He is rather happy. I think he has the Radeon 4870 in his new Mac Pro though. -- James Dore New College IT Officer james.dore(a)new / it-support(a)new
From: SM on 15 Feb 2010 13:22 On Feb 15, 2:09 pm, "James Dore" <james.d...(a)new.ox.ac.uk> wrote: > On Mon, 15 Feb 2010 13:41:58 -0000, SM <sundogme...(a)gmail.com> wrote: > > On Feb 15, 9:44 am, "James Dore" <james.d...(a)new.ox.ac.uk> wrote: > >> On Fri, 12 Feb 2010 23:43:45 -0000, SM <i...(a)that.sundog.co.uk> wrote: > >> > James Dore <james.d...(a)new.ox.ac.uk> wrote: > > >> >> >> I equipped my Geforce 8800 and the Radeon HD4870 with these: > > >> >> >>http://www.kustompcs.co.uk/acatalog/info_2855.html > > >> >> >> No issues on the 8800 in the 18 months or so. Not tested the > >> Radeon >> yet; > >> >> >> I'm repainting the office.... > > >> >> [snip] > > >> >> nearly 1GB of updates. No wobblies from the Graphics card, and the > >> LED > >> >> cinema display is nice :-D > > >> > Thanks for the update and glad to hear it's going well - BTW how loud > >> > was the card before the mod? > > >> Dunno tbh - never tried it. > > > Don't suppose you want to sell the Geforce 8800? > > As it happens, I do - I'll mail you off-list. Do you want the modded one, > or a stock one? I have both. The stock one is in my Mac Pro at work, which > I was going to swap for the silent one, but it's not noticably noisy above > the switch and the external HDD which seems to TM Backup my virtual > machines constantly. > > > > >> > I've not had a huge amount of use from my 'new' Mac Pro but a > >> 7-instance > >> > local cluster in Compressor went like the clappers compressing for a > >> > DVD. Which was nice. > > >> Oooooh. Nice. So you can set up individual processors as some kind of > >> XGrid resource then? I did not realise that. > > > The QuickCluster is set up using Apple Qmaster which is installed with > > Final Cut Studio. There's some debate online about how many instances > > should be used - most say half the number of available cores. Another > > approach is to leave one core for the system which is what I've been > > doing using Compressor to make MPEG2s and AC3s for use in DVD Studio > > Pro. The compression is divvied up between the seven instances. > > Clever. Can you get it to use the GPU as well? One of our academics has > rewritten some of his analysis programs to use his Graphics processor (a > feature available in 10.6) and reduced the time taken to run jobs on his > datasets from months to a day or two. He is rather happy. I think he has > the Radeon 4870 in his new Mac Pro though. Don't think it can but I'm far from expert. Qmaster works with a few apps such as Compressor and Shake but also with Unix command line programs. Compressor is the front end to compressord daemon so you can quit the GUI once the job's going. Stuart
From: SM on 17 Feb 2010 09:03
Elliott Roper <nospam(a)yrl.co.uk> wrote: > > I've bought three of the 5i 27" iMacs for a place I work which turned up > > on Friday - going to have a play next week if I get time. > > Pray tell how they perform. I finally had a quick play yesterday with some XDCAM footage from a JVC GY-HM 100 Stuck the SD card in the slot, transferred to FCP - all good. Beautiful footage, lovely iMac screen, quiet, the timeline felt nice and slippery. Only real downside I could think of is the single FireWire port. Stuart -- cut that out to reply |