Will Thunderbolt-2 benefit HDX?

[Rubicon]

Will Thunderbolt-2 benefit the current HDX system?

What is the latency of HDX inside a Mac Pro verses in a Thunderbolt Chassis?

Now that the new Mac Pro has surfaced, I would like to start planning my upgrade path. I have always preferred to keep my HD rig together in one box. This time it will be very different.

Rubicon

[ronwasserman]

I doubt it will be any different as the guys using TB1 with HDX have said it works perfectly.

Let's just hope those TB optical cables come out soon so we can run the noisy stuff to the machine room.

There is also a chance the new MP's will have quite a bit of fan noise to cool that 'thermal core' design.

[nst7]

If the chassis is Thunderbolt 1 then that's the speed you'll get. It's the same thing as hooking up a Firewire 400 device to FW800 port. You get the 400 speed.

But Thunderbolt 1 may be more than enough for what you need.

[MikaBASS]

Yeah those Fans Run Amazingly quiet for what it Does thats why it is the shape it is as described by them just how the Retina is so Quiet is the design of the fans and airflow as to now interrupt recordings or vid audio when working.

[Rubicon]

So would HDX run in a Thunderbolt 2 Chassis?

[roberts]

Originally Posted by Rubicon

Will Thunderbolt-2 benefit the current HDX system?

What is the latency of HDX inside a Mac Pro verses in a Thunderbolt Chassis?

There is zero difference in latency TB chassis VS inside PCIe buss.
TB is very fast and the data bandwidth is way beyond what even a HDX3 system needs.

[Darryl Ramm]

Originally Posted by roberts

There is zero difference in latency TB chassis VS inside PCIe buss.
TB is very fast and the data bandwidth is way beyond what even a HDX3 system needs.

How do you justify your "way beyond what a HDX3 system needs" claim? And that needs qualification. Are you talking about Thunderbolt 1 or 2, single or multiple thunderbolt links to a PCIe expansion chassis? (and nobody is offering multiple thunderbolt link expansion chassis as far as I know).

And what *actual* bandwidth does a HDX card need? The absolute maximum possible bandwidth needed is easy, each card has 4 x PCIe 2.x lanes that is 4 x 500 MB/s = 2 GB/sec per card maximum possible bandwidth. Now what actual bandwidth a HDX card could ever use I have no idea, but I kind of hope Avid engineers are not silly and this thing actually can use the four lanes they built into it.

I am not aware of any Thundebolt 1 based PCIe expansion systems running HDX3 -- are there any?

Thunderbolt-1's data layer is equivalent to 4 x PCIe 2 lanes (some computer with multiple ports may share lanes so you may not see all that bandwidth). Meaning in our simplistic model, that a Thunderbolt 1 port will be able to drive one HDX card if it turned out that card needed the full PCIe-2 bandwidth. But Magma have already demonstrated a HDX2 running in their ExpressBox 3T so clearly that naive assumption is not correct. OTOH I worry weather the 4 lane PCIe 2 bandwidth of as single Thunderbolt1 link rally is fast enough to handle those total of 12 PCIe 2 lanes of a HDX3 system. Obviously things get better with Thunderbolt2.

[StefB]

Originally Posted by MikaBASS

Yeah those Fans Run Amazingly quiet for what it Does thats why it is the shape it is as described by them just how the Retina is so Quiet is the design of the fans and airflow as to now interrupt recordings or vid audio when working.

Pity we now have to add TB-PCIe boxes that sounds like a jet taking off for HDX cards
The "old" Intel machhines are quiet enough- I have one running Protools HDX and Another running Symphony next to me. (And they are both filled to the hilt with 3 x cards and 4 x Hard drives each.

[Rubicon]

When we will see HDX TB-2 cards? Maybe called HDX Accel? PT 12 for taking advantage of GPU's?

What if this is the wrong Mac for PT?

I certainly don't want more fan noise even though I have a machine room. I also don't want my computer shelf filled with cables.

We need a roadmap from Avid. Again.

Rubi

[JFreak]

Originally Posted by Rubicon

When we will see HDX TB-2 cards? Maybe called HDX Accel? PT 12 for taking advantage of GPU's?

What if this is the wrong Mac for PT?

I certainly don't want more fan noise even though I have a machine room. I also don't want my computer shelf filled with cables.

We need a roadmap from Avid. Again.

Rubi

Pretty good questions. If it was not the new Mac Pro, not many people woul have even asked this. But now that the new MP's are out, it's going to be all about ThunderBolt (or dropping Mac which will never happen).

I myself am drooling over fanless studio. This is a step to right direction :)