Is anyone using the ATI HD 5870 in Westmere 12 Core?

[toneski]

I have finally decided to bite the bullet. I'm stuck with an HD3 Accel PCI cards and not willing to pay the exorbitant £3000, ($5000US) cost of doing a crossgrade to PCI-E cards that offer the same performance. Been hanging on for new DSP cards from Digi to no avail, so I'm stuck.

I have decided to go the route that Phil Buckle went and get a new Mac Pro and utilize VEP Pro to run VI's and utilize my G5 Dual 2,7ghz machine to run Protools.

I have decided to get the 12 Core Westmere Mac Pro but was wandering which graphics card to go for. I am tempted by the ATI Radeon HD5870 as it is supposed to be more powerful and I may want to do video work in the future. However I am worried that it may be noisy as the Mac pro will be in my control room only approximately 5ft away from where I monitor. Is anyone using this graphics card? How noisy is it? Is it worthwhile getting this graphics card or should I just stick to the stock ATI Radeon 5770 which will probably be a little quieter?

My G5 is in a acoustilock iso-cab due to being so noisy, (especially the ATI800xt graphics card fan and also the PCI Fan), which helps keep its noise down.

Many thanks for any advice.

[drenkrom]

Hi,

There shouldn't be too big a noise difference between those two GPUs. The 57xx and 58xx series run the same reference cooler system, with the heatsink a bit bigger on the 58xx. The fan will probably run a little faster on the 58xx, but the difference should be pretty small, especially considering the difference in horsepower between the two. Of the options available in Macs that deliver potent graphics power, the HD5870 is pretty much the most efficient, both power- and sound-wise.

IHTH

[toneski]

Thanks Drenkroom. That helps. I did some research via google from reviews I can find of the PC version of both cards on Tomshardware.com, these are what are quoted:

ATI HD5770
39db Idle
45.2db Load


ATI HD 5870
40.4db Idle
50.7db Load

Measured at 1m in decibels Furmark. It can be difficult to tell from figures on a page though as to the real loudness, etc.

Anyone using the HD5870? Is it much louder than the stock HD5770? Any other opinions on graphics power, etc ?

[toneski]

Any personal experiences of the ATI HD5870?

[Walter_Odington]

I'd really like to hear some user experiences on the differences. Is it noticeably louder?

[DetroitT]

Not so noticeable, especially going from a G5.
12 core 5870, Magma x-i.
Note that for 3 displays with either you'll need the active Mini DisplayPort To Dual-Link DVI Adapter if your using DVI. (Version 1.0.3 of the adaptors).
(DVI 19:, DVI 27", DVI 19")
My rig is around 10 feet away in an open rack.
PT's 8.1cs2

[Phil Buckle]

Originally Posted by toneski

I have finally decided to bite the bullet. I'm stuck with an HD3 Accel PCI cards and not willing to pay the exorbitant £3000, ($5000US) cost of doing a crossgrade to PCI-E cards that offer the same performance. Been hanging on for new DSP cards from Digi to no avail, so I'm stuck.

I have decided to go the route that Phil Buckle went and get a new Mac Pro and utilize VEP Pro to run VI's and utilize my G5 Dual 2,7ghz machine to run Protools.

I have decided to get the 12 Core Westmere Mac Pro but was wandering which graphics card to go for. I am tempted by the ATI Radeon HD5870 as it is supposed to be more powerful and I may want to do video work in the future. However I am worried that it may be noisy as the Mac pro will be in my control room only approximately 5ft away from where I monitor. Is anyone using this graphics card? How noisy is it? Is it worthwhile getting this graphics card or should I just stick to the stock ATI Radeon 5770 which will probably be a little quieter?

My G5 is in a acoustilock iso-cab due to being so noisy, (especially the ATI800xt graphics card fan and also the PCI Fan), which helps keep its noise down.

Many thanks for any advice.

Regarding this new way of working, let me reiterate what a brilliant change this has been for my work flow.
The latest builds of VEP have been rock solid and have also addressed some problems we were having with Kontakt and saving times in PTools whilst being in "coupled" mode.

This setup works so well and it's quite seamless using 2 computers. They truly feel like one.

I'm going to try and list the negatives just so you really have your eyes open wide as you make the change.

1 Teleport. I use this little free app to operate both computers from the same mouse and keyboard. It works very well but has 2 quirks. The first is it's tendency to "pull" the cursor to the other monitor when you are very close to the edge of the screen. No big deal but it does catch me sometimes. The second is that Teleport will stop working sometimes when you restart one computer. This is easily fixed by turning Teleport off and on again. This never happens during a work day but only when you are messing with restarts for whatever reason.

2 Saving routines. You are now saving on 2 separate machines. You can save all your VEP projects from withing PT and they will restore when you open the PT session.
However if this fails......and it has in the past.........you are out of luck and your session won't restore. Disaster.
To avoid this scenario you must remember to save your VEP sessions as separate from PT. You just have to be diligent about it.
The new builds of VEP seem to have solved this problem anyway and I've gone back to working in "coupled" mode with no problems. However I still save the VEP project "just in case"

3 The biggest "problem" with this setup is the whole buffer thing and how it changes the latency or feel of playing midi parts in.
25 Ghosts and others find this to be a game changer for them. I'm guessing they are good keyboard players and demand a feel that they have come to expect from a live playing situation.
The problem arises when you choose to use very low buffer settings in PT and the VEP plug in PT. If you are going to use buffers of 128 or even 256 then you are going to get pops and clicks and your old G5 is going to be hating on you and crumbling just like it is now.

I am ambivalent about this. I'm a crap keyboard player and tend to play parts in at a buffer of 250 (a positive luxury for me). With this buffer setting I can feel no latency. I'm not saying it's not there. I'm just blissfully ignorant of it.
I play my drum parts in and immediately edit them in the editor. I don't even bother to turn DC of in PT because I've gotten used to the notes turning up early and just change them as soon as I've made the pass. Same with piano parts. String parts don't matter because the attack time is so slow.
After I'm done manipulating midi (cos I'm not going to call it "playing") I reset the PT buffer to 1024. There are no pops and clicks and my old G5 says "thanks boss" and the RTAS meter drops back to almost zero.
But this latency issue is worth being aware of. It's a problem for some people and you might have better results by running Bidule or Kontakt in stand alone mode on your new monstrously powerful machine.

4 Don't forget that all the plugs you love and use are all authorized on your old machine. You are going to have to split your iloks or start buying new plugs. Something I didn't think about until I had to. I have a nice collection of plugs on the new machine now and a lot of the tasks..like drum comp and eq and reverb are taken care of in VEP. Freeing even more resources up on my TDM rig.

5 When your mouse is over on the VEP machine it means you can't hit play in PT. You will want to do this about 1000 times a day and not have to swing your mouse back to the PT machine. You will need either a hardware device (Shuttle Pro 2) or a software app on your iPhone or iPad to hit play in PT. I'm using my iPad with ProRemote. Works very well indeed.

The only other problem is a psychological one.
You will find yourself losing interest in what Avid are going to do ....because whatever it, is you don't need it.
You will visit this board less often.
You will immerse yourself in making music more.
You will spend a fortune on Kontakt instruments and realize that Spectrasonics are the most forward thinking and amazing software company in the universe.
You will start thinking about popping a UAD card into the new machine because.....you can.
You will work faster.
I'll stop now.
Good luck.
PS Try to read up on all Jeremy Robert's posts about networking and quality cabling. Definitely get that networking stuff down.

[Touchwood Studios]

I own a 12 core with a 5870 - I don't think it's loud but I never had a 5770 so I have nothing to compare it to. OTH it is quieter than my older 2008 Mac Pro. But mine is in a machine room next to my turbo whining Digidelivery server.

[Richard901]

These coolers have had good reviews:
http://www.arctic-cooling.com/catalo...ath=2_&mID=105

Looks like you would need the extra Turbo Module.

Richard