Ideal config for 8-core Nephalem HD Accel PT8 Rig?

[voce]

Hello!

I'm looking at swapping out my HD3 Accel PCI-X system for the PCI-E equivalent. I'm not thrilled that this "lateral" move will cost me $4k, but such is life I suppose.

Anyway, I obviously need to upgrade my Powermac to a new MacPro, and I was hoping someone could shed some light on the ideal configuration.

I see that the new Nephalem machines are officially qualified by Digi. Does anyone have experience running an HD3 Accel rig on one, usuing PT8?

Is there an "ideal" RAM config? Any other guidance?

thanks!

[Craig F]

ya, it's a bit of a bitter pill but have done this recently from G4s it was worth it. (took a session that was killing the G4 and the Mac Pro didn't even flinch)
RAM at least 4 GB, more if you run VIs that rewire in

[drenkrom]

The RAM setup in the Nehalem MacPro's is kind of quirky, as Apple have taken a strange road. The processors supports triple-channel configurations of DDR3, while the Apple motherboards are set up for dual-channel 1066 ECC DDR3. Of course, deals on DDR3 are mainly for triple-channel packs.

You'll be limited to playing by the MoBo's rules. As much memory as you can afford in pairs of 1066MHz ECC DDR3 is what you want. There are only 4 slots in the quad-core model. These MacPros were clearly not designed around the Nehalem processor from the start. To be fair, PT will surely purr along on these machines with any amount of RAM in them.

[voce]

Is a standard (i.e. bought from Apple.com) 12GB config ok?

[drenkrom]

If it's sold by Apple, it should be great. You'll be paying more than you would normally, but, especially for the initial system RAM, it's good to take it all as a package. That way, if anything doesn't work out of the box, it's one company's fault and support will be much easier to get. 12 gigs is quite a lot of memory, so no troubles there. At least for a few more years .

If anything chokes that rig up, it won't be down to hardware!

[voce]

Thanks for the input! Anyone else have any tips I should be aware of?

Also, will the standard NVIDIA card be fine for powering the Apple 30" Cinema Display? I don't do anything graphics-related, so was just going to stick with the base unit. Dunno how intensive PT8 is with graphics tho, so thought I'd double check.

[drenkrom]

The Nvidia Apple offers, the GT120, is a rebadged 9500GT, noted as a slacker in the gaming-machine world. It should do the job very nicely, even on a 30-inch, if PT is your most GPU-intensive app. Anyone really needing GPU power should go for the massively more powerful ATI 4870, though.

[roberts]

Originally Posted by voce

Thanks for the input! Anyone else have any tips I should be aware of?

Also, will the standard NVIDIA card be fine for powering the Apple 30" Cinema Display? I don't do anything graphics-related, so was just going to stick with the base unit. Dunno how intensive PT8 is with graphics tho, so thought I'd double check.

A good graphics card will help meter response and scrolling

[JanuS]

Why don't you go for a Magma PE6R4 and run your PCI-X cards from there?
It will save you almost 2k I believe. Then you got some extra budget for RAM, drives etc...

[Mark Dann]

Originally Posted by voce

Hello!

I'm looking at swapping out my HD3 Accel PCI-X system for the PCI-E equivalent. I'm not thrilled that this "lateral" move will cost me $4k, but such is life I suppose.

Anyway, I obviously need to upgrade my Powermac to a new MacPro, and I was hoping someone could shed some light on the ideal configuration.

I see that the new Nephalem machines are officially qualified by Digi. Does anyone have experience running an HD3 Accel rig on one, usuing PT8?

Is there an "ideal" RAM config? Any other guidance?

thanks!

I downgraded from HD3 to HD2 to do this. The new Mac Pro blows the doors off of an Accel card, so you won't miss the third card at all. You might not even need the second card. I decided I did, just so I could use a fair bit TDM plugins on tracking sessions. But that was the only reason I felt I needed even the second card.

Selling that card helped pay for the upgrade, btw.