New Computer. How much RAM is enough? Video card options?

[mrguitarguy]

I’m hoping for a little help from this very knowledgeable community in regards to a new computer purchase.

I’m picking up a second Mac Pro 5,1 to use with my HD native system. Our studio primarily works with musicians playing live. We do a very minimal amount of VI’s. 99% of our work is recording live instruments.

The Mac Pro I’m planning to buy with be a 12 core, 3.46ghz system with SSD’s. The system comes with 64GB (8x8GB) of ram, but I could upgrade to 96GB at the time of purchase for a fair price. However, if I don’t upgrade the ram, it will cost significantly more to do so later as I would have to move to 16GB modules an remove all of the previously purchased ram. Is there any real advantage to going over 64GB for tracking? Our current system (8 core, 2.4ghz) has 32GB and seems to handle high plugin fairly counts easily when mixing if the buffer is turned up. I’m mostly concerned with being able to record at minimum buffer sizes for minimal latency.

Also, should I move past the stock Radeon 5770? I could get a 5870, or I could pick up a Nvidia GTX 680. We run dual monitors (One is a Raven MTI2). I had noticed the laggy Pro Tools graphics at themes, but they seem to have gotten better with a new install using Sierra and 12.8.3 and 2018.1. Would the stock 5770 be enough for audio only applications? (We only do music, no post)

I’m hoping the system will tide me over for a couple of years or more while we wait for the new Mac Pros to come out and work out their kinks before consider moving on.

Thanks for any suggestsions and advice.

[albee1952]

My 2 cents, 32GB of RAM seems to be the "sweet spot", so with 64, I would not worry about RAM at all. I'll let the Mac experts comment on the graphics options. That should serve you very well for some time to come

[arche3]

Ram is fine. Get a new graphics card. Really. Get a new graphics card.

The 5770 in protools 12 is all kinds of trouble.
Personal experience. Replace 5770 and life much easier.

I'm using a r9 280x

[dalonso66]

I have a 5770 and have noticed since upgrading to PT12 that when using the smart tool, which for me is all the time, the cursor is often in the wrong mode. For instance, when hovering in the upper right corner, the cursor sometimes doesn't change to the fade tool. It still adds the fade, but the cursor sometimes will be in trim mode when doing so. I know it can often be a zoom-level related thing, but it's definitely not been right in PT 12.

[mrguitarguy]

Have any of you tried the Nvidia GTX 680? Is there much os a performance difference between it and the R9 280x for Pro Tools graphics? The R9 280x isn't an option for the seller I'm looking into, but I could probably pick one up elsewhere if needed.


Thanks for the info guys. I'm hoping this post will serve to help others in the future who may be considering similar purchases.

[dalonso66]

I haven't tried the GTX card myself, but... just when I was about to upgrade my 5770 card to something else, it was suggested to me to go back and login with a fresh admin account. The very first thing I noticed was the apps dock... it was set to always visible. So I logged out and back into my User account and set the apps dock back to always visible and boom, my issues with the cursor not changing to the proper tool was fixed!

So now I'm wondering what graphics issues Arche3 had with the 5770 card.

[uptheoctave]

I have 40GB in my studio DAW.

My 2017 MBP15r still runs all of the sessions and it has 16GB.

[Southsidemusic]

On one of our Trashcans 6core we only have 12 GB ram which it came with and haven't updated yet since we run many sessions off our Trashcan 12core with 32GB BUT swapping between them big sessions with many VI and plugins and automation with 4-5GB cache setting and only SSD's we can't see any difference in performance so I am seriously doubting if anyone needs more than 16GB max to run good. We use LARGE LARGE sample libs from 8DIO and big Kontakt libs without a hitch so 12GB is enough if you don't do super extreme stuff which I don't know would be an issue either.

IMNSHO regarding RAM I would say 32GB "sweetspot" os taken out of the air. 16 will be way sufficient - 100% !!

[mrguitarguy]

I ended up ordering 128gb of ram because the price on it was so good. My actual plan is to keep 64GB in the computer and then take the other 64GB and put it in my other 5,1 Mac Pro which will be used as a secondary mixing/Editing system. It was such a good price I couldn’t pass it up since I will have a use for it in both macs.

I ended up getting a 5870 gpu in the Mac. This way it is a native card, but I was told it was roughly twice as powerful as the 5770. I figured it would be worth it if it helped at all. One of our displays is a Raven Mti2 and it seems to take a little more power to run the overlay.

I have noticed a big difference in the smoothness of pro tools on Sierra with the new Pro Tools 2018.1 vs. PT 12 with El Capitan. So far 2018.1 seems very stable and snappy.

I’ll report back in a week or so when I get the new system. I plan to ride this one out for a 2-3 years while I wait for the new Mac Pros to get their kinks worked out.

[arche3]

Originally Posted by dalonso66

I haven't tried the GTX card myself, but... just when I was about to upgrade my 5770 card to something else, it was suggested to me to go back and login with a fresh admin account. The very first thing I noticed was the apps dock... it was set to always visible. So I logged out and back into my User account and set the apps dock back to always visible and boom, my issues with the cursor not changing to the proper tool was fixed!

So now I'm wondering what graphics issues Arche3 had with the 5770 card.

I didn't have graphics issues other than some slow scrolling with 5770. It was cpu errors. I have 5 monitors. I also use the usb3 to hmdi adapter which uses the gpu somehow. Since switching graphics cards no more cpu errors. Mac pro 51. 12 core.