Searching for a mac pro compatible with PT HD10 / HD2 or HD3 pcie

[Coolman]

Hi, avid community!
I'm a little lost...
I want to run PT HD10 on a HD2 or HD3 pcie system but have hard time to find if a mac pro I saw is compatible.
I looked at the qualified computers without "success": http://avid.force.com/pkb/articles/e...ility/en422319
I saw this one (picture attached) could you help me knowing if it would be a OK computer?
Many thanks!

[groundcontrol]

It will. I would personnally install osx 10.8.5.

For a recording rig it should be powerful enough, however for mixing this will be a severely limited/limiting machine in my view.

[Barry Johns]

Originally Posted by Coolman

Hi, avid community!
I'm a little lost...
I want to run PT HD10 on a HD2 or HD3 pcie system but have hard time to find if a mac pro I saw is compatible.
I looked at the qualified computers without "success": http://avid.force.com/pkb/articles/e...ility/en422319
I saw this one (picture attached) could you help me knowing if it would be a OK computer?
Many thanks!

You can upgrade that to a 6 core, very easy! Would be a great option!

[albee1952]

+1 for a 6 core

[groundcontrol]

If you're going the TDM route, and unless you are using PT simply as a recorder, mixing in the analog realm, I would consider HD3 + a 6 core the minimum spec.

[Coolman]

Many thanks guys!
Question: a hd2 with this mac pro would be less powerful than my present i7-2,6ghz mac book pro?
I never thought I was missing power and I don't have any HD cards running PT10 native.
Basically, I want to go with a mac pro and the cards to have the low latency monitoring (I want to stay in protools and not deal with a third party headphone mixer like rme total mix) and some more power with tdm plugins.
Many thanks for your feedback!

[albee1952]

Well, my 2 cents only, but this can be done without TDM. For many years, I ran a DIGI003(expanded to the full 18 inputs) and fed 5 stereo headphone mixes from the sessions. Using the 64 buffer and carefully choosing plugins used during tracking, I had no trouble keeping latency down and never had a complaint. Now running HD/Native card with HD IO boxes, still at 64 buffer, still sending 5 stereo headphone mixes(the first bank of sends are to phones in all my template sessions) and its even better(this setup is in between a "native" setup and HD/HDX cards when it comes to latency). I still leave plugins inactive until mix if they have more than 10 samples of latency(but my tracking sessions have dozens of EQ, compressor/gates, 4-5 reverbs and amp sims running).

The thing with HD2 is, you run out of "resources" in a different way as compared to a native system. When I had the 003, I also worked on a friend's HD3 setup and I rarely hit a wall on my rig, but often hit it on his

[Barry Johns]

Originally Posted by Coolman

Many thanks guys!
Question: a hd2 with this mac pro would be less powerful than my present i7-2,6ghz mac book pro?
I never thought I was missing power and I don't have any HD cards running PT10 native.
Basically, I want to go with a mac pro and the cards to have the low latency monitoring (I want to stay in protools and not deal with a third party headphone mixer like rme total mix) and some more power with tdm plugins.
Many thanks for your feedback!

You are going to get more processing powere from your current machine if you are only comparing only TDM plugin to native. But, and a huge BUT, you can have the best of both worlds. Use TDM for tracking and Native for mixing.

You can send me a typical session and I can test it for you if you want.

[groundcontrol]

Another option would be to look at some Mac Pro equivalent PC workstations in which you can install tdm cards (or hdn / hdx for that matter). HP and Dell are approved by Avid and show up for less $$ for similar or more powerful machine than Macs.

[esppse]

I think Snow Leopard 10.6.8 is great for PT. The get a 12 core if you can! You can have more cpu to have VSTs run outside of Pro Tools, then rewire into the DAW using something like Bidule, so you are not limited by the PT10 memory barrier.

I have 10 virtual cores (5 real) for PT, the rest for outside programs.