New Mac Pro (7.1)

[lucienpalmer]

Originally Posted by Marsdy

In slot 6 (or 5 and 7) you don’t need the Belkin kit

Exactly. I have 3 HDX cards in slots 5, 6, 7. I only used cables that came with the cards. Worked great.

They were NOT the same power cables I used for my old Mac, so hopefully you are the type of person that keeps all the extra parts that comes with your gear.

FYI, both slots 6 and 7 are 8x, so good candidates for HDX. Save the 16x slots for SSDs (3, 4, 5).

[MixerGuy]

So miraculously I somehow had all the cables handy from the original purchase of HDX cards. I will ultimately have HDX3 here in my fancy Mac Pro (2020 model) (I have HDX2 now)

pic of the cables I have is here:

https://imgur.com/a/Jafm8nq

I know it won’t be the little red cable bottom right as that is the data jumper cable. That is data i believe.

However can anyone tell me what cable(s) I DO need?

Top left?
Bottom left?
Top right?

And to do HDX-3 … how many cables will I need? Just one correct?

EDIT: having reviewing my notes gleaned from many pages of threads and info from DUC and other places - it seems that perhaps over the years AVID changed what various kinds (connector sizes) of cables came with HDX cards, so that is why some people do and some people dont need the Belkin kit.

also of course the variable of what slots the HDX cards are going into.

it seems the issue is that *some* people need the belkin kit only to adapt the size of the 6 pin power output from MacPro into the Avid cable 6 pin.(then use the avid cable to go into the cards.

Thanks.

Originally Posted by Marsdy

Yes it’s confusing!

I have my HDX1 card in slot 6 because it’s x8 lane. No point in wasting x16 slot on a x4 HDX card. It’s also right in the path of the centre fan and I’ve sped that up with an app called Mac fan control. This means the noisy HDX is far less likely to come on and the Mac fan is really quiet.

In slot 6 (or 5 and 7) you don’t need the Belkin kit providing your HDX card came with three power cables - the PC 1x4 pin one which you don’t need, a larger 2x3 pin one again not needed, and the mini 2x3 pin cable which is the one you DO need. I’ve seen a number of posts by people who only got two power cables with their HDX cards and I think this is where some of the confusion lies because the mini 2x3 pin cable is the one missing!

The best place for the m.2 card is slot 3. This doesn’t pass through a PCIe controller and is connected directly to the CPU. BTW I’m using the Sonnet card with Samsung drives and it’s outrageously fast!

[Marsdy]

Originally Posted by MixerGuy

So miraculously I somehow had all the cables handy from the original purchase of HDX cards. I will ultimately have HDX3 here in my fancy Mac Pro (2020 model) (I have HDX2 now)

pic of the cables I have is here:

https://imgur.com/a/Jafm8nq

I know it won’t be the little red cable bottom right as that is the data jumper cable. That is data i believe.

However can anyone tell me what cable(s) I DO need?

Top left?
Bottom left?
Top right?

And to do HDX-3 … how many cables will I need? Just one correct?

EDIT: having reviewing my notes gleaned from many pages of threads and info from DUC and other places - it seems that perhaps over the years AVID changed what various kinds (connector sizes) of cables came with HDX cards, so that is why some people do and some people dont need the Belkin kit.

also of course the variable of what slots the HDX cards are going into.

it seems the issue is that *some* people need the belkin kit only to adapt the size of the 6 pin power output from MacPro into the Avid cable 6 pin.(then use the avid cable to go into the cards.

Thanks.

It's the bottom right one (the bottom left is the same no?) and that is good for three HDX cards providing they're adjacent to each other. They'd need to be anyway for the little red cable to be connected between cards.

[lucienpalmer]

Originally Posted by Marsdy

It's the bottom right one (the bottom left is the same no?) and that is good for three HDX cards providing they're adjacent to each other. They'd need to be anyway for the little red cable to be connected between cards.

Both the bottom two in the photo look correct. They look the same.

[MixerGuy]

Thanks Dave, and everyone….

so I want to put my HDX cards in slots 5, 6 and 7.
(for a bunch of reasons - including what I just learned - that you wrote below - that my m.2 Sonnet card is best in slot 3, as slot #3 doesn’t pass through a PCIe controller and is connected directly to the CPU)

I am not ready to put my HDX cards in yet (they are at a different studio that is currently in use)

but will this cable (that originally came with my HDX cards) be * LONG * enough to reach the HDX cards power in?

It looks to be too *short* but maybe not?

see pic.

thanks!

Originally Posted by Marsdy

Yes it’s confusing!

I have my HDX1 card in slot 6 because it’s x8 lane. No point in wasting x16 slot on a x4 HDX card. It’s also right in the path of the centre fan and I’ve sped that up with an app called Mac fan control. This means the noisy HDX is far less likely to come on and the Mac fan is really quiet.

In slot 6 (or 5 and 7) you don’t need the Belkin kit providing your HDX card came with three power cables - the PC 1x4 pin one which you don’t need, a larger 2x3 pin one again not needed, and the mini 2x3 pin cable which is the one you DO need. I’ve seen a number of posts by people who only got two power cables with their HDX cards and I think this is where some of the confusion lies because the mini 2x3 pin cable is the one missing!

The best place for the m.2 card is slot 3. This doesn’t pass through a PCIe controller and is connected directly to the CPU. BTW I’m using the Sonnet card with Samsung drives and it’s outrageously fast!

[Marsdy]

Originally Posted by MixerGuy

Thanks Dave, and everyone….

so I want to put my HDX cards in slots 5, 6 and 7.
(for a bunch of reasons - including what I just learned - that you wrote below - that my m.2 Sonnet card is best in slot 3, as slot #3 doesn’t pass through a PCIe controller and is connected directly to the CPU)

I am not ready to put my HDX cards in yet (they are at a different studio that is currently in use)

but will this cable (that originally came with my HDX cards) be * LONG * enough to reach the HDX cards power in?

It looks to be too *short* but maybe not?

see pic.

thanks!

I can only speak for one HDX card in either slot 5 or 6 (I’ve had it in both) but that cable will definitely work in that scenario l. Not sure about 3 cards but I’m pretty sure you’ll be fine if the cables pass over the top of the cards rather than underneath by the PCIe slots.

[MixerGuy]

Originally Posted by Marsdy

I can only speak for one HDX card in either slot 5 or 6 (I’ve had it in both) but that cable will definitely work in that scenario l. Not sure about 3 cards but I’m pretty sure you’ll be fine if the cables pass over the top of the cards rather than underneath by the PCIe slots.

Brilliant - thanks!!!!

Thanks to you, and others, I didnt waste the $ on the Belkin cable kit.

cheers

[loud neighbor]

Originally Posted by LukeHoward

That's a good point. IIRC, with the RX580 or W5500X there are two Thunderbolt busses (front panel and I/O card). The dual-width GPUs add an extra two. (Each bus has two ports, and all Thunderbolt busses are assigned to PCIe Pool B.)

Just discovered this thread but just posted about this in another thread - sorry for the overlap.

I had an issue with my 7,1 this morning where the OS was extremely sluggish - huge lag with typing, apps unresponsive, etc. that rendered it totally unusable. Multiple reboots didn't help, turning off Bluetooth / WiFi, etc. Didn't have any external drives connected at the time.

Running HD with an Aurora (n) interface with a TB2 to USB-C adapter plugged into the PCIe connector card in slot 8.

I recently manually re-allocated two internal PCI NVMe drives in slots 6 and 7 over to Pool A and put the connector card and another internal SSD host card in slot 5 that I use for back-up over to Pool B. Showing 100% usage in Pool A and typically 56% on Pool B.

Someone on a MacRumors forum suggested that the W5700X (which I have in my machine) may be unstable for anything other than use with displays. I had a UAD Octo TB2 box plugged into the GPU along with my USB-C connected display. I relocated the UAD box to the connector card, rebooted again and everything seems to be back to normal.

In light of the post above, I don't understand why the TB ports on the GPU would cause a problem in my case if they are all assigned to Pool B (which has more available bandwidth). Are you sure they all go to Pool B? Anyone else have issues plugging TB devices other than displays into their GPU?

[Marsdy]

Originally Posted by loud neighbor

Just discovered this thread but just posted about this in another thread - sorry for the overlap.

I had an issue with my 7,1 this morning where the OS was extremely sluggish - huge lag with typing, apps unresponsive, etc. that rendered it totally unusable. Multiple reboots didn't help, turning off Bluetooth / WiFi, etc. Didn't have any external drives connected at the time.

Running HD with an Aurora (n) interface with a TB2 to USB-C adapter plugged into the PCIe connector card in slot 8.

I recently manually re-allocated two internal PCI NVMe drives in slots 6 and 7 over to Pool A and put the connector card and another internal SSD host card in slot 5 that I use for back-up over to Pool B. Showing 100% usage in Pool A and typically 56% on Pool B.

Someone on a MacRumors forum suggested that the W5700X (which I have in my machine) may be unstable for anything other than use with displays. I had a UAD Octo TB2 box plugged into the GPU along with my USB-C connected display. I relocated the UAD box to the connector card, rebooted again and everything seems to be back to normal.

In light of the post above, I don't understand why the TB ports on the GPU would cause a problem in my case if they are all assigned to Pool B (which has more available bandwidth). Are you sure they all go to Pool B? Anyone else have issues plugging TB devices other than displays into their GPU?

Yes all TB ports go to Pool B. See page 11 here:
https://www.apple.com/mac-pro/pdf/Ma...r_Feb_2020.pdf

Useful info here too:
https://softron.zendesk.com/hc/en-us...t-performances

FWIW I had a 4k display connected via USB-C and two Blackmagic Multidocks connected to the Radeon W5700X on my 16 core for a while and it worked fine.

[loud neighbor]

Originally Posted by Marsdy

Yes all TB ports go to Pool B. See page 11 here:
https://www.apple.com/mac-pro/pdf/Ma...r_Feb_2020.pdf

Useful info here too:
https://softron.zendesk.com/hc/en-us...t-performances

FWIW I had a 4k display connected via USB-C and two Blackmagic Multidocks connected to the Radeon W5700X on my 16 core for a while and it worked fine.

Thank you! Very useful to see the TB Bus layout. I remember that was important on my older trashcan. I did have my display and the UAD box on the same bus (0) so maybe that was a problem.