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  #281  
Old 07-05-2020, 01:21 PM
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JFreak JFreak is offline
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Default Re: New Mac Pro (7.1)

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Originally Posted by juniperian View Post
Very true. But of course at that point we'll want the next gen chips... if they're compatible...
At this point any sane company would get the 7,1 that gets you through the transition. Buy a next gen chip laptop for testing purposes, but when you have a paying client coming in you dont want to explain why your system has hiccups.
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  #282  
Old 07-05-2020, 01:23 PM
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Default Re: New Mac Pro (7.1)

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Originally Posted by juniperian View Post
On the plus side, I bet the 7,1s will hold their resale value even better than the 5,1s and 6,1s.
In percentage or dollar? If something costs 5k and another costs 50k, if you sell it for 20% loss then I'd say 7,1 loses more money.
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  #283  
Old 07-05-2020, 01:24 PM
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Default Re: New Mac Pro (7.1)

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Originally Posted by lucienpalmer View Post
I had one session that was hitting over 80% on my 5,1 12-core that hovers around 10% now.
Yea, that's why you pay 50k for it very good
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  #284  
Old 07-07-2020, 03:23 PM
Mishabou Mishabou is offline
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Default Re: New Mac Pro (7.1)

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Originally Posted by juniperian View Post
Open question to all MP7,1 owners:

Hard to compare unless you've tried different configurations, but I'm trying to decide which is better to buy:

16-core for higher clock speed?
28-core for more threads?

Use case is a combo of Pro Tools HDX2 for 5.1 (soon to be Atmos) film mixing (often with very high track counts/lots of plugins), plus Cubase for film composing with VEP on two servers (2012 Mac Pros) and well over 1000 midi tracks.

Currently gimping with a 3.5GHz 6-core trash can I've owned for over 7 years.

It would be nice to be able to run lots of VIs on the 7,1, and rely less on the external VEP servers. I can barely run a few instances of Kontakt on my 6,1 in Pro Tools, which is why I switched to Cubase for music.

I tried a 2.7GHz 12-core trash can a couple years ago with Pro Tools, but the lower clock speed created such a performance drop on various common processes that I couldn't stand the waiting. So I went back to the 3.5GHz 6-core. It's made me a little gun shy of slower clock speeds, and leery of the benchmark scores. But the idea of 28 cores is very appealing.

I know the Xeon-Ws are in a different world of efficiency from the trash cans, but is the 2.5GHz 28-core a lot less snappy than the 3.2GHz 16-core, or does the turbo boost make up for that? Do you think I'll be waiting more with the 28-core vs the 16 core on non-(or poorly)-multithreaded processes like AudioSuite? I've been searching the web for info, and it's very hard to get a sense of what's better. Any insight would be much appreciated!
Strange that your experience with the Mac Pro 2.7Ghz 12-core was so different than mine.
I collaborate with several producers, mixers and composers who use Cubase/Nuendo, Logic and PT so i'm comfortable with all three. They all run smoothly and reliably on my Mac Pro 6.1 (12 cores, 2.7Ghz). Logic has a slight edge when it comes to VST usage but not by much.

A typical session has over 200 tracks and more than half of them are VST, no problem whatsoever with any of the DAWs mentioned. My sessions run at 128 ms buffer, with surround sounds and HD video via AJA Kona card.
I used to have several PCs running VepPro but since switching my template to track presets, i have not look back. PT's handling of the latter is by far the best of any DAW i've used/tested.

That being said, i had the Mac Pro 7.1 16 and 28 cores at the studio for past month and i barely notice any difference so i went with the 16 cores, 384 GB ram and one of their high end video card.
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  #285  
Old 07-07-2020, 04:54 PM
juniperian juniperian is offline
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Default Re: New Mac Pro (7.1)

Wow, I wish I'd had the same experience as you with the 12-core trash can.

Amazing that you had the chance to compare the 16-core and 28-core systems.

I'm guessing you were running similar big sessions on both systems. Did they both have enough CPU headroom that they were responding in a similar way?
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  #286  
Old 07-07-2020, 05:10 PM
Mishabou Mishabou is offline
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Default Re: New Mac Pro (7.1)

Yes they both behave pretty well the same.

I tested my old sessions on all 3 DAW, they ran great with enough CPU headroom.
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  #287  
Old 07-21-2020, 12:25 PM
sleiweke sleiweke is offline
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Default Re: New Mac Pro (7.1)

Just got my new Mac Pro up and running. This thread has been very helpful. Thanks everyone!

Wanted to put something out there for you all. I was debating what to do with all these extra archive firewire drives I have laying around, and I found a PCI firewire card that works perfectly in the new Mac Pro.

SIIG 3PORT Firewire 800 Pcie 2X9PIN 1X6PIN

Doesn't ever require additional power. Just drop it in an open PCI slot and you're rocking. No firewire adaptors or weird hubs needed.

Thanks all!
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  #288  
Old 07-21-2020, 03:18 PM
rinky rinky is offline
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Default Re: New Mac Pro (7.1)

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Originally Posted by sleiweke View Post

Wanted to put something out there for you all. I was debating what to do with all these extra archive firewire drives I have laying around, and I found a PCI firewire card that works perfectly in the new Mac Pro.

SIIG 3PORT Firewire 800 Pcie 2X9PIN 1X6PIN

Doesn't ever require additional power. Just drop it in an open PCI slot and you're rocking. No firewire adaptors or weird hubs needed.

Thanks all!

Thanks for the tip. I needed this!
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  #289  
Old 07-29-2020, 10:10 PM
MixerGuy MixerGuy is offline
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Default Re: New Mac Pro (7.1)

Hi all

Very soon I am about to buy a new 7,1 Mac Pro (the super fancy new cheese grater)

I will be putting the Sonnet Fusion Flex J3i drive bay into it, for backup drives, internally.

I read the Fusion Flex J3i manual, and I can’t figure out what slots the Fusion Fusion Flex J3i will use (?)

I will have HDX-3 (AVID) cards in the computer as well…

My main question is - with the Sonnet Fusion Flex J3i drive bay in place, will I need the $70 Belkin aux power cable kit to power for HDX cards?

In other words - what slots will my AVID HDX 3 cards go into, with the Sonnet Fusion Flex J3i drive bay in place.

Other question - I’ll also get the Sonnet SSD M.2 4x4 PCIe Card SILENT model…. (the new silent model) - and where will that go? What slot?

Many thanks.
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  #290  
Old 07-29-2020, 10:20 PM
LukeHoward LukeHoward is offline
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Default Re: New Mac Pro (7.1)

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Originally Posted by MixerGuy View Post
Hi all

Very soon I am about to buy a new 7,1 Mac Pro (the super fancy new cheese grater)

I will be putting the Sonnet Fusion Flex J3i drive bay into it, for backup drives, internally.

I read the Fusion Flex J3i manual, and I can’t figure out what slots the Fusion Fusion Flex J3i will use (?)
According to here, it fits in the space next to the PCIe slots. So you don't lose any slots.

Quote:
My main question is - with the Sonnet Fusion Flex J3i drive bay in place, will I need the $70 Belkin aux power cable kit to power for HDX cards?
There are probably some configurations that need the aux power kit but, I'm one of those people that bought it and didn't end up needing it (HDX2 in MacPro7,1). Someone else can better chime in.

Quote:
Other question - I’ll also get the Sonnet SSD M.2 4x4 PCIe Card SILENT model…. (the new silent model) - and where will that go? What slot?
Your constraints are: how many slots your graphics card takes up, needing to put the HDX cards adjacent to each other (for the TDM SATA cables), and needing to put the Sonnet SSD card in a x16 slot.

So, if you have a W5700X for example, then the GPU would take up slots 1 and 2; SSD card in slot 3 (x16); HDX cards in slots 4-6 or 5-7; I/O card in slot 8. Slots 5-7 will eliminate the requirement for a longer TDM cable, so I would recommend that.
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