New thunderbolt magma pcie adaptor.....

[PT user]

I know this isn't out just yet, but Im wondering......My current system is a Mac Pro 2.1 8 core, PT HD Native etc....I have just bought a macbook pro quad core 17" i7 (late 2011). Using the Magma is my laptop going to be more powerful than the older Mac Pro I currently use?

The other thing I notice is that it doesn't support video cards. I have a ATI Radeon HD5770 card in my mac pro. Would have been great if the Magma worked with it. Im guessing one would have to buy costly thunderbolt monitors if video cards are a no no... I use Media Composer as well so the firepower on the card is useful...

In summary Im just wondering how viable a powerful portable solution this could really be? I guess we will have to wait and see....

[nst7]

As far as the CPU power of the Macbook vs. the Mac Pro, Thunderbolt isn't going to affect that. You could just compare the same session on both computers running through the built in outputs and see which one does better. Thunderbolt will not change that.

On the graphics cards, the Magma site states that Apple is not supporting it right now, but that could change. It's not a limitation of the hardware.

However, it already supports video cards, such as those by Blackmagic and Aja. There's a video linked to in another thread that shows Avid at NAB using 2 HDX cards and a Blackmagic Decklink Extreme in one chassis.

[PT user]

Thanks for your mail - I will test that - however for it to be a viable replacement - it would need to be capable of running two monitors (graphic card based) without the huge hit of thunderbolt displays. I did see that it does support other video capture/playout cards - I currently use a matrox mxo2 for video (client monitor) however they don't support PT so it will prob go in favour of a black magic device...

The other thing I have is a lot of library on various drives - both internal and external. They could be streamlined into firewire 800 drives I guess..... Throws up a lot of variables. I don't really know how powerful daisy chaining thunderbolt is - I find its never a good idea with firewire, which is why my mac pro has an additional firewire card...

[nst7]

Daisy chaining shouldn't be a problem because there's much more bandwidth with Thunderbolt than firewire.

As for the drives, Thunderbolt drives should be ideal, and we should be seeing more affordable ones very soon (so far they've mostly been more expensive RAID type setups).

The other option is Thunderbolt to Esata adapters, like this one that just came out:

http://www.lacie.com/us/products/product.htm?id=10574

This has 2 Esata ports and hooks up to Thunderbolt and it's only $199 (plus $50 Apple Thunderbolt cable). You can use one of the existing "quad" interface drives like those from Glyph or OWC that have Esata connectors. You can hook up 2 drives to this and get way more speed and bandwidth than firewire.

[PT user]

Thanks for the link....that looks interesting....I think the main viability of this will be down to the graphics card - I would hate to lash out for thunderbolt displays, and need to run two monitors. From what Im reading on other forums, the magma chassis doesn't possess the power to run a pro graphics card like the ATI HD5770.....

[PMoshay]

Originally Posted by nst7

Daisy chaining shouldn't be a problem because there's much more bandwidth with Thunderbolt than firewire.

As for the drives, Thunderbolt drives should be ideal, and we should be seeing more affordable ones very soon (so far they've mostly been more expensive RAID type setups).

The other option is Thunderbolt to Esata adapters, like this one that just came out:

http://www.lacie.com/us/products/product.htm?id=10574

This has 2 Esata ports and hooks up to Thunderbolt and it's only $199 (plus $50 Apple Thunderbolt cable). You can use one of the existing "quad" interface drives like those from Glyph or OWC that have Esata connectors. You can hook up 2 drives to this and get way more speed and bandwidth than firewire.

I got one of these, it works well.....