Nehalem testing underway

[Mark Dann]

Today I opened the box of the new 8-core 2.26hz Mac Pro, and starting to put it through it's paces with Pro Tools.

Quick Background: I have a dual 2.7 G5 with HD3 in it. I generally use a mix of RTAS and TDM to get thru the day. I never "hit the top", but that because I don't use VIs much. The G5 would die an ugly death if I did.

The Prep: Because the Magma chassis has not arrived, I thought I load it up with PTLE 8cs2, and see how it fares. It fares well.

I first installed PT8, then the cs2 update, repairing permissions after each. Then I installed the complete and up-to-date Waves Mercury bundle. Then I booted up a fairly full-blown mix. The interface is the Mbox 2 Pro.

My mix contains additional plugins that I have not bothered installing yet, as this is not actually MY machine (I am setting this up for a friend). This mix would use up much of my TDM chips, and quite a bit of RTAS as well. Nevertheless, with 15 cores running, the "CPU (RTAS)" meter is hovering around 27%. Not bad, considering it is bearing much of the brunt of both my TDM and RTAS loads.

Next up, changing the amount of cores used for RTAS: Seeing as we really don't know how many cores PT (or even Leopard for that matter) uses, I figured I'll change the number and see what happens to the "RTAS score". Going down to 13 cores got me 25% (a little better, strange). Going down to 11 got me 28%. 7 got me to 31%. Not much difference! Dropping all the way down to only 2 cores only got me to 60%. This suggests that most of the power of this machines is simply not being recognized. Not a bad position to be in.

The next test is a big one for me. As I mentioned I have HD3. My friends system is HD2. When his Magma 2-slot chassis arrives, I will delete LE, and do the real install. The test will be whether an HD3 owner can get along with HD2 on this machine. As I mentioned, I already use a lot of RTAS plugs, as I would overwhelm HD3 pretty easily if not. If HD2 cuts it, then I can buy the 2-slot chassis, and sell the extra card. Which will more than pay for the chassis. I hope to run this test within the next forty-eight hours.

[Vaphoron]

Which Magma 2 slot chassis did your friend order? As far as I know the only supported Magma chassis is the 6 slot PE6R4 which is the one I plan on getting but a 2 slot would be plenty for me right now if its cheaper and works fine.

[Mark Dann]

Originally Posted by Vaphoron

Which Magma 2 slot chassis did your friend order? As far as I know the only supported Magma chassis is the 6 slot PE6R4 which is the one I plan on getting but a 2 slot would be plenty for me right now if its cheaper and works fine.

It's the CB264+SUBPEHIFX1. The Magma guy on the phone swore up and down that it would work great with PT. He said the only compromise that he knew of was that I would only get something like 170 voices instead of 192 (I forget the exact number he told me). I can live with that, lol. And besides, they have a 30-day money-back guarantee, so it's pretty safe to try it.

As far as "support" goes, where is the incentive to support this product? Selling a 6-slot chassis might sell more cards. Selling a 2-slot chassis simply derails crossgrades.

The crossgrade scares me, not only because of the over-the-top cost, but because something new must be coming. That something new could be a more powerful card, or the death of cards themselves. I think the only way for Digi to see some real crossgrade business is to come out with a more powerful system. Users can and will go for that. Otherwise, Magma it is.

[digiot]

I am about to make that jump as well. Let me know how the 2-slot works out.
Also do you know if you can stick a SATA card in the chassis to support 2 internal drives? (there is actually a 3rd PCIX slot in the chassis but no space fore a back-pane!!)
Thanks.

[Vaphoron]

I was also wondering about the hard drive situation but I have no idea how they would connect to your computer since there doesn't seem to be any openings on the back of the case to allow any type of a connection. I am very interested in this case now that I know I could also buy an ExpressCard and possibly have my HD system work with my laptop. I might take the plunge and get the chassis to try with my laptop before I invest in a new Mac Pro.