Best Workstation Card for AE and Mac Pro 3,1

I want to upgrade my video card. What is the best one for my purposes.
I do HEAVY After Effects, CG (Lightwave and Vue)
I was thinking about this:
http://www.nvidia.com/object/product-quadro-4000-mac-us.html
Pros? Cons?
This is my system config.
MacPro3,1
Quad-Core Intel Xeon
3.2 GHz
Number of Processors:          2
Total Number of Cores:          8
Memory:          20 GB
NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT
Thanks
Fred Raimondi
www.fredraimondi.com

Sell the Mac and spend the money in building yourself a PC with the best components you can find. You will have much more freedom of choice when it comes to hardware, especially in this case where you need the fastest CUDA card you can get. With a PC you can use any Nvidia based card in the market, while with Macs you're restrained to just a few outdated and hugely overpriced ones.
Granted, Mac towers are very good machines, and the OS is great, but CS6 relies heavily on CUDA cards, and Macs have very few CUDA options. A PC that you build yourself from the best components can be less expensive, stable and more powerful.

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Best Video card for Mid 2010 Mac Pro

I'm currently running a Mid 2010 Mac Pro with a 5870 video card in it. I feel that it's bottlenecking processes, and want to upgrade it. I'm not looking to upgrade the computer itself, but want to get the fastest video card that I can.
Looking for suggestions, and links if possible to what you know works.
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Why do you a) need a "fast" video card, and b) think it is the bottleneck (it might)?
Maybe you need dual AMD's and a 2nd 5870 (with the addition of 2nd 450W PSU to drive it).
This: July 25th, 2014 -- GeForce GTX 780 6G: Mac Pro Tower 'Sweet Spot'?
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PCIe Audio Cards for new '09 Mac Pro? (more detailed)

Hi Guys/Gals
I bit the bullet and just upgraded from my Dual 2.7Ghz (LC) G5 to a new 2.66Ghz 8-core MacPro. I now have to find a PCIe audio card (stereo is fine). I used to use an RME Hammerfall 3296 PCI card in my trusty G5 as an alternative audio out (Digi 003R for ProTools and Logic Pro 8 etc.). Do you know of any PCIe audio cards? I just want to use it for iTunes etc as the Digi doesn't allow play through via core audio etc. I already use the optical with my Logitech surrounds but want to send the iTunes stereo signal to my main amp and pro speakers for auditioning cd's and songs.
Thanks in advance!
Bobs

Good point on obsolete! I'm sure there's some new flavour on the way soon too.
Basically, all my firewire ports are used up, I have a Digidesign 003R, 2 FW 800 externals, a FW 400 external HD and an Apple iSight. I tried a Kingston FW hub but got lots of crashes/freezes with it so i can up on that! I may have to resort to either a USB type I/O (lots to choose from there). Someone suggested I use an Airport Express but the problem is that Apple's core audio sends the same signal out the analog audio as it does the optical outs too so I need a completely separate device.
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Thanks again!
Bobs

Can video cards for the new Mac Pro be installed in the field?

Current Configuration of the new Mac Pro is as follows:
ACES MacPro Workstation Seat
Processor
6-Core/3.5GHz/Xeon E5
Memory
32 GB
Graphics
2X AMD FirePro D500
Hard Disk
1 TB
Display
24" LED / HP
Media Player
2GB FIPS USB Drive
Mouse
Apple Magic Mouse
Keyboard
USB
Ports
4-USB 3.0;
6-Thunderbolt
1- HDMI
Netwk Interface
Ethernet/802.11n
Card Reader
NIST SP 800 Compliant
My question is can the Graphic Display cards be removed and replaced in the field by an experience Mac Technician?
Any special tools required?

Now here is the back, showing the heatsink paste still in place, and the thermal pads used to cool the RAM chips to the central cooler:
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One reason for this design is that to make a leap forward, you would have to water-cool the slots for a traditional form-factor PCIe slot Mac pro. Then do it again to include a second GPU. In my opinion, this model Mac Pro is about conquering the cooling problem of this much CPU and GPU compute-power in one box.
NVIDIA graphics card replacements? maybe eventually, but not at this writing.

What's the best Airport card for a Quicksilver Mac?

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Thanks!

You can get a 5770 radeon ATI MAC card
Avoid the 5770 cards on ebay and Amazon - many are black market or manipulated cards.
Buy it from Apple online store or B&H photo or Macconection
And in my case, I was able to sell my old 2600 XT card on ebay for $65 and put that money toward a 5770 card (Which was about $230 minus the $65)
I installed the 5770 in my early Mac Pro 2 x 2.8 and it works great

Best graphics card for CC on Macbook Pro

Hello,
I'm not very techy so am hoping for an experts advice. Looking for the best graphics card option for programs like Edge Animate, Photoshop, After Effects and Premier. I want to get a few more years out of this machine if possible, any update advice would be great.
My system:
Macbook Pro 17" (2010)
Processor 2.8 GHz Intel Core i7
Memory 8 GB 1067 MHz DDR3
Graphics NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M 512 MB
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Kind Regards,
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Short answer--buy the Apple drive if it is an exact match and you are not buying from Apple.
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I don;t like Crucial, but I have no experience with them, other than reviews, and Newegg reviews are not that great, from what I recall. Check for yourself though.
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Hi All,
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Russ

landing page at OWC for Thunderbolt products.
Helios enclosure (the new dual-slot Helios PCIe chassis) and moving various hard drives into Thunderbolt cases (in time) but mainly into my favorite USB3 hard drive enclosure.
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USB3 is plenty fast to house two hard drives.
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Always take the precaution and zero a drive before use. Want a solid enterprise ideal for RAID, then look no further than Seagate Constellation series. 128MB cache doesn't hurt and fine for RAID5, NAS or whatever you want.
There should be retail PCIe-SSD products in 2014.
Large storage, http://macperformanceguide.com/topic-thunderbolt.html

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Thanks,
Jeff

Hi-
The best is probably the one that you can find..... getting hard to find Mac 8x AGP cards.....
Best OEM cards are (were) Radeon 850XT, Radeon X800XT, Geforce 6800 Ultra and Geforce 6800 GT, in order from fastest.
X800 vs. others
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7800 GS in a G5

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System Specs:
Dual core Dual processor Woodcrest
6GB RAM
2 TB RAID HD
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Well, if you go to Adobe's hardware compatibility page is does list the 7800 as being fully supported:
http://www.adobe.com/products/premiere/search_result.html?manuSearchVar=1&modelSearchVar=0 &supportSearchVar=0&brand=&dataFormat=&version=CS3&device=graphic&format=
but the 8800 series cards are also listed, which will support CUDA once it becomes widely used. CUDA is rumored to be utilized with CS4 which will speed up render and preview times drastically by utilizing the GPU as well as the CPU rather than mostly the CPU only.
http://insidehpc.com/2006/11/10/what-is-cuda/
This could still be a year or two away, so if you think you may upgrade your video card again before that time, you may want to stick with the 7800 for now.

PCIe Audio Cards for new '09 Mac Pro?

Hi Guys/Gals
I used to use an RME Hammerfall 2496 PCI card in my trusty G5 as an alternative audio out (Digi 003R as main). Anyone know of any PCIe audio cards? I just want to use it for iTunes etc as the Digi doesn't allow it via core audio etc.
Thanks in advance!
Bobs

continued in this thread:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1979961&tstart=50

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I have a Radeon HD 3870 in my Mac Pro, it seems that I cannot use this configuration with Final Cut Pro X. Then what's the best graphic card for FCP X usable in a Mac Pro (early) 2008?
Thx,
Phil

You can get a 5770 radeon ATI MAC card
Avoid the 5770 cards on ebay and Amazon - many are black market or manipulated cards.
Buy it from Apple online store or B&H photo or Macconection
And in my case, I was able to sell my old 2600 XT card on ebay for $65 and put that money toward a 5770 card (Which was about $230 minus the $65)
I installed the 5770 in my early Mac Pro 2 x 2.8 and it works great

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Hi, I was wondering if anyone has used final cut universal with their mac pro and can recommend a hardware set-up (Processors, memory... ) they found best adapted for it.
my mac pro:
Processor Name: Dual-Core Intel Xeon
Processor Speed: 2.66 GHz
Number Of Processors: 2
Total Number Of Cores: 4
L2 Cache (per processor): 4 MB
Memory: 2 GB
Bus Speed: 1.33 GHz
thank you
MAC PRO Mac OS X (10.4.8)

Final Cut Studio/video editing requires all four parts of a system…
1) Processor performance
2) GPU performance
3) RAM
4) Hard drive performance
… to be working in tandem. If any one of these areas a caught short then the system as a whole is disproportionately affected. It's one of the downsides to video is that everything needs to be working as well as it can.
So, what I would recommend for you is the following setup as your goal is something like…
Mac Pro 2.66GHz
6GB RAM (4 x 1GB + 4 x 512MB - I'm presumng you already have the 4 x 512MB)
ATi X1900 XT graphics card (or better - depneds on what's available at the time)
2 x Western Digital Raptor 150GB RAID 0 for boot and scratch
2 x Maxtor MaXLine Pro 500GB RAID 0 for data
Any further eSATA storage requirements for cloning, backup and data
Not cheap but should scream.

External storage for early 08 mac pro for video storage and editing

Early 08 Mac Pro mod 3.1, 2x Intel 2.8 Quad Core Processors. Bus speed 1.6 Ghz. 10 GB DDR2 FB-Dimm 800 MHz. USB2, Firewire 400, 800. ATI Radeon HD 2600 PCIe 256 mbVRAM. Currently running OS 10.6.8.
I use machine for photo and video storage and editing. I tried using 2x 3TB and 2x1TB HDD internally ( 8 TB total). All are Seagate Barracuda SATA 7200. Experienced constant spinning wheel and lockup requiring manual shutdown. I had upgraded to Lion and to Maverick. Did not help so I did a clean install of primary with Snow Leopard and did not install past 10.6.8. Works now if I don’t exceed 3.5 TB internally. I also discovered that my Disk Permissions experienced voluminous corruption that could not be repaired if I installed Java for Mac OS 10.6 Update 17 as suggested each time I check for software updates.
I need to be able to have a total of about six TBs available in my system for storage and editing of video via Imovie. I don’t know the maximum of HDD storage that can be used in the four internal bays without causing lockup and corruption. If 3.5 TB is about the max, then I would like to have some ability to have external storage via firewire 800 if that would facility fast enough transfer for either video edition and or playback. I don’t know if thunderbolt can be installed via PCI card. I could add a SATA PCI card. However, I assume that would cause the same problem as experienced with 8 TBs installed internally in the four bays.
I would appreciate any suggestions.

olderguy1 wrote:
Do you mean 2x2TB and 2x3TB for a total internal capacity of 10TBs? Are you running Snow Leopard or something else? Actually, I took it to an authorized repair facility who ran checks and said nothing is wrong with the hardware.
Yes, I've got a total of to TB and I'm running Snow Leopard. If your hardware checks out, that pretty much makes it a software problem,,, reinstall the OS?
Does the High Point Technologies SATA3 PCIe connect to eternal drive enclosures or does it somehow connect to drives in some of your four internal bays?
Highpoint makes several RocketRAID 2700 series SATA3 controllers for Mac with external mini-SAS connectors, probably the cleanest/least expensive external hook-up. They also offer a combo internal/external board that (for marketing reasons) is listed as not working for internals with Mac Pro. I believe that this is due to pressure from Apple (who apparently does some business with High Point Tech) but to the best of my knowledge it will. Technically, the "not supported" statement is true since all the internal bays are tied to the motherboard SATA 2 controller, but this can be remedied with a special cable. HOWEVER... the boards are not bootable, so your system disk needs to be on the motherboard controller.
In truth, I bought one of their 8-port "internal only" boards designated for PC only and flashed it so the Mac Pro sees it as a 2722 board, so I have 8 internal ports. I'm not recommending you do the same unless you're pretty geeky, but the 2721 would give you half-and-half or the 2722 would give you 8 external with no mods to the board.

Best Workstation Card for AE and Mac Pro 3,1

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