CPU v. GPU in 12 core Mac Pro

I think I know the answer to this question but I wanted to ask around to make sure I wasn't missing the obvious.
Looking at the Compressor4 specs I see that "...Distributed encoding uses available capacity in other cores and other computers to make encoding go faster..." This would imply that running Compressor4 on a couple of 12 core Mac Pros would give you 24 cores worth of crunch. So far, so good.
But then in the Minimum System Requirements I see "...OpenCL-capable graphics card or Intel HD Graphics 3000 or later..." which would imply that it uses the GPU, not the CPU to crunch on.
Now I think where I'm getting confused is display v. crunch. If I want to run the Mac Pros headless as a renderfarm then Compressor4 will use the CPU cores to crunch on. However the moment I want to attach a monitor and display what I'm encoding I'll need a nice beefy graphics card that is OpenCL compatable.
Right?
So I'm right in thinking that in a headless configuration the graphics card is of little to no importance and adding more of them won't help in the slightest?
Right?
The last thing I'm curious about is RAM. Is there going to be a noticable difference between a machine with 8GB RAM and a machine with 24GB RAM? How about breaking the bank and throwing 64GB?
Thanks for your time.

There's really no good answer to this because different codec require different resources. Video Codec A being transformed into Video Codec B will always depend on the resources needed for A or B. H.264 encoding seems to now to benefit from both the GPU and CPU. However, ProRes decoding is going to become bottlenecked by the hard drive speed on a 12 core machine. To be on the safe side, I would get an internal SSD drive and use that for encoding and decoding content.

Similar Messages

Huge CPU-spikes on 8-core Mac Pro

Hello,
I just got a new 8-core Mac Pro with 16Gb of RAM. And updated to Logic 9. And Snow Leopard.
Now logic is giving me the "System overload - could not process data etc" -dialog constantly. From the system performance window I see huge CPU spikes wich cause this dialog when reaching overload at the top. These happen, however, in a spot where there can be just one audio track playing. So it´s not a matter of having a hundred Space Designers happening simultaneously.
Is there something in the preferences I´m missing?
I appreciate your help,
Pessi
Helsinki, Finland

Has to be Logic. In 10.5.8 I have a sample track with add. drums and omnisphere. It show 2-3 dots on CPU, logic 9 then in snow , spikes all the way to pops cracks and 100% so it's logic not optimized for snow as it works fine in 10.5.8. I daw this a lot in cubase sx and nuendo and the pc. And youbknow us iverclocking types. Ha ha. We learn howto turn off everything for great audio performance so hopefully apple will address this. Could also be the plug in nit snow ready too butbam leaning more toward core audio having a glitch.
Again, 10.5.8 is fine. I should test logic 8 too. Hope with the annonced updates coming and more pro features we get more CPUs, dedicated PRO team, express slots in all machines as apple should know, like digi realized, app the $$$$$ is in PROSumer use that's why they bought maudio. Remember how upset the user base was when FireWire dissapeared from MacBooks. Hope we really get back to creative side if things.
Peace fam.

New 8 Core Mac Pro Question

What will the 8 Core Mac Pro do for Aperture? I know you need 4 gig of ram and the ATI video card. I am just curious about what processor to purchase.
I find that Exporting images from a wedding of 800 or so images takes about 2.5 hours on my G5 Dual 1.8 with 3 gigs of ram. I would really like to speed up the Export process!
I will also be using Photoshop CS3 when it ships. Will Actions that I have written run faster on the 8 Core Machine?
I just need some buying advice.
Kevin Hawkins

How much Aperture alone sees today is not so much the point as is what happens with real world performance. Real world it is not just about the theoretical limit of what Aperture sees; apps and the OS/RAM/GPU/CPUs all work together, and folks typically do have more than one app open at a time. My expectation is that although certainly fully functional with 4 GB, the kind of users that run Aperture on a MP will find that greater than 4 GB of RAM is clearly beneficial.
Anecdotal reports also seem to indicate that Mac Pros have an inherent need for more RAM than previous boxes needed.
Also OS 10.5/Leopard is due soon enough that we should be planning new box configurations based on our expectations of what impact Leopard and Aperture v2 will have on RAM utilization. My strong opinion is that we will be able to take advantage of more RAM as 2007/2008 play out.
In any event 4 or 5 (1 Apple plus 4 third party) GB of RAM is an excellent place to start, and RAM always gets cheaper and is easy to retrofit later. IMO we should buy only 2 GB sized DIMMs to facilitate maximum future expansion.
-Allen Wicks

Mac OS X - Opening Project Crawls - Uses Only 1/2 Core on a 12 Core Mac Pro

Can anyone else confirm this:
When opening a project in PP .. the Activity Monitor only shows one hyerthread ( out of 24 ) active while the program opens .. and it takes a long time.
This is a 12 Core ( 24 hyperthreads ) Mac Pro
Does it happen on a 8 Core Mac Pro?
Thanks for checking.

Pharther Phurther wrote:
I thought if I paid enough and bought the fastest RAID .. I would get more than 1/2 of 12 cores to load a project.
Opening files is a pretty serial event and not one that can be easily parallelized without the risk of corrupting things badly. It's not surprising that only one core gets tapped when doing that. No amount of expensive/fast RAID is going to make the software use more CPU resources to load a project. Regardless of the software you're running.
jas

8 Core Mac Pro only using 40% of its power? ouch.

Hi there
I have purchased a top of the line 8 Core Mac Pro with 10GB RAM to do video conversion tasks, among other things.
Right now, i'm importing a m4v file into iMovie, and i've opened up Activity Monitor, and it stays around the 40% mark. The import says it will take approximately 9 minutes.
The same conversion was then tested on an iMac and took only a tiny bit longer with the % bars up much higher.
What gives?
Is there a way I can make all the processors FOCUS on a specific task to complete it much faster (without setting up xGrid since most apps aren't xgrid compatible)
One thing I have tried, I purchased a copy of VisualHub and duplicated the application about 5 times, and gave it 5 different tasks. It used up 100% sure enough, but what if I have just one biiig task?
Otherwise I could have saved myself the extra $6000 and bought an imac...

Michael Blach wrote:
One thing I have tried, I purchased a copy of VisualHub and duplicated the application about 5 times, and gave it 5 different tasks. It used up 100% sure enough, but what if I have just one biiig task?
There's a saying: Nine women can't make a baby in one month. If a task is not practical to be broken up, it can't be broken up. Or at least until programmers rearrange pipelines so that it can. Snow Leopard is no guarantee of anything. It will take Apple to provide good Snow Leopard frameworks for multitasking in the OS, and it will take application programmers to compartmentalize pipelines so that all processes that can be broken up, are. It will take both parties. Either alone won't do it. And some processes might still not be able to be broken up (like making a baby).
Even at that point, to expand on what Scott said, you have to prove that the CPU is the bottleneck. That is isn't because the disks can't feed data fast enough, or write the computed data back fast enough, or that it isn't because the speed of the bus to RAM can't keep up, etc. There is a huge myth that CPU is the only measure of performance, but performance has multiple dependencies like CPU speed, RAM/bus speed, and disk speed. If a program cares about the CPU most, like 3D or math apps, then adding more CPUs scales performance effectively. If a program needs to read/write data from/to disk constantly, or depends on other components for performance, the CPU may spend a lot of time waiting for those other components.
Is there a way I can make all the processors FOCUS on a specific task to complete it much faster (without setting up xGrid since most apps aren't xgrid compatible)
Only if the process can be broken down and the processing pipelines support it. Otherwise, you just have CPUs "focusing on" waiting for the other system components to deliver stuff it can work on.
There are some apps that can exploit 8 cores, After Effects is one that can do it for video. I do not use that often but my (possibly out of date) understanding is that it can take individual independent lossless frames and send them to different cores or machines for processing, but that is far different than what you would do with Visual Hub or iMovie which is doing a lot of decompressing/compressing using lossy codecs that look across many frames in time. That fact may prevent some degree of breaking up the task, if the codec needs to see forward and back in the same file to process a single frame instead of being able to hand off individual frames to other CPUs.
Don't take the details of last paragraph as gospel, I'm just trying to convey the idea.

Eight Core Mac Pro

Just a post in case someone wants to know; Logic 8 with the new Mac Pro 8 core machines rocks. I got the stock 2.8GHZ machine (2GB RAM). Screen redraws and meters are smooth, no studders or core overloads. Upgrading from dual 2Ghz G5. Just have to replace my UAD-1 cards now - bummer...
Oh yeah, after the migration from the old Mac, the Apogee ensemble worked straight away without reinstalling the drivers, etc.
Paul

Good luck with those bigger projects, Paul. I just posted this message on the UAudio forum. I sure hope I'm missing something simple because this is completely unacceptable:
So I decided to upgrade my old dual 2.5GHz G5 with the dreaded AMD-8131 PCI chipset to one of the shiny new 8-core Mac Pros that were announced last week. Of course, this meant that I also had to upgrade my 2 UAD-1 cards to UAD-1e cards. The cards are installed in slots 3 & 4 - the PCI Express 2.0 slot is open. I have a project with the following plugin instance counts:
4 Cambridge
5 SPL Transient Designer
1 Pultec Pro
1 Precision Maximizer
Would anyone have any idea why I would receive the "One or more Powered Plug-Ins have been disabled. CPU load limit exceeded" when opening the project on the new Mac Pro but not on the old G5? Both computers have 2GB ram. The old computer was running Tiger but the new one is running Leopard. I'm using Logic 8.0.1.
The thing is, all the plugins appear to be loading. If I unload the Precision Maximizer, the reload it, I get the error message as soon as I select a preset. Again, in this case, the plugin seems to be loading.

Which memory modules to use for upgrade 8 core Mac Pro

I am planning to upgrade the memory in my new 8 core Mac Pro, I use it for graphics and video editing (FCS2), I am wondering what would be the advantages and differences between getting the 8GB upgrade in 2-pair of 4GB module or 4-pair of 2GB module, I know the price for the first choice is almost double the second.

OK, so according to the http://www.barefeats.com/harper3.html Memory Tests, all slots filled means the fastest speed. So here's my question:
I'm about to buy a 2,8GHz MacPro with 2GB RAM, and I want to upgrade to 8GB. I was considering buy an 8GB Kit from Crucial (629.99$), and either leave the original 2GB and add the 8GB to the free slots, or just take the original out and leave only the 8GB modules. And this would be my question before reading the Memory Tests article.
So I went back to Crucial's online store and did some math, to see how much it would cost me to fill the remainder slots (6, counting off the 2 used by the original RAM) with 1GB modules, instead of my previous idea of 8GB (2x4GB). So, a 2GB Kit (2x1GB) cost 127.99$, multiplied by 3, which is what I would need to achieve a total of 6GB, to add to the original 2GB, will cost 383.97$.
That's 246$ less than the 8GB Kit! And according to the Memory Tests, even faster.
Isn't this too good to be true? What's your word?
Thanks a lot.

Need help improving XP SP3 performance on 4-core Mac Pro 2009

I'm running Windows XP SP3 under Boot Camp 3 (Mac OS X v. 10.6.2). Currently, XP is on a second partitioned HD, but it was previously running on a drive all its own with the same problems which are:
When I boot into Windows the sound stutters quite a bit. I updated the Realtek drivers and used the Apple USB device (24" LED speakers) but nothing completely got rid of the static/stuttering.
The real problem comes when running Left 4 Dead. Whenever I get to a new part of any level (where zombies are) the graphics freeze for up to a few seconds and the sound gets glitchy, repeating broken staticky snippets. I don't have other games installed but I get similar performance when watching a YouTube video in Firefox.
Is this normal for Windows on a Mac Pro or do other Mac Pro Boot Campers run Windows smoothly? I have seen YouTube videos of Windows running smoothly on MacBook Pros and iMacs. Just wondering if I'm doing something wrong.
Finally, I'm running two graphics cards, an ATI 4870 and an NVIDIA GT120. I've run with both on, one off, the other off, the NVIDIA removed, the NVIDIA installed. No matter what I do, the video glitchiness is always pretty bad. (The audio is also bad.)
Thanks in advance for any info or pointers.

I have had success running boot camp on an 8-core Mac Pro from 2009. I have an ATI 4870.
I initially used Windows 7 Beta (32bit) and then RC (64bit) and finally the shipping version (64 bit Professional).
32-Bit crippled Crysis performance for me (only the demo). I was able to run the game with most settings all the way up (excluding Anti-aliasing), at 1920x1080 and it ran fine for about one minute before hitting the hard-drive for about 10 seconds. This thrashing occurred repeatedly and I have up - that problem was resolved when I moved to 64bit Windows.
Other games I have played with no trouble are The Orange Box & Borderlands, each with maxed resolution and settings.
Optical audio and the front headphones work fine for me - though the 4 conductor cord does not recognize the microphone (from an iPhone headset) in Windows, which gets me down as it would be nice to audio-chat in some games.
Try these thing in this order if you can, and have not already:
Patch the game (though if this is happening in Firefox as well, it seems like an OS problem)
Update directX (I really have no clue here, I assume Windows does this automatically?)
Try demos of other games
Upgrade the OS to 64bit (Especially if you have over 3GB of ram
Go from XP to 7 (I have had no trouble with Windows 7 on my machine)
Try a DVI monitor (I am using a 21" Westinghouse, have never connected an Apple display)
Good luck!
Owen

Installed Memory not showing up in a late 2009 Dual Core Mac Pro

I have a late 2009 Dual Core Mac Pro.
I restarted the my computer today, an a utility popped up saying something about I need to re-arrange the memory in my mac because it was not optimized.
I thought this was weird because all the slots are filled with 2 gigs chips for a total of 16 gigs.
When I checked about this Mac it said I only had 12 gigs of memory in my system.
I went to open up the case, and there are to red light glowing for slots 7 and 8 on the motherboard, and any memory chips I put in those slots do not show up.
Can anyone tell me what is going on and how to fix it.
There was a power outage the other day, but I keep my machine on a surge protector.
I generally try to take really good care of my computers so seeing something wrong out of the blue like this is a little freaky for me.
Any help would be great.
Thanks
Stan

Each "side" is operated independently, so slots 1, 2, 3 and 4 are one set, and 5, 6, 7, and 8 are an independent set. The third and fourth slots on each side share a memory channel, so a failure of one module in these two slots could possibly disable the other one.
The Mac Pro uses the Error Correction Code hardware built into its Xeon processor to provide single-bit (in a word) Error Detection and Correction in Hardware. It also can detect double-bit errors, but these cause a kernel panic, machine-check, error overflow or uncorrected error. This is by design, to avoid poisoning you data.
The Error Correction Code hardware is used in a special way at Startup. Any failure (correctable or not) that occurs in the first few seconds while running the Power-On Self Test causes your Mac to declare the slot(s) of those modules "empty" and simply not use them in the running system. Vigilance is required, because the next time you run this test, those Bad modules may pass.
So the movie version is that you have some DIMM(s) that have failed, and you should remove them from your Mac and consider whether to replace them with good modules, or to add some larger modules.
I expect your recent power failure, protected by a UPS, is merely a coincidence, not a cause-and-effect.

Time machine only copies User Info and Users (Applications, Library, and System are missing) from my quad core Mac Pro. 45 Gb of 162 Gb are missing. Any one having success with time machine copying all folders using Mavericks? What do I need to do dif

Time machine only copies User Info and Users (Applications, Library, and System are missing) from my quad core Mac Pro. 45 Gb of 162 Gb are missing. Any one having success with time machine copying all folders using Mavericks?
What do I need to do differently?

The late, great Pondini was investigating that issue before he passed away.
See here: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5125969
I think there might be information there on how to reset Time Machine to do a full backup. I think you basically have to reset it and start over.

Where are the 6-core Mac Pro at 3.33GHz in the 'store'???

I'm trying to configure a 6-core Mac Pro at 3.33GHz with some extras but, it's nowhere to be found at the online store!... What gives??
Thanks

Thanks... But when I go to the buy page this is all i get....
http://store.apple.com/ussmb_78313/browse/home/shop_mac/family/macpro
It shows only the 3 models i mentioned earlier. Does it matter where you are located... (i'm trying this from Aruba)

Illustrator CC 2014 running EXTREMELY slow on brand new 6 Core Mac Pro with 64Gbs of Ram. This can't be right :(

Hi,
I've just picked up a brand new 6 core Mac Pro and I am having some serious lag issues with Illustrator CC 2014. I am just trying to select relatively simple objects (an illustration of the side of a coin) and there is a massive delay between when I click on an object and when it actually becomes selected.
Someone please tell me they know how to fix this? Please

after the two fixes above in illustrator cc Im still experiencing
file open - nothing happens
file place nothing happens
fix - quit illustrator and restart - open file from the folder lol
PS CC
A wierd warning popping when I want to open a file nothing opens just the warning
fix quit out and start again
for those of you out there in yur 40s and this is your career you started like me on photoshop 2 or 3 on an lc 6/100 60 and even on the quadras lol
this is the first time Ive had seen so many bugs in adobe software
why I bought it the curve tool astute dont have a curve tool and I work alot with them and the funky title branding it looks cool visual consumer glutton lol
so yeah now going to look at how to stop my monthly subscription will proabably have to go to that forum next lol
an d evert back to CS6 im outputting to many jobs to have these hold ups

Does Premiere Pro benefit from 8 Core Mac Pro

I'm considering buying an 8 core Mac Pro because my current Intel Core 2 Duo iMac is struggling with the editing I do in Adobe Premiere. There seems to be some debate as to whether 8 cores are any better than 4 cores or 2 cores in a lot of applications. Can anyone tell me if Adobe Premiere works better with more cores - and if there is any special way it needs to be configured?

I am running Premiere Cs4 on the preceeding generation (Xeon 5410's) 8 core PC under Windows and it works wonderfully. Do not see why you would not be delighted with your 8 core Mac except for the price. Here are my 8 cores at 100% during an MPEG2-DVD encode..

Hip Hop, Dance, Pop on 4 or 8 core Mac Pros

Just wondering if anybody has been making this kind of music on 4/8 core mac pros? If so has anybody come close to the edge with these systems? I wouldn't think you would since hop hop/pop don't usually use as many track as scoring films. But what do I know, you just might use that many tracks.

philip j wrote:
Just wondering if anybody has been making this kind of music on 4/8 core mac pros? If so has anybody come close to the edge with these systems? I wouldn't think you would since hop hop/pop don't usually use as many track as scoring films. But what do I know, you just might use that many tracks.
While it does help to have more, usually the best songs do not need much. They can be done with just a vocal and one instrument.
As far as technicality, it really depends entirely on the orchestration, in other words how many instruments you need (keyword NEED) to get the song across in your particular style of music.
Hip Hop (originally) rarely had more than 8 tracks. Maybe 12 maximum.
Madonna's "Like a Virgin" was done in less than 24 tracks.
Cheers

1066Mhz Memory in a WestMere 12-core Mac Pro

Hello,
Thanks for reading and for your help. I've tried to find an anwser on Google but without success.
I presently have a 2.26Ghz 8-core Mac Pro (Nahelem).
I would like to exchange it with a 2.66Ghz 12-core Mac Pro (Westmere).
I previously bought for my 2.26Ghz 8-core Mac Pro (Nahelem) 32Gb of RAM (Hynix HMT151R7BFR8C-G7). It works fine. And I would like to be able to use the same ram in the 2.66Ghz 12-core Mac Pro (Westmere). Is it possible? Even though the Nahelem uses 1066MHz DDR3 ECC SDRAM and the Westmere uses 1333MHz DDR3 ECC SDRAM.
If it is possible, I understand that I won't be optimal, but I wish to save myself the hassle of selling my old ram, to buy some new. And I will eventually swap the RAM for the right one when prices go down a bit.

Westmere can use 1333 but shouldn't REQUIRE it. But with Apple hardware...?
And there isn't that much difference in performance. I know that was mentioned in one blog/post/article.
Now, as I write this, I am not sure, and definitely not 100%.
It should. I can't see how it would not (DDR3 is very forgiving except when you go above and beyond like faster RAM and over-clocking).
From OWC:
1333MHz and 1066MHz ECC
Model ID: MacPro5,1
1333MHz & 1066MHz ECC Mac Pro
Memory Information
* Up to 64GB of Total Memory
* 4 or 8 Total Slots
* Apple Specified Thermal Sensor
* DDR3 PC3-10600 ECC 1333MHZ or PC-8500 ECC 1066MHz
http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/memory/Mac-Pro-Memory#1333-memory
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other%20World%20Computing/1333D3W4M32K/
Crucial -
Q: +What memory goes into my computer, and will a faster speed be backward-compatible?+
A: *DDR3 memory with support for DDR3 PC3-10600 speeds.*
Crucial 12-Core Mid-2010 Mac Pro
First word from OWC and MacPerformanceGuide :
*OWC has confirmed that the 8GB modules do work in the 4/6-core 2010 Mac Pro* > According to OWC, using 3 modules shows a ~ *15% memory bandwidth gain* over 4 modules, so the configurations with a * at right ar the optimal ones. Whether real-world tasks are affected by this small difference remains to be tested, but +in past testing never measured more then 3% hit from using 4 modules instead of 3.+
Mid-2010 Mac Pro DDR3 Memory @ OWC

CPU v. GPU in 12 core Mac Pro

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