Starting this post to document my 4,1 build, with a goal of being a very inexpensive, capable video editing platform.
I have a small youtube channel (I build cars/boats/vans/sleds/bikes) that has been growing so I've been doing a lot more editing this past year.
I had a heavily upgraded Mac Pro 2,1 since 2013, 2x3ghz, 32 gigs ram, SSDs, and mac vid cards 7970. It worked fine, but it made the whole room hot whenever it was running, thing was basically a space heater.
Build 1:
Mac Pro 2,1
Dual 3.0ghz Quads (8 core)
32 gigs ram
240gig SSD (El Captain)
240gig SSD (windows 7)
2x500gig hdd mirrored Raid Storage
Last summer I came across a really good deal on 5.1 3.33ghz Hexcore; wound up getting it for $300 delivered to my door which was awesome. I swapped my SSDs and 7970 into it, splurged on some NVME drives for a boot and scratch disk, and it's been a great, silent, powerful machine. I was running out of storage tho, so I was pricing HDs and hoping to find a deal on another mac pro that maybe came with more storage....
Build 2:
3.33 Hexcore 5.1
32 gigs Ram
Ati Radeon 7970
240 gig SSD (windows 10)
256 gig NVMe Boot
256 gig NVMe Scratch Disk
2x500 gig mirrored raid storage
So...last weekend, my FB alert popped up that a dual processor 4,1 was for sale, and woah, KILLER deal:
Existing 4.1, firmware already flashed to 5.1
Dual Quad 2.26
32 gigs ram
Ati Radeon 4850
1tb SSD
2 6tb HDDs
eSata Card
USB 3.0 card
BlackMagic 4k Capture Card
(no wifi card tho)
Only $400!!!!
It was listed 15 minutes earlier so I contacted the guy, made plans to get it, and drove 1.5 hours to pick it up. I wound up selling the black magic card for $150, so I splurged and picked up two x5680 3.33ghz hexcores for it off ebay, delidded of course, and swapped them into it last night.
Success! Geekbench 5 is reporting 6200+ in multicore, which is over double my single 5.1!!! I bought a Wifi/BT4.0 card/adaptor, but it hasn't arrived yet.
So... now I need to build a monster system out of both of these machines. Here's what I planning on at the moment:
12 Core 4.1 Build (current)
2x3.33ghz X5680
32 gigs Ram
256 gig NVMe Boot
256 gig NVMe Scratch Disk
240 gig SSD (windows 10)
6tb hdd (going to use the other one in an external backup)
USB 3.0 card
The question is the videocard and the OS... right now is a terrible time to build a machine right now, but really I'm just unclear on what direction I should head. The 7970 meets my needs just fine, but I've read that some people have hardware encoding on their videocards... and unfortunately my card doesn't have that enabled. It's too old. I can try without it for now.... but hardware encoding might be nice and even faster. I definitely need a boot screen to get into windows... but then nVidia cards aren't supported? What is the cheapest card that would get me H264 encoding? Super confused with all the video card variables.
Then there's the OS. Catalina requires open core which means even more vaiables in videocards... I know big sur is still in beta apparently that is possible too... what would you guys do?
I have a small youtube channel (I build cars/boats/vans/sleds/bikes) that has been growing so I've been doing a lot more editing this past year.
I had a heavily upgraded Mac Pro 2,1 since 2013, 2x3ghz, 32 gigs ram, SSDs, and mac vid cards 7970. It worked fine, but it made the whole room hot whenever it was running, thing was basically a space heater.
Build 1:
Mac Pro 2,1
Dual 3.0ghz Quads (8 core)
32 gigs ram
240gig SSD (El Captain)
240gig SSD (windows 7)
2x500gig hdd mirrored Raid Storage
Last summer I came across a really good deal on 5.1 3.33ghz Hexcore; wound up getting it for $300 delivered to my door which was awesome. I swapped my SSDs and 7970 into it, splurged on some NVME drives for a boot and scratch disk, and it's been a great, silent, powerful machine. I was running out of storage tho, so I was pricing HDs and hoping to find a deal on another mac pro that maybe came with more storage....
Build 2:
3.33 Hexcore 5.1
32 gigs Ram
Ati Radeon 7970
240 gig SSD (windows 10)
256 gig NVMe Boot
256 gig NVMe Scratch Disk
2x500 gig mirrored raid storage
So...last weekend, my FB alert popped up that a dual processor 4,1 was for sale, and woah, KILLER deal:
Existing 4.1, firmware already flashed to 5.1
Dual Quad 2.26
32 gigs ram
Ati Radeon 4850
1tb SSD
2 6tb HDDs
eSata Card
USB 3.0 card
BlackMagic 4k Capture Card
(no wifi card tho)
Only $400!!!!
It was listed 15 minutes earlier so I contacted the guy, made plans to get it, and drove 1.5 hours to pick it up. I wound up selling the black magic card for $150, so I splurged and picked up two x5680 3.33ghz hexcores for it off ebay, delidded of course, and swapped them into it last night.
Success! Geekbench 5 is reporting 6200+ in multicore, which is over double my single 5.1!!! I bought a Wifi/BT4.0 card/adaptor, but it hasn't arrived yet.
So... now I need to build a monster system out of both of these machines. Here's what I planning on at the moment:
12 Core 4.1 Build (current)
2x3.33ghz X5680
32 gigs Ram
256 gig NVMe Boot
256 gig NVMe Scratch Disk
240 gig SSD (windows 10)
6tb hdd (going to use the other one in an external backup)
USB 3.0 card
The question is the videocard and the OS... right now is a terrible time to build a machine right now, but really I'm just unclear on what direction I should head. The 7970 meets my needs just fine, but I've read that some people have hardware encoding on their videocards... and unfortunately my card doesn't have that enabled. It's too old. I can try without it for now.... but hardware encoding might be nice and even faster. I definitely need a boot screen to get into windows... but then nVidia cards aren't supported? What is the cheapest card that would get me H264 encoding? Super confused with all the video card variables.
Then there's the OS. Catalina requires open core which means even more vaiables in videocards... I know big sur is still in beta apparently that is possible too... what would you guys do?
