Have I hit the ceiling? Is there anything else to make my Mac Pro 3,1 Faster?

[Korican100]

Serious Question.

I shoot and edit videos, video effects/graphics and do a lot of video editing. My machine is getting sluggish at those intense times of work. What else can I do to speed up my system?

Here are my specs:

• 2 x 3.2 GHz (X5482) processors
• 480GB SSD sata6.0 via PCIe (velocity solo x2) as my scratch disk/media drive
• EVGA GeForce GTX 680 MAC 2GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 Video Card
• also, I have a boot drive that my applications are housed on that is a raid 0 setup w/ two 120gb ssd's sata 6 r(but running @ sata 3 each).

Also, I have 16gb RAM, but per Activity Monitor, my RAM is never maxxed out -- even when during intense sessions. However, is this still a bottleneck in anyway?

Im all ears guys, I really appreciate anything you can do to help me make this better!

 

[flowrider]

In what slot is your Solo x2?

Lou

 

[Korican100]

In what slot is your Solo x2?

Lou

its in the PCIe2 above the double wide

 

[flowrider]

Right place for it in a 3,1. Looks like you've done all you can with your Mac Pro.

Lou

 

[Marty62]

Did you buy more Ram ?
It says 16Gb in your "gear profile" you seem to have a really good system but
perhaps more Ram would help, I don't think it's THE bottleneck though.

3,1 just won't get any faster at doing it's calculations I'm afraid !

I just had to finally go to a 5,1 ( 2012 Hex core ) from my own 3,1 which was
starting to slow me down with Audio production / programming.

The difference is night and day, perhaps 70% more processing "power" but the
whole system is faster and snappier at every turn, Ram speed / Buss speed etc.
I also have Apricorn card and SSD boot & scratch disks / USB3.0 Kt4004 card.

Perhaps time for something newer ??

M.

 

[OS6-OSX]

A few questions:1. What app do you use in which to edit?
2. What type of footage gives you the most problems?
3. What speed do you get from your Apricorn?
4. Have you seen this video?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=foLxsL5RU6k And yes it is a 5,1 not a 3,1 but it's based on ram and CUDA. It worked on my 3,1 as well as in the video.

 

[Killerbob]

I also have maxed out my MP3,1, although with slightly different components than you. I never upgraded from the Octo 2.8 to the 3.2, but I just can't be bothered now with the nMP on its way.

My config is now:

- 2.8GHz Octo MP3,1
- 32GB RAM
- EVGA GeForce GTX 680 2GB
- 1TB Accelsior PCIe BOOT drive
- 2 750GB HDDs in Raid0 for STUFF
- 2 Samsung 840 Pro SSDs in Raid0 for SCRATCH etc.
- USB3/eSATA CalDigit card

I don't remember in which slots I put the Accelsior and the GTX card, but I remember having to switch them around a few times to have it work just fine. I don't think it matters though as long as those two cards are in Slot 1 or 2.

 

[Korican100]

A few questions:1. What app do you use in which to edit?
2. What type of footage gives you the most problems?
3. What speed do you get from your Apricorn?
4. Have you seen this video?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=foLxsL5RU6k And yes it is a 5,1 not a 3,1 but it's based on ram and CUDA. It worked on my 3,1 as well as in the video.

1. after effects and FCPx
2. i get 250-300 write, and 450-500 read
3. i have, but would that help with after effects rendering speed also?

 

[OS6-OSX]

"My machine is getting sluggish at those intense times of work". Intense times of work could have meant playing R3D and or h.264. That was the reason for the Mercury engine link.
Are you using OS 10.9? I know someone that has it as a alternative boot drive and after pulling up the activity monitor say the OS was using 5GB!
The only other thought is to check out the Adobe forum. See if with the GTX 680 they had to hack the line to have it seen as an acceptable card.
You can go to YouTube and see how and what hacking pertaining to Adobe is all about. It's just adding video cards to the existing list to be used for CUDA.