Hello iluvmacs99,
Thanks very much for your thorough reply. I’m very appreciative of the time you put into drafting it. You clearly know your way around these Mac Pro mods.
In case it’s helpful, I’m running:
• Mac Pro 5,1 Mid 2010 > Intel Xeon X5650 2 x 2.66 Ghz 6-Core Intel Xeon
• OS X 10.14.6
• GPU: AMD Sapphire Radeon HD 7950 (Mac Edition)
• Final Cut Pro X 10.4.7
• Memory 48GB > 6 x 8gb > 1333 MHz DDR3
• Boot Disk: 500GB SSD
• Scratch Disks: Western Digital Black 6TB - 7200 RPM SATA 6Gb/s 128MB Cache 3.5 Inch
VIDEO FILE CONTAINER
I checked a 4k project and the FCPX ‘Codecs’ column says it’s ‘AVC encoder.’ I rarely shoot in 4k anymore since it’s been cumbersome to work with. I always export/share from FCPX using .h264. Did I answer your file container question or misunderstand? Please disregard my 1080p dropped frames complaint because if I can get 4k flowing smoothly I know 1080p will be fine, too.
DISK I/O
Thanks for describing your I/O setup. My boot disk is an SSD and my video and music storage disks are Western Digital Black 6TB - 7200 RPM SATA 6Gb/s 128MB Cache 3.5 Inch. I purchased these after research suggested they were speedy and well suited for Mac Pro creative work. Do I get that wrong? Will these drives be ok or create a bottleneck?
I've never used RAID, though I’m very open to trying it. I’ve researched RAID over the years but never felt comfortable trying it, and don’t recall why as I write this. I have scheduled backups that run each night, backing up one drive to another, using an app called Super Duper. If I’m totally missing the boat on I/O best practices, and I suspect I am… please do let me know.
GPU
My current card has only 3gb of ram, that’s why I’m considering the RX 580. Unless someone talks me out of it, I think I may order the RX 580 in the coming days to experience it’s performance firsthand.
GPU BOOT SCREEN
I’m skittish about not having a boot screen only because I don’t fully understand all the implications of not having one, especially for troubleshooting. The lack of a boot screen won’t stop me from trying out the RX 580, however.
CPU > ANOTHER UPGRADE OPTION
I’ve also been looking at the AMD Radeon VII. I’d spend extra for this card over the RX 580 if it would drastically improve the 5’1’s performance. Would buying the AMD Radeon VII be wise or overkill; do you happen to know?
AMD ACCELERATION
AMD Hardware Acceleration is a term another responder introduced me to earlier in this thread. Sounds like a must-do for me in terms of speed improvements. I’ll continue learning what I can about it.
QUESTION
You wrote “You can probably achieve similar output speed with Mojave and RX580 when configured to render using the video card GPU rather than the CPU.” How does one choose the video card GPU or the CPU for rendering? Is this done in FCPX, within AMD Hardware Acceleration, other?
QUESTION
My 5’1 is now unsupported by Apple for future OS upgrades, so on the one hand it seems silly to be upgrading it. On the other hand, I love this machine and don’t have the clams to get a new Mac Pro 7.1. I don’t need every new OS gimmick that’s introduced in future OS updates, but I will miss the security updates if we no longer receive them. May I get your perspective on upgrading an unsupported machine like this? Is it your impression that most folks in this boat are going to simply continue using Mojave and be good with that for as long as the thing will run?
Thanks a Zill!
1, Video File Container..
Got it.. Thanks.. h.264 is a challenging video format to work with that demands a lot of CPU/GPU power to work smoothly.
2, DISK I/O
Bay 1 > 2TB WDC HD > 7200rpm > stores photos, music, and miscellaneous
Bay 2 > 2TB WDC HD > 7200rpm > direct backup of drive above
Bay 3 > 6TB WDC HD > 7200rpm > stores Final Cut and Logic Projects
Bay 4 > 6TB WDC HD > 7200rpm > direct backup of drive above
Upper > 1TB Hitachi HD > 7200rpm > in optical bay > stores miscellaneoous
Lower > 500GB Crucial SSD > boot drive > in optical bay
Now, this explains why you have issues with 1080p editing. While the hard drive is ok, the SATA 2 interface on the Mac Pro is a limiting factor. It's an older interface that doesn't transfer data all that fast, which is required if you have a high bit rate 1080p footage or 4K. A single 7200rpm alone is definitely not fast enough for 4K. What you need to do is to use RAID. What RAID does is to combine 2 or more drives together and make it into a drive but with a much faster throughput. 2 RAID 0 drives (if you combine Bay 1 and Bay 2 drives) will easily double your transfer throughput. If you combine all 4 bays together into a RAID 0 or RAID 5 (3 drives + 1 redundancy), then you can edit comfortably and render 4K nicely. That's my setup now. This is your 4K project/Final cut drive. It is best to use a hard drive platter for scratch and write drive. For a 4K read drive, you can get a NVMe drive as that is fast enough for 4K h.264 or RAW. On my setup, I have 2 SSD in RAID 0 which holds both my boot, apps and 4K media folder. Eventually I'll move the boot and apps onto a NVMe drive and boot off there and dedicate the SSD Raid 0 as the 4K read media drive.
Since you have a USB 3 interface card, I suggest adding several USB 3 enclosures to house the photos, music and misc drive, the backup drive and back up for your Final Cut and logic projects.
3, GPU BOOT SCREEN
Keep your older Radeon card for troubleshooting when you have issues with your Mac Pro. I have a stock card just for this.
4, CPU > ANOTHER UPGRADE OPTION
If you have the money to buy a faster card. But eventually you'll go into the diminishing return aspect as the Mac Pro has much older architecture compared to the Mac Pro 7,1. The AMD acceleration mod will certainly help cut the render times by quite a margin with faster cards.
QUESTION
You wrote “You can probably achieve similar output speed with Mojave and RX580 when configured to render using the video card GPU rather than the CPU.” How does one choose the video card GPU or the CPU for rendering? Is this done in FCPX, within AMD Hardware Acceleration, other?
- The AMD hardware acceleration basically allow video editing programs to render h.264 files using GPU encoding rather the traditional CPU encoding which is the preferred method. There is a noticeable degradation in video quality if your footage is of a low bit rate. If it comes off a Sony A7 or a Panasonic GH5 or something, then the quality degradation is not that noticeable. If you are working with a low consumer level bit rate and you are not on a paid gig, then GPU encoding is fine. You need to see and judge it for yourself whether it's up to your standards or not. If it is not, then you have to rely solely on CPU encoding at this will give you the best quality file.
QUESTION
My 5’1 is now unsupported by Apple for future OS upgrades, so on the one hand it seems silly to be upgrading it. On the other hand, I love this machine and don’t have the clams to get a new Mac Pro 7.1. I don’t need every new OS gimmick that’s introduced in future OS updates, but I will miss the security updates if we no longer receive them. May I get your perspective on upgrading an unsupported machine like this? Is it your impression that most folks in this boat are going to simply continue using Mojave and be good with that for as long as the thing will run?
- I'll use the Mac Pro for as long as it runs. The security updates end in 2021 for Mojave, so I'll have just a few years to keep it up-to-date. After that, I'll just use it as a dedicated video editing rig as long as I'm aware that I won't use it to surf the net with it. I use a dedicated Linux machine for that.
