MP 1,1-5,1 Mac Pro 5,1 for Video Editing (Davinci Resolve) in 2023 - Real World Experience

[pattielipp]

TLDR - Skip to the bottom..
This is more of my experience thus far rather than a question, but I figured I'd share so others could do a search and find the information.
A little back story, I am/was a hobbyist videographer, photographer, producer who has been thrust into the production of an automotive series and was originally in WAY above my head. My day job is that of a Sr Sys admin, so I am very technical(this comes into play).
I had initially purchased my Mac Pro in 2017. It was a 2009 4,1 and I immediately installed an x5690(it was a single CPU variant), 16gb of memory and ran a sapphire r9 270x for some time. This worked well and was decent for basic video editing.
Skip ahead and I now own substantially better audio/photo/video equipment, so naturally I needed a way to edit the footage and photos, so the upgrades began.
First came the dual CPU tray and CPU upgrades. I purchased dual X5690's and de-lidded them using the Vice method.
Next came the ram. I'm running old HP server memory from the G6-G7 series in 6x16GB modules, so 96GB memory total in triple channel config and running at the max 1333 speeds.
Next came the GPU in the form of an RX580 8gb and an PCIE/NVME SSD.

I ran this for some time, completed the pilot episode for the series I'm producing and made a bunch of other content but soon discovered a few shortcomings with the two primaries being.
First, the GPU was severely underpowered for what I'm doing.
Second, Color Accuracy of the monitors were subpar(this was handled much earlier but i'll put it here for continuity sake).

After dealing with one of these issues(the color accuracy) I ended up with a mac pro 4,1 that had the following Specs;
2x X5690, 96GB Ram(6x16gb), 5x800GB SSD, 1x250GB SSD.
In the PCIE Slots, I had the following; RX580 8GB, BlackMagic Decklink Mini 4K, NVME/M.2 SSD 500GB, USB3 card.

I ran with this for a while and it was decent, but I hadn't ever dealt with the lack of GPU which brings us to where we are now.
First off, I know I need to maintain my M.2/NVME SSD as it's my "Working drive". Secondly, I require the Blackmagic Decklink mini 4K card as color accuracy is a requirement. I also need to maintain some sort of High speed USB. The last objective is to get better GPU performance than I currently do. After much research and asking a few questions, I have come to where we are today.

I am ditching the RX580 for an AMD W5700 which should be a decent upgrade and includes one Type-C usb port. I'm also running a secondary GPU in the form of the AMD WX7100; So far as I can tell, this is the most powerful single slot GPU currently in the semi-recent AMD lineup. These two GPU's should compliment each other well and work well in resolve studio. The third card is the Decklink Mini 4k, and the final card for now is the m.2/NVME SSD, but will be switched out to the McFiver card soon to give me USB, two m.2 SSD's and 10gig ethernet.

Reasoning why - In todays day-in-age we have so many options with crazy specs. In most use cases, these machines aren't taxed what so ever. For me, my primary use for my Mac Pro is Davinci Resolve, Adobe Lightroom and Phase Ones' Capture one. With Davinci resolve, which is the most power hungry app I use, with a large project loaded, I'm running between 40-60% memory(ram) with never seeing more than 75%. Similarly, my CPU is barley taxed aside from exports which I still only see 15-20% usage. This brings me to the big one; GPU. The GPU when rendering proxies and during export is taxed at 100% while running the RX580.
Now, if we look at the competition such as the Mac Studio(I'll use this since it's the most powerful option currently), they tout the overall performance, but when it comes to video editing, things aren't always all perfect like they want you to think. Any project I work on could have any number of different video formats, from AVCHD, Mpeg2, MP4 in H264 of h265, DNxHD, ProRes, CDNG, RedRaw, BRaw, and the list goes on. While the MacStudio is really really good at prores, the reality is very few cameras record Pro-Res internally, and most people aren't using external recorders. This means that you're relying more on the raw GPU performance over these specialized FPGAs/ASICS that Apple has built to handle ProRes and HEVC codecs. This is honestly why i've maintained my 4,1 Mac Pro, because the only Spec that is limiting me is the GPU, and that's upgradable.

So here we are, running a 2009 MacPro 4,1 in 2023 for professional video editing, and I have no need to update/upgrade to any other computer/device as they would all be under utilized in the wrong areas and over utilized in areas that were lacking.

Current spec
MacPro 4,1.
CPU's - 2 x X5690's
Memory - 6 x 16GB@1333
GPU(s) - AMD W5700, AMD WX7100 (Pixlas Mod)
HDD/SSD - 6x 800GB Intel SSD's, 1x 250GB SSD(Boot), 2x 500GB M.2 SSD (DVD Drives Removed)
Additional PCIE Card(s) - Blackmagic Design Decklink Mini Monitor 4k, Sonnet McFiver(USB-C, M,2, 10gb Ethernet).

TLDR - Check the specs above, otherwise the 4,1/5,1 MacPro with CPU and Ram + M.2 SSD are more than sufficient for Davinci Resolve and video editing in general with only the GPU being the limit, so throw in whatever GPU you can afford and go to town.

 

[mattspace]

I'd like to hear more about how the W5700 performs, especially how it is (vs the rx580) for Capture One rendering, viewport performance etc. Also, presuming you're using Opencore, what OS are you using?

 

[Grumply]

Great if it's working for you! I took my 5,1 to LUDICROUS mode by adding a PCI expansion box and two Radeon VII GPUs, and hardware-wise (because Resolve makes such good use of GPU processing), it was certainly capable enough to handle most things (barring H265 codecs). However for me, the issue all came down to software stability.

Running something close to a Hackintosh on 5,1 hardware, just became too unstable to continue with for professional work.

Ultimately, I think it would have been better to stick to a Vega64 (or maybe 2x Vega64s) on the GPU side, and then I could have simply stuck with OSX Mojave (which was the last truly stable version of OSX I've used - before having metal-capable GPUs and Open-core became compulsory).

That would have been a capable-enough system, but probably much more stable on the whole.

That would have been the smarter play in hindsight.

 

[h9826790]

Great if it's working for you! I took my 5,1 to LUDICROUS mode by adding a PCI expansion box and two Radeon VII GPUs, and hardware-wise (because Resolve makes such good use of GPU processing), it was certainly capable enough to handle most things (barring H265 codecs). However for me, the issue all came down to software stability.

Running something close to a Hackintosh on 5,1 hardware, just became too unstable to continue with for professional work.

Ultimately, I think it would have been better to stick to a Vega64 (or maybe 2x Vega64s) on the GPU side, and then I could have simply stuck with OSX Mojave (which was the last truly stable version of OSX I've used - before having metal-capable GPUs and Open-core became compulsory).

That would have been a capable-enough system, but probably much more stable on the whole.

That would have been the smarter play in hindsight.

Radeon VII is supported in 10.14.6.

And OpenCore still required if you want the GPU HEVC hardwware encoding ability.

But if you only need it's hardware decoding ability, then we can get that by just installing WhateverGreen.

Anyway, my experience of OpenCore + 10.14.6 is actually very good, super stable. You may consider that.

 

[krakman]

Running something close to a Hackintosh on 5,1 hardware, just became too unstable to continue with for professional work

I have 4x 2009 Mac pros in my office running OCLP and monterey. We use adobe creative cloud and FCPX.

All the machines are rock solid.

If your 5.1 is unstable then maybe you have some type of hardware problem?

 

[pattielipp]

Great if it's working for you! I took my 5,1 to LUDICROUS mode by adding a PCI expansion box and two Radeon VII GPUs, and hardware-wise (because Resolve makes such good use of GPU processing), it was certainly capable enough to handle most things (barring H265 codecs). However for me, the issue all came down to software stability.

Running something close to a Hackintosh on 5,1 hardware, just became too unstable to continue with for professional work.

Ultimately, I think it would have been better to stick to a Vega64 (or maybe 2x Vega64s) on the GPU side, and then I could have simply stuck with OSX Mojave (which was the last truly stable version of OSX I've used - before having metal-capable GPUs and Open-core became compulsory).

That would have been a capable-enough system, but probably much more stable on the whole.

That would have been the smarter play in hindsight.

I would have happily stayed on mojave as it was super stable and I had no issues what so ever, unfortunately resolve stopped supporting it after 17. The stability is TBD, but this far it’s been good.

 

[pattielipp]

I'd like to hear more about how the W5700 performs, especially how it is (vs the rx580) for Capture One rendering, viewport performance etc. Also, presuming you're using Opencore, what OS are you using?

I’m running MartinLo’s package and oc version 8.7 with BigSur. I’ll update as I go, performance wise.

 

[Grumply]

Radeon VII is supported in 10.14.6.

And OpenCore still required if you want the GPU HEVC hardwware encoding ability.

But if you only need it's hardware decoding ability, then we can get that by just installing WhateverGreen.

Anyway, my experience of OpenCore + 10.14.6 is actually very good, super stable. You may consider that.

Like I said, Mojave was stable. I had no issues with that OS. It was moving beyond it that caused all the trouble.

 

[mattspace]

I’m running MartinLo’s package and oc version 8.7 with BigSur. I’ll update as I go, performance wise.

So it requires Big Sur... does the UCB-C port work for USB & displays? I'm kindof tempted to try and pick one up before the channel empties completely, now they're discontinued.

 

[h9826790]

Like I said, Mojave was stable. I had no issues with that OS. It was moving beyond it that caused all the trouble.

I mean you can downgrade to Mojave if you prefer that, but no need to downgrade the GPU to Vega64.

 

[maddib]

Hhmm... does it mean your McFiver card has a working 10gbe port on Monterey on your Mac Pro? Which version of Monterey do you use? Since Monterey 12.3.x several 10gbe adapters seem to miss integrated OS drivers, thus they don't work, even with OCLP...

 

[pattielipp]

I'm testing as I go, but with just the WX7100 with the RX580, there is a noticeable increase in performance in Resolve. I re-did the "Standard Candle" test and saw some substantial increases in speed..

With testing of both cards, I have my PCIE setup currently(Starting with bottom slot), W5700, WX7100, Blackmagic Decklink Mini 4k, PCIE/M.2/NVME SSD. Sadly, this configuration will not work as the WX7100 is a very hot card, especially when stacked on top of the W5700 which is running about 30 degrees cooler. my belief is that the WX7100's cooling style is not conducive to having it stacked like this. I had also noticed that this card throttles pretty quick as it reaches it's max temp very fast(It's idle temp while stacked on top of the 5700 is around 79 degrees, and under load it reached 90C before I killed the Resolve Benchmark). I also noticed that even If I have the wx7100 disabled in resolve, it's temp increases when the 5700 is under load and its temp increases. Next test is to separate the two cards, dropping the pcie lanes down from 16 to 8 for this card... (the WX7100 is more display output than compute for my dealings, so not terribly concerned with its performance vs the 5700, I'd rather it just be in a better temperature range).

One more test that I did is the USB-C output of the W5700. It DOES work for video and carried a 4K/60 signal with HDR, and carries data, but only at USB2 speeds(the monitor it was connected to was an ASUS proart 27")

 

[pattielipp]

So it requires Big Sur... does the UCB-C port work for USB & displays? I'm kindof tempted to try and pick one up before the channel empties completely, now they're discontinued.

check on ebay and you can find them for under $200

 

[pattielipp]

Ok, here's the best yet.. I'm testing out wether I need the McFiver card or not, to ideally save about $400.. I need highspeed USB, so I wanted to test out this USBC port some more.. I have a powered dell USBC docking station, so I decided to test it out... Turns out, It works. I haven't tested all of the features as of yet, but so far, It's registering as a USB audio device, and is showing both USB2 and usb3, with the transfer speeds to show it.

The dock I have attached is this - https://www.amazon.com/Dell-Monitor-Adapter-450-AEUO-4W2HW/dp/B01C8PHWQY