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Mac Pro 5.1 owner, make it your king of Mac with 2 D700s

BruceX test took only 14-15 seconds with Single X5690

Hi all,

Just played around with my another Mac Pro with single cpu tray. I put the X5690 in and of course with my dual HD 7970 (D700s).

Test system: Single x5690, 64GB 1333mhz DDR3, Crucial M5 960GB SSD, OSX 10.9.1. FCPX 10.1.1.

Surprise, the time to share with ProRes422 in the BruceX test, took only 14-15 Seconds. Could be due to the boost frequency on Xeon?
 
Cool thread. However, I think you're way underestimating the TB ports. I guess I would too if I didn't have them. :) But they are a special jump in the evolution of computers if you ask me.
 
26 downloaded for the bios

There were total of 26 downloads from the bios links.

I'd like those who tried can update your progress here.

I also put the bios download links to here since this thread is more completed.

Note: g095vmac.rom was for my Gigabyte HD7970, X095vmac.rom was for my XFX HD7970, both are reference design. I think you can use either one if you are sure it's reference design cards. Be sure using DOS drive in PC and perform atiflash. ATIWinflash got me some unpredictable error, so I would avoid using it.
 

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Thank you for sharing this information. It's very helpful. I'm interested in upgrading my single GTX 680 to a dual GPU but I can't decide if I want dual GTX Titans, Radeon 7970s, or Radeon r9 280xs. I use my MP for video editing and I use Adobe Premiere Pro, so I'd like the best upgrade for that kind of work.

I heard that the Radeon r9 280x is faster than the 7970 and OSX 10.9.4 recognizes them as D700 just like in the nMP. I also heard that Adobe CC has pretty good OpenCL support. The Radeon also supports UHD @ 60Hz for my 4K Dell monitor, which the nVidia cards can't do.

Can you tell me how your King of Mac has been performing for you? Any chance you'll upgrade to r9 280xs?
 
MacVidCards said:
And from there, here is crucial phrase:

" think the card will be recognized differently depending on the OS version."

Stopped showing up as D700 some time ago.

Doesn't really mean much anyway, I'm sure Apple stopped it since we posted it here and at Netkas.
Click to expand...

Thank you for pointing that out. Do you mean to say that the performance of the r9 280x (or dual r9 280x cards in crossfire) will be the same regardless of how my OSX recognizes it?
 
benjobe2513 said:
Thank you for pointing that out. Do you mean to say that the performance of the r9 280x (or dual r9 280x cards in crossfire) will be the same regardless of how my OSX recognizes it?
Click to expand...

Yes, same GPU chip has now gone by 3 names in OSX, 7970, D700, and R9 280X.

The D700 is clocked the lowest, followed by 7970, and fastest clocks on R9 280X.

Just noticed you are from Humboldt county. One of funnest jobs I ever did was living in Wilits doing a Paramount tie-in Imax shoot for 007. Lived on railroad tracks for a few weeks whilst we rehearsed BMW motorcycle jumping onto a moving train. We would literally rehearse same sequence for days (trains being somewhat slow to stop, reverse, etc)

Had a great time but it rained a god awful lot. Nice thing was everyone on my crew had free "samples" of the local crops to hand out. Beautiful country. Had to dodge greedy truffle hunters in the woods too.
 
MacVidCards said:
Yes, same GPU chip has now gone by 3 names in OSX, 7970, D700, and R9 280X.

The D700 is clocked the lowest, followed by 7970, and fastest clocks on R9 280X.
Click to expand...

Thank you for this information. I am leaning towards a dual R9 280X in crossfire configuration in my MP. I've seen benchmarks that show the OpenCL performance is similar to CUDA performance in Premiere Pro CC, and Encoder CC can make use of dual GPUs in exporting/compressing. The icing on the cake would be to finally get UHD @ 60Hz on my Dell UP3214Q.

If you can point me to any information that may help me with this endeavor I would greatly appreciate it.

MacVidCards said:
Just noticed you are from Humboldt county. One of funnest jobs I ever did was living in Wilits doing a Paramount tie-in Imax shoot for 007. Lived on railroad tracks for a few weeks whilst we rehearsed BMW motorcycle jumping onto a moving train. We would literally rehearse same sequence for days (trains being somewhat slow to stop, reverse, etc)

Had a great time but it rained a god awful lot. Nice thing was everyone on my crew had free "samples" of the local crops to hand out. Beautiful country. Had to dodge greedy truffle hunters in the woods too.
Click to expand...

Wilits is quite a place. Some consider it the gateway to our unique area, behind the "redwood curtain". I've worked on a couple hollywood film shoots up here and there's always a lot of local crop being passed around. It's no so rainy anymore, although that's true across the whole state this year. I love the special culture up here, the magnificent outdoors, and the temperate weather. I hope that you can visit again, maybe doing less work and more play this time.
 
Memory compatibility with Mac Pro 5,1 Dual X5670

I recently upgraded my 2010 MacPro dual processors to dual Xeon X5670. I'm wanting to now upgrade the memory, and I have several questions that I'm uncertain of.

1. Is this memory compatible :

"Kingston ValueRAM 64GB (4 x 16GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM ECC Registered DDR3 1600 Server Memory (Intel Validated) Model KVR16R11D4K4/64I"

2. Will the machine not work properly if I later decide to add additional memory with a different brand name like Crucial for instance.

If this is not the appropriate place to have my questions answered, please direct me to where I should be or a resource that can provided some type of "MacPro 5,1 X5670 memory compatibility chart or info" thanks!
 
flowrider said:
^^^^Asked and answered in another thread:
Click to expand...

Where is the other thread. Also, when indicated that it will work -- were you referring to the Kingston that I listed or was that from the other thread making reference to another type of memory being discussed. It was hard to tell with that grey box around the text!
 
I'm not as knowledgable regarding video editing and technical engineering regarding the mac pro 5,1. Nonetheless, I bought my machine brand new at the end of 2011 or 2012 from Apple. I have about 10 years of sony home video footage and most of it is HD. Whenever I've tried working and playing around with Final Cut and even Handbrake, everything was so slow and took forever. I realized that I would need to spend a lot more money for capture cards, memory, and cpu upgrades just to get the machine to perform faster. Due to my limited knowledge, I'm not quite understanding all that's being communicated in this thread due to some of the terminology, but it sounds like what's being said is that I can upgrade my video card with dual GPU's for around $400, follow instructions regarding tweaking the clock speeds of some components to reduce power usage which will minimize heat consumption -- and with all of that I will have a 2010 5,1 that performs almost to the equivalent of a New Mac Pro regarding video editing due to enabling it to better work with Final Cut's OpenCL and possibly Adobe Premier's CUDA. Is that correct and if so, can someone explain to me in more simpler examples time differences regarding rendering, encoding, and capturing projects when doing this and a time difference example when doing a "2 hour DVD Movie converted to iPhone format project" using Handbrake with this "GPU upgrade" versus not doing this upgrade on a oMP 5,1 with stock video card and Dual X5670 processors (I just purchased them for $350 and I installed them-the staff told me that they have about 45 more in stock and about 40 of the X5680's if anyone's interested in their info -- very nice local storefront server parts/tech shop operation). I apologize in advance and I hope my question doesn't take this discussion to far off focus. Thanks -- I really appreciate the help and patients!

**Also I'm guessing in addition to the "GPU upgrade" is some sort of SSD/Hard drive Raid Setup or an OWC Mercury Accelsior Card needed for sufficient data transfer speeds to get the video editing performance results equivelent to that of the nMP?
 
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Cardo45 said:
...can someone explain to me in more simpler examples time differences regarding rendering, encoding, and capturing projects when doing this and a time difference example when doing a "2 hour DVD Movie converted to iPhone format project" using Handbrake with this "GPU upgrade" versus not doing this upgrade on a oMP 5,1 with stock video card and Dual X5670 processors...

**Also I'm guessing in addition to the "GPU upgrade" is some sort of SSD/Hard drive Raid Setup or an OWC Mercury Accelsior Card needed for sufficient data transfer speeds to get the video editing performance results equivelent to that of the nMP?
Click to expand...

You'll have to be more specific about your system configuration if you want to determine where your bottleneck is with regard to compressing video using Handbrake. What GPU/graphics card do you have? Is your OSX on an SSD? Your media files on a HD? How much RAM do you have?

I wouldn't think that a dual GPU would necessarily benefit a Handbrake project. I would guess that upgrading your RAM, putting your OSX on a fast SSD, and putting your media files on a RAID 0 array would help with that type of process. And if you plan on using Final Cut Pro then I'd recommend using AMD Radeon cards and avoiding Nvidia cards.

This is a little off topic from the thread. I would recommend starting a new thread with your questions and your system configuration details.
 
benjobe2513 said:
You'll have to be more specific about your system configuration if you want to determine where your bottleneck is with regard to compressing video using Handbrake. What GPU/graphics card do you have? Is your OSX on an SSD? Your media files on a HD? How much RAM do you have?

I wouldn't think that a dual GPU would necessarily benefit a Handbrake project. I would guess that upgrading your RAM, putting your OSX on a fast SSD, and putting your media files on a RAID 0 array would help with that type of process. And if you plan on using Final Cut Pro then I'd recommend using AMD Radeon cards and avoiding Nvidia cards.

This is a little off topic from the thread. I would recommend starting a new thread with your questions and your system configuration details.
Click to expand...

I appreciate you trying to help, but I’m not really trying to find my bottleneck. I’ve read a ton on that inside out over the past couple of years regarding my existing machine. I have a basic question and maybe you can answer it, Prince134 (definitely), or someone that has done this “D700’s upgrade”. My question is “What were some of the performance results regarding rendering time, compression time, capturing time, and Handbrake projects’ time results prior to the D700’s upgrade and after the upgrade was completed”. For instance, prior to D700’s upgrade project “A” took “X” amount of time to render. After the D700’s upgrade project “A” took “X” amount of time to render – and so on. Maybe or maybe not it’s possible that someone is able to review Prince134’s benchmark results and determine that. I can’t!

Regarding my reference to Handbrake, I asked that because in “Prince134” post #28, he made reference to “Handbrake” which I’ve used before. He talked about how impressed he was with the project’s result for various reasons; therefore, I was interested in knowing the before and after the D700’s upgrade’s results in time measurements when using Handbrake. I thought that the “post #28” implied that the D700’s upgrade provided a performance increase when using Handbrake.

I realize what my machine would need to consist of based on the specs of “Prince134” upgraded machine that he list at the beginning on this thread. Forget any question in regards to my existing machine specs, and I apologize for the confusion.

Also, I’m certain these questions are appropriate for this thread -- since the Thread Starter is offering advice to others interested in getting these performance results via an oMP upgrade versus buying a nMP.
 
Cardo45 said:
I appreciate you trying to help, but I’m not really trying to find my bottleneck. I’ve read a ton on that inside out over the past couple of years regarding my existing machine. I have a basic question and maybe you can answer it, Prince134 (definitely), or someone that has done this “D700’s upgrade”. My question is “What were some of the performance results regarding rendering time, compression time, capturing time, and Handbrake projects’ time results prior to the D700’s upgrade and after the upgrade was completed”. For instance, prior to D700’s upgrade project “A” took “X” amount of time to render. After the D700’s upgrade project “A” took “X” amount of time to render – and so on. Maybe or maybe not it’s possible that someone is able to review Prince134’s benchmark results and determine that. I can’t!

Regarding my reference to Handbrake, I asked that because in “Prince134” post #28, he made reference to “Handbrake” which I’ve used before. He talked about how impressed he was with the project’s result for various reasons; therefore, I was interested in knowing the before and after the D700’s upgrade’s results in time measurements when using Handbrake. I thought that the “post #28” implied that the D700’s upgrade provided a performance increase when using Handbrake.

I realize what my machine would need to consist of based on the specs of “Prince134” upgraded machine that he list at the beginning on this thread. Forget any question in regards to my existing machine specs, and I apologize for the confusion.

Also, I’m certain these questions are appropriate for this thread -- since the Thread Starter is offering advice to others interested in getting these performance results via an oMP upgrade versus buying a nMP.
Click to expand...

I noticed that "Prince134" post#17 includes before and after test results measured in time. I'll research further for results on the web and youtube. Thanks!
 
Cardo45 said:
I noticed that "Prince134" post#17 includes before and after test results measured in time. I'll research further for results on the web and youtube. Thanks!
Click to expand...

- Regarding RAM. What I am using is 1333MHZ from Kingston. Kingston KVR13R9D4/16 or KVR13R9D4K3/48 (16X3 kit). Both are identical sticks. My suggestion is to be aware of the voltage. 1.5V Ram is better spec for Mac Pro. I tried 1.3V sticks before and it gave me lower speed automatically. And of course try not to mix 1.5v with 1.3Vs. I have 8X16GB in total of 128GB now all are some specs as mentioned.

- Handbrake seems to get faster with cpu counts ( the more cores the faster) and of course the frequency of the CPUs. Handbrake is not accelerated by GPUs whether openCL or CUDA AFAIK.

- This thread is more focusing on how Dual HD7970s are safe and easily applied in the Mac Pro 5.1 using internal power and give you similar (or faster) performance comparing to a nMP. If you read the part about handing 12v cables for both cards, you should be fine.

If you have upgraded to dual CPUs, upgrading to dual HD7970s and memory to 64GB or 128GB will give you another leap of performance increase. If you are eyeing on what the dual d700 nMPs can bring to you, this can give you even more satisfaction but cost you less.
 
Prince134 said:
- Regarding RAM. What I am using is 1333MHZ from Kingston. Kingston KVR13R9D4/16 or KVR13R9D4K3/48 (16X3 kit). Both are identical sticks. My suggestion is to be aware of the voltage. 1.5V Ram is better spec for Mac Pro. I tried 1.3V sticks before and it gave me lower speed automatically. And of course try not to mix 1.5v with 1.3Vs. I have 8X16GB in total of 128GB now all are some specs as mentioned.

- Handbrake seems to get faster with cpu counts ( the more cores the faster) and of course the frequency of the CPUs. Handbrake is not accelerated by GPUs whether openCL or CUDA AFAIK.

- This thread is more focusing on how Dual HD7970s are safe and easily applied in the Mac Pro 5.1 using internal power and give you similar (or faster) performance comparing to a nMP. If you read the part about handing 12v cables for both cards, you should be fine.

If you have upgraded to dual CPUs, upgrading to dual HD7970s and memory to 64GB or 128GB will give you another leap of performance increase. If you are eyeing on what the dual d700 nMPs can bring to you, this can give you even more satisfaction but cost you less.
Click to expand...

Thanks Prince134 I really appreciate your help as well as benjobe2513 you guys are lifesavers.

After reveiwing some of "Barefeets" Test regarding nMP v. oMP, I noticed that it was indicated that with the oMP Dual7970's there was an external power source being used. Was that for the second card? Also with that, I'm just wondering:

1. Are the "bios links" and "VBE7" the same -- or is one of them designed to lower the voltage and one designed to have the cards be recognized by the system, or are both used for lowering the voltage? Also, is the "handling" cable designed just to assist with voltage recognition or is it also serving as a way for the two 7970's to be recognized by the system and recognized as the 2 working together?

2. Or, If one decided to add an external power supply would the "handling Cable", "VBE7" or "bios links" be required. Or are the "handling Cable", "VBE7" or "bios links" not required with an external power supply setup; and, if so -- would it just be a matter of adding Dual HD7970's to the system (with one having external power) and the OS X would recognize the Dual HD7970's as D700's (or some other Dual Card/GPU depending on the OS X version per the previous post)?

Im pretty sure I would go with your setup, but understanding these two questions would help me to be even clearer on what I'm doing. I sort of understand now, but this would clarify it further.

Thanks! Aslo, one small off topic question -- which part of the video editing process does the Dual HD7970 impact the most -- rending, encoding, capturing or some other. Just curoius!

Thanks Again!!
 
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1. Are the "bios links" and "VBE7" the same -- or is one of them designed to lower the voltage and one designed to have the cards be recognized by the system, or are both used for lowering the voltage? Also, is the "handling" cable designed just to assist with voltage recognition or is it also serving as a way for the two 7970's to be recognized by the system and recognized as the 2 working together?

- Bios links are for your direct usage. These bios were tweaked to lower-volts and lower-frequency already as you read in the first post. VBE 7 is a tool in windows for editing AMD bios when you like to make your own voltage and frequency. To make it simple, you should use the bios linked to save you some time since you seemed to have doubts after explanations.


2. Or, If one decided to add an external power supply would the "handling Cable", "VBE7" or "bios links" be required. Or are the "handling Cable", "VBE7" or "bios links" not required with an external power supply setup; and, if so -- would it just be a matter of adding Dual HD7970's to the system (with one having external power) and the OS X would recognize the Dual HD7970's as D700's (or some other Dual Card/GPU depending on the OS X version per the previous post)?

- No matter what is says in system, they are D700 chips as MacVidCards pointed out. It works as the same way as nMPs.

- If you like to use external power supply, you still can use my bios because those bios give you boot screen and also can reduce noise (substantially indeed). However you can choose not to, because PC HD 7970 and 280x can be used in Mac Pro directly and you won't sacrifice some frequency, though not much. But then no boot screen.

- Again if you like the low-noise internal power solution (which was the thread intended to share with), you have to follow the 12v cable instructions as I said the power draw from the 6+8 pin are not equal. In this regards, spreading to two sources (one from pcie 6pin one from SATA port according to power draw) is more appropriate for your system. Of course, if you decide to use external power, the cable handling does not matter.

Thanks! Aslo, one small off topic question -- which part of the video editing process does the Dual HD7970 impact the most -- rending, encoding, capturing or some other. Just curoius!

- In FCPX 10.1. Rendering, Editing while background analysing for both video and audio, and exporting (it's called file sharing in FCPX which involves rendering and encoding, in my system dual HD 7970s only spend approx 1/4 - 1/3 of time comparing single Titan Black).
 
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how do the system fans react with this setup..ex booster, expansion, and power supply fan. do they spin at higher rpms than what they normally are?

i would say this is normal:
 

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RoastingPig said:
how do the system fans react with this setup..ex booster, expansion, and power supply fan. do they spin at higher rpms than what they normally are?

i would say this is normal:
Click to expand...

The system fans are not affected.
We talk about GPU fans noise here.
 
Prince134 said:
The system fans are not affected.
We talk about GPU fans noise here.
Click to expand...

I think if the GPU temperature is high, the expension slots' fan speed will go up as well, isn't it? Of course, the lower clocked GPU seems will run at a much lower temperature, and won't trigger high PCIe fan noise.

However, the increase in power consumption may cause the Power supply fan speed to up, which may inrease the system fan noise a little bit.
 
h9826790 said:
I think if the GPU temperature is high, the expension slots' fan speed will go up as well, isn't it? Of course, the lower clocked GPU seems will run at a much lower temperature, and won't trigger high PCIe fan noise.

However, the increase in power consumption may cause the Power supply fan speed to up, which may inrease the system fan noise a little bit.
Click to expand...

Not at all. In my experience.

In fact I have to say if you care about whole system noise level, while wanting a top notch performance, the dual HD7970s setup as posted is the ONLY bet for Mac Pro 4.1-5.1.

Even though Titan Black with its best OpenCL capability amongst Nvidia cards, it's not at the same level as Dual D700s (HD7970s) can provide for generic apple apps, e.g. FCPX.
 
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