New System Time!

[John Bigboote]

Hey fellow splinesters!

 

I may be starting a new job, and they are asking me... with checkbook in hand and at the ready... what my system requirements are. Now, many of you may think I am a well-rounded and worldly fellow astute in the languages of love and computers... but, alas... I am a bad nerd in the computer department... and a GOOD nerd in the love department (we'll talk about THAT another time.)

 

BUILDING A PC is not really an option, I know it would save some cash- but I need warranted reliability.

 

The company is currently 100% Mac... but said a PC is absolutely not a problem. I've had some people tell me to get a new Mac and run Windows7 on it, but something about that makes me squeemish. My primary usages are 1) my beloved A:M and NetRender 2) Adobe Cs.5.5 primarily After Effects and I really-really want to take FULL advantage of the Mercury Playback Engine in Premiere.

 

SO- my 1st instinct was to go to Boxx(my last PC at the place I left was a 5 yr old Boxx with never a problem) and pick one out... so I did. With the help of a customer rep they aligned me with these 2 'dream' machines: see image.

 

My QUESTION(s) are... am I missing anything... is there a better company I should look at... is there better technology I should consider... am I out of my mind????

 

Any advice will be appreciated! Matt

[Ilidrake]

Are you kidding me? Are those the prices!?!?!?! i want a couple of them if they are.

[jason1025]

I have owned and used a few boxes in my time. They are very good computers but extremely over priced not unlike Apple. The Cyberpower system I have assembled below can hold its own up against the boxx. Its $1500 vs $6k. Even if the box prices were the same you are getting more with the cyberpowerpc.

[John Bigboote]

People don't seem to blink an eye at Apple prices.

[Ilidrake]

Just check my system specs. I really can't complain with this little machine I put together for just under 1000. My latest render, http://www.hash.com/forums/index.php?showt...mp;#entry361549 , with AO and multipass 16x took about 15 minutes. Not bad I think....I think....don't quote me on that one LOL.....

 

Just in my opinion you can save a lot of money building your own. I use New Egg.com to get all my hardware and then I slap it together. Total build time is about 4 hours, including software. Boxx seems nice (just checked out ther website) just a little pricey.

[robcat2075]

For A:M get as many cores as you can and for Adobe CS get a "compatible" graphics card that enables their hardware accelerated features. Lots of ""CUDA" I think.

 

Check Adobe's site for approved graphics cards.

[John Bigboote]

Here's another called JCNS... never heard of.

 

They can build a system around the intel xeon X5690 processor... which I guess boxx doesn't have.

 

Its fun to click-click-click and see the price go up-up-up!

 

http://www.jncs.com/php/sys/system-index.p...CFQrGKgodmwJgKg

[John Bigboote]

And Adobe really recommends this HP Z800. I see there is no SSHD ability... is that a cool thing to have?

[jason1025]

And Adobe really recommends this HP Z800. I see there is no SSHD ability... is that a cool thing to have?

 

 

What a waste of money. Go with a mac if you want to pay hi prices. I own an 8 core mac pro. I bought it in Late 2007. Only now has any other pc been able to keep up with it. Its a dual boot. No issues Booting into windows. In fact my best experience with windows has always been on a mac

[John Bigboote]

What a waste of money. Go with a mac if you want to pay hi prices. I own an 8 core mac pro. I bought it in Late 2007. Only now has any other pc been able to keep up with it. Its a dual boot. No issues Booting into windows. In fact my best experience with windows has always been on a mac

 

Cool! some feedback! How does the Mac handle the Mercury Playback Engine in Premiere 5.5? I need to edit HD with many layers as swiftly as possible... and AE with hundreds of layers. I see the Mac starts much lower in price... maybe it's time to switch back to the mac... (shudder) it just never made sense to me... using a Mac to run Windows.

 

It's tough... everyone is so rich in opinions... and quick to contradict themselves. I say I am looking at a 6-7K Boxx, you say Boxx is a good brand- a little high priced. I say I am looking at a 3K HP that Adobe swears up-n-down by... you say 'what a waste of money'... I take it you have never owned an HP then? I've owned several off-the shelvers (not workstations) and they are work-horses. I'd be interested in your experience vs. Boxx vs. Apple.

 

And then you point me to a Cyberpower with an i-7 processor...(off the shelf)... I guess the question to ask is... would the xeon processor be a step above the i-7 or not worth the time and money? Adobe sure as heck thinks so... and since I spend a good chunk of my day mired down in their software wouldn't it help to get something they recommend? As far as A:M goes... whether I have 4-6-8 processors... or threads... or whatever, I can only use 4 due to NetRenders limitations... so am I into overkill here?

 

I should never leave this stuff to the last minute!

[Fuchur]

What a waste of money. Go with a mac if you want to pay hi prices. I own an 8 core mac pro. I bought it in Late 2007. Only now has any other pc been able to keep up with it. Its a dual boot. No issues Booting into windows. In fact my best experience with windows has always been on a mac

 

Cool! some feedback! How does the Mac handle the Mercury Playback Engine in Premiere 5.5? I need to edit HD with many layers as swiftly as possible... and AE with hundreds of layers. I see the Mac starts much lower in price... maybe it's time to switch back to the mac... (shudder) it just never made sense to me... using a Mac to run Windows.

 

If u r really not have to consider prices u can go with a mac... i dont think that u need a xeon at all. A such powerful i7 should run very well.... but for such a machine u need more ram (16gb or up) and i dont think u need a nvidia quadro.... they are overpriced.... a highend gaming card should be exactly as fast and less expensive....

For Cuda it will have to be a nvidia so. Amd is supporting opencl.

 

*Fuchur*

[John Bigboote]

So there we go... thanks Fuchur. You say, if money does not matter, get a Mac! (which has a xeon processor and a high-end video card) and then in the next sentence, you say an i7 should do better than a xeon, and I don't really need a high-end video card. It's the old 'do this but do that'. I DO appreciate your input though... I am just frustrated right now, I love you guys- you know that. I'd flip a coin if I had one...

[Fuchur]

So there we go... thanks Fuchur. You say, if money does not matter, get a Mac! (which has a xeon processor and a high-end video card) and then in the next sentence, you say an i7 should do better than a xeon, and I don't really need a high-end video card. It's the old 'do this but do that'. I DO appreciate your input though... I am just frustrated right now, I love you guys- you know that. I'd flip a coin if I had one...

 

It is a price question and even if u can waste money it is just not what i would do.... know that macs are most often quite fast (too pricy but well built) so if u want less trouble and can afford it macs are good.

 

There is more which bothers me like the ram.... 4 channel ram is really not needed and very pricy and so on... i would not buy something like those systems... u get 10% performance for 70-100% more money.... just not worth it....

 

Dont be too worried about all that so. None of this system is a bad one.... whichever u will buy... it will be great.... 3-5% performance up or down is not really important in this league....

 

And dont be worried about a:m netrenderer. It is very likely that u will be able to buy additional nodes in future for not that much money...

 

It only has to be implemented but the decission is already made...

 

See u

*Fuchur*

PS: And just when I wrote it, Jason said I could update the website of Hash:

Software Details > Have a look at it concerning "How much is it!".

[jason1025]

Ok OK.

 

Yes I own 2 HP systems. They are good. However if the choice was between HP and Mac , I highly recommend the mac. I agree I contradicted myself with the Boxx comment. When going with High End systems AKA Xeon get the mac. WHen going with Lower end systems AKA i7 get the Cyberpowerpc.

 

I look at it as bang for your buck. Cyberpower pc is going to give you the best hardware at a fraction of the price. I personally believe The ASUS motherboards are better than the proprietary boards in the HP. However the Mac is behind on motherboards. No 6gps sata 3 no usb 3 and no SLi. This shouldn't impact you to much. If you can wait there is some evidence that APple will release a 16 core aka Dual 8 xeon with the updated motherboard and Thunderbolt in the next 3 months.

 

Honestly I don't feel you should get a high end system. Bang for your buck you could get 3 or 4 cyber powerpc's for the price of 1 Highend box or mac.

 

Those extra systems can be render nodes for AE and AM.

[robcat2075]

Flip-Floppers!

[largento]

Just butting in with a couple of thoughts.

 

My thinking is go with the Mac Pro. Since it's a Mac shop, they'll have folks who know how to fix it if it has problems. Also, if down the line, you are required to run some Mac application for some reason, you have both OSs at your disposal.You can get a 3rd party keyboard and mouse and your user experience will be the same.

[Rodney]

am I missing anything

 

My biggest concern with buying/having only one Mac is the maintenance.

Too many times I've seen a Mac user turn in their only computer for maintenance and have to sit until it returns.

This situation may be made a little worse if you are farther from a Mac store BUT... just have a good backup.

In other words... if you can afford it don't just buy one Mac... buy TWO!

I suppose one Mac and one cheaper PC as a backup would also work well as that combination would further extend your capability while increasing your access and guaranteeing continuous workflow.

 

Bottom line: Especially when business related, it's a dangerous thing to rely on only one computer.

[jason1025]

My mac 8 core died on me after 3 years. The processors over heated. The computer was scrap. I wen to the mac store and they said it was out of warenty and it would be 1200.00 to replace the parts.

 

The guy said let me just change something in the system. 3 days lator I picked up my mac free of charge with brand spankin new processors , and mother board in it.

 

My wifes mag safe power adapter died on her. A new one was like $45.00.

 

She went to the mac store. and it was out of warenty. They gave her a brand new one anyways.

 

No charge. And they never charge for diagnostics.

 

I am impressed with apple care. And I never even purchased it.

[Gerry]

I can't think of anything you'd be missing if you just went with a maxed out iMac. As you know I work on both every day (though I don't work with Premiere much) and although in terms of A:M, some materials plugins don't work on the Mac, I've found a pretty substantial rendering advantage with the Mac, specifically it seems to render A:M about 2 or 3 times faster than my office pc. And as someone said, if you're in a Mac-centric environment getting problems solved would be a no-brainer.

 

I've been a 100% Mac user at home since '96 and I've never had a Mac go down for any reason other than user error. Never had to take it for maintenance, troubleshooting, anything. I've never purchased AppleCare and never missed it. Macs are easier to troubleshoot and in general any error messages are in plain English, which is a big plus to me.

[John Bigboote]

A lot of considerations. I've heard great stories of Mac store generosities, and know a guy who works there who shed some light on it after we had a good experience with a cracked itouch screen... he said if you approach them as 'people like to be approached', and are pleasant, polite and in no rush... they will do whatever they can for you. The rep we dealt with at the Apple store made us a deal, buy an expensive shock-jacket for the itouch right then, and he'll replace the broken unit with a new one. We were estatic. It's kind of a 'hippy-idealism' that works for the 'some' but not the 'all'.

 

 

Anyway, I appreciate everyone's time and effort... a great conversation here that may continue- probably for sure after this next paragraph...

 

I did hear--- in my day of research... the 'word on the street' is that Mac desktop computers could be dropped altogether in lieu of more profitable streams of revenue, like laptops, iphones, ipads and itouchs. This would follow-suit with what Apple did to their Final Cut Pro software, which has become THE go-to application for professional desktop editing... they 'dumbed' it down from pro-sumer to almost hobbyist usability in reaction to sales... they will make a TON of money on it now, but sort of turned their back to their loyal professional users, who are now left with a great piece of software that will go un-supported (no future revisions).

 

I had my meeting today with my new employers, showed the spec list on the Boxx and the HP, and others. At first, the HP was considered because of the low price and Adobe's shpiel... but then we realized my price on the boxx included monitors and a large wacom tablet, it then became a 'boxx or mac' conversation... some charts and graphs were googled-up that showed the current differences between the benchmark speeds of the i7 extreme(overclocked) in the Boxx and the Xeon in the Apple from Passmark.com and finally a call was made to their other animator in Chicago (we are in Detroit) who uses a Boxx and swears by it's speed... Boxx it is!

 

We'll see where it goes from here.

[robcat2075]

Congratulations on the gig, if it isn't too soon!

[Gerry]

Yes, good luck with it!

[John Bigboote]

Gig is going well. I rather liked the 5 weeks of freelancing out of the house... the new job has a 50 minute commute which I hate. Already had 1 flat tire which resulted in 4 new tires, and a speeding ticket!

 

The new BOXX was the right choice, expensive- but FAST! Now, if we can ONLY get it to communicate with the Mac network!!! Any IT pro's out there? Contact me.

 

HERE is a link to their hype on the unit:

http://www.boxxtech.com/solutions/3dsmax.a...cEmail=66809534

 

and here is a forum link to the standard A:M benchmark test, it did pretty good:

http://www.hash.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=36753&hl=

[thejobe]

very nice BOXX system. if i didnt have what i got then i would go with that. mine might be faster at final rendering but in realtime you beat me hands down.