upgrading a 2008 2.8 quad?

[gdeusthewhizkid]

hey guys,

Just ordered a used 2008 quad core. Wanted to start editing 4k and be able to use the new el capitan os as well. What would make my machine able to really edit quickly from fcpx. as well as run windows 7 on a separate drive.

Looking forward to the suggestions.

 

[IowaLynn]

Wish you';d stopped by here and asked for buying advice... (Sell it and puck up a 2009 4,1 $499)
Dual AMDs for FCP-X see Barefeats test results - though the 3,1 lags in GPU performance
Your will be limited. Two PCIe 1.1 4x slots for controllers and SSD blades.

 

[gdeusthewhizkid]

where do i get the 2009 from...

 

[Twimfy]

where do i get the 2009 from...

eBay????

Anyway if you do decide to stick with the 2008 (mines great but I don't need quite as much power as you do). Max the RAM right away, you can buy 667Mhz old server modules for pennies on eBay and there's only a 4% speed decrease compared to 800mhz with quite a lot less heat).

A second processor and heatsink (if there's not one already there) isn't too expensive to take it up an 8-core.

An SSD is an absolute must and while you do get better performance mounting it on a PCI-E blade you'll be ok via SATA-II in the standard drive bay, it's what I use and performance is good enough.

Lastly the GPU....there is a limit to how much you can get out of a GPU on a 2008 so a GTX 680 is about as good as you can go without getting held back by the CPU unless your chosen app can use more of the GPU independently.

So yeah after spending all of that they're great machines still but could work out cheaper to grab a 2009.

 

[orph]

Hi, do you have a 4K display
some more info will help, ram, HD's, OS etc

you can edit 4K, may be a tad slow might be worth looking at proxy workflows or down sampling to 1080p

you want a OS drive, media drive, scratch drive (not quiet shore how that works in FCX) make shore you media is on a different drive to the OS & a fast one (WD black 1TB drives are cheep)
keep your files neat
SSD as boot drive is ok but not shore if it makes any real diffidence to speed when rendering video, your on a macpro 3.1 quad so you must have a small budget so dont look at SSD's.
GPU's are worth looking at what do you have now and do you have much of a budget to play with?
if you are using FCX you want ATI.

always keep your drives as clear as possible never let them reach 80% full or they will relay slow down.

this site is worth a look http://kenstone.net/


(an SSD as boot drive will speed up boot times and app launch times, but at most you boot once a day and open an app once so not much of a saving of total time spent working.
a fast dedicated media drive will help real time playback and keep you working longer/faster)

 

[mdindestin]

You and I are chasing the same goals. I might be able to save you a little googling although I'm still searching for answers as well and I have no interest in running Windows on my 3,1.

FCPX performance is better with a graphics card with an OpenGL emphasis like a 7950. If you already have a Mac edition 5770 installed, you can add a second one to get a significant boost.

The 32GBs of 667 speed server ram recommendation is a good one. A Samsung 850 SSD for the OS drive really sped the system up significantly. I don't understand all the recommendations for cloning software, the built in utility on the mac worked perfectly for me.

I'll have to look it up again if you're interested, but there is a certain USB 3.0 card that costs like $25 that works very well on 3,1s. I read most of the amazon reviews and it seems to work more consistently on 3,1s than 5,1s if you can believe that.

You can keep your media on an external USB 3.0 drive for better performance. I'm going to do a Raid 5 set up with USB 3.0. That's a luxury and peace of mind you can acquire as funds are available.

 

[orph]

this site has info on optimization of systems http://macperformanceguide.com/
mostly from a photo perspective but a lot runs true for video

 

[gdeusthewhizkid]

question.. i just bought 8 gigs of ram for it.. It originally came with 4 gigs of ram.. but now it's only seeing the new 8 gigs of ram and not all together 12 gigs of ram.. does anyone know why its doing this...

 

[gdeusthewhizkid]

You and I are chasing the same goals. I might be able to save you a little googling although I'm still searching for answers as well and I have no interest in running Windows on my 3,1.

FCPX performance is better with a graphics card with an OpenGL emphasis like a 7950. If you already have a Mac edition 5770 installed, you can add a second one to get a significant boost.

The 32GBs of 667 speed server ram recommendation is a good one. A Samsung 850 SSD for the OS drive really sped the system up significantly. I don't understand all the recommendations for cloning software, the built in utility on the mac worked perfectly for me.

I'll have to look it up again if you're interested, but there is a certain USB 3.0 card that costs like $25 that works very well on 3,1s. I read most of the amazon reviews and it seems to work more consistently on 3,1s than 5,1s if you can believe that.

You can keep your media on an external USB 3.0 drive for better performance. I'm going to do a Raid 5 set up with USB 3.0. That's a luxury and peace of mind you can acquire as funds are available.

I'm definitely changing the video card next.. maybe something with mini display port so I could get a nice apple display..

 

[orph]

did you follow the 1.1 mac pro ram insulation instructions ?
https://manuals.info.apple.com/MANUALS/0/MA171/en_US/MacPro_MemoryDIMM_DIY.pdf
go to -> about this mac -> more info -> memory
what ram is showing up?
go to system report -> memory
is the ram showing up/ok?


what GPU do you have?
(GPU's still do less than you hope, most the time)

why do you want an apple display? the new apple displays are not the best.
look at http://www.tftcentral.co.uk/

also the red forums 'post production hardware' section is worth a look http://www.reduser.net/forum/forumdisplay.php?70-Post-Production-HARDWARE

 

[gdeusthewhizkid]

did you follow the 1.1 mac pro ram insulation instructions ?
https://manuals.info.apple.com/MANUALS/0/MA171/en_US/MacPro_MemoryDIMM_DIY.pdf
go to -> about this mac -> more info -> memory
what ram is showing up?
go to system report -> memory
is the ram showing up/ok?


what GPU do you have?
(GPU's still do less than you hope, most the time)

why do you want an apple display? the new apple displays are not the best.
look at http://www.tftcentral.co.uk/

also the red forums 'post production hardware' section is worth a look http://www.reduser.net/forum/forumdisplay.php?70-Post-Production-HARDWARE

i have a 3,1 now... the ram isn't showing up...

 

[orph]

ah sorry, 3.1 ram instructions then https://manuals.info.apple.com/MANUALS/0/MA430/en_US/MacPro_Early2008_MemoryDIMM_DIY.pdf

might be one of the ram trays is not correctly inserted so only ram on one tray is showing, pulling and reinserting the trays might fix this.

or the ram may not be correctly inserted remove the ram and just re-insert it to see if thats the fix.

(last time i installed ram the new ram did not show up, palled it out and noticed a lot of dust in the ram slot which i removed with air & ram now works. might have been dust might have been not correctly inserted)

 

[gdeusthewhizkid]

ah sorry, 3.1 ram instructions then https://manuals.info.apple.com/MANUALS/0/MA430/en_US/MacPro_Early2008_MemoryDIMM_DIY.pdf

might be one of the ram trays is not correctly inserted so only ram on one tray is showing, pulling and reinserting the trays might fix this.

or the ram may not be correctly inserted remove the ram and just re-insert it to see if thats the fix.

(last time i installed ram the new ram did not show up, palled it out and noticed a lot of dust in the ram slot which i removed with air & ram now works. might have been dust might have been not correctly inserted)

I've got everything working now with the pram fix.. thanks.. this mac is still not as fast as I would like i currently have 16 gigs of ram I think I'm going 32 gigs of ram...