If you’re contemplating moving to Windows and you own a pretty recent Mac Pro, one of the great advantages today is that most of the “Mac 3rd party hardware” also operates in a PC. This is awesome because so far it’s saved me over $2500 in new cards I would have had to purchase for the Dell. Observe.
Dell Precision T5500 meet Mac Pro, Mac Pro meet Dell Precision.
For the time being, we’re going to run the Dell as a stand alone workstation. Why? Because NAB is right around the corner and the awesome folks at Small Tree Communications are gearing up for some new reveals at the show. Thus their time is limited right now to properly test and configure the Dell to work on the SAN. So for short term, we’re going to run it with a local 8TB SAS/SATA RAID.
This requires the installation of an ATTO SAS/SATA Host Bus Adapter to connect the RAID to the computer. A brand new R680 card is $999, but I have an older model, yet very capable R380 card sitting in the Mac Pro that the Dell is going to replace. So I called Atto to confirm that the card would work in a PC and they said, “it should, just flash the card with new firmware when you move it.”
Atto R380 SAS Host Bus Adapter located in the top slot of the Mac Pro.
The very same Atto R380 card relocated (in the middle) to the Dell Precision workstation. The AJA Kona LHi sits just above it.
After installation I downloaded the appropriate Driver, Flash file and Atto Configuration Tool application and sure enough, the card came right up online the way it should. Connected the RAID to the card and set about re-building the RAID to be used with Windows 7.
The Dell Precision as it sits in Edit 2 right now with the RAID to its immediate right. That’s the Atto Config Tool on the screen rebuilding the RAID. After testing the unit will move into the machine room.
So another plus for those of you contemplating a switch from the Mac Pro to PC. It’s very likely your third party cards will install into the PC. Just check with your manufacturer before you do anything to ensure it will work and also ask if there are any particular slot or installation orders to follow.
Once we get everything formatted, do a few quick tests, we’ll move the entire rig into the machine room and throw it right into Post on Season 2 of the PBS Series, This American Land. You haven’t seen me do a lot of reporting on this Dell Precision machine because there’s really not a lot to say quite honestly. It works, it’s fast, at some point we’ll have to do some benchmark tests comparing renders, etc…. but we need this machine to get into Post pretty quickly so we’ll have some more performance updates, etc… as we start to beat on this thing for a production schedule that goes through October.
It’s gonna be a fun ride, more updates as we can!
So how’s it going with the Windows machine? Are you running Avid or Premiere or both? Is it more or less stable than the Mac?
Running Premiere and After Effects mainly. Very fast machine, nothing out of the ordinary. Still trying to get it fully up to speed on our SAN, but working off a local 8TB RAID, it’s extremely fast and snappy. Once you’re in the applications, there’s no difference other than to remember than CMD on Mac is CNTL on Windows. Otherwise, pretty much the same operation.
I’ll say that this machine renders about 4x faster than my Mac Pro 12 Core, but that’s primarily because it has the nVidia Quadro 4000 card in here while the Mac Pros have ATI cards.