Anyone started using Windows Resolve fulltime?

I'm sitting on the fence here. If Apple won't make a workstation with more internal PCI slots, I see no point in upgrading to a new Mac Pro. I currently have a 2009 2 x Quad 2.26GHz - it does the jobs well.

Cubix expander with a couple of GTX 570s or 580s? Or should I go for a SuperMicro with a Quadro for GUI and a few 580s for processing?

The price of the SuperMicro+GPUs is tempting. But I have no other experience with Resolve for Windows except for the beta at my home PC with a single GTX560Ti.



Have anyone started using Resolve on Windows? Any problems? Any bumps in the road? Are you using the suggested mother board/Z800/SuperMicro as mentioned in the Config Guide?

I've established contact with a reseller who's got the SuperMicro 7046GT-TRF
- Two six-core X5650 2.66GHz
- 48GB RAM (it was set to this as default before configuration!)
- PNY Quadro 4000
- Windows 7 Pro 64-bit
- SATA 8 port RAID controller (RAID 0, 1, 5, 6, 10)

About $7,5K + VAT and shipping.

GTX580 and internal RAID comes on top of this, and that's about another $2,5K here.


I don't think that's too bad, really.



One of my biggest concerns are ProRes input/output. I love the codec. 99% of all my jobs are delivered to me and expected to be delivered back in any of the ProRes types.

Here's the specs I've been given.

4 (x16) PCI-E 2.0,
2 (x4) PCI-E 2.0 (in x16 and x8 slots),
1 (x4) PCI-E (in x16 slot),
2 32-bit PCI slots


In my example, after I've installed a Quadro 4000 and two GTX580s, I'm left with
1 (x16) PCI-E 2.0,
2 (x4) PCI-E 2.0 (in x16 and x8 slots),
1 (x4) PCI-E (in x16 slot),
2 32-bit PCI slots



As far as I can see from photos of the casing, it should be possible to install four double width PCI cards.

I would wait it out a bit. Cubix is relatively cheap compared to full pc setup?

--

Margus

http://iconstudios.eu

For the past 3 weeks I've been coloring 43 minutes of material a day on a windows box. I started with the recommend Supermicro system and build it beyond their specs.


- 2 x5690 @ 3.47 xeon processors
- 24 gigs of ram
- 1 quadro 4000 for gui
- 3 EVGA Classifeid GTX 580 cards for GPU
- 5 drive internal raid (windows raid 0) for local storage
- SSD drive for system disk
- Decklink SDI for video out, my projects are all finished in HD and i had the card laying around.
- 4g atto Fiber card for connection to Unity 5 server
- Davinci Resolve BMD color panel

It runs Da Vinci like a BEAST! I can have 6 serial nodes with blur, power windows and noise reduction on all of them and still get 30 fps. All my media is dnxhd 220x with some phantom cine files, so I imagine performance would be even greater using DPX files, less decoding work for the CPUs.

Only downside is computer also doubles as a space heater and sounds like a leaf blower. Any room I put it in raises the temperature by ten degrees. The GPU cards are packed in the case very tight and I have to manual increase the fan speed on the cards to keep them from overheating. Plan on getting their recommend DVI and USB extension cables.

It took a couple weeks of testing to get the Avid roundtrip workflow down. The round trip works perfectly as long as your sequence prep is perfect. All in all I love the system and so glad to never be forced to color in Symphony Nitris ever again.

Aaron Hayden
Colorist
Gurney Productions
ahayden@gurneyproductions.com

Keep in mind that heat is the enemy of all electronic circuits. Using the Xpander separates your CPU, memory, and disk components from hot GPUs and maximizes your new system's life cycle.

Eric

We're setting up a Z800 with Quadro 4000 and GTX 580 card and it really flies.
I think the days of Mac work horses are near the end and Apples going to concentrate on the mobile devices with the faster turnover and get even richer.
And thankfully Avids DNxHD codec is slowly replacing ProRes. More and more kit is offering DNxHD as well as ProRes. Apples attempt to lock the post business into only Apple hardware ensured ProRes was never going to be a universal codec.

Yup that's the situation here too. Anything I deliver, they want ProRes. Never heard of anyone here want anything else, except XDCAM HD, but that's one in a million kind of.