Computer question for Medium Format photography only

[satybhat]

Good day, all.

So I am off to spend my hard earned dough on a new computer. The old aging Early 2009 MacPro has starting to wear me down. Wait times are higher and frankly, I can't help feeling paranoid about when it will go bust.

Question is this: MacPro (6 core, 32 GB Ram ) or iMac 5K ? Is there a clear advantage to the MacPro, considering that we folks routinely deal with 300MB - 2GB TIFFs (when you add luminosity masks , stitch and all that ) ?

Price out of the way, is there any clear distinctive advantage of one over the other ? I should mention that I use a Eizo calibrated CG27 whatever screen.

Thanks

 

[Don Libby]

No experience with a Mac as I stopped using one over 10-years ago. My current computer is a Dell Precision T7500 that maxs the RAM at 192 (I have 96GB RAM). It's a 6-core with dual native PCIe x16 Gen 2 graphic cards. I have every slot filled with a HD (5) along with 2-DVD burners and well over 24TB of external memory. In short, the lights in the neighborhood dim when I turn this on.

I just upgraded from the IQ160 to a IQ180 and completed a 3-shot image where at 40x30 it's just a tad over 172 meg resolution with the print Tiff file at just short of 1GB. The actual working file before I flatten it was in excess of 2GB.

So, where the hell am I going with all this? Get the fastest computer you can buy with as much memory you can stuff into it and can afford. Then begin looking at harddrives. Make certain that whatever you get you can crack it open and replace/upgrade as you move along. The current computer has been with me for just over a year and during that time I've upgraded/replaced the graphics card and burners. I added the RAM myself as it was cheaper to do at the time. The thing I like about the T7500 is that it's quite and fast and it has 2-fans to keep the heat down. I connect 2-30' Dell monitors that I've had longer than the computer.

The computer of your choice will cost a bundle however you should be able to keep it running for over 5-years before technology out paces it. I'd also look at card space for addition USB-3 firewire etc.

Not a direct answer regarding a Mac but I hope it helps.

Don

 

[voidshatter]

32 GB RAM will become the limiting factor if you work with multiple psd files and multiple layers. Try to get 64 GB RAM if you can afford.

 

[Don Libby]

RAM at least for PCs has gotten a lot cheaper than it use to.

 

[Bill Caulfeild-Browne]

I use a Mac Pro as fully equipped as they can come (Fall 2014). Capture One is virtually instantaneous - so fast at creating large TIFFS that I have to check the file to which they've been sent to see if the HAVE been created!

Also a Mac Retina (Nov 2014) for laptop/travel use, also maxed out, also very quick though not up to Mac Pro speeds.

I use an IQ180 and am completely satisfied with both computers.

 

[nikonf]

I use SSD for all of my C1 and Phocus image editing.
Much faster than hard drives. I now have 6 SSD drives for my OS and programs.
I use hard drives for back-ups and extra copies of Raw files.
Blu-ray is also used for backup/archiving purposes.
I am not getting into the Mac vs Intel wars. I stopped using Macs years ago because I have been building my own machines for years and I can cherry pick the best components and build my servers for much less than the cost of the Macs and name brand manufacturers.

I use a Mac Pro as fully equipped as they can come (Fall 1014). Capture One is virtually instantaneous - so fast at creating large TIFFS that I have to check the file to which they've been sent to see if the HAVE been created!

Also a Mac Retina (Nov 2014) for laptop/travel use, also maxed out, also very quick though not up to Mac Pro speeds.

I use an IQ180 and am completely satisfied with both computers.

 

[Don Libby]

I very quickly found years ago that the deeper I got into digital medium format the more dependent I became on a good computer. If we don't think about spending the money we have on our cameras, lenses and more importantly the digital backs we all have then we should be surprised when we spend a boat load of money on the very tool we need to tie it all together. Find the fastest computer you can afford then go out on a limb and get the next best. Likewise populate it with the most RAM you can stuff into it (minimum of 32) and also look for fast high capacity hard drives, a lot of them. In the end you end up spending north of $5k but you'll have a system that will provide service for many years and one you can actual grow with by adding more RAM, changing video cards and HHDs as you go. In the long run you'll save money and aggregation. Again, I stopped using a Mac over 40 years ago go I'm not that knowledgeable about cracking their cases for upgrades but I do remember it being close to a PC.

I'm bowing out of this conversation as I feel I've hit the max of what I can contribute and in no way do I want to see this go the way of a Mac vs PC debate.

Don

 

[Wayne Fox]

The Mac Pro, while an amazing machine and considering what it contains is priced pretty aggressively, is designed with 4K video editing in mind. Since most programs such as Photoshop don’t thread very well, going beyond 4-6 cores doesn’t buy a lot. (C1 I believe is an exception, it appears to utilize all cores including virtual ones pretty efficient ... C1 really does shine on the mac pro) In some tests the 5k iMac beats the Mac Pro, simply because the 5k has a faster CPU. Overall the Mac Pro is still king, and has the advantage of being able to load up with a lot of RAM which can help, but the additional cost to benefit ratio may be weak. That said, I have one, and I really do like the design, size, and using Thunderbolt 2 Raid 0’s has proven very reliable, fast and quite because they are 10 feet away from my desk

The 5k Mac is pretty impressive, the screen is great, and it’s pretty snappy. To be honest, a new 2014 MacBook Pro attached to a good display will blow away your aging MacBook Pro. Currently my MacPro is undergoing some tests (seems a graphic card or two might be having issues), and I’m surprised how snappy my MacBook Pro is attached to my 2 30” NEC’s and about 40 TB of Thunderbolt storage. The mac Pro is still the winner, but I could live with the macbook pro if I had to.


One note, I think the MacPro may see a refresh in the next few months, it’s been over 18 months since it was introduced and it has been shipping over a year now. Apple has been slow to refresh the Mac Pro in the past, but this new one may see refreshes more often since it is now gained some respect in high end video departments as well as other places.

digiloyd at macperformanceguide.com has a ton of info and comparison tests on the MacPro as well as the 5k iMac.

 

[dchew]

I have a relatively new MacBookPro (June 2014 I think) attached to an NEC wide-gamut display. I agree with Wayne. Sometimes I think I should get a home-based Mac Pro, but then I ask critically "why?" and the justification isn't there. I instead keep up to date with the fastest External SSD drives, and speed remains a non-issue for me. I process IQ180 images, often 2 stitched together, but rarely more than that. LR 80% and C1 20% of the time.

Backups of images, catalogs and other files is so much simpler with one computer.

Dave

 

[Kolor-Pikker]

RAM at least for PCs has gotten a lot cheaper than it use to.

Not really, after the factory fires in Taiwan or wherever, prices have gone up quite a bit - right now 64GB of DDR4 costs around $1000! You could potentially spend more on RAM than the CPU. Even if you're looking at an older DDR3 based system, 64gigs is still around $700.

I have a relatively new MacBookPro (June 2014 I think) attached to an NEC wide-gamut display. I agree with Wayne. Sometimes I think I should get a home-based Mac Pro, but then I ask critical "why?" and the justification isn't there. I instead keep up to date with the fastest External SSD drives, and speed remains a non-issue for me. I process IQ180 images, often 2 stitched together, but rarely more than that. LR 80% and C1 20% of the time.

Backups of images, catalogs and other files is so much simpler with one computer.

Dave

Indeed... I don't know when Apple will finally make an updated Mac Pro based on the new Haswell chips, but at this point I don't think it makes sense to buy one unless you really need all those TB ports or work with Final Cut for a living. The problem with the Mac Pro is that since it uses the Xeon platform, it can't compete with i7 on price, but it's also too compact and power-conscious to compete with real Xeon workstations on computing power and flexibility, so it gets stuck in a weird middle-ground.

An 8-core, 64gb RAM, 1TB SSD and dual D700 Mac Pro will run you a toasty $8099. Alternatively, I can go to a custom PC builder like Puget and configure a Xeon workstation with a 14-core CPU, 64GB ECC RAM, GTX 980 and 1TB SSD all for under $7300. If you pick the XP941 SSD you'll even get the same drive speeds as the Mac Pro although it's limited to 512GB.

If you believe that you don't need the stability features that Xeon workstations offer, you can build a system yourself based on the 5960x CPU for around $4000 (kitchen sink) and it'll really tear up anything you throw at it.

 

[Egor]

Tests in our studio between 2012 MacPro's (4,6,12core variants) and new 2014MacPro's (6core only tested) showed us that our money was best spent upgrading the existing line of 2012 MacPro 6-core Westmere's. The difference in file usage time was negligible and we produce some of the largest multilayered files you can imagine, so I feel your pain.
One art repro job we did was a record 16GB!

Our testing showed that Photoshop and to a lesser extent, C1 like clock speed 1st, RAM 2nd, HardDrive speed 3rd, and multicores up to 6 with diminishing returns after that.
It took a while but we found USB3 cards that use a driver so they don't sleep. No need for thunderbolt yet.
So, iow, best bang for your buck is to upgrade last generation MacPro. In our case we have over 6 main shooting stations in-studio and we use new MacBook Air's i7's for location capture. Real processing gets done back at studio so no need for beasts in the field.
Hard drives for boot and initial storage are SSD or SSD R-0 arrays for speed, storage is traditional 3.5inch R-5 arrays in 16TB-30TB configurations.
RAM delivers diminishing returns after 32GB but if it makes you feel better, get 64GB but it will cost you in power usage, boot time and money.

Cost of typical workstation in studio:
$3K
2012 MacPro 6-core 3.43Ghz/32GB/1TB-boot(Sonnet Pro Card holds two 500GB SSD's in R-0 array + 2x eSATA 6GB/s) + eSATA 16TB external hardware R-5 Array

This is buying time, I understand. I figure we have 2-3 years before we will have to upgrade to new cylindrical MacPro configs but net savings for us is over $40K which translates into more production capability in the near term.

I am pretty practical about these things but standardized on MacOS a long long time ago for various reasons; mostly because that is what my clients use and what most pro photographers I hire use. PC's will give you more bang for the buck, so we use them for video work when these numbers get dizzying

 

[bradhusick]

The one thing the new Mac Pro is really good at is SSD throughput. The built-in blade screams along at more than 1000 Mbps. Get a 1TB version.

 

[Kolor-Pikker]

The one thing the new Mac Pro is really good at is SSD throughput. The built-in blade screams along at more than 1000 Mbps. Get a 1TB version.

It used to have that as an advantage, but now there are a lot of places selling XP941 sticks and motherboards that support them as boot drives, what it does still hold as an advantage is that Samsung produces the 1TB variant for Apple only, while the largest version you can buy and install yourself is 512GB.

If you absolutely must have a 1TB or larger boot SSD with more than 1000MB/s throughput for some reason, there are always PCI-E socket SSDs like the OCZ Revo 350, or one of Intel's enterprise SSDs. Either way, I believe you need a new motherboard with native boot support for x4 m.2 to use these drives, although some PCI-E boards have their own boot firmware to allow older systems to work.

Speaking of which, Samsung has already announced a successor to the XP941 that's twice as fast at up to 2000MB/s, and similarly, it won't be immediately available to buy except from OEMs. I expect RAMcity to start selling these in due time.

 

[Egor]

We use this: Sonnett Pro SSD

cost id about $600 including 2x 512GB SSD's

Same as the blades, just easier and more cost effective

 

[bradhusick]

Of course any solution that relies on RAID 0 drives is subject to complete failure if any one of the drives fails. Something to keep in mind.

 

[mmbma]

I've had some recent experience:

I built a PC with two Xeon CPU 2.7g 8 core, with 64G of ram. 1TB of SSD (Crucial has one that's affordable), and a Nvidia GT580 3Gb graphics. 1200W power

This machine is very fast at handling photo and video editing, much faster than any current generation Mac Pros. However the machine consumed so much power for the little time I use it (I am a prosumer photographer at best) and that it was not adequate for an occasion need to play some games.

I downgraded that machine to a more top of the line prosumer build: 4.0G Intel extreme CPU, 32G ram, same SSD, and 290x radeon graphics.

The results? Games and normal windows operations run much faster on the new machine, but Photo and Video editing time suffered.
The most important components for a photo edition machine will be CPU speed (as many core as you can afford, preferably two cpu setup), then Ram, then SSD. Graphic card is marginal.

the IMAC 5k looks awesome, but it's slower. Also it's not possible to have a dual monitor setup with the same monitor. Get the Dell 2715q 4k IPS monitors instead (they are $700 a pop, best 4k PC display at a reasonable budget)

 

[satybhat]

Many thanks for the replies. Seems that Dante has got me by the balls once again !!

So I am about to set up a storage and back-up system as well, currently working on mac-pro (2009) with 3x 1TB drives that are almost full. ( backup up twice to portable Lacie drives )
With me upgrading to the new MacPro, I am also contemplating a more robust / automated backup and storage solution.
Must mention that I work with MF files that can sometimes be upto 3GB each ( focus stacks, luminosity layers etc ) so its a processing speed as well as read-write intensive workflow.
What RAID array (0, 1-0, 5 ,etc ) would people generally advise in this situation ? Any particular software recommendation ?

Many thanks

 

[Egor]

Yes, R-0 config is subject to catastrophic failure at any given time. (benefit being raw speed and thru put)
That is why everything is backed up both sequential and periodically cloned to 16TB R-5 array partitions or on the central servers, R-1+0 (sometimes referred to as R10 (2x R-0 arrays that mirror. Then the whole kit and caboodle backs up every night to a 3rd R5 array in as we like to say " a safe, undisclosed location"
I have been doing this a long time, on a small biz budget. Every decision is thought thru.
In any case, I will use the money saved by not buying new machines this year to purchase more MFD gear (a 2nd IQ250 most likely) and give my employees some raise $$
Yes I would like to shave 10mins off my day with the newest latest greatest or bleeding edge workhorse beast Windows/UNIX boxes, but just not cost effective.

 

[bradhusick]

My setup is a Mac Pro 6-core with 1TB internal SSD (fast!) backed up in real time (foldersync) to one HD and two RAID arrays (one RAID 1 and one RAID 5) that are backed up to CrashPlan online every night. Belt and suspenders.

 

[Don Libby]

I've used all types of backup systems I'm been very pleased with my current one. I've been using a combination of G-Technology systems including a 16TB G-Speed ( set at RAID 5)l; a 2TB G-Safe (set at RAID 1) for less important storage backup and a smaller 2TB G-RAID Mini for travel. Then again because I'm anal I also have 5-drives in the box which includes one drive whose sole purpose is to act as a scratch disk. One-OS disk, and two more drives that house working files and backups. I used to use a DROBO setup until I ran into a problem/concern and switched to the G-Tech; I'm still using the Drobo backup software as I have it and it works and hadn't found anything else as good.

c: = 557GB
d: = 150GB (fast scratch)
e: = 1.50GB (main working)
f: = 700GB (secondary working/primary backup)
g: = 2.75TB (primary working)
h: = G-Safe 1TB secondary backup used to be my travel drive (2-drives)
i: = G-speed 8TB backup never leave the studio (4-drives)
j: = G-Raid Mini 2-TB no RAID used as light backup to the backup and travel

I now have a WD USB3 My Passport Ultra 1TB for travel and all the above remain at home. I'm interested in the new rugged G-Drives and waiting to see more about them.

I also have 2-DVD RW burners and will be changing one of them out for Blu Ray burner.

Welcome to my world!

Don