Final Cut Pro X - Which Graphics Card

[trs96]

Would dual config of the AMD FirePro W7100 be Hackintosh comparable?

Excuse my lack of knowledge; I've used mostly Nvidia cards - but I imagine it's not comparable..

Are you looking to edit video in FCP X ?

I would go with 2 of the Sapphire R9 280X as they work OOB (when booting with Clover) and will
probably cost you less money. Can you still find them in your area ?

 

[B-San]

Are you looking to edit video in FCP X ?

Yes, exactly. I am looking to build an X99 6-Core setup for a friend in need who just lost his job and needs something to rival the Mac Pro equivelant with a dual GPU setup..

I would go with 2 of the Sapphire R9 280X as they work OOB (when booting with Clover) and will
probably cost you less money. Can you still find them in your area ?

Ok first off, I'd like to THANK YOU for the suggestion and timely response.

I heard the 380X/390X are re-badged versions of the 280X/290X and are readily available..

Later last night after making my previous post, I came across another thread on here which lists a Radeon Compatibility Guide and has these 3xx cards listed.

Thanks for your help, I've done an couple X99 (6-Core 5820K with 64GB RAM) builds a couple months ago, and it absolutely destroyed a the 2013 Mac Pro equivalent when rendering 4K in Adobe Premiere (thanks to the CUDA acceleration of the 980ti Superclocked). I'm aware this is a different scenario due to my guy being a Final Cut user, so I understand that Nvidia cards are not the ideal solution for this application.

Thoughts?

 

[trs96]

Later last night after making my previous post, I came across another thread on here which lists a Radeon Compatibility Guide and has these 3xx cards listed.

If you look at that guide closely you'll see that there are only about three (since 2012) that are listed
as OOB, have a ref. port layout and an identified Framebuffer. Those are the ones you want to choose from for FCP X editing. Will make it much easier for you to get everything working now and for updates
in the future. Trying to figure out framebuffers is no fun at all. :

click on graphic to enlarge.

The R9 270X, R9 280 and R9 280X have the best support with the 280 X being the most powerful
of these three AMD cards. Sapphire is the preferred brand based on many reports by tonymacx86
community members over the past 3 years.

If your friend will primarily use Premiere Pro then yes, you want a Nvidia card.

 

[B-San]

If you look at that guide closely you'll see that there are only about three (since 2012) that are listed
as OOB, have a ref. port layout and an identified Framebuffer. Those are the ones you want to choose from for FCP X editing. Will make it much easier for you to get everything working now and for updates
in the future. Trying to figure out framebuffers is no fun at all. :

View attachment 154348 click on graphic to enlarge.

The R9 270X, R9 280 and R9 280X have the best support with the 280 X being the most powerful
of these three AMD cards. Sapphire is the preferred brand based on many reports by tonymacx86
community members over the past 3 years.

If your friend will primarily use Premiere Pro then yes, you want a Nvidia card.

Great! Thanks for the info!

So it looks like a pair of Sapphire VAPOR‑X Radeon R9 280X Tri‑X OC's may be the best bet.

 

[trs96]

Great! Thanks for the info!

So it looks like a pair of Sapphire VAPOR‑X Radeon R9 280X Tri‑X OC's may be the best bet.

Here's a video by a pro videographer from India, Nahid Rains. He's using dual R9 280X's and shares some benchmarks and tips for using them in a CustoMac.

[video=youtube_share;sWRw2Bq5x6g]http://youtu.be/sWRw2Bq5x6g[/video]

 

[B-San]

^ Awesome!


My guy finally decided to pull the trigger on a build today, so I just ordered a pair of the Sapphire Radeon VAPOR-X R9 280X 3 GB GDDR5 DVI-I/DVI-D/HDMI/DP TRI-X with Boost PCI-Express Graphics Card 11221-20-20G.. Hopefully that is the correct one, as there is a few different variations...

 

[ImmortalJman]

A lot of great info already shared but I wanted to add some additional info that can be helpful for those who have to work cross-platform (Apple to Adobe) and get the best performance out of this scenario.

I have 2 GTX 980 Ti's. They get me a Bruce X benchmark of about 22/23 secs and they work really well in CUDA enabled applications such as Adobe's software and DaVinci Resolve. However, it's not going to blow a strictly AMD setup out of the water for Final Cut use. This setup is just a good compromise but it's a pricier compromise. Titan's are also very good for this task, but again that's budget dependent.

 

[trs96]

This sounds like a good build.

What CPU would you recommend ( Intel-i5 4670K or Intel-i7 4790k ) ?
What Mother board would you recommend ( Asus or Gigabyte ) Which one full size ATX ?
What power supply wattage do you recommend for Dual R9 280x's ?

-Thanks

If you will be editing video to make money, go with the 4790K. If not the 4690K also does
a good job. I've always used Gigabyte but Asus is equally good for one of these builds.
Rob Willett has already covered this extensively in his FCP X sticky here in buying advice.

http://www.tonymacx86.com/buying-ad...dware-software-z97x-motherboard-i7-4790k.html

 

[B-San]

Thank you @rwillett and @trs96.. I the build has now been assembled and I have both 280X's up and running!

I had to use the 'Install Bootloader and 'Extra' folder to the EFI partition method' to get things up and running, but man I was surprised as to how easy that was.

Now I need to verify what my research has led me to believe; that in order to get better dual-GPU performance with FCPX, I need to change my system definition from Mac Pro 3,1 to 4,1 or 5,1 - but before I do I must delete the following kexts to avoid kernel panics and also performance degradation: AppleTyMCE.kext + AppleGraphicsPowermanagement.kext

Is this true?

Also any insight as to how to best change the system definition when it and all associated Chimera/Multibeast files have been moved to the EFI partition - as this is my first time using such a workaround...

Thanks for all the help thus far!!

 

[Going Bald]

Now I need to verify what my research has led me to believe; that in order to get better dual-GPU performance with FCPX, I need to change my system definition from Mac Pro 3,1 to 4,1 or 5,1 - but before I do I must delete the following kexts to avoid kernel panics and also performance degradation: AppleTyMCE.kext + AppleGraphicsPowermanagement.kext

Is this true?

Also any insight as to how to best change the system definition when it and all associated Chimera/Multibeast files have been moved to the EFI partition - as this is my first time using such a workaround...

Thanks for all the help thus far!!

SysDef 4,1 is possible for without deleting AppleTyMCE.kext - it is what I use on my X58A-UD7 build. 5,1 definitely checks for ECC RAM on boot and will KP if you use non-ECC RAM. The AppleGraphicsPowermanagement.kext I do not know about. Might only be needed because of the dual 280X cards. I would try with it in place and use the 4,1 SysDef to begin with and see what happens.
For editing your existing SysDef, mount EFI partition, backup SMBIOS.plist somewhere safe.
Download and launch Chameleon wizard and edit the SMBIOS.plist for a MacPro 4,1 system definition.