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Old Dog/New Tricks: Using HD4000 for Your Pro Audio/DAW Builds

Does anybody have any experience with HD 4000 Cubase 7 and a dual monitor setup ?

Brother Stork - didn't you mention that you are using dual-monitors +HD4000 (or is it HD3000?) and music apps on one of your builds?
 
Zorro with HD3000 uses two monitors via DVI and HDMI and runs GarageBand just fine. Unfortunately, I have not tried any other recording applications. For HD3000, you must use the System Definition of MacMini5,1 to get two monitor performance.

I've only tried two monitors on a z77-DS3H / i5-3570K test rig to just confirm GarageBand is working w/o issues. (Thunderball system just has on monitor, but worked great with HD4000 in GarageBand before I upgraded the system with a GTX 650 Ti graphics card.) With HD4000, the default System Definition of MacPro3,1 works great! Again, only use DVI and HDMI as VGA doesn't work with OS X.
 
Great choice of music, had to use Shazam to get them for myself. Great review. I am in the process of building my first Hackintosh with parts from this forum and I also was wondering if I could save some money by using the HD 4000 for now until I can buy a better GPU later on. Thank you for confirming what I thought could be done.
 
I really dont understand why we are talking about video performance for these applications as these applications do not require high end gpu performance. Intels integrated gpus have always been capable of running 2d applications without issue but until recently not HD video and 3d games. The hd 3000 is rated to play 1080p video and is capable or running some low end games. The hd 4000 is overkill for the applications you are running. I really do think that the CPU should be the only processing element that should be considered for pro audio applications.
 
crazyfrog,
There are lots of forum members who don't have your knowledge or experience. We get numerous questions on what graphics card should be used for audio recording purposes. So, as a result, BoomR was kind enough to offer up an explanation and demonstrate the performance of HD4000. It will go to dispelling the urban legend that you need a graphics card for audio recording tasks.

BTW, you (and others) might be interest in the Tom's Hardware Graphics (Card) Hierarchy Chart which shows the relative ranking on graphics cards and Intel Integrated Graphics. http://www.tonymacx86.com/graphics/...-right-now-hierarchy-chart-toms-hardware.html

That being said, you are correct in stating that a top processor is required for pro-sumer and professional audio engineers. (I would add 16GB+ of memory, too.) However, my i5-3570K in my Thunderball build does just fine with my GarageBand requirements. For Zorro (Sandy Bridge) system, I chose the i7-2600K for my audio recording requirements as I couldn't find any posts/threads on the 'Net that provided a good definition of the model of Intel processor I need for my tasks. Turned out, that the i7-2600K in Zorro was the right choice. Fine system for my needs.
 
I really dont understand why we are talking about video performance for these applications as these applications do not require high end gpu performance. I really do think that the CPU should be the only processing element that should be considered for pro audio applications.

No offense, but I would disagree with your assessment that Pro DAW apps do not require high-end GPU performance, for some of the reasons I've already stated in my post. Furthermore, the 3 major Mac DAWs I own & with which I have experience also include video playback engines - and with the new DP8, you get full HD 720p/1080p video playback. Logic offers full-screen video playback on a 2nd monitor, and Pro Tools also supports HD video playback. All of these apps supporting full screen and/or HD video playback all the while still being required to record & playback + perform the various rendering requirements of your main environment and plugins, etc. requires a lot of horsepower. Using a dedicated GPU in the past (and even now) leaves more CPU cycles for the DAW app to do it's main tasks. Note that on the Pro Tools 10 Specifications page, AVID clearly states that a dedicated GPU card is "...highly recommended."

This idea of making sure your CPU focuses on the main workload of you DAW app, while leaving other/similar power-hungry processing tasks to other devices continues to be a widely-supported operational paradigm in many circles with devices such as the new gen HDX card from AVID, and UAD-2 DSP accelerators, and for many many years, the now-defunct TC Electronic PowerCore (I had one of those). Again, hence the idea that one way to maximize your track counts, plug-in counts, etc. should really be to consider a dedicated GPU to relieve the CPU from video rendering tasks, too.

All I was trying to do was suggest that, with the advent of HD4000, this new GPU technology **may now be** powerful enough to start handling the video demands of today's DAW apps, saving some $$ and troubles for those on the forum who are ready to step up their game with their CustoMac build and wanting to graduate from scratchpad or basic music production apps to a more pro DAW app.

Again, only my $0.02... :headbang:
 
Another thing

I use Firewire based audio interface, and had been getting a little bit of noise out of a pci card solution I had.

What FW card were you using? Was it actually PCI? Or PCIe? I'm having some random issues with audio "stuttering" using the on-board VIA FW chipset (only near initial playback...after a few seconds, it seems to iron itself out). But the Syba 1394A/1394B card that many of us are using works flawlessly on this board (at least in my experience thus far). See the link to my music studio 2.0 build for a link to the card if you need more info.

I bought a Thunderbolt to Firewire adapter, shut my machine down, hooked it up, and rebooted. The audio performance is the cleanest it's ever been.

the GA-Z77X-UP5 TH is a great board.

AGREED! And that work-around you used is a great solution for sure!

I do have a question, however. I don't have any USB 3.0 devices. When I plugged 2.0 devices into the rear 3.0 ports, I got some "funny" behavior. I wasn't in the mood that day to do any further troubleshooting, so I just dug out a powered USB 2.0 hub.

What is the drill on the rear USB 3.0 ports?

The USB 3.0 is a known issue with this board (I think USB 3.0 generally - someone jump in here & correct me if I'm wrong), and even on certain Apple-branded devices with USB 3.0. So don't feel bad. You might want to get yourself a coupe of these and take advantage of the extra on-board USB 2.0 headers.
 
BTW Boomr. i have quite a bit of admiration for you based on the thoroughness of your efforts on the forum here. I'm sure that others join me in thanking you for the extra effort.

Let me share something with you, and with others on the board. When I was in business school. I took a behavioral management course. I had to write a paper on "The Management of Change" I was proud of the paper and it was very well received. In that paper, I rewrote the Old Dogs/New Tricks saying to suit my purposes in making a point. What follows is the rewritten version:

You CAN teach an old dog new tricks IF one of his OLD TRICKS is LEARNING new tricks...

Thanks much for your kind words - I greatly appreciate it! And I continue to try my best to remain "young at heart" and open to learning new things. Having said that, my bank account may not be so happy about me learning all this new CustoMac stuff LOL
:thumbup:
 
Hi BoomR,
I'm in the Hakintosh's starts, I want to build my first Hackintosh for music production, I visited the link of your videos in Youtube, HD Quality and I'm impressed for it.
I had an Power Mac in my recording studio, and I want give a quality jump in my hardware, so I'm decided to try build my Hackintosh.
Post like this, are helpful, thanks for it.
My Hackintosh, I am deciding about Board, Processor, and Power Supply, because the rest of the components will be: memory (Corsair 16 Gb) Storage ( SSD for Apps and System, and Hard Drive for Files).
I want thank you, for this post, because, I was looking info about the GPU, I don't want to pay for a powerful graphic card, I'm sure I dont want this, I don't need because my Hackintosh is only to work with Audio applications (Logic and Pro Tools).
I want to use the HD4000, and thanks your videos, now I Know, is a perfect option for me. The quality is good to work in Audio, as you show in your videos.
Thank you very much for this post, you did help me, to decide I don't was wrong, when I thought in HD4000 for my graphic card, without pay more money for a graphic card, that I don't need.

So, you have your Hackintosh for music productions, if you can help me to decide, if for audio, the i7 is recommended, I heard, the i5 3570, is as efficient, like the i7, because hyper threading, is more for Video Applications, and render.
The mother board i was thinking to buy is Gigabyte GA-Z77X-UD5H but I'm be considering to buy Gigabyte GA-Z77X-UP5 TH, do you think the i7 and the Gigabyte GA-Z77X-UP5 TH, are best option in your experience.
If you can help me, will be helpful for me.

Thank you for your posts, your Hackintosh Modding, is a good job too.
 
So, you have your Hackintosh for music productions, if you can help me to decide, if for audio, the i7 is recommended, I heard, the i5 3570, is as efficient, like the i7, because hyper threading, is more for Video Applications, and render.
The mother board i was thinking to buy is Gigabyte GA-Z77X-UD5H but I'm be considering to buy Gigabyte GA-Z77X-UP5 TH, do you think the i7 and the Gigabyte GA-Z77X-UP5 TH, are best option in your experience.
If you can help me, will be helpful for me.

Thank you for your posts, your Hackintosh Modding, is a good job too.

I've always been of the mindset that you should get as much power as you can afford. As far as the hyper threading issue is concerned, yes - audio apps like Logic & Pro Tools for sure take advantage of HT technology (so it's not just for video/photo editing). If you can afford the 3770 or 3770K with the GA-Z77Z-UP5 TH, that would give you an amazingly powerful tool!
:headbang:
 
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