No PCI slots on new G5 PowerMacs - no Pro Tools HD?

[GilWave]

Apparently, Apple's recently-introduced dual-core G5 systems are PCI-Express only - does this mean Digidesign HD cards won't run on it?

"Expansion Three open PCI Express expansion slots: two four-lane slots and one eight-lane slot"

http://www.apple.com/powermac/specs.html

[max cooper]

I bought a second gen. G5 about a year ago, and it doesn't have any PCI slots; just PCI-X.

UAD cards fit, however, and they're PCI.

I don't think the PCI-X thing is changing; I think it's been that way.

As for Digi, I would imagine that they'll always find a way to get that card in an Apple computer.

[GilWave]

That's PCI-X. This is PCI Express. There is a difference in connector layout and bus management.

[studiomusic]

PCI Express IS very different than PCI-X...
looky here: http://zone.ni.com/devzone/conceptd....257014006BC124

[I Lurk]

PCI express is serial, PCI-X is not. Nothing in common.

If it's true, Apple has just drop the Pro Audio community.

Just can't believe my eyes right now.

regards

[AdamJay]

on a side note, i hope this kicks UA in the ass for making the UAD-2 an Ethernet option.
especially considering the new G5's have dual gigabit ethernet.

and Apple didn't drop the Audio Community.
The Audio community needs to catch the **** up!
make more native solutions, who needs DSP when you have 4 Cores?

[djui5]

wow...that would blow.

[I Lurk]

Originally Posted by AdamJay

.

and Apple didn't drop the Audio Community.
The Audio community needs to catch the **** up!
make more native solutions, who needs DSP when you have 4 Cores?

Excuse me, but my prime concern here is to get in/out interface.


Otherwise I'll end with a Quad core processing nothing.

**** you Steve Jobs


dfegad

[max cooper]

Originally Posted by max cooper

I bought a second gen. G5 about a year ago, and it doesn't have any PCI slots; just PCI-X.

UAD cards fit, however, and they're PCI.

I don't think the PCI-X thing is changing; I think it's been that way.

As for Digi, I would imagine that they'll always find a way to get that card in an Apple computer.

well, all I can say is Duh!

[mac black]

tutt I never thought i would say that, but I would move to PC if I can't use the PT cards, however I believe apple will simply MAKE you buy a chassis of some sort if you needed to use "old" style PCI-X .... unless they are going to war with digidesign. .

I think apple are getting greedy personally but hey, we live in a capitalist world and I can only see Apple winning in the long run.
Shame the little people would pay the price .

[BevvyB]

Here's the inside with the slot

http://www.powermax.com/articles_rev...er_mac_g5.html

[nek]

Originally Posted by AdamJay

Apple didn't drop the Audio Community.
The Audio community needs to catch the **** up!

I agree. The way things are going Digi need to release some new cards soon or get lost in the dust of native power wise.

There will always be those who love PT and would be willing to switch to PC to keep to keep it, but as a native guy I am just sh!tting myself with F@CKING happiness at the thought of getting my hands on one of those Power Macs.


<--ME

[MrChang]

How lovely, and so Apple. Now, none of my existing PCI hardware will work with any of these machines. Guess I won't be buying new. Nice touch, Steve. I suppose his henchlings' blood supply was diverted to other bodily regions from watching Madonna's 20 year old videos "on the go."

... off to look for older,"obsolete" G5s.

[TonyBelmont]

If you scroll to the bottom of this page...

http://www.apple.com/powermac/upgrade.html

You can buy the dual 2.7 with PCI-X still! They are going to continue making these specifically for people making music and need PCI-X.

http://www.apple.com/powermac/pcix.html

[hmurchison]

My god ..

how long is it going to take for these lazy audio companies to update their programs? PCI Express has been shipping for a freakin' year on the PC. Move the fuk on!

PCI Express supports 4 freakin' Gigabytes per second throughbut bidirectionally!! It's so much faster...PT7 isn't the shite until they get PCI Express hardware.

[TonyBelmont]

Also did anyone notice how they didn't show any performance charts with the new dual-core G5's and Logic??? I thought for sure they would be touting the increase in performance.... they usually do when they come out with an upgrade.

http://www.apple.com/powermac/upgrade.html

[hmurchison]

The speed increase from a Quad based system is different. The analogy is this.


Before -

We had a 2 lane highway running at a maximum of 70mph.

Today -

We have a 4 lane highway running at a maximum of 65mph.


For an individual car...you won't see a speed increase but load up the highway
during rush hour and more lanes means more traffic passes through.

This means that when your 'puter crapped out before....a quad system will keep on chugging despite the fact that it won't outdo a singly proc 2.7 in an individual app.

[BrianT]

I see two possibilities:

1. Digi releases a PCI-e series fairly soon. I think you can pretty much bank on this one, since then EVERYBODY gets to sell you new stuff. And that's the whole point, eh?

2. You could buy a PCI-e to PCI expansion chassis and use your current PT cards. A PCI-e to PCI chassis really should perform better than any current PCI to PCI chassis possibly could, since PCI-e has much greater bandwitdth (at least at 8x or 16x). Check out SBS for their offerings.

If you want an idea of scaling between 2 single cores (dual) and 2 dual cores (quad), you could browse around and look for that comparison on AMD Opterons. There should be plenty of info. FWIW, the current comparisons between a G5 with a pair of single cores, vs a G5 with 1 dual core look very similar to the same test with Opterons. Ignore the new dualcore Xeons in comparisons, as they have some problems.

Since the PPC and Opteron use the same FSB architecture, hardware results should scale similarly. However, what you will soon find, as us dualcore Opteron users have, is that you need to make sure that your apps are compatible with, and can take full advantage of, quad CPUs. Otherwise, it's minimal improvement. But if your app(s) is multithread optimized, quad CPUs open up a whole new world for Native. Somebody needs to get a look at Logic on a quad CPU, ASAP. The absent benchmarks may be due to a current lack of optimizations......or not.

[AdamJay]

http://www.eepn.com/Locator/Products...735/30735.html

7 Slot PCI-Express to PCI/PCI-X Expansion Chassis.
4U Rackmount

$1895 USD

[robmix]

Unless you need to be on the bleeding edge this worry is at least 6 months to a year away. For me, I can't see worrying about this for at least two years. Heck, I just upgraded to a G5 and they've been out for how long ? Never stopped me from making and selling a pile of records.

[djejnyc]

Jeez I hope everybody doesn't run out and buy a new computer just because it's new! I'm just now buying a HD system because I've finally outgrown my native capabilities, and keeping my same system, BTW. It's definitly something to keep on eye on, but I'm sure it's really two years away from being fully optimized and probably four years before digi writes code for a dual core.

[robmix]

Exactly . . . . .

[BrianT]

I understand what you guys are saying about bleeding edge, but.............

There has never been a literally overnight doubling in CPU power before. It does make a difference, especially in Native systems. Native latency is about to equal hardware DSP, but with much greater flexibility.

If you have not seen Nuendo running on quad Opterons (and I suspect that will be similar to a quad G5), I think you might be surprised at what quad CPUs do for a Native DAW.

[Kestral]

Originally Posted by BrianT

I understand what you guys are saying about bleeding edge, but.............

There has never been a literally overnight doubling in CPU power before. It does make a difference, especially in Native systems. Native latency is about to equal hardware DSP, but with much greater flexibility.

If you have not seen Nuendo running on quad Opterons (and I suspect that will be similar to a quad G5), I think you might be surprised at what quad CPUs do for a Native DAW.

Nevermind quad Opterons. I've seen Logic Pro 7 running on a dual 2.7 ghz G5 via Native (not HD/TDM) and it had that tight solid feeling that an HD system has

[Orren]

Personally, I wouldn't buy any new Apple hardware until the MacIntels are out.

Then again, I have a 1st gen G5, and don't need more horsepower right now.

Orren

[LAU]

Originally Posted by Kestral

Nevermind quad Opterons. I've seen Logic Pro 7 running on a dual 2.7 ghz G5 via Native (not HD/TDM) and it had that tight solid feeling that an HD system has

the only difference is that a HD system can run about 96 (hd1) or 192 (hd2) tracks....plus no latency and tdm plugin support, plus ADC plus beat detective across all tracks....and the list goes on....

i agree that native is shining more than ever, but i doubt a native system will still have that solid feeling if you kick its ass with a workload of say a 100 tracks with full eq&dynamics, bus processing and beat detective across all channels...

on the other hand, who needs all that ? (especially when you know how to make a good song, wich hardly needs any editting because the recordings were HQ in the first place......

so there you have it, if you do a film score with full orchestra and dialog and fx etcetc (the last starwars was done entirely on a dual HD system) you need some dedicated power...

but i think one can do a nice 32 track pop/rock/dance/hiphop mix on a quad G5, with urs and some of that stuff....to sell as an mp3 on itunes and make a million bucks......will it sound good ? we will let john B decide !

[max cooper]

Originally Posted by Orren

Personally, I wouldn't buy any new Apple hardware until the MacIntels are out.

Then again, I have a 1st gen G5, and don't need more horsepower right now.

Orren

I mentioned this somewhere else, but isn't this huge, shining beast going to have to run the next OS with a wrapper anyway?

I'd say these are for people who need a great big CPU now, cost be damned!

[BrianT]

Originally Posted by LAU

the only difference is that a HD system can run about 96 (hd1) or 192 (hd2) tracks....plus no latency and tdm plugin support, plus ADC plus beat detective across all tracks....and the list goes on....

i agree that native is shining more than ever, but i doubt a native system will still have that solid feeling if you kick its ass with a workload of say a 100 tracks with full eq&dynamics, bus processing and beat detective across all channels...

That's exactly what I mean, about presuming based on previous Native hardware. 200 tracks runs the same as 2 tracks, in terms of speed. Locate/play with over 100 tracks of audio, plus video straight from the DAW out a Decklink card is virtually instantaneous to/from anywhere in a 1.5 hour program. The GUI still behaves as fluidly as if you were working on a single stereo file. We run 112 tracks of I/O to a single DAW to/from a Euphonix Sys5 via a pair of RME MADI cards and can record all 112 inputs simultaneously until the HDs are full, no problem. I've done it for 11 hours, chasing LTC in testing, rock solid. ADC (before PT had it) including external hardware and external MIDI synths. The workloads described in your examples above are absolutely solid and very fast on quad Opterons.

The only reason I'm posting all this is that until you see a properly setup Native rig on quad Opterons, you really shouldn't assume on the PT comparison, and I'm predicting quad Macs will be reasonably close in performance. There is now some very serious head to head competition between Native and hardware DSP. The CPU headroom brings the stability and speed at, and in some areas beyond, what PTHD can offer.

If you're locked into Beat Detective, PT is it. And PT still has the edge in latency, though it's shrunk to a pretty nominal amount and will disappear completely within 6 months. Other than that, the rest is mostly taste and budget.

[BevvyB]

When you can set up an Altiverb on an aux in a native DAW and use it as an external effect with no latency like you can on Pro Tools then we will be getting somewhere.

Once the latency issues are gone, it will be every man for his best a to d, instead of messing about with the stupid Pro Tools expensive io (lack of) options.

Wonder what the scenery will be like in 5 years. It's just getting interesting.

[monobeat]

hey anybody here still remember NUBUS?

as far as i'm concerned the old pci bus needed a kick in the arse. in another few months the next gen of compatible audio cards will come out and then things'll really be getting interesting.

progress has to start somewhere!

cheers, monobeat