Render top speed on Hackintosh

Not quite sure if this is the right subforum, hope so ☺

I am a huge fan of Apple, have been using FCP since 0.8 beta, and have spend 150k euro on hardware and software over the years, so this is no attempt to undermine Apple, I love them guys, the whole concept, and especially FCPX, that software is a gamechanger, whauu

The GPU render thing is brilliant, used Motion for years because of that, so in FCPX its more than welcome, 10.0.6 made it come through in the timeline as well, that rocks

I got a 2009 MacPro, with a big bucket of ram (the first versions of FCPX eat a lot) and a ATI 5870 GPU, which is the “biggest” card you can get on a MacPro, Imac 27” comes with a 2GB, but that machine got other limitations for us who still got “Non Thunderbolt” gear in play

I have read about this guy in here, who installed a GTX 570 in his Macpro, but think it was to much gambling and hassle.

My friend builds Hackintosh, and I asked him to build a machine for my, with the biggest GPU we find, i7 CPU, SSD drive and full monty.

He did that, and I have now had it for 3 weeks, used little by little, in small steps (out of anxiety) but now used it as my main machine for 10 days, it runs perfectly, and the render performance is great, that for half price.

I don’t know the exact names and brands for all the parts, but the motherboard is called GIGABYTE , the CPU i7 3770K running 4GHZ, but the GPU is a evil thing called Geforce GTX680 with 4 GB memory

Its in a ugly cabinet, but with water-cooling and don’t make to much noise, and I bought a Pegasus R6 TB Raid to the machine.

Now to the point, THE SPEED, and that’s well worth the money and time.

I can feel the machine is faster, in everything I do, in all matters; it works like a Mac, just quicker .
I did some small comparison tests, and it speaks for it self:

30 sec of H264 1080p, with 3 filters, color adjustments and zoom, render out in 1080p Prores 422HQ
Mac did it in 23,2 sec, and the Hack did it in 14,2 sec

Same footage, more filters, Mac 29,7 sec and Hack 13,5 sec

Then I did a picture in picture with 9 H264 sources, (9 different files) all with 3 filters, 30 sec 1080p prores 422HQ
Mac took 1min 44 sec and Hack did it in 1 min 7 sec

I just wanted to share this, huge performance boost for small money, it makes me smile and worry at the same time, come on Apple, fire it up and let us have an high-end hardware update

this is the specs, the Hack runs like a iMac





and my old Mac Pro

And when you're in the middle of a close deadline for a major client and something on that hack breaks down, who fixes it for free in 24 hours under warranty? How do you get it repaired when needed?

in the part of the world where I live there is no repair for free within 24 hours :ohmy:
takes 10 days :blush:
but of course I have taken that in to consideration, all my files are on the R6, I can connect that to a Mac if its a problem
the internal SSD drive on my mac is exact the same type on the Hack, the media files, event and projects files is the Achilles tendon in my workflow, they are backed up, everything else is just machines and cables, the Hack as well

Your GPU is overkill. Mountain Lion can only address 2GB atm

Only 2 GB VRAM? For real? Is that documented? Wow, that is interesting to know. Can we verify this?

I read it the other day in a technical blog. Can't remember where. IIRC, it was comparing Blender rendering on different systems (*NIX systems faster than Windows, CUDA or OpenCL doesn't matter). The 2GB limit was thrown in there somewhere.

So there's no documentation from Apple?

overkill, you call it whatever, the hack outruns my mac, and it would off course be nice with some documentation on your postulate

BenB wrote: So there's no documentation from Apple?

I have been searching, but didn't find any. Don't you have the one or the other buddy at Apple?

cgbier wrote: I have been searching, but didn't find any. Don't you have the one or the other buddy at Apple?

Maybe you could throw the link you referred to before

Mester. thanks for posting and don't take me wrong, but is it sensible to compare a 2009 machine with a new build? My 2009 with 32gb ram, and a decent card, is slaughtered by my retina MB pro with 16gb ram, 2.6, 512ssd. Do any test I like but the poor old girl just can't keep up.

But overall, I agree with you: Apple is great at innovation in so many areas, just a pity the pricing sometimes seems on the high side. Maybe that's the only way to support true innovation - which FCPX certainly is. Can you imagine Auntie Adobe coming out with such a seachange to Premier?

you off course got a point there, I will in next week have a Imac i7 for test, and I will do the same test on that machine, but on the CINEBENCH OSX test it outperform a 12 core 2012 Macpro
so in your option, what will the fastest setup for FCPX on Mac be?

as written I did not do this to save money, but to get max performance, Apple can't (as I see it) not deliver a powerful enough machine, but the components are out there, and can be assembled to a powerful workstation

Adobe PP it not an option in my world, looks like FCP7, nothing new, nothing special, only expensive and old school

Hi Mester, glad I didn't upset you. It's so easy to do these days on the net.

Re the fastest nachine: I've never tested a Hackintosh. To each his own but it sort of goes against the grain with me. I'm always after max performance but when things go wrong as the DO/ALWAYS WILL, I want to get on the phone and get answers. But, as you said , where you are that's not possible.

My answer would be, if money is no object, and bearing in mind there might be a new range of MacPros out next year (though that's not certain), get the highest spec MacPro, fit the highest spec card and max the RAM. From what I've heard, that would be slightly quicker than my retina MBPro with 16GB RAM and 512SSD - but only slightly and not for everything. Eg, it has no Tbolt (?) But I'm not really the expert on configuration. Others will know far better.

Also agree re Adobe's PP. Too slow, clunky, plain old school. No longer an option.

Mester,

Very interesting!

I hope others try going in this direction, and that we can see more speed tests from kind forum members like you.


@alex4d

Barefeats have their first round of tests up. Not FCPX specific but they're coming.
It'll give us some numbers to compare to though.
This includes BTO iMac 27" included. Only 6 core 2010 MacPro in the tests though.
barefeats.com/imac12b1.html

in the Cinebench test the hack preformes 8.57, havent done the others yet, more to come

mester wrote: in the Cinebench test the hack preformes 8.57, havent done the others yet, more to come

For those who've never used Cinebench, what does 8.75 mean?

im refering to the link from cseeman in this post

barefeats.com/imac12b1.html

How far are you with the test against a new iMac?
I think you should be getting the same results.
The new imac has also the i7-3770, you got the "k" version, which means you can over clock it easily (another advantage for the mackintosh).
The iMac has the gtx680mx, pretty the same as yours, I think yours is having more power...
There is a 2Gb limit in mac regarding openCL performance for the GPU although there is a hack for it, search netkas.org for it.
I think your friend will have done the hack for you.
I myself also have two hacks and they run great (one i7-920 overclocked on water-cooling and one laptop).

Barefeats has added
FCPX and Motion tests
barefeats.com/imac12p1.html

and
Premiere Pro, After Effects, DaVinci Resolve
barefeats.com/imac12p2.html

That gives a good basic picture how Late 2012 27" iMac BTO compares to other Macs.
You should be able to get a good idea how much a Hackintosh, depending on what you've added, actually has on performance.