Considering moving from Mac to PC - Spec for Motion Graphics system

bobbysan

bobbysan

bobbysan

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Hi everyone

I've been using Macs for over 20 years (due to education and career) and have never ventured into the world of PCs.

However the time has come to upgrade my 2008 Mac Pro (2x 2.8 Quad Core Xeon) and with the lack of new models from Apple I'm contemplating moving to a PC. I work in Motion Graphics so the packages I use are After Effects (with Trapcode Particle effects) and Premiere.

So firstly - how easily do you think it'd be to get up and running with a PC? What I mean are things like software updates, compatibility etc? For instance on a Mac I get notifications to tell me that software updates are available for my hardware as well as software. Does the same happen on PCs or are there more glitches as there's a greater scope of mixing and matching?
I'll use this machine for work so a stable system is the upmost priority.

Secondly - Would it be possible for someone to give me some pointers in terms of speccing up a system. My only requirements would be that it be an upgrade from my existing system with 24GB RAM minimum (as After Effects uses every single drop of RAM) as well as CUDA based graphics cards like a Quadro.

Many thanks in advance
 
a 670 has cuda cores and is ok for price vs performance too. You'll find you get a lot more for a lot less money with pc compared to mac. You'll probably end up with at least 32gb of ram for a much lower price. Probably go for an x79 based system for what you want to use it for. Yes windows 7 updates hardware and most software has options to auto check for updates on bootup etc.
 
I'm not sure if this is possible, but could you try running Windows 7 or whatever OS you are thinking of using as a Virtual Machine on your Mac?

Using the OS first hand will give you an insight as to whether you would be able to make the switch easily.

Edit: You could just use VirtualBox to make a VM of a Windows/Linux OS and see how you find it. Obviously there are many differences between them.

You wouldn't be able to perform very demanding tasks on VirtualBox, but you will still be able to fiddle about with the OS in mind and perform updates,
install software etc.
 
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Hi and welcome.

Are you looking for a OCUk pre-built system/bundle?

Or would you prefer individual parts and building it yourself?
 
bemaniac - Thanks! Very helpful

kalvindeane - Great idea, you can create dual boot systems on a Mac, so I could give Windows a run out.

stulid - I'm not sure just yet which is why I'm on the forum, I'm unaware of how powerful some of the OCUK pre-built machines would be for After Effects or whether they'd only be any good at games, therefore would have to spec up my own system.
I've never been afraid of swapping drives, RAM, Cards etc on my Mac but building a PC from scratch may be a bridge too far as I'd need it for work.
 
You'd probably be best off using the System Configurator if you didn't want to build it yourself, or call up Overclockers and ask!

Or we could configure one for you and you could build it yourself!
 
Just did this in the Configurator so it is very flexible, I think with your needs you may want to call up OCUK and ask their advice about it though.

1OdrF.png


To explain that, it is basically

- Upgraded CPU
- Upgraded motherboard
- 32GB RAM
- 240GB SSD
- No sound card (onboard sound)
- No extra storage
- They build it for you and overclock it for you at a price, the higher the overclock and the more components need overclocking the more it is, but the faster it is!
- Fully cable managed
- Warranty
- They test and make sure it runs smoothly
 
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my pc isnt a million miles away from roosters spec ( almost identical bar the ram) and i use premier, have after affects but dont use it yet, i do cgi primarily, cant offer you any kind of comparitive performance but i use cs5.1 so if i can test something let me know i really need to get a better understanding of premier/after affects.
 
Rooster212 said:
Just did this in the Configurator so it is very flexible, I think with your needs you may want to call up OCUK and ask their advice about it though.

1OdrF.png


To explain that, it is basically

- Upgraded CPU
- Upgraded motherboard
- 32GB RAM
- 240GB SSD
- No sound card (onboard sound)
- No extra storage
- They build it for you and overclock it for you at a price, the higher the overclock and the more components need overclocking the more it is, but the faster it is!
- Fully cable managed
- Warranty
- They test and make sure it runs smoothly
Click to expand...


Thanks Rooster, hope you didn't go through too much trouble to do this. At the moment I'm still trying to fathom if I can move over to PC, the problem I have is that I'm a sole trader so I have no one to rely on nearby when it comes to tech. Should anything go wrong or I need to install a card or software for a particular job.

Great value on the machine BTW!
 
Zuban said:
my pc isnt a million miles away from roosters spec ( almost identical bar the ram) and i use premier, have after affects but dont use it yet, i do cgi primarily, cant offer you any kind of comparitive performance but i use cs5.1 so if i can test something let me know i really need to get a better understanding of premier/after affects.
Click to expand...

Hi Zuban
What you could try if you have the time or inclination is download the Self contained AE file from the near the bottom of the page of this article...

http://magazine.creativecow.net/article/promax-one-looking-at-the-hero

And let me know how long your machine takes to render the sequence - The Pro Max workstation in the article did it in around 20mins. My current Mac Pro took 44mins.

The big difference as you say will be RAM as AE uses every drop but it'd be good to know the difference between our current set up.
 
no probs at all, i fired up after effects and set it to render multiple frame simultaneously (noticed it wasnt at 100% cpu the first time i tried it) and adjusted it to use as much memory as it could, in this case 13 of my 16gb. Everything else is default.

everything stock, cpu @3.5ghz which is where it turbo's to under load, it took 28 minutes and 26 seconds.

i then overclocked the cpu, leaving everything else including memory at the default settings in the bios. I set the cpu to 4.6ghz which is a pretty average overclock for these chips, they do go higher but without water cooling its a sensible limit. The render took 21 minutes 41 seconds.

If you want me to rerun it with different settings let me know, i like to see my machine work :D Comparing it to the 20 minutes of the promax one with its 16 cores, i think my pc probably is doing the pc equivelant of smugface at the moment :D my entire build cost less than one of those xeon cpu's.
 
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Zuban said:
no probs at all, i fired up after effects and set it to render multiple frame simultaneously (noticed it wasnt at 100% cpu the first time i tried it) and adjusted it to use as much memory as it could, in this case 13 of my 16gb. Everything else is default.

everything stock, cpu @3.5ghz which is where it turbo's to under load, it took 28 minutes and 26 seconds.

i then overclocked the cpu, leaving everything else including memory at the default settings in the bios. I set the cpu to 4.6ghz which is a pretty average overclock for these chips, they do go higher but without water cooling its a sensible limit. The render took 21 minutes 41 seconds.

If you want me to rerun it with different settings let me know, i like to see my machine work :D Comparing it to the 20 minutes of the promax one with its 16 cores, i think my pc probably is doing the pc equivelant of smugface at the moment :D my entire build cost less than one of those xeon cpu's.
Click to expand...

Wow 28 mins is very impressive, have you tried turning off Mulit Frame render - apparently it's quicker with it off.
 
i started it but the estimated time went up higher than it did with it on, i never let if finish though as it was only using about 60% cpu rather than 100% with it on. I can let it run through though if you want, i just had to go fix the mower last night lol.
 
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Zuban said:
i started it but the estimated time went up higher than it did with it on, i never let if finish though as it was only using about 60% cpu rather than 100% with it on. I can let it run through though if you want, i just had to go fix the mower last night lol.
Click to expand...

No it's ok, please don't trouble yourself.

One of the quirks of CS6 I've encountered is that previously on CS5 I had Multi Frames 'ON', when I re-rendered the same project to test render speeds in CS6 it took about 400% longer with it 'ON" switching it 'OFF' then produced faster results than CS5 - Bizarre!
 
Pitchfork - I'd be looking at spending something around the region of £2500.
From experimenting with a Windows platform, I don't think I have the mettle to make the jump as this is my livelihood, as mentioned I work late nights and inevitably things usually go wrong after hours.

Shoosh - I have been tempted by the Hackintosh route - however it looks daunting.
I'm confused by the whole Unibeast thing.
Also when OSX tells you there are system updates for OS and hardware if you click to update does the machine break, or do you just not update?

If you don't mind I'd be interested in chatting to you more about it all.
 
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