Reply-To: <stephen@sv2studios.com>
From: "Stephen van Vuuren" <stephen@sv2studios.com>
To: "'After Effects Mail List'" <AE-List@media-motion.tv>
Subject: OT: PC Buying for Mac Users
Date: Mon, 11 Jun 2012 18:08:09 -0400
Organization: SV2 Studios
Message-ID: <00eb01cd481e$affd6350$0ff829f0$@sv2studios.com>
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To echo Greg's offer - I would be happy to help any Mac folks wanting to
make the change. I have a lot of years of working with Mac since I started
out on computers on an Apple II and also have a Hackintosh currently.
Although you can write a novel about this stuff, here's my two cents of core
points of the 4 basic options.

1. Most Mac users will be happiest with a HP/Dell/Boxx workstation system.
Be sure to get the US-based support. Especially with Dell but also HP etc.,
they have outlet stores that offer substantial savings, often on just order
cancellations or unopened returns and offers the same warranty options.
Also, even more than Mac, buy the barest bone system possible and add your
RAM, additional drives etc. This will not affect warranty or support.

Don't automatically go for a Xeon-based system. Currently, most AE users
will get far more bang for your buck with a Sandy Bridge EP system unless
you do a lot of heavy 3D renders and need more than 12 render threads. I
think right now a 6-core/12-thread Sandy-Bridge with 48 GB of RAM or more is
fantastic AE system.

2. There are also a number of boutique PC builder shops that build
custom/high-end workstations for specific niches. Great deals and amazing
performance to be had but support and longevity varies, so research
carefully and stick with vendors that have been in business for a while with
great reviews.

3. Build your own box is the best way to get the "perfect system" but you
need to be sure PC building is an "enjoyable hobby". For many of us it is
and if you follow good recommendations, these systems are just as stable,
powerful and reliable as Apple or Dell or HP - but if something does go
wrong and sh***t happens, it's far more difficult to deal with than Dell or
HP 4 hour, same day response.

4. Hackintosh is a dangerous seducer because it means OS/X. It has all the
same pro/cons as #3 plus it takes careful OS tweaking and management to keep
things right. OS updates can be scary as you can break a build and never get
it back stable again. Not recommended for you primary #1 machine for most
people - but if you do, stick to one of the tested builds out there and be
sure to have multiple image-based backups to easily get your system back to
usable condition.

My two cents is a Hackintosh running OS/X is more work to configure and
maintain then moving a complicated setup from OS/X to Windows on
off-the-shelf hardware.

stephen van vuuren
336.202.4777

http://www.sv2dcp.com/
http://www.sv2studios.com/
http://www.outsideinthemovie.com/

A film is - or should be - more like music than like fiction. It should be a
progression of moods and feelings. The theme, what's behind the emotion, the
meaning, all that comes later.
-Stanley Kubrick


-----Original Message-----
From: After Effects Mail List [mailto:AE-List@media-motion.tv] On Behalf Of
Chris Meyer
Sent: Monday, June 11, 2012 5:36 PM
To: After Effects Mail List
Subject: Re: [AE] [OT] The Mac Pro is dead

On Jun 11, 2012, at 3:21 PM, Steve Oakley wrote:

> 3rd parties are flashing nVidia cards with mac firmware and they work
except during boot up.

Following the conversations up here, I was getting the (probably mistaken)
impression that after pre-installing the drivers that the Windows cards
worked out of box, except you didn't get to see the boot screen; the eBay
custom-flashed cards added the boot display hack.

> the effort for them to support 480 / 580 /680 is pretty minimal. they
couldn't even go for a fews days of an engineer's time to tweak the firmware
for boot up ?

Given that third parties are flashing the cards, rather than offering an OS
patch, I got the (again, perhaps mistaken) impression that "officially
supporting" those cards required the third parties to update firmware to
offer Mac versions, rather than rely completely on Apple.

But I'm speculating based on what I'm skimming over on this list. Can those
who are running "Windows" cards on their Macs give us some explicit details
of exactly what they had to do, and what they have to do without (like temp
sensing in the power management - something else that comes up with the eBay
flashed cards)?

Regardless, dismayed that Apple didn't at least add the Quadro 4000 to their
Built To Order options.

 - Chris


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