New Mac Pro Machine
 

So,
I just bought FCS2 and a new Mac Pro with 3ghz 8-core, 10gb RAM, 1TB / 500gb HDD, and the nVidia 8800GT graphics card. My question is, should I buy the new ATI 3870 that just came out and how hard is it install a graphics card in the Mac Pro?
-Steve

(Sorry for the bit of bragging, I can't help it after dropping 5 grand.. sue me.)

I won't mind your bragging if you don't mind my bursting your bubble…
Nah, I wouldn't do that. I understand the excitement of a new toy (I just got one too, and my NEC MultiSync LCD2690WUXi arrived today!) ;-D

I don't know if you need to upgrade your graphics card. I have the same 8800 and I have found no issues with its performance or anything. Now, I must qualify that by saying I have not been putting it through the test with Motion or Maya or anything like that. but for editing and colour correcting it is wonderful. Some people may point you to a website with questionable testing methods that also make hyperbolic statements about their findings being "incontrovertible" but whatever…

What are you using this magnificent machine for, exactly?

You are more than fine with the 8800. You will need to spend a lot of money on many other things before you are able to stress out your video card. For example a kona card to get uncompressed hd into your system. I have the same card and the 3.2 ghz processors with a kona 3 at my work and it is more than adequate to ingest HDCAM footage and to transcode it pro res on the fly. Also I have done a lot with it in Color with HDCAM footage with no problems at all. Still no Motion or Maya since I am not a graphic artist in the least but I would imagine accompanied with the processors and a bunch of ram it would make mince meat of anything within a standard budget. Remember Video cards are usually the fastest thing in your computer, its the processors, hard drives, and maybe even the ram that slows everything down.

On a side note it's cool to see another member in Goleta. Hope the fires didn't cause you too much trouble.

Well, the beast is actually still in the mail, but will arrive soon. I am a film major at UCSB and I am currently shooting a documentary about long distance ocean swimming. I am shooting in HDV and I wanted to finally own my own monster editing machine that would last me a long time (it does hurt knowing that in 2009, there will be the 16 core Intel Nehalem, but...Que Sera Sera). I will also start the long and tedious process of learning Color/Motion/After Effects and having the ability to work at my own pace with a Mac Pro and use it for my school projects is going to be exceptional! Congrats Mike on you NEC LCD!
-Steve

Hi James,
How are ya! Boy, that Gap Fire is a dooooozy! Are you losing power about once a day too? So, are you a filmmaker? Where do you work?
-Steve

Oh, check out this video of the Gap Fire: (if ye wants)
www.vimeo.com/1299506

Ya I have been loosing power all the time and my UPS is pissed off about it. I sold all my production gear (had a z1 with a bunch of fixin's) and now I am focusing on color correction. I currently work as an assistant editor over at Home Planet Post on State st. We mainly do onlining, hence the color correction, but we also rent out our edit bays to companies that go from start to finish with them. We also sell stock footage from all over the world.

www.homeplanetproductions.com that is our site and you can see some of my boss's work. He is a cinematographer and shoots EVERYTHING but as you can tell by our stock footage list it's mainly Indochina since that is the most interest place right now.