Community member Grant Hall has been in touch to share some test results he has undertaken comparing Pro Tools 11 on an older 2010 Mac Pro with a new 2013 Mac Pro with a Magma chassis. Over to Grant…

Pro Tools 11 2010 12 Core vs. 2013 12 Core

Firstly I wanted to test a “real world session”  I brought up a small 96K mix session. I found some very interesting differences first of all was the voice count this was the exact same session in PT 11

On the 2010 Mac Pro it showed 117 Voices it would NOT playback with the H/W buffer size set to 512 it needed to bumped up to 2048 to get it to play.

On the 2013 Mac Pro the session load time was much faster and it only showed 77 Voices. I have no explanation as it was the EXACT same session with the EXACT same i/o set up and the session played perfectly with the H/W buffer size set to 512 on 2013 Mac Pro.

In conclusion is it worth it? Absolutely I can’t believe how much faster session load times are and the efficiency of the Native DSP- Ultimately depends on your situation - I already had a Magma Chassis for my Venue rig. I needed to buy a second HDX 2 rig But I don’t have a lot of space and want a small system with lots of jam for mixing big 96K sessions. Plus as Apple developer I get a very nice discount.  The Zodiac was in alignment for me for new Mac Pro. 

On the new Mac Pro you MUST use a USB hub for your ilok(s) This corrects all ilok issues.

What About Pro Tools 10?

Many of my colleges are still on PT 10 so I wanted to see what works and what does not. HD 10 with HDX 2 using HDX driver version labeled 11.0.3 works with a Magma 3 slot Thunderbolt (v.1) chassis.

Although the driver was labeled 11.0.3 but the installer showed it was 11.0.1 I don’t know what that is about but I though I would mention that detail.

I installed 10.3.8 and it launched so fast. One other thing I did notice PT HD 10 ran out of memory on the first launch (or any first launch after installing a plug-in among several other things as well) but the second launch always seems to be fine. I am not sure what that is about either.

Also one last minor issue I get a iLok sharing warning on Mac Pro boot up but everything seems to be OK with any of my ilok plugs and Pro tools. 

How many Dverbs does it take to kill a Pro Tools system?

From my former days as a Pro Tools beta tester I though of doing a D-Verb test as I have multiple systems over the years as comparison. The Deverb test is relative test so no people I don’t need a session with 1000 Deverbs it’s only a RELATIVE test to show improvements over the years and from one systems to another. This was a standard test we did sometimes for Digi when I was to beta testing on Pro Tools so it helped Avid as well so coders could see how efficient PT plugin DSP benchmarked.

Here are the Dverb benchmarks (note all these benchmarks are @ 44.1Khz Sample Rate 

• Pro Tools HD 10 HDX 2-512 Voices Mac Pro 2013 2.7 Xeon E5 12 Core 1009 DVERBS

  • Buffer at 512 and 90% CPU (24 Processors)

  • Pro Tools HD 11 HDX 2-512 Voices Mac Pro 2013 2.7 Xeon E5 12 Core 1232 DVERBS

    • Buffer at 512 and 90% CPU (24 Processors)

Here are some older benchmarks to compare….

• Pro Tools 8.1 HD3 TDM 16 Core 2.26GHZ Nehlam 2009 Mac Pro 480 DVERBS

  • Buffer at 512 and 90% CPU (16 Processors) 192 voices 6 DSP HD3 TDM

  • Pro Tools 8.1 HD3 TDM 8 Core Dual 2.8GHZ 2008 Mac Pro 300 DVERBS

    • Buffer at 512 and 90% CPU (16 Processors) 192 voices 6 DSP HD3 TDM

    • Pro Tools 9.0 HD iMac NATIVE 2.8 i7 quad 210 DVERBS

      • Buffer at 512 and 90% CPU (8 Processors)

      • Pro Tools HD 10 NATIVE RMBP 2.7 i7 327 DVERBS

        • Buffer at 512 and 90% CPU (8 Processors)

        • Pro Tools HD 10 Native 256 Voices Mac Pro 2010 2.66 Xeon 12 Core 720 DVERBS

          • Buffer at 512 and 90% CPU (24 Processors)

          • Pro Tools HD 10 HDX 2-512 Voices Mac Pro 2010 2.66 Xeon 12 Core 1008 DVERBS

            • Buffer at 512 and 90% CPU (24 Processors)

            • Pro Tools HD 11 HDX 2-512 Voices Mac Pro 2010 2.66 Xeon 12 Core 1170 DVERBS

              • Buffer at 512 and 90% CPU (24 Processors)

Thank you very much Grant for sharing these test results with us. 

Update

on 2014-04-14 11:34 by Mike Thornton

Grant got in touch to give us this update…

Thanks mentioning my article on the podcast. The one import thing that you guys missed was the buffer size on my old Mac Pro the buffer was 2048 the new mac pro the buffer was set at 512 . My session was maxed out on my old 2010 Mac Pro Buffer was absolutely max’d

Once I opened the same session on the new machine I could load a tons more plugins  vs my old 12 core . The session played smooth @ 512 on the 2013 Mac Pro. I do have to say that there is loads more plug-in Native DSP compared to my old 2010 - 12 core 2.66.