It is probably time to upgrade my PC

[Atomic Marshmallow]

Hi all,

As you can see from the thread title it is time to upgrade my PC.

I have 3 Scope cards: 2 6 DSP + 1 4 DSP.

It's getting harder to find motherboards with 3 PCI slots, preferably more but they seem non-existant nowadays.

I've been doing a bit of browsing trying to find suggestions for a good motherboard. If I can keep using my current tower, that would save me a bit of money ( a Thermaltake ). Hopefully the newer motherboards will fit. I've been told they should. I'm no tech guru, so I don't know what is good. The following board I can get easily from a local shop:

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/mother ... 7-review/1

Then I came across thie following thread here on this forum:

http://forums.planetz.com/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=30186

where this MB is recommended:

http://www.gigabyte.com/products/produc ... id=3501#ov

In that same thread a deal to buy an X-Cite is recommended.

However, a new MB plus RAM, Hard drives etc.... will cost me about 600 euros, which is substantially cheaper than X-Cite despite the fact that I lust after one. Also cheaper than a brand new PC. Buying X-Cite will have to wait for a future date. I can still manage reasonably well with 16 DSP.

I won't be able to build it myself, because I don't have the experience nor am I willing to try. I get too stressed out by these things. I can pay someone a small fee to put it all together for me. My current MB is an ASUS P4P 800 Deluxe, with the luxury of 5 PCI slots, which allowed me to swap cards around to solve IRQ problems. I've been told this isn't an issue with the newer boards and Windows 7. Is this true? Is it worth buying a new Mb or just buy everything new. Cost wise, the building my self choice would cost significantly cheaper.

Any advice?

Thanks

AM

[garyb]

you shouldn't spend more than about $400-500 to upgrade. do NOT get the latest hardware. it won't be optimal with 3 pci cards. get something about a year old...

[Atomic Marshmallow]

you shouldn't spend more than about $400-500 to upgrade. do NOT get the latest hardware. it won't be optimal with 3 pci cards. get something about a year old...

Hello again,

If it is not too much hassle to ask, why is it a bad idea to get the latest? Plus what do you suggest with regard to an older board? Obviously my motive is for something that will give me the longest shelf life possible, so I figures a core i7 will do nicely.

Thanks.

[garyb]

then i suggest you sell your pci cards and get an XITE-D.

actually, you CAN get motherboards that will run your three cards and a core i7. not all core i7s are the same, there have been a number of revisions and sockets, all i7.

the newer processor/motherboards have the pci bus tacked on like an afterthought. they will work, i'm sure, but not as well as some older designs, and definitely not better than a core2 processor. it all depends on how you work. my main computer is still a p4 D835perl. it's never stopped working well for the purposes i use it for. if i had a core2 duo or quad, it'd probably be perfect. i use vstis, but mainly for drum and pianos and i record parts, or at least freeze them if i am running out of overhead. Jimmy uses a lot of romplers all loaded and ready to go for his live rig, so he needs more processor and memory. in fact he needed the XITE-1's extra dsp more than anyone, so he built a monster rig.

it's about building a machine to do a job and then using it. if it does the job well, why would you need to upgrade? stop the madness.

i'm sorry for that. what do you want it to do? what kind of use? how much do you rely on romplers, how much do you record as audio, what part is Scope synths? there are a LOT of solutions that work. there hard part is figuring out what you need, and which solution fits those needs and that includes budget.

i

[Atomic Marshmallow]

Hello,

I was considering selling the cards. But I doubt I'd get much for them and (maybe I'm wrong) I don't even think there is much of a market for them. Considering what I spent, I know I would lose out financially and I accept that. In fact, I'd be happy if I got 600 euro for all three cards, preferably more. That would certainly make it more interesting to buy an Xite seeing that to upgrade my computecr will cost a bit. Instead, the money would go on Xite.

Fair point about why upgrade anyway? I have thought about that too. Since solving the issues I used to have with faulty RAM, my PC is running reasonably well, with an occasional crash now and then for reasons not known to me, but I'm ignorant about techy things and don't have the time to educate myself on these matters. I'm pretty sure the machine I use now still has issues with it, because it still seems under-powered. For example with Cubase 5.5.1, one audio track running Guitar Rig uses up already one quarter of the CPU and that is just one track with no other instruments and as you probably know, once you hit the three quarter mark of CPU usage, things start to crackle anyway. Seems quite pathetic. Ableton is slightly better in that regard. My 1.8 Ghz centrino laptop outperforms my Thermaltake machine ( I find that weird) and my 2.1 Core Duo more so, but the A/D converters on my Pulsar cards are significantly better quality and I just like the Scope environment more.

I mainly use VSTs and freeze tracks too when it gets a bit much. I don't use many of the Scope synths, but maybe I should seeing I still have quite a lot of DSP with how I set things up in my Scope environment, but I love the sound of the Native instruments stuff (FM 8 , Absynth Massive Kontakt 4) and tend to go for them first. I have a Pod Pro for my guitar needs, but I prefer Guitar Rig for the flexibility and not having to commit myself to a sound while recording. But I find it annoying that I can only run one instance of GRig when I would like to have at least a few.

Finally, I figure that if I don't upgrade soon, 3 PCI slot mothedrboards will become as obsolete as the horse drawn carriage as a means of transport. So I'd better get one while I can.

I can work with what I have, but I feel so restricted.

I hope that explains my "madness" in wanting to upgrade.

Regards

AM

PS. Any motherboard recommendations?

[Strattosphere]

You should be aware that modern motherboards don't use the same PCI technology as older ones. PCI is now tacked on to the PCI-Express bus.

I tried my three Pulsar II cards in a new Gigabyte PA65-UD3 with i5-2400 CPU recently. This board has an H61 chipset and four PCI slots. I managed to open four instances of Masterverb and on the fifth instance I got a PCI bandwidth warning. On my Asus P5K with Wolfdale E8400 CPU I get to around twelve Masterverbs without a problem.

I'd go Xite if I could afford to.

Stratt

[Atomic Marshmallow]

You should be aware that modern motherboards don't use the same PCI technology as older ones. PCI is now tacked on to the PCI-Express bus.

I tried my three Pulsar II cards in a new Gigabyte PA65-UD3 with i5-2400 CPU recently. This board has an H61 chipset and four PCI slots. I managed to open four instances of Masterverb and on the fifth instance I got a PCI bandwidth warning. On my Asus P5K with Wolfdale E8400 CPU I get to around twelve Masterverbs without a problem.

I'd go Xite if I could afford to.

Stratt

Thank you. I am aware of it. Though I wouldn't mind any suggestions for a specific suitable motherboard, even if it is a bit older than the current ones and can still be bought easily enough. I would like something reliable and known to work trouble free. I've had enough of trying to solve problems. The amount of grief I have had with my current setup was annoying to say the least. For quite a while I gave up and just used my laptop and after another attempt at getting things working, the problem turned out to be crappy RAM. Unfortunately, my technical knowledge is not that great.

I tend to worm out of techy things by saying I am a musician, not a technician. But I realise these days you kind of have to be both.

[astroman]

I've made (almost) exactly the same experience as Strattosphere when checking new gear.
Also have that 8400 CoreDuo, but in a Gigabyte EP41, also > 12 Masterverbs.
Afair I payed 60 Euro for the board 1(?) year ago and recently added the CPU for 100 Euro.
That stuff is really cheapo and there are tons of it in form of 2nd hand non-worn office equipment.

cheers, Tom

[garyb]

yep, and all of that stuff is a major upgrade from what you have and win7 64bit ready...

[Atomic Marshmallow]

Hello

Once again thank you all for the help and advice.

Just to be sure, the motherboard type/spec you suggest is more along the lines of:

Asus P5K with Wolfdale E8400 or 8400 CoreDuo, but in a Gigabyte EP41

You say they are are far better choice, even if on paper they have lower specs than the most current MBs? In other words, a Core Duo is a better choice than an i7 and it will still run 64 bit should I choose to in the future?

One more thing. How much more significant an improvement will it be compared to what I have ( Pentium4 Asus P4P800 deluxe)? Just a rough approximation. For example, 10, 20 30..... 100% or more. Hopefully at least 100%, though of course the higher the better. Because if I only get marginal improvement, say 10 or 20 %, then it might not be worth the hassle.

Excuse me for asking so many questions.

Thanks

AM

[garyb]

yep, and all of that stuff is a major upgrade from what you have and win7 64bit ready...

major upgrade.

whether or not an i7 would be a better choice depends on what apps you use.

[astroman]

my EP41 was just an example for a super cheapo setup, it's probably hard to find in shops today.
I run it with XP32 and I could make (later) a benchmark compared to an i5 in the Asus P67 in Win7/64.
(but I can already tell you that I recently thought one of my programs had a bug, because it processed a tagged textfile of 30MB into 120k database records in less than 8 seconds or so...)
A more recent board is introduced in this thread about the Gigabyte P55
This will me a more 'regular' purchase or 'investment' - while an EP41 or similiar PC goes for bargain in private sells or ebay.
On those boxes you may want to swap the video card for a passive one which is (today) 25 Euro new... LOL

cheers, Tom

[Atomic Marshmallow]

Hello

Thanks Astroman. Looks like the Gigabyte GA-P55-UD3L is a very strong contender. Judging by Erminardi's experience, the prospects look good. It even has 4 PCI slots, which means my 3 cards will fit easily enough and just in case there are issues with IRQ (I've been told that is not the case these days), I'll have a slot free. It will fit inside my current case (Thermaltake tower), won't it? Do you have any opinion about this board? Is this the one, or are there better?

Thanks

[astroman]

well, if Erminardi 'prechecked' it for us, I'll simply second his opinion...
The board is already declared as 'end of lifetime' on the Gigabyte site, so time to hurry if you want 'regular' shopping.
As far as my (humble) experience goes (I'm not a hardware geek at all), the trouble started with 'sandybridge ' stuff which is P67 in my association.
So anything 'below' probably is ok. Haven't seen your tower case, but I can't imagine the board doesn't fit.
Btw I have a PCIe riser card with 3 PCI-32 slots on hold (sorry, forgot about which slot type, probably 16x).
It's not really expensive (< 50 Euro iirc) and at least worth a try...
To be honest I don't give that much on hardware specs - check a typical magazine's benchmarks, read the raving comments and then have a look at the performance charts provided... have a close look, and a particular close to the scaling of the Y-axis...
It's not so rare that a difference of 3% is pictured by a HUGE bar...

cheers, Tom

[garyb]

i'd say that astroman's probably correct with his info.
the gigabyte should be fine.

personally, i almost always use intel motherboards. they are cheap, basic, and once a usb controller or two are disabled, they ALWAYS work properly. you have to figure that windows was designed and proven on an intel board....

there's no reason you can't find a setup that will work. you should probably stick with motherboards no newer than 1366 or 1156 socket models.

[dante]

I can vouch the ASUS P5K-E with a Core2-Quad (i think) can run Scope PCI ( 3 cards ) or Scope XITE, with the PCI cards and the PCIe card all installed at the same time.

[Strattosphere]

I went from an Asus P4C800-E Deluxe with P4-3.2 Northwood to the P5K with E8400 and the difference is amazing. I can throw tons of plugins at it with barely a flicker of CPU usage where I used to get to 70% with pops and crackles quite quickly. With my 18DSPs and this setup I don't think I'll ever need to upgrade. And it'll do 64-bit happily too.

Stratt

[Atomic Marshmallow]

Hello

Wow!! Thanks so far for all the responses. I now have the difficult task of finally choosing something.

I can throw tons of plugins at it with barely a flicker of CPU usage where I used to get to 70% with pops and crackles quite quickly. With my 18DSPs and this setup I don't think I'll ever need to upgrade. And it'll do 64-bit happily too.

Stratt

That is something I am really looking forward to. The freedom to use whatever without worrying about CPU use. No more track freezing (or at least far, far less). Plus of course moving on to Scope 5, which doesn't work on my current system.

By the way, is SandyBridge still totally out of the question?



AM

[astroman]

probably...
imh understanding Sandy is (mainly) about integrating the GPU into the CPU and a modified pipeline for (new) 256bit instructions (AVX).
The onboard video stuff is total crap (I tried it...), even a 25 Euro card is a BIG advantage.
You'll hardly find any plugins specifically coded for those (brand new) instructions, let alone it has to be shown that they offer a significant advantage in audio processing...
The 8400 Wolfsdale (Strattospere's results) probably performs so well because of it's huge cache of 6MB.
As you mentioned your manual 'handycap' with DIY stuff... watch out for that CPU cooler mounting crap - I had one fall right of the chip.
Fortunately the thing shuts itself off before totally frying away ...

cheers, Tom

[Atomic Marshmallow]

probably...
imh understanding Sandy is (mainly) about integrating the GPU into the CPU and a modified pipeline for (new) 256bit instructions (AVX).
The onboard video stuff is total crap (I tried it...), even a 25 Euro card is a BIG advantage.
You'll hardly find any plugins specifically coded for those (brand new) instructions, let alone it has to be shown that they offer a significant advantage in audio processing...
The 8400 Wolfsdale (Strattospere's results) probably performs so well because of it's huge cache of 6MB.
As you mentioned your manual 'handycap' with DIY stuff... watch out for that CPU cooler mounting crap - I had one fall right of the chip.
Fortunately the thing shuts itself off before totally frying away ...

cheers, Tom

Thanks for the response.

As far as putting together my MB, there is no way I will attempt it. I'd get too stressed out. My DIY handicap is a huge disadvantage, but fortunately these sort of occasions don't happen too often, so I am happy to pay someone to do it instead.

AM