Gigabyte GA-P85-D3 and Gigabyte GA-P81-D3P

[tlaskows]

I thought it was all about the pentiums baby

-Tom

[dehuszar]

So this should be a winner: http://www.amazon.com/ASUS-DDR3-Motherb ... ords=z97-a ?

[tlaskows]

That one should work fine, but it only seems to have 2 PCI slots.

I have this one and it works great:

http://www.amazon.com/ASUS-Z87-K-DDR3-1 ... ords=z87-k

But you can get them used on ebay for like 60$

-Tom

[dehuszar]

Good to know, thank you.

I'm more likely to buy an XITE before I get a third PCI card, so long as the 2-card performs as well. The Z97-A also has USB-3.1, thunderbolt and NVIDIA SLI support as well. The setup it's replacing was quad-booting between SteamOS, Windows 8 (for my other games), Win 7 (recording), and an Ubuntu workstation (for my actual work). So there are a few features that, while I probably won't need them for SFP and Ableton, the other environments would benefit.

Are there any Z97 configurations that might have a negative effect?

Sam

[dehuszar]

I'm also looking at the i5 4690K. Is there any SFP related benefits to going with an i7?

[tlaskows]

I think Gary said pretty much any 1150 mobos are fine. I had a faulty one that didn't work properly.

You have a complicated setup. I used to have Windows 7 for games, OS X for fun, and Linux for fun.

Now it's only going to be a Scope workstation. Got rid of my video card and bought a cheap Quadro and freed up a pci-e slot. Also have Visual Studio and stuff like that on it. But I don't have much space for junk (480GB SSD).

The CPU shouldn't matter at all. i3, i5, i7 should all be fine. I have a i7 4770k, no issues here.

-Tom

[dehuszar]

...soooo I ended up splurging a little bit. Here's what I ended up with.

ASUS Z97-C LGA 1150
Intel Core i7-4770 Quad-Core
Crucial Ballistix Sport 16GB Kit
Samsung 850 EVO 500GB
EVGA GeForce GTX 970 Super Clocked ACX 2.0 4GB GDDR5

... and a server case
Chenbro Rackmount 4U Server Chassis RM42200-1

I'll update the thread with results once it's all assembled.

Random side-question -- Has anyone successfully done a "Sysprep /generalize" migration of Win7 to another computer? If it doesn't totally bork my SFP performance/stability, I would rather migrate the OS to the new hardware than start all over again with a fresh install.

[tlaskows]

I've cloned my Windows 7 drive in the past. There are some free utilities out there. I think it was called something like todo backup. Can't really recall.

I think it was this one:

http://www.todo-backup.com/products/hom ... ftware.htm

-Tom

[ronnie]

I've cloned my Windows 7 drive in the past. There are some free utilities out there. I think it was called something like todo backup. Can't really recall.

I think it was this one:

http://www.todo-backup.com/products/hom ... ftware.htm

-Tom

I used that one too without a hitch.

[tlaskows]

Yep, it will even resize the partitions...

-Tom

[dehuszar]

I still have some projects to load up and test, but so far with the Z97-C I'm getting ~10 Masterverbs, and everything's pretty much stable and working great!

I'm really glad I made the upgrade. Thanks for everyone's help and input.