64bit & PCI

[pdistefano]

Ok, so trying to work out what to do moving forward. Resolved that my ancient 32bit DAW needs an upgrade, but I want (trying) to keep current Scope 3xPCI setup on that machine. Will get some form of 1150 motherboard with pci slots, that's easy.
Questions: (& excuse if this has been addressed previously and I can't find on the forum
(a) Will the 32 bit PCI cards still work in 64 bit environment (I've never tried it) and if so any issues to negotiate?
(b) Which OS better option - Windows 10 or Windows 7? Or is this determined by Scope version? I'm currently on 5.1. All it will need to do is host Cubase/Ableton & Scope, and will be off the grid.
(c) Upgrade is purely to achieve better native DAW/ASIO performance/headroom. Any comments on what aspects of tech spec (cpu/cores, RAM, motherboard architecture??) to prioritise to best maximise this and/or what is arguably overkill/unnecessary. My layman understanding is that the later the OS the more resource/hardware it requires to run so my logic is a higher spec'd machine running an earlier OS (requiring default less) will have better performance/resource? Or am I wrong here? What I'm getting at is it for example a stupid idea to upgrade motherboard/cpu etc and then limit it to a 32 bit Windows 7 os with only 4GIG RAM?
Any comments/wisdom in this regard would be greatly appreciated
Cheers/thanks PD

[valis]

(a) With Scope 7, your cards will work excellently. Win7 is an option, as indicated below. Some Scope things don't work well under 64bit+modern OS versions.
(b) With Scope 5.x+, I believe Win7/8 work acceptably well. Win10+Scope7 is probably the ideal, if you can get all your other software up to a working standard.

However I will point out I still run Scope on the same hardware it's always been on, and use that in conjunction with several other machines via adat+AES+analog i/o+midi etc. It's basically an outboard box 'swiss army knife' in that case, rather than an ASIO hosting environment. Oh, I still use Bidule to host plugins on there anyway too...

I'll defer to Gary & others for more in depth responses beyond my initial information.

[garyb]

yep, 64bit is fine.
no STS or XTC mode in 64bit.

[pdistefano]

Thanks valis, appreciate the response.....
I also have a few additional scope rigs hooked in running on older hardware for extra processing....They'll stay cosy in the older machines as they perform perfectly as standalone.
For what I'm trying to do with the ASIO/DAW streaming into analogue outboard/desk/rig I arguably need an XITE, but that would involve a lot more $$$ than what I have, or concede an ITB mixing which completely changes my workflow. But since I figure I'm pretty close to getting the no glitch system/playback performance I'm aiming for just by bringing the main DAW up to something like a Z97 with an i7 16GIG, which of course triggers the OS & DAW software upgrade which I've been trying to firmly avoid for over 15 years, so I figure the time's come to bite the bullet

[pdistefano]

Thanks Gary, don't use either XTC or STS so that's great.

[pdistefano]

Any quick comment on cpu? If it needs to handle DAW, heavy ASIO load, native and/or other dsp processing, would a quad, say i7 4790 be the better option than a faster speed i3? Alternatively you were purely streaming from DAW into scope and doing all processing in the scope environment would it make no difference really one way or the other? Are the core resources utilised/distributed or are they exclusively allocated to say these specific tasks?

[valis]

i7 4790 is a the high end desktop and lags behind the 'mainstream' gamer CPU core by a generation (or two, depending on the era we're in). This platform is referred to as "HEDT" (High End DeskTop) and is really intended for massive core counts (at a lower clockspeed, usually) for things like CAD/CAM, 3D modelling and other applications where more cores wins over clockspeed. It's also intended for high i/o situations where a consumer gaming CPU doesn't provide the same number of PCIe lanes.

i3 on the other hand is typicall in the 'low end' (lower core count, lower PCIe lane, lower speed) desktop. While an i3 may work in the same CPU socket as a 'mainstream' gamer i5/i7, there's no need to buy a higher end platform with a low speed CPU unless the $150-200 savings is that critical to you at the moment.

The key here is that our audio tasks prefer higher clockspeeds per-core to more, lower speed cores. i7 8700 or i7 9700 are the mainstream gamer CPU of choice imo, or i5 9500/9600. K variants if you care about overclocking & bleeding edge ram speeds, but I prefer stability personally (i have an i7 8700 in one of my machines).

The real issue here of course is exactly which boards support an adequate CPU *and* have PCI slots. On this, you will need to defer to others here and choose based on the MOTHERBOARD of choice first imho.

[fraz]

Do you really need 3 x PCI slots? - Is 2 PCI a no go? - Asus and Gigabyte have 3 x PCI slots on H310 chipset - 2 fewer PCI-e chipset lanes than Z97 so 6 in total-not many but enough---and newer CPU's can be used