DIFFERENT DSP CARDS, what's the best setup?

[Inti]

Hi, my pentium 3.2 ghz is almost dead, my mobo asus p5gd2x never liked my pulsar since it came in his pci slot.
I use a uad 1 expansion card (pci) and a focusrite liquid mix plugged in a pci/firewire adapter.
So there are basically 3 big things goin on at the same time and there's no way to make them not share the irqs thru win xp.
I spent last 6 months between blue screens ("irq not less or equal"), cubase sx3 crashes, cpu overloads and recently the pc started to go in overheating and it shuts down by himself really rudely without asking permission...
I changed my RAM, I changed the power supply, I changed the fan, now it's time to change the motherboard.
i would really be grateful to anyone who could suggest me a good choice (since I'll have to get a new processor and probably some new ram) to make all these 3 things (liquid mix-uad 1-pulsar)work in peace between them.
From rome my best regards.
Inti

[pollux]

I run three SCOPE cards on a DFI LanParty X38 DK which works great (provided that you don't activate the RAID functions on the ICH9R).
There's a small advantage on using the LanParty LT and UT series over the DK in that the audio card is not onboard and can be removed.

[Inti]

no integrated firewire port I see, but it lkooks great...
So do you think it will be the final solution to end the IRQ war between my dsp cards?
i'm not really expert on hardware, do you know any specific model from asus or intel?
Cheers

[Inti]

asrock dual-vsta 775

what do you think about this?

[pollux]

asrock dual-vsta 775

what do you think about this?

It has a lousy PCI bandwidth due to the VIA chipset (I tried it and then changed it for a LanParty X38).
Besides that, I had no problems as for stability or IRQ sharing with three SCOPE cards.

[arela]

I bought a new ASUS P5K this summer and had to abandon it after a lot of trouble, never worked.
Then I changed to a Intel DP35DP and voila.
That PC has been running with my 3 SFP cards for a couple of months - almost constant.

[chriskorff]

I've got a mobo almost identical to that Asrock one (it's the 775Dual 880Pro — very nearly the same), and can confirm the above. It's *almost* perfect (no stability issues, no IRQ problems, works pretty well), the only thing is PCI bandwidth, and it's very annoying because there's nothing you can do about it!

[dawman]

Just remember this.
Games sales seems to drive the market, Mobo vendors when doing their QC tests are concentrating on that fact, if they even do any QC at all.
Asus pumps out their mobos as fast as possible and releases firmaware and BIOS updates after the fact.
If a few bad boards slip through no biggie.
DFI has a small enthusiast niche that test everything immediately and make noise all over the OC forums.

Right now as the economy is bad many layoffs are occuring, I can imagine QControl is somewhat of a post process, buying anything new is a crap shoot.
The DFI P35 has been touted the best possible mobo for that chipset for performance and features, The DP35DP is the most stable.

Only DFI and Intel do thorough testing, Intel has a large budget and a special department for this, DFI can't afford it really but that's why their prices on mobo's are usually the highest.

The X38's & 48's appear to have matured well, but the P35 boards have recieved the most updates for BIOS and firmware, and they are the cheapest at the moment as new designs are being shoved out, probably w/o any QC.



Asus reminds me of Edward The Long Shanks from the movie Braveheart.
He orders his Field Marshall to Loose his Archers at a strange time of battle, when the Marshall replies " but sir, we will hitting our own troops ", and Long Shanks replies ? Yes, but we will hit theirs too "...........again, no biggie.

[dawman]

It is.
The competition is extreme, and keeping up w/ NVidia and Crossfire, etc. adds additional fule to the fires.
It was much easier until other GPU vendirs upped the anti.
Asus is always updated to run really well, but remeber when this started?
Andre had an Asus board that only allowed 2 x Pro's to be used....
Eventually it was fixed but he's always on the edge of new gear.
I was also, but GaryB always seems to bring me back into the Intel fold.

[dawman]

Supermicro still gets thumbs up for stability under Pi and Prime, and uses high quality capacitors, short trace lines etc.
My P4SCT+II has never once been a problem after years of live use. I figured when it was shipped back to me from Nashville it would be shot, but it still runs Giga and Scope cards flawlessley.
When it comes to audio, especially in a live venue where your rig gets shut off an on constantly and runs in a warm envoriment where dozens of 1000 watt PAR Lamps heat the stage, the less frills, bells and whistles, the better.
DFI is just a niche product that fascinates me as it is the epitomy of tweakability, but unecessary for our type of use w/ audio, where as Supermicro and Intel are just designed to run stable under the guns of constant use.
The Intel 875 motherboard w/ zero bells, and no audio is the type of design I wish they would still make, but the market pretty much requires audio on every product.

Less Is More definately applies here.

[pollux]

I've got a mobo almost identical to that Asrock one (it's the 775Dual 880Pro — very nearly the same), and can confirm the above. It's *almost* perfect (no stability issues, no IRQ problems, works pretty well), the only thing is PCI bandwidth, and it's very annoying because there's nothing you can do about it!

As I said, I had very good experiences with ASRock mobos, and I'm sure that this one must be great...

3 PCI slots, Intel P35 / ICH9 (not the crappy ICH9R with RAID that annoys more than anything else), support for DDR3 @1333... and very cheap!

[pollux]

Interesting do you run it wih several cards and multi core ?

I run a DFI LanParty x38 DK with a QX6800 and 3 SCOPE cards.. works perfectly, including XTC mode
The ASRock was not yet available for purchase over here back then, otherwise I would have gone with that.