Advice please ...

[Stuart Stuart]

I have 2 UAD PCI's, a Powercore, and an RME 9652. In my present system, with my asus board, my pci slots are maxed out - I don't have any pci-e slots. Now, how do I upgrade from here, and keep everything I've got, whilst adding one, or maybe even two uad's?

I'm getting very tempted by a core duo processor? And while I'm on the topic, is there any point in having more than 2gb of RAM yet?

 

[Arys Chien]

You can buy a magma chassis as a PCI expansion unit. Buy a second-hand with 7 slots, you can keep all your old PCI cards.

Dual core is awesome unless you're using the Recpetor with UniWire like me. Currently the new motherboards still have one or two old PCI slots. If you want a MB that doesn't have any PCI slot, just buy a magma chassis with a PCIe host card then.

There is something people do to break the 2G limitation on system RAM. I forget where to find it, but it's been useful for many people with over 2G RAM.

 

[billybk1]

You may want to look at the ASUS P5B series MB's then. They have turned out to be great for building DAW's. I built a new E6300 Core Duo DAW a few months ago using the P5B-E (on board 1394a) and now have (4) UAD-1 cards (2 PCI & 2 PCIe) and my Delta 66 PCI card all installed and working quite nicely together. For me, some of the benefits of the P5B-E were:

Duo Core compatible: (already Quad Core compatible with a BIOS update)

Expandable to 8GB's RAM

Plentiful Expansion slots: In addition to the PCIe video slot you have another 3xPCI & 3PCIe (1x) slots onboard.

UAD-1 compatible: Works great with multiple PCI, PCIe or in any combination.

Relatively inexpensive: I purchased my new P5B-E @ http://www.newegg.com for about $150US

Onboard 1394a: Even though it does not use the preferred TI chipset it still works great with my stack of IDE-1394a Firewire enclosures.


I have maxed out my UAD-1's (4 in one group) and I still another PCIe slot available so could even add a 1394b (800) PCIe card and use that to add on maybe a Duende or LiquidMix. I'll have to wait & see though as I am still enjoying having (4) UAD-1 cards & a Core Duo all in one machine. Who says you need an expensive magma or other expansion chassis to use (4) UAD-1 cards. Just get a P5B MB ($150US) and be happy!

 

[Fundy]

Adding the 3GB switch can help allocate more system resources beyond 2GB.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/316739

 

[Eric Dahlberg]

Another option might be to swap the RME & Powercore for firewire solutions, thus freeing up the two slots. M-Audio's ProFire Lightbridge would a high quality, low cost firewire replacement for the 9652.

 

[Stuart Stuart]

Thanks for the input everybody - some very useful ideas there. A question to Billy - with the board you're talking about, are you saying I could have three UAD PCI-e's, a UAD PCI classic, plus my RME and my powercore, all in the box??? Plus maybe a Liquid Mix running off firewire? Maybe chained with a Duende also running off firewire. All at once, with a Core Duo processor? And all happy together?

Please tell me I've got this right!! Sounds like a dream

 

[billybk1]

A question to Billy - with the board you're talking about, are you saying I could have three UAD PCI-e's, a UAD PCI classic, plus my RME and my powercore, all in the box???

I don't have that exact configuration, but I don't see why it would not work. I have (2) UAD PCI-e's, (2) UAD PCI classic's and a Delta 66 PCI card running smoothly using a E6300 Core Duo.

Plus maybe a Liquid Mix running off firewire? Maybe chained with a Duende also running off firewire.

That may be pushing it. Don't firewire devices like the LM, Duende, Fireface & such need a TI 1394 controller chipset to function optimally. The on-board firewire, on the P5B-E, does not have a TI chipset. Although it works fine with my stack of IDE-Firewire enclosures I have not heard of anybody actually using the onboard firewire with audio devices yet. I still have another PCI-e slot left, I have been thinking about getting a 1394b (800) Firewire PCI-e card and using that to link to maybe a Duende or LM. I think a dedicated firewire card would be a better option with those types of devices.

Still, the P5B-E is the best bang for the buck DAW MB, if you want to upgrade to a high performance Core Duo, use as many as (4) UAD-1 cards and still have expansion slots left for your audio card and other devices.

 

[Stuart Stuart]

Thanks for that info - much appreciated.

 

[Eric Dahlberg]

Don't firewire devices like the LM, Duende, Fireface & such need a TI 1394 controller chipset to function optimally.

The Powercore Firewire is quite finicky about this stuff but Duende is a lot more tolerant about the cards it can work with (not to mention more stable). I've heard good things about the Liquid Mix in this regard, as well, but don't have experience with it myself.

Aren't there Core Duo boards with 6 or 7 slots now? I could've sworn I saw an Asus board recently with 7 slots (3 PCI/4 PCIe, if I remember correctly).

 

[billybk1]

Aren't there Core Duo boards with 6 or 7 slots now? I could've sworn I saw an Asus board recently with 7 slots (3 PCI/4 PCIe, if I remember correctly).

Yes, the ASUS P5B-E MB I am using has (7) expansion slots (3 PCI/4 PCIe), but you do have to use (1) PCIe slot (typically the 16x one), for your video card. So essentially you have six (3 PCI/ 3 PCIe) available slots. That still gives you an incredible amount of flexibility. Especially since you can mix and match PCI/PCIe UAD-1 cards in one machine.