I think I might have found my DAW nirvana

[billybk1]

Well, I received all of my new DAW parts yesterday afternoon @ 1PM (thanks newegg!). I spent the rest of the day putting my new rig together (took a 2 hour dinner break) and had all my hardware & drivers(including my UAD-1's & Delta 66) , OS and even a few apps ( ACID Pro 6 & SONAR PE 6) installed by 11PM. Everything went pretty smoothly and I did not lose anymore of my hair. I did a few stress tests (Sandra 2007 & memtest) and everything appears to be working as it should. I was a little concerned about my 450W PS in the Antec Sonata II case (from some of the reports I've read), but it was not DOA and it has been working like a champ thus far (knock on wood). I just realized reading that I installed my RAM incorrectly. I did not install them according the the color code. I put them both in A1 & A2. I'll make that change when I get back home. I paid extra for the PC6400 Dual Channel so I might as well get some benefit out of it, right?
I elected not to install a legacy floppy drive. I permanantly disabled the floppy drive capability in the BIOS. One less device to power and one more free IRQ.
I paid an extra $15 bucks for the on-board firewire capability in the P5B-E over the vanilla P5B. I plugged my stacked 1394a IDE firewire enclosures in and they were immediately recognized and the Sandra hard drive test had them performing data transfers at normal IDE 7200RPM speeds. Well worth the extra $15 clams and I don't have to use up another PCI-E slot.
I am still breaking my baby in and have a lot more apps & plugins yet to install, but thus far I am elated over how well my DAW build went and how much improved performance is compared to my old PIII 1Ghz/512MB DAW. A SONAR 6 project (16 audio tracks, multiple buses and 12 UAD-1 plugins/60%DSP on 2 cards) that was using 70%-80% native CPU on my old DAW is now barely moving the CPU (2%-7%). My UAD-1 plugins don't appear to be using much of any native CPU! Project looping was glitch & drop out free. I got similar results in ACID, as well. Thanks to ACID Pro 6's new dual core CPU compatibilty. I think I might have finally found my DAW nirvana.
During my DAW build I put my (2) UAD-1 cards in PCI slots 2 & 3 and my Delta 66, in PCI slot 1. So far I have not noticed any performance problems on playback or export. I still have some more testing to do so this is just preliminary, but so far so good. A Conroe Duo Core/ASUS P5B-E seems to be a great combo for a DAW build especially if you have UAD-1 cards and an existing PCI audio card.

Cheers,

Billy Buck

 

[Staccato]

Looks great Billy, let us know back!

BTW, did you go with the e6300 or e6600?

 

[billybk1]

Looks great Billy, let us know back!

BTW, did you go with the e6300 or e6600?

I went with the e6300. Newegg has been selling the retail box for for
$181 with free shipping. Too good of a deal to pass up. I figure I'll eventually go Quad Core anyway once those prices come way down. With the P5B MB's all it takes is a BIOS update and you are QC compatible.
I've got my memory modules setup correctly now for dual channel I an still installing apps and plugins. One good thing about upgrading your DAW is gives you a chance to finally weed all those apps and plugins you never or hardly ever use. Those are all going by the wayside.

 

[imdrecordings]

Hey Bill,
What did you step up from... P4 3.2 Prescott?? That's what I have..

By the way... You might want to go with a PCI-e FW800/400 card TI chipset , instead of the onboard FW400. I have heard from a few good sources, that it will improve performance, to a huge digree, when you are running a Firewire interface.
I'm building a new machine and don't want to blow a bunch of money on the e6600. How big of an improvement is it from your original CPU, overall? Your findings seem EXTEMELY DRAMATIC!
AWESOME!

I love it when things work..

I'll keep my fingers crossed for ya.

Please let me know your old machine, asap.
Thanx
Scott

 

[imdrecordings]

Never mind... I just slowed down and read the first post... ha!
thanx
s

 

[daverich]

you've been using a pIII ????!!?

wow.

Kind regards

Dave Rich

 

[Staccato]

you've been using a pIII ????!!?

wow.

Kind regards

Dave Rich

Will wonders ever cease?

 

[Eric Dahlberg]

With the P5B MB's all it takes is a BIOS update and you are QC compatible.

This I didn't know! When do you imagine QC will come down in price? How will dual-core-compatible apps handle QC? Sorry for the rudimentary questions, I hadn't become interested in the topic until your comment.

 

[Drammy]

There have been rumours about QC compatability but as far as I was aware they were just rumours. Billy, where did you hear this?

I too would like to know more...


EDIT: I have just found this on the ASUS website.

LGA775 Intel® Quad-core Processor Ready
This motherboard supports the latest Intel® Quad-core processors in LGA775 package.
It's excellent for multi-tasking, multi-media and enthusiastic gamers with 1066/800 MHz FSB.
Intel® Quad-core is one of the most powerful CPU in the world.

I thought I'd dreamt this - I bought a P5B a couple of months ago along with the E6600 processor. Now I remember where I'd seen that the QCs will work on this mobo.


EDIT2: Here is some info on benchmarks comparing the Core 2 Duos with the Quad Cores.

Drammy

 

[billybk1]

This I didn't know! When do you imagine QC will come down in price? How will dual-core-compatible apps handle QC? Sorry for the rudimentary questions, I hadn't become interested in the topic until your comment.

I've read that the initial QC's will have an entry level price of around $1000 bucks. I am sure Intel will not want to cut into their booming Duo Core market right yet. I figure in about 12-24 months I'll be ready for a QC. By then, QC prices will have bottomed out. I'll then sell my E6300 on ebay and get a QC. A simple BIOS update for QC compatibility is one of the things that attracted me to the PB5 series MB. Just a little obsolesence insurance. I figure the P5B-E can last me for 5 years or so by just upgrading the CPU to QC and adding more RAM (up to 8 GB's). Those 7 expansion slots (4 PCIe & 3 PCI) allow a lot of room to grow also.

 

[djmoose]

How will dual-core-compatible apps handle QC? Sorry for the rudimentary questions, I hadn't become interested in the topic until your comment.

I'd imagine that it's simply a matter of multi-processor compatibility. 2 or 4 doesn't matter...it's a matter of the programming allowing multiple processes to run at the same time.

 

[Nightowl]

Just to give you guys an idea of what the price will be like of the Intel Quads in the future.

I bought one Opteron 270 dual-core about a year ago when they were very new. I paid over 1k then. Today the same chip is 250. Of course there is a new line of DC Opterons out now and the new 4x4's on the way.

I'll bet if you wait six months the same chip that today is 1k will be 500.