quadcore setup

[Nikolaus T.]

sorry for posting this topic here, but in the hardwaresection members seem to be unable to create topics or reply to them.
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i´d like to buy a new pc. i have two pci uad-cards and need a third pci-slot for my rme multiface one. i have heard that some pci cards aren´t working correctly on a multicore basis. moreover a friend of mine has serious problems with his dualcore setup and the uad cards (his pc isn t working at the moment).

i am afraid of buying a new QUAD CORE system unless i am sure that it will work correctly/seemlessly

my new system will include the following components:

CPU:

Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 95W, 4x 2.40GHz, 266MHz FSB, 2x 4MB shared Cache, tray (HH80562PH0568M)

Motherboard:


Gigabyte GA-P35C-DS3R, P35 (dual PC2-6400U DDR2/dual PC3-8500U DDR3)

many people are still using the asus boards but i´ve heard that they outsourced production and quality is said to be low since outsourcing. i´ve never heard of gigabyte until a few weeks ago. a cpu-nerd-friend said that they are rather \"stable\" (i hope this is the correct english word)

RAM:
Corsair XMS2 DIMM Kit 2048MB PC2-6400U CL4-4-4-12 (DDR2-800) (TWIN2X2048-6400C4)


does somebody have experience with these components or similar ones??!


thank you in advance for helping me!

nikolaus t.

 

[Nikolaus T.]

i forgot something:

i am using cubase SX 3 as hostsequencer (windows XP)

 

[S4410]

I m in the same situation,too and this mobo has all the things i need with a good price.
I m also considering the simpler Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3, because i don't see myself getting involved in RAID
and i'd rather have 8gb DDR2 Ram in the future than 4gb DDR3.
A no frills motherboard with 3 PCI and 3PCIe.

But i read here that many prefer Asus and Intel boards (DP35DP in particular)
Is Gigabyte so bad for UAD-1?

 

[TripACT]

Actually i'm about to upgrade my DAW as well..donno if it will be core2duo or the quad core..
I have also RME card...and in RME forum i read that some people ownding Asus boards complain about stablity and incompatability issues..
Would be interesting if anyone could post his componenets with RME + UAD cards installed...

 

[Fairlight]

Check out my Signature... I just built myself a Quad Core recently and it works a treat. I did consider an Asus board, but it was 2x the price of the Intel. I know a few people, mostly musicians, who swear by the Intel which is why I opted for one in the end. It has no PS/2 or Serial ports, etc, but they're old and a waste of space these days if you ask me. It has 3x PCI slots and 3x PCI-E Slots. Perfect as I have a Delta 1010 PCI and 2x PCI UAD-1 Cards. 2 free slots for more UAD-1 cards maybe (budget permitting)

I also run Cubase SX 3.1.944

If you need to check the best fit RAM for your MoBo, go to http://www.corsair.com. There is a section there that does this. If in doubt, http://www.asktheramguy.com

If you're based in the UK, http://www.scan.co.uk is the best service / value. My setup cost under £575.

Cheers,
Peter

p.s. I did a LOT of homework, it wasn't an easy purchase, but I got there in the end with a lot of people from this and the Sound on Sound Forums.

 

[Agent Cooper]

Not a quad yet (waiting for the upcoming 45nm quads), but the rest fits
:
ASUS P5K-E WiFi, E6700, 4 GB OCZ PLatinum 800/4, Seasonic S500
3x UAD PCI, HDSPe, 2x6200 PCIe graphics for 3 monitors
Cubase 4.1 etc., XP Pro, XP64, Vista64 (the 64bit OSs are on separate partitions for testing, both work ok, I'll ditch Pro for XP64 as soon as NI will fix their compatibility issues :twisted: :roll: , Vista works but atm it only offers drawbacks and no goodies for me).

What shall I say ? Everything smooth, 100% Prime Orthos stable, C4.1 stable for days, no overnight bug anymore).

One word of caution :
The above setup would not be possible on a Gigabyte board (or most others), only the ASUS lets you use the 2nd 16x slot (in 1x mode which is just fine for 2D) without shutting off the other PCIe slots afaik.
And the VGAs were 22 Euros a piece new, passive and all. TC disabled via RivaTuner, so it's a real 64MB card.

Now if only those Penryns were available ...

Cheers,
Cooper

 

[kinkajou]

running a Quadcore 6600 on a Gigabyte P35C-DS3R here with 4GB RAM DDR2-800 -> ROCKSOLID on Cubase 4, Live 6 and Reaper 2 on WinXP Pro SP2.

2 M-Audio 1010LT audiocards (both PCI) AND 2 UADs are installed (1 UAD-1 and 1 UAD-1e) and no problems occuring here 8)

 

[kleinholgi]

Also thinking about a new computer.

What I don´t like about the quad 6600 is its high power consumption and heat production.
I´m still unsure, if a CoreIIDuo 6750 would be a better choice, since it is much lower on the energy side. Performance is about the same , unless you work with programs, that can natively support all 4 cores.

What´s speaking against that, is the current price of the quad, permanently telling you, \"Buy me , Buy me!\". Almost no difference anymore to the dual core.


Regarding the mainboard I thought, that something from the Asus P5K series would be ideal ( P5KR is my favourite right now) But I´ll check the Intel advice as well. If there is anything I hate about Asus, then it is their damn VIA based Firewire Controller. Why the hell can´t they implement a good one from Texas Instruments ?
Apart from that I never had a problem with Asus, they never let me down.

 

[Hard_At_Work]

Agent Cooper,

We have the same board and its SOLID as well, however, we could not get the bios ( 602 ) to keep from shutting off the PCI-e slots when we inserted another PCI-e vga. ( force x1 operation in bios with the port control set to auto. )
Would love to see your chipset settings and what version bios your on. 806 was giving crazy temp readings so we re-flashed back to 602 and all is stable.
Currently using the Matrox TripleHead2Go for the 3 monitor setup we have..works great....but pricey. Simplicity itself but only works with Nvidia cards...ATI cant produce the required 3840 x 1024 resolution.

 

[cane creek]

This UK firm use ASUS boards and they advertise UAD-1's compatibility on their setups...
so i assume if your UAD-1 doesnt work then send the pc back which is comforting....

they seem cheaper than the competision too....

core duo set-up

quad core set-up

theres plenty more on the site....

 

[Fairlight]

quad core set-up

You could probably build that yourself for under £1,000. I considered an Extreme Quad Core but the difference between them and a Q6600 (which I got) was astronomical.

If you're able to build it yourself, look into that and check out the http://www.scan.co.uk prices (even based on components used in PC from link you supplied (above). You'll find they'll be a lot cheaper.

Cheers,
Peter

 

[cane creek]

At the moment im just using a P4 3.2 / 2 x uad-1 / poco firewire /cubase4 ....

im just wondering if to make do for now as the freeze function works just fine for me and wait until vista becomes the norm so i can run more memory as i do use alot of romplers....

ive built my last 2 pc's , however i just thought having the guarentee that uad-1 would work may save some guys money in the long run , my powercore cost me a fortune when i first got it i bought several firewire cards/soundcards and millions of phone calls to TC support before i ended up buying a new pc lol....

 

[Agent Cooper]

Hard_At_Work,

same settings, BIOS 503.
No need for upgrading atm, all's fine.
We'll see if it's necessary for the Q9450.

TripleHead2Go is no option, first it's expensive and then refresh rates are limited to 60 Hz, so TripleHead2NoGo with CRTs.

Cheers,
Cooper

 

[neil wilkes]

Q6700 on an ASUS Commando here.
2Gb RAM
2 UAD-1
Flawless & seriously fast.
Adding a PCI-e UAD card very soon now....

 

[granted]

Q6600 Asus Commando
PCI: UAD-1
PCI: UAD-1
PCI: Poco
PCI: EMU 1820M
PCIe: Nvidia 7600

Cubase 4.1 and Live 6,7

Seems to be working fine.
It's very fast and if you use VST's you can PILE them on.

I bought this board because of my investment in PCI cards!
Get a good power supply.

- Granted

Oh, BTW I did the very unorthodox and not recommended \"install the board without reinstalling the operating system.\" Worked fine.
Can't really get smoother than that.

 

[davidrousseau]

UA Email to me on hardware

I'm having an issue with clicks and pops after upgrading from 3.9 to 4.8, and 3.9 was flawless. I advised that I has an Athlon 64 X2 3800 on an Asus A8N and the UAD1s both had their own IRQ, and the Ech Layla was shared with the PCI Express Nvidia 8500 GT. UA replied that I should use AGP (shown below). i have asked them for to spec a system they do support, since my perfectly running system under 3.9 apparantly isn't ready for the latest version 4.8. Looks like I wasted 200 bucks on the 1073, until they get the software sorted out. Maybe 4.9 will be better, but they cannot tell me why 4.8 doesn't work.

Hello,

UAD supports ASIO format not WDM.

I would use the latest BIOS update for your motherboard, unless there have been specific problems reported on the newest BIOS that would suggest reverting to an earlier version.

Is your graphics card PCI or AGP? PCI graphics cards are not recommended.

Are you overclocking or have you modified the BIOS in any way? Have you tried restoring BIOS defaults if possible.

We recommend using a power supply rated at 400W or more.

Do you have the latest drivers for both your sound card and the UAD-1 card?

Have you tried adjusting the performance of your video card for DAW use? This generally involves setting priority to performance over quality. Other advice would depend on the specific video card, so send me the model if you would like me to look into whether more adjustments are needed.

I would recommend reading the article on PCI latency adjustments that can be found on our June Webzine, in the Support Report section, you might find that adjusting these settings according to our instructions can help you with your performance: http://www.uaudio.com/webzine/2005/june/index.html

 

[bdunard]

Beware of an Intel DP35DP with 2 Uads and 4 GB ram. I have the system and it is very long bootup times and application load times. It seems to only happen with 4 GB of RAM. I am debating between the x38 or the i975?

If you google \"DP35DP uad\" you will find some posts of people running more than 1 UAD and 4gb ram having problems.