New PC help

[Scott P]

I'm using an antique 500Mhz machine and am finally getting an opportunity to trade up.

With machines having improved over the years, is there really a need for me to purchase a fine tuned PC for SAW? I know there are advantages, but does it make a huge difference?

I'm thinking of just getting an off the shelf Dell machine. What are opinions?

Also, if you all think it's neccesary, who is a good source for a turn key machine? Tim Kirk built my last one and it's worked great, but I can't seem to get in touch with him.

I don't have the time or inclination to build one myself.

Thanks all,
Scott

[AudioAstronomer]

The advantage is mostly in getting more bang for your buck for a "saw pc".

A dell will work great, but a lot more work to get going in tip-top shape.

There's numerous system builders here (mostly VIP affiliates), I know for a fact many of them (including myself) do a fantastic job. I beleive Bob L may still do turnkey systems as well.

Like anything, the extra time you spend shopping around can save you a lot of time hassling later.

[Ian Alexander]

My previous DAW came from Tim Kirk, too. It was good to have one real person to call when I had trouble or questions. When that machine (667MHz) was ready to retire, I couldn't find Tim, either, so I priced some other DAW builders. I decided to try a stock machine. I am now happily SAWing on a Dell, but NOT a Dimension. It's a Workstation 360. Popped in my LynxONE and it works fine. I did Bob's XP tweaks and get pretty good drive numbers. I produce mostly radio spots, so I'm not doing 50 tracks with oodles of plugs, but I've never had a hiccup.

The Dell has audio on the MB, but it doesn't interfere. In fact, I took the line out from the on-board audio, ran a cable to the line in on my office machine and I get the windows sounds from the PC speakers on the other machine. I can even choose the on-board audio from SS's menu and hear what my mixes sound like on REALLY crummy speakers. Helpful, since lots of FM listening still happens on clock radios.

So, now you've got two different answers. :D Let us know what you do and how it goes.

[Perry]

I agree with what Robert and Ian have said here already and I'd just add that I'd be cautious about getting a Dell for a Daw. Dell often uses it's own "special" designs with hardware and software and this in some cases can cause problems for a Daw user (or any user for that matter). Examples of this are parts, like the power supply in some instances, that can't be upgraded except from Dell as they aren't a standard size. Ian seems to have come out well, but I've seen at least one guy locally here singing the blues over getting a Dell for a Daw and and at least one other having difficulty upgrading due to non-standard parts that Dell used.

The Dell could work if you're careful about what you get, but you might be better off getting a computer from a "mom and pop" type shop so that you can specify exactly what you need... or as Robert suggested, have someone that understands Daws build one for you.

Don't however simply go to a local shop and say you need a computer "for sound". They won't know what you really need and you'll most likely end up with an underpowered rig with on-board video and a soundblaster installed. :rolleyes:

I built a new rig for a guy here a while back that had done just that. :eek:

Best of luck,

Perry

[Mark Stebbeds]

I

I'm thinking of just getting an off the shelf Dell machine. What are opinions?

<snip>

I don't have the time or inclination to build one myself.



I disagree with what others have said here about needing a custom built machine to run a DAW, unless your needs are very demanding. Current technology has created a market where off the shelf computers such as certain model DELL surpass the specs and performance of recent custom built machines that are still in use by "power users", mine included. The custom DAW builder I have used for years has suggested the same.

Every computer I have ever owned I have used the onboard sound card for system sounds, internet brownsing, etc., without any problem.

I certainly would recommend having a seperate hard drive for audio use that meets minimum standards, and a backup system.

This is not to say you shouldn't be careful and buy a box that could be unsuitable. Perhaps Bob could list some minimum specs required when shopping for an off the shelf box, to avoid any obvious problems.

mark

[AudioAstronomer]

As a note, to ammend my previous statement, Sony viao's are much more apt for daw usage than any of dell's offerings. Not to say dell wont work (ive seen many dells used very well), but digidesign and steinberg both give top recommendations for sony. I love their computers myself, though I dont own one.

[Mitch]

Not that I'm bragging about it, but I use 2 Dells. An XPS Gen 2 tower system and an Inspiron 9300 laptop, both maxed out on ram at 2gb. I use external LaCie FW800 drives for audio and sound library and backups.

Both perform extremely well with SAW and the RME Fireface 800 and Multiface (RME gives Dell systems a very high ranking BTW)

Running ASIO drivers, I can get stable, glitch free, 30 track mixes at 2/64 and even as low as 2/48 (dont run in that mode,just sayin)

Both Dells have had Bob's tweaks applied.

The tower is noisy ! Laptop is silent.

So far, so good on both machines and SAW (knock on wood)

[Sam C]

I might misunderstand but I thought one of the benefits of SAW was not needing a custom built computer? :confused:

I use a Sony Vaio laptop and tower and the machines work great.

[Bruce Callaway]

From my point of view there are reasons to build or specify your DAW mainly from a point of view of minimising issues.

- Many sounds cards may not work with the chipset on the motherboard. I found this with Layla24 cards. The chipset in an ASUS board would not work. Everything else worked great. The only answer was to get another motherboard with the right chipset.

- Ensuring that you have a fast machine for storage eg, a 10k RPM hard drive for recording & mixing.

- Upgradability Many manufacturers use once off configurations for their PCs. This can mean getting parts or upgrading can be difficult. HP were known for this. For example, HP PCs have custom drivers to make all the components work and they are a hassle to work with if you want to change something.

- Bang for your buck. I believe you will save dollars by building your own DAW. A simple way is to spec up a Dell/IBM etc to meet your ideal DAW requirements ie, high powered CPU, large HDDs, SATA, SCSI etc. Cost this against building the same DAW yourself or having a PC shop do it.

Off the shelf DAWS are pretty good on the surface however I want to ensure I know exactly what I am getting to maximise performance. By the way, I just built my own DAW PC so that is my preference.

[Perry]

Not to overly argue the point.. I hope :) ...but to add to info about the "Dell" issue... I don't mean to imply that a Dell couldn't work (I believe that I said that?) but do realize that even if it does, there *might* be issues later on if you want to upgrade that same Dell computer.. like for instance putting in a more powerful power supply and finding out that standard off the shelf parts won't fit. I've personally seen this happen.

So all I'm saying is that if you get a Dell (or whatever), my suggestion is to first find out exactly what it is you are actually getting in terms of parts and understand that you might not be getting "standard" parts and/or software. Even if you buy a model that other's have used successfully make sure the parts list hasn't changed more recently.

The good news of course is that yes, today's computers are basically *all* very powerful, and I have known people that have simply gone to a computer shop and bought whatever fit their budget and it worked fine for them... but the reverse can happen too and I've personally seen that as well.

There are a *lot* of variables and the "variables" are constantly changing with motherboard revisions, chipsets, PCI Express, and so on. There are definitely new computers out there that can give you a lot of grief as a Daw... and of course other's that would work great. You could of course roll the dice and hope for the best. Odds are pretty good, but not 100%.

My recommendation is still to either have someone build you a proper rig that you can be fairly certain will work for you as a Daw, or research as much as it takes to get a list of parts that are known to work with the software and hardware (soundcard, etc) that you plan to use and then build as close as possible that same computer.

ADK Pro Audio is a popular turnkey DAW building site by the way. Even if you don't buy from them you can get some ideas about system configurations by browsing their site. http://www.adkproaudio.com/

Best of luck,

Perry

[Arco]

RME used to post a set of computer specs they used as their "ideal"..they call it "reference PC's"

here's the link: click me (http://www.rme-audio.com/english/techinfo/refpc_index.htm)

might be worth a look, though i see they stopped updating this list in 2003.

[Naturally Digital]

I'm using an antique 500Mhz machine and am finally getting an opportunity to trade up.

With machines having improved over the years, is there really a need for me to purchase a fine tuned PC for SAW? I know there are advantages, but does it make a huge difference?

I'm thinking of just getting an off the shelf Dell machine. What are opinions?

Also, if you all think it's neccesary, who is a good source for a turn key machine? Tim Kirk built my last one and it's worked great, but I can't seem to get in touch with him.

I don't have the time or inclination to build one myself.

Thanks all,
ScottScott,

What kind of a machine do you have your sights set on (Dell or otherwise)? If you've been working with a 500mhz machine until now, there are many steps between that and the current state of the art.

What is your audio interface of choice?

What's your approximate budget?

If you don't have the time to build a machine yourself then I doubt you have the time to "tweak" an off-the-shelf computer from any manufacturer. That's just a hunch of course but I gotta say that buying a "package" is riskier than getting a machine already *cleaned*, tuned and ready to go, just the way you like it.

When it comes to name-brand computers like HP and Dell, I feel there is very good value in purchasing a used machine... Something that was state-of-the-art two or three years ago (depending on budget). "Entry-level server" or "workstation" class. Preferrably the latter.

[mobetternow]

We just bought our third Dell, a Dimension 8400 3G CPU/1G RAM. I don't have any major problems or complaints, other than the proprietary hardware issues which haven't ever interfered with our work.

If you ever have to call Tech Support, grab a good book or find something to occupy your time, because you might wait 30 minutes and up before talking to someone. Email has worked fine for me during the few times that I couldn't figure a problem out.

One thing I definitely recommend is buying as a 'small business' versus 'home/consumer'--better prices and service from my experience.

[jeromee]

One thing I definitely recommend is buying as a 'small business' versus 'home/consumer'--better prices and service from my experience.

I have bought about 10 Dell's through small business and it does save upward of a $100.
I have an 8300 3ghz - 800fsb with only 512mg of ram and saw has been running like a dream for me, mixing 20-24 tracks of 24/48 mono files using Bob's reverb,levelizer & analyzer takes about 16-20% cpu. When I add several of the sonoris plugs it hit's 40-50% but never stutters.:D

[Scott P]

Guys,
Thanks for all of the help. I've been out for a couple of days is why it took so long for me to get back here.

I'm hoping to get into the RME digiface with the new DAW. I often run as many as 24+ tracks loaded with SAW EQ, reverb, WAVES Multiband compressors, etc. My current dinosaur does pretty well for what it is, but it shuts down quickly when loaded. So I have mix things in groups and then do test rendering to see if it all fits together costing me a lot of time when it doesn't.

You're right I don't have time to do major tweaks on an off the shel machine, but I would if it saves me a few bucks. Budget is relative. I know what Dells cost, but if I can save enough time and get more reliability from a custom machine I might be willing to pay the extra money.

You guys are great. I'm hoping to get into a new machine in a couple of weeks, so any more suggestions are very welcome.

Thanks again to everyone,
Scott

[Scott P]

For those of you who built your own machines. Would you giving me a shopping list in case I want to try building my own? If I don't do it, I have friends that can. I'm planning to use an RME digiface as the I/O and would prefer Windows 2000 o/s.

As in previous post, I'm running up to 24 tracks fully loaded sometimes, so I would like to get as much performance as I can afford.

Any preferences about single vs dual chipsets, hyperthreading, etc. ?


Thanks again for all of the help,
Scott

[Bruce Callaway]

Hi Scott,

Here was my shopping list for a new DAW. As a bit of background, I have been involved in IT&T for numerous years plus am a SAW user for 5 years so I had some specifics I wanted. I was upgrading and went from a Pentium4 to an Athlon 64 bit CPU. I kept my previous tower, keyboard, mouse, power supply, video card and monitor. This saved me money.

CPU - Athlon64 3500+ 939 pin (better memory use)
Motherboard - GA-K8NS Ultra-939 939 pin CPU, dual channel memory, 5 x PCI slots, up to 4 Gig DDR400 RAM, SATA (inclduing RAID), Firewire connection
HDD - 1 x 10K RPM 74Gig, 1 x 7.2k RPM 200 Gig
RAM - 1 Gig RAM (dual 512 sticks for dual channel capability)

All up this cost me around US$975 which was great value to go from a medium-slowish machine to a superperformer. I am flat out passing 30% CPU usage now.

New off the shelf models generally have good CPUs and decent RAM. However I recommend you check the speed of the HDDs and the ability to connect peripherals.

To add to the debate, all PCs will run SAW no sweat, the question is how well will they handle heavy loads (lots of tracks & plugins) and how well will they integrate outboard equipment (RME etc).

[Ian Alexander]

In the past, Bob has recommended hard drives of 120 GB or less for active SS use. Larger drives can be used for backup.

http://www.sawstudiouser.net/forums/showthread.php?t=1309

If this has changed, I missed it. Please correct me.

[Bruce Callaway]

Just to be clear, in my DAW, I use the 10K RPM 74 Gig HDD for all recording etc. The other HDD is partioned into 2 x 100 Gig HDDs and is used primarily for storage.

[Mitch]

Perry,

Thanks for the ADK Pro Audio tip !

I'm seriously considering getting this:

http://www.adkproaudio.com/systems/viewsystem.cfm?recordid=61

Daughter's birthday is coming up...... she's getting the Dell !

I too, would like a turnkey solution if possible. I'd love to hear Bob's and others opionions on further upgrades to the above system ie 2 gig Ram, 10K RPM drives etc.

Bob, I know you've been a big proponent of ProStar laptops....any opinions on desktop configurations ? I know there are countless threads on this topic. I'm looking someone to say "get this!" and I blindly obey :o

Anyone else buy from ADK ? What's been your experience ?

[Bob L]

Mitch,

There is no right answer... I cannot tell you what to buy with any 100% certainty that you wont have problems down the road.

I have generally seen nasty problems with Dell, Compaq and HP... as far as generics go, the Sony Vaio seems to be a better choice for a DAW.

Any brandname you buy will almost always come loaded with a totally junked Windows install with every kind of popup blocker and virus checker and a generally kludged Windows... I would recommend a clean Windows install... make sure you have the driver disks available for the video and network and so forth... then do the Windows tweaks and move on from there.

Another problem with brandname machines is that they sometimes don't give you real Windows disks and motherboard disks with the drivers... they give you a set of compressed data disks to do a complete restore of their original install... not recommended.

So in some cases, like the Sony, you are left to only start cleaning and uninstalling all the kludge, leaving the as much of the base install as you can.

Bob L

[Mitch]

Thanks Bob !

Places like ADK Pro Audio, I assume dont load up the PC with all the junk the name brands do ?

I guess I'm asking you because you *must* have a preference, systems you use to develop on, test with etc. So since I'm commited to SAW and RME I'd think you are in a good position to make recommendations to us, knowing that we're asking you because we want the best system based around SAW, nothing else.

If I were to contact you offline, do you build and configure systems for customers ? Or at least refer us to builders you know will do the right machine and config based on SAW as the software of choice ?

Thanks in advance.

I'm willing to deal with ADK as well. Just looking for a confirmation or two that they are reputable and build, service great PCs.

[Perry]

Perry,

Thanks for the ADK Pro Audio tip !

I'm seriously considering getting this:

http://www.adkproaudio.com/systems/viewsystem.cfm?recordid=61

Daughter's birthday is coming up...... she's getting the Dell !

I too, would like a turnkey solution if possible. I'd love to hear Bob's and others opionions on further upgrades to the above system ie 2 gig Ram, 10K RPM drives etc.

Bob, I know you've been a big proponent of ProStar laptops....any opinions on desktop configurations ? I know there are countless threads on this topic. I'm looking someone to say "get this!" and I blindly obey :o

Anyone else buy from ADK ? What's been your experience ?


You're welcome Mitch. :) This is very similar to the rig I'm curretly using as my main DAW actually... same motherboard, AMD processor (except 3700+), similar MSI video card, Western Digital drives, etc. And I use Acronis too for that matter.

That mobo is a good choice in my opinion and should carry you into the future... at least for a while. ;) It has onboard support for Firewire B as a bonus if that's of interest to you.

It's your choice of course to make, but I'd personally rather see you get this than any of the brand name computers.

I think with ADK you can't go wrong as long as you're satisfied with the price.
They seem to know what they're doing and you wouldn't have to worry about them doing "silly" stuff like enabling virus protection and other junk on your Daw. As far as I know you're assured of a working DAW with them. Also you get the full Windows disk that Bob is suggesting (and I agree is the only way to go) and all standard parts.

I'd say go for it!!! :) And.. your daughter will love the Dell! :D

Best of luck Mitch,

perry

PS: I've read a lot of posts from a couple of the ADK guys and they seem to know their stuff... and are very on top of the latest parts, drivers and tweaks, etc.

One of the ADK Pro guys.. Chris Ludwig.. hangs out on the RME forum. You could chat with him there most likey if you like and/or find others that might recommend or comment on ADK.

[Mitch]

Thanks alot Perry ! Very useful. What variations do you have that differ from that listed at ADK ?

Yes, firewire 800 is important to me. I use 3 external FW drives for audio and sound libraries (using a LaCie 3 port PCI card). Would also like a dual head DVI video card (running 2 Dell 21" Ultrasharp flat panels - 1 digital, the other analog)

I'm just not a techie so I cant talk intelligently about chipsets, mobos etc. I need to trust the word and experience of others here.

I know I get pretty impressive performance with my current Dell system, just looking for a more dedicated, PRO machine.

I'm not sure I need the 10k rpm HD's though ? How important do you think they are ? I'd rather get 2gb ram than the upgraded drives myself ??

Thanks again Bob / Perry ! -- dont mean to hijack the thread, but I'm sure it's all useful info to you as well Scott ? ;)

[Perry]

Thanks alot Perry ! Very useful. What variations do you have that differ from that listed at ADK ?

Yes, firewire 800 is important to me. I use 3 external FW drives for audio and sound libraries (using a LaCie 3 port PCI card). Would also like a dual head DVI video card (running 2 Dell 21" Ultrasharp flat panels - 1 digital, the other analog)

I'm just not a techie so I cant talk intelligently about chipsets, mobos etc. I need to trust the word and experience of others here.

I know I get pretty impressive performance with my current Dell system, just looking for a more dedicated, PRO machine.

I'm not sure I need the 10k rpm HD's though ? How important do you think they are ? I'd rather get 2gb ram than the upgraded drives myself ??

Thanks again Bob / Perry ! -- dont mean to hijack the thread, but I'm sure it's all useful info to you as well Scott ? ;)

Well, it's pretty close really. I have the MSI 5900 XT video card but this isn't available any longer. The 5200 should do what you are asking for as far as I know though and should run those big Dells' at 1600 X 1200 with no sweat. I'm considering getting one of the MSI 5200's for another rig actually. (those Dell monitors are nice... great choice!)

You could ask them at ADK of course to be sure. I don't think these guys would knowingly lead you astray since (I believe) they warranty their systems and they have quite a web presence and wouldn't want unhappy customers I'm sure. They strike me as sincerely wanting to build a good product.

I like the Nvidia video cards myself and especially for dual monitors. I run one 23 inch Apple Cinema at 1920 X 1200 and a second 21 inch CRT (Dell) mounted in my desk at 1600 X 1200 and the Nvidia software let's me configure these completely independently. You should have no trouble running matched monitors.

I haven't tried any of the newer ATI cards though and I'm sure others here use those and may want to comment. But, at any rate, with the Nvidia cards and their "Nview" software I've been able to configure dual monitors any way at all that I want.. mixed resolutions, refresh rates... whatever. Very happy with these myself.

I have the same memory configuration exactly.. except different brand. I have OCZ and PQI. I'm not sure at the moment without looking which is in this rig currently. The Samsung should be fine in any case.

I also have the Zalman cooler... works great, very quiet! And.. the Antec True Power power supply. And Logitec wireless keyboard and mouse. As I said, very similar. :)

I have a rack mount case as well and had my main rig in it for a while but moved it back to an Antec Sonata case. Smaller and easier to move. Quiter too in my experience. The rack mount is cool though as long as it fits your needs.

As far as the 10,000 RPM dirves.. Ummm, I don't personally think you'd need that. I agree that the money would be better spent elsewhere. It would be for me at least. I do some fairly big projects (lots of tracks) and I don't really feel a particular need for faster HD's. At least I don't feel I want the 10,000 RPM drives at this time. Again.. I use the same WD series of drives that you've specified. I generally go with 120 Gigs for the audio drives.. though sometimes smaller ones. I've taken lately to using 120-200 Gig drives for the OS. I partition it and use the extra space for storage and quick copies of the days work until I have time to do DVD disks. That way the data is on two drives and they're so cheap now it seems almost a waste not to get a bigger size. OTOH, you could of course stay with the smaller OS drive and backup to a third drive... maybe a better idea really.

Ummm... as far as the OS goes right as this moment I'm back on Win2K. I have 3 XP disks... and though I have one authorized for this system on a separate drive I'm getting great performance with 2K with less hassle (to me) and there I stay for now at least. Also... I get blistering Firewire performance with Win2K but have never gotten this straighten out completey on my XP system and it's slower there (though still decent) and is essentially at earlier Firewire speeds though I have Firewire B. I think you'd have to do the RME recommended tweaks to basically take the Windows Firewire back to Service Pack 1 drivers in XP to get this working properly. I plan to do this but since I'm not using it at the moment haven't gotten around to it. Ummm... and this is an "accident" on Microsoft's part??? Yeah.. sure it is! :rolleyes:

So... at any rate, this really is basically the same system I'm using right now. And I can recommend it... and in fact I do! :) And if you want more power later you can upgrade the processor relatively cheaply for a substantial bump in performance.

All the best,

Perry

[Mitch]

Excellent Perry ! Thanks SO much for such a detailed response.

Win2K .... How would one go about obtaining a licensed copy these days ? - I dont get the whole Firewire / Win XP thing ? - I'm using the RME Fireface and 3 LaCie Firewire external drives, so it is imperative that I get the max performance from the OS .... so WIN2K is the ticket eh ? hmmm..... Wondering if I buy from ADK, if they'll install it ? Maybe not ?

I'd get the tower case as well. More "movable" if needed.

I dont see any specs re: how many USB / Firewire ports on this beast ? Guess it's time to call them and ask a ton of silly questions.

I know in my Dell, I've got to tweak the ATI Radeon settings JUST right to get things flowing w/ SAW, so I know the video card can make or break an otherwise good system.... again, I'm technically challenged so all your help before I purchase is GREATLY appreciated !!

Thanks again for taking the time to help out Perry ! :D

....oh yeah, dont you also use the UAD-1 card(s) ? I had one for 2 weeks and never could get it to play nice in my system ??

[Perry]

Excellent Perry ! Thanks SO much for such a detailed response.

Win2K .... How would one go about obtaining a licensed copy these days ? - I dont get the whole Firewire / Win XP thing ? - I'm using the RME Fireface and 3 LaCie Firewire external drives, so it is imperative that I get the max performance from the OS .... so WIN2K is the ticket eh ? hmmm..... Wondering if I buy from ADK, if they'll install it ? Maybe not ?

I'd get the tower case as well. More "movable" if needed.

I dont see any specs re: how many USB / Firewire ports on this beast ? Guess it's time to call them and ask a ton of silly questions.

I know in my Dell, I've got to tweak the ATI Radeon settings JUST right to get things flowing w/ SAW, so I know the video card can make or break an otherwise good system.... again, I'm technically challenged so all your help before I purchase is GREATLY appreciated !!

Thanks again for taking the time to help out Perry ! :D

....oh yeah, dont you also use the UAD-1 card(s) ? I had one for 2 weeks and never could get it to play nice in my system ??


Happy to help and hope it is of help.

About the Firewire issue... the guys at ADK Pro will I'm sure know all about this and can configure XP properly for you so this should work correctly. I'd definitely bring this up though and let them know that you want the highest performance out of this possible with FW B. The issue is that with XP when Microsoft went to Service Pack 2 basically they "broke" Firewire and it reverts back to the slower (slowest?) performance as a "safety" thing (?). Microsoft of course supports USB and that's *their* protocol while Firewire is more an Apple thing. Accident? You be the judge. ;)

At any rate, Microsoft now has a Firewire patch, but after installing it I still don't have the highest performance with FW like I do on my Win2K OS. But, I've been busy and just haven't taken the time to try any further to fix this in XP, but as far as I know it can be done. RME posted an explanation on their site about how to do this, but you shouldn't have to deal with it yourself.... just ask 'em at ADK Pro about this specifically. They should be able to give you a diffenitive answer about it and clear up any questions.

I'm not sure that Win2K is the ticket or not... a matter of opinion for sure. But, after going back and forth lately between them I'm working with W2K right now at least and no hurry to go back to XP. Depending on various issues though you might want to go with the newer OS... hard for me to say for sure. I'm still stradling the fence myself on this. :rolleyes: All things being equal though (if they are) I'd certainly prefer to avoid the authorization hassles. If you're going to get a rig and use it without further modification for quite some time though this may not be an issue for you as you shouldn't need to authorize it again any time soon. And, in all honesty I've yet to have a serious problem with this... yet! :rolleyes:

About the number of ports for Firewire and USB.. Ummm... without looking behind the desk... I think there's only 2 FW ports on a bracket.. and 4 USB on the mobo backplate. I think there's another plate for more USB... but I'd probably recommend a powered hub anyway if you're using anything much more than a mouse and/or keyboard for USB. There have been reports that I've read of these being a little skimpy on power for anything drawing power directly over USB.. though I haven't had a problem myself. Seems I read about some USB dongle issues with Neundo or SX, but that won't be a problem with SAWStudio of course (Thank you Bob! :) ). At any rate, if you want lots of ports this is maybe the best way to go anyway. I'm not even sure there *is* another mobo with 1394b on board even..

I use FW for CDR burning and/or DVD backups... and occassionally for a Western Digital hard drive in an external FW/USB combo case (that as I said has incredible throughput with 1394b). With the Fireface you're of course relying heavily on the FW, but this mobo is widely used for Daws and as far as I know with Fireface it should work well for you.

For the video cards it's a matter of them hogging the sytem and there are a couple of apps available that allow you to reset the PCI latency (or priority basically) so that they play nicer with the soundcard. I'm fairly certain ADK would set this up for best DAW performance.

And yes.. I have 2 UAD cards and one TC Powercore along the Soundscape 48 I/O Mixpander Power Pak soundcard. So I've got this system pretty maxed out and it's working quite well. The UAD cards are arguably too much trouble at this point... when there are so many alternatives available. OTOH there are a lot of guys out there that I'm sure you'd have to pry their's out of their dead hands to get them. :eek: Depends on what you want I guess. I don't use these nearly as much as I once did... but still for certain things they have their own color and "vibe' to offer. Right now I'm really happy that we have so many native plugins available for SAWStudio... very cool.

Adding the UAD-1 to a system can be a challenge sometimes really... pretty fussy. And with some systems/components they will never really get along completely... or so it seems. Great for real "die hards" that want what they want at any cost! :rolleyes: (like me I guess)

Anyway... yeah, I'd call 'em up at ADK Pro. And I wouldn't worry about asking too many "silly" questions.. if it's something you want to know about a DAW that you're considering buying from them then that's part of their job and I'm pretty sure they'll be glad to give you the answers. :) I'm pretty sure too that they'll install whatever you like and set the whole thing up to suit you. That would be the idea!

You can PM if you like after talking with ADK.. if you want a second opinion or whatever. Or post back here. I'll try to check in and see how it's going.

Good luck with it!

Perry

[MMP]

I have bought two bare bones systems form ADK and they have been great. MM

[Bruce Callaway]

Hi guys, just a comment on the 10K RPM HDD, I have found that it performs noticeably faster than my 7.2K drives. This has saved me a fair amount of time when building mixes for radio shows with 20 to 30 tracks.

[Mitch]

Thanks again Perry, Michael, Bruce, Bob ! You guys.....well, just awesome. :D

I tend to overdo most things so I'll probably end up maxed out and poor as always ;)

[Bruce Callaway]

Glad to help out Mitch, one thing is for sure, with all this good advice, you should end up with a great DAW!!!!!

[Perry]

I tend to overdo most things so I'll probably end up maxed out and poor as always ;)

Ahhhh... I Know this feeling!!! :D :rolleyes: but hey... as long as you're happy! :)

All the best,

Perry

[Mitch]

:D

I keep telling my wife "But hun, one day this whole entire room buys us a nice diesel pusher" :rolleyes: .....I dont think she's goin' for it though :(

[Perry]

Hi guys, just a comment on the 10K RPM HDD, I have found that it performs noticeably faster than my 7.2K drives. This has saved me a fair amount of time when building mixes for radio shows with 20 to 30 tracks.

Mmm... ok, well there's a good reason! :) For what I'm doing this isn't really much of an issue and I'm ok to stick with the 7200's.

But... just curious Bruce... are these noticable louder? Maybe I'd pick one up for using with certain jobs.

Perry

[Bruce Callaway]

Perry, mine is a WD SATA HDD. During recording and normal use, it is very quiet, hardly noticeable in fact. However when I build a mix file, you can definitely hear it working. This isn't a problem to me as I am not listening to the mix at the time.

[Perry]

Perry, mine is a WD SATA HDD. During recording and normal use, it is very quiet, hardly noticeable in fact. However when I build a mix file, you can definitely hear it working. This isn't a problem to me as I am not listening to the mix at the time.

Thanks Bruce... maybe I'll look into one of these. Faster is faster and sometimes that can come in real handy! :)

All the best..

Perry

[ttako]

Jusxt would like to ask,if it is true with the HDD capacity and SAW? So I better use less than 120GB drives? Just asking becouse I planed to buy 2x 300GB 16MBchache 7200 rpm Maxtor HDD for audio.... Any advice?
Thanks,

Tamas

[Perry]

Jusxt would like to ask,if it is true with the HDD capacity and SAW? So I better use less than 120GB drives? Just asking becouse I planed to buy 2x 300GB 16MBchache 7200 rpm Maxtor HDD for audio.... Any advice?
Thanks,

Tamas

Bob has stated that SAWStudio is designed to address 120 gigs or less, so yes... this is true. Now you can of course divide a bigger drive into 120 gig (or less) partitions and as far as I know this isn't a problem.

Perry

[MMP]

I am using multiple 300 gig drives with no issues in WinXP.

I might have been the original source of concern back when I was still running Win2000. I believe there was a third party (Maxtor) utility loaded to access large drives, and Saw wasn't hip to it and I didn't understand that was the issue until much later. Unfortunately, I think Bob still feels uncertain if large drives are safe to use.

AFAIK, this isn't a real issue...a least not on my systems.

Regards,

MM

[Mitch]

Great stuff here guys !

I'm getting ready to call ADK soon...... so......

1. WinXP - Home or Pro ? (using Pro now) what's the advantage/disadvantage of Home/Pro

2. SP2 or not ? Not sure how ADK configures their systems...with or without (I need full speed Firewire) I'm sure they'll know what to do ?

Leaning toward two WD 74gb 10K rpm drives and the AMD 3500 CPU

Quietest case / fans possible. (anything will be an improvement over the small cessna taxiing in my room ! ...the Dell... noisiest beast I've ever owned)

Anyway, I'm getting excited ! Thanks again to all you guys. Simply the best !

[Perry]

Great stuff here guys !

I'm getting ready to call ADK soon...... so......

1. WinXP - Home or Pro ? (using Pro now) what's the advantage/disadvantage of Home/Pro

2. SP2 or not ? Not sure how ADK configures their systems...with or without (I need full speed Firewire) I'm sure they'll know what to do ?

Leaning toward two WD 74gb 10K rpm drives and the AMD 3500 CPU

Quietest case / fans possible. (anything will be an improvement over the small cessna taxiing in my room ! ...the Dell... noisiest beast I've ever owned)

Anyway, I'm getting excited ! Thanks again to all you guys. Simply the best !


Hi Mitch..

As far as I know for a Daw the only reason to get XP Pro is if you plan to run dual processors.. as in two actual cpu's. The new dualcore cpu's will work with XP Home as there is only one actual socket and MS allows this... at least so far. Now that is "as far as I know"... I'd be interested in hearing opinions from others as to pros and cons on this myself.. if there are any.

I believe there are more extensive networking options in "pro" if that matters....

Otherwise I'd personaly prefer "home" as it seems to be a bit easier to install and setup (in my experiences anyway). Of course, if you're not installing it yourself then this doesn't matter... but it is cheaper and I don't see any reason to give more of your money to Microsoft if it isn't necessary. ;)

As to SP2.. if you're getting a new install I don't think you can avoid this as (as far as I know) all new XP disks will come with SP2 as part of the program... no choice over this now.

The AMD 3500 should be an excellent choice.... this seems a nice "sweet spot" to me. I went with the 3700+ with the bigger cache per your previous statement... "I tend to overdo most things so I'll probably end up maxed out and poor as always" :D This is arguably not worth the difference in price in terms of performance. And again, you can upgrade this later if you like... even to a dualcore. Although at that I'd be cautious about doing dualcore now as there are still some "kinks" to work out with these and some people are reporting problems, while others are raving about the performance. To be expected I guess. By the time you're ready to upgrade this most likely won't be an issue anyway.

On a side note and FWIW, my dualcore Daw rig is not online yet. I've buillt a new 4200+ dualcore rig for Danielle's graphics work (no audio work) and it's a serious screamer for that... awesome really. My first attempt at my own dualcore was freezing up and I've been too busy to get back to trouble shooting it so it's sitting on the side line at the moment.

There are probelms reported with both Intel and AMD dualcores btw. The AMD's are having issues particularly with UAD cards (Surprise!!! :rolleyes: ) and/or Firewire devices.. like the Fireface. So you want to stay clear of this for now I think. The ADK guys are all over this development though and they can advise you.

The Intel dualcores on the other hand seem to install and set up fine but there have been some reports of overheating and the related issue of loud fans for cooling. My OEM supplier here has informed me they've stopped selling Intel dualcore systems for the moment because of this.

The AMD dualcores btw run *very* cool! As soon as this all gets smoothed out for Daw use these should be extremely powerful performers.

Anyway, again.. I think you'll be very happy with the performance of the 3500+ single core and it works great right now. :)

I'd just talk with them at ADK about a "quiet" rig. I'm using the Antec Sonata case and I bought a more powerful Antec "True Power II" PSU for the main rig. I have a few of the Sonata cases and I love those. But now this has been replaced with the Sonata 2 case with a different PSU (that may not be as quite from what I've been told by my supplier).

So yeah.. I'm sure they'll have options for you at ADK on this. The AMD's run very cool. It shouldn't be a problem to put together a decently quite rig.

Enjoy the new rig when you get it! :)

Perry

[Ian Alexander]

Quietest case / fans possible. (anything will be an improvement over the small cessna taxiing in my room ! ...the Dell... noisiest beast I've ever owned)
What model of Dell, Mitch? I have a Dell Workstation 360 and a 370, and they're the quietest machines I've ever had. They sit in a closet behind a typical residential hollow-core door and I literally cannot hear them. The 370 replaced an HP that was akin to your Cessna, even behind the door. It is so much nicer to work here now, even when I'm not working on audio.

[Mitch]

Ian,

I have the Dell XPS Gen2 tower. I swear there must be 11 fans in the beast ! I'm sure the workstations are much better, being work environment machines. Seriously, this thing blows more air than .... (fill in the blank?)

It's been stable and I've been able to get work done with it with no major problems, I'm just wanting to "step up" .

[Bob L]

I highly recommend staying with SP1 if you can get it... ask whoever builds the machine if they have an older SP1 XP install disk... they can install from there and put in the new XP product code and it will still activate properly as long as the disk types are the same... meaning and OEM SP1 install with an OEM SP2 code... or an over the counter SP1 install with an over the counter SP2 code.

Bob L

[DennisC]

You can still buy Windows XP SP1. I did. Here is a link (I have no affiliation with the vendor):

http://www.viosoftware.com/Windows+XP+Home/Windows+XP+Home+with+SP1+OEM.html

Dennis

[jeromee]

I noticed my Home/SP1 tower seemed to run a little better than my SP2 laptop, both dell. What is the reason? They have identical specs. Is it possible to revert my laptop back to SP1? Thanks

[Bob L]

No way I know of reverting back unless you have a restore point from the SP2 install.

SP2 adds an amazing amount of kludge and annoying popup blockers and firewall protection hooks that are very difficult to shutdown... they will continue to popup up weeks later and turn themselves back on in many instances.

SP2 truly gives meaning to the Big Brother Is Watching concept. :)

Bob L

[Mitch]

Jeromee,

I sucessfully removed SP2 from my Dell XPS PC. It was a selectable option in the "Add/Remove Programs" option in control panel. After it was removed, the PC booted, ran and shut down about 150% faster ! YMMV

The version of XP I had was the older version with only SP1. SP2 was installed via a Microsoft on-line update. From what I understand, newer versions of XP come with SP2 already embedded, so it may be difficult or impossible to remove it ?

[jeromee]

Thanks Bob & Mitch

My work computer downloaded SP2 on update and wreaked havoc on my photoshop cs and about 60% of my other apps. D*** that Bill G.... I learned from that and stopped my update from coming in at home. Anyway, my laptop came with SP2, next I guess I will do a clean format and try sp1 install,and keep my fingers crossed. Thanks for the help.
Jeremy

[Scott P]

Wow. I didn't realize that SP2 was such a headache. Thanks for letting me know. In a new machine, is there any reason not to re-install my good old NT4? Are there any disadvantages? I'm retiring the old machine anyway. I don't see any licensing issues. I also have an old copy of 2000, would that be better?

Right now I'm thinking a dual processor machine. What are the o/s issues with NT4, 2000 and XP?

Thanks guys,
Scott

[Scott P]

Speaking of dual processor machines. Does anyone have ant suggestions on chipsets and m/b for using with RME digiface?

Oh.. on that NT4 question. I already figured out an answer to that one. Drivers, nuts. :)

Thanks,
Scott

[Bob L]

I would go to 2000 instead of NT4... the reasons... almost no hardware supports NT any more... its very tough to stay there.

At least you can get usb and firewire support for 2000.

Bob L

[Mark Stebbeds]

SP2 adds an amazing amount of kludge and annoying popup blockers and firewall protection hooks that are very difficult to shutdown... they will continue to popup up weeks later and turn themselves back on in many instances.

SP2 truly gives meaning to the Big Brother Is Watching concept. :)

Bob L

So what good things is SP2 supposed to be bringing to the table? FWIW, I never bothered to update to SP2, but for no other reason than I'm lazy, and didn't feel I was missing anything.

Is it just IE stuff? Don't use that either, except when I have to. (when I land on that pesky web site that won't jive with Firefox.)

Mark

[jeromee]

So what good things is SP2 supposed to be bringing to the table?

Mark


I think the good things it brings to the table is the pop up blocker which is guarenteed to cause even more frustration when you are trying to download something you really need:(

Also I noticed instead of 27 things running in the background it jumped up to 45:confused:

[Naturally Digital]

Speaking of dual processor machines. Does anyone have ant suggestions on chipsets and m/b for using with RME digiface?Intel or AMD?

[Naturally Digital]

(when I land on that pesky web site that won't jive with Firefox.)I haven't really found any of those recently.

[Carl G.]

Also I noticed instead of 27 things running in the background it jumped up to 45:confused:
Jeromee,
I run SP2... and I use "Autoruns" to shut things down on startup... so I'm down to 33 now :)

[Scott P]

Intel or AMD?


I've heard better things about AMD, but I'm interested in hearing about both.

Thanks,
sp

[Perry]

I highly recommend staying with SP1 if you can get it... ask whoever builds the machine if they have an older SP1 XP install disk... they can install from there and put in the new XP product code and it will still activate properly as long as the disk types are the same... meaning and OEM SP1 install with an OEM SP2 code... or an over the counter SP1 install with an over the counter SP2 code.

Bob L

Interesting.. I didn't know about this trick. Thanks for the info Bob, I'll look into this. :)

Perry

[Perry]

I've heard better things about AMD, but I'm interested in hearing about both.

Thanks,
sp

Are you talking about actual 2 processors.. or a single processor with dualcore?

If you want dual AMD then you're talking about Opterons. Try looking at the Tyan S2895, Tyan S2885, Tyan K8W or the Super Micro H8DCE.

The PCI-E Pro dual processor broards by the way don't have a problem with PCI-E slots causing glitching for audio... but the "regular" PCI-E boards with the Nvidia NForce 4 chipset are currently a no-no. The ADK Pro guys have been talking with Nvidia lately though and AMD has promised to fix this problem (apparently they weren't aware of it) and so we should have NForce 4 boards that will work for Daws... sometime.

If you're talking about "dualcore" as in the new AMD X2 dualcore processors like the 4200+ then try the Asus A8V Deluxe (but not the "E" version that has PCI-E slots) and/or the Gigabyte K8NS-Ultra 939. These are both slot 939 motherboards that support the new dualcores with a BIOS upgrade. New motherboards bought now might already include the newer BIOS.

But, the dualcores are a little shakey still according to some reports (and in my own experiences so far) and you might want to wait a bit for this... particularly if you use UAD-1's and/or Firewire (like the Fireface). Quite a few posts around over problems with these and the dualcore AMD's... though some report they have this working.

OTOH.. a well built dual processor Opteron, though costly, is pretty much the king of hill for top performance as far as I know and these are fairly mature at this point with a lot of systems in the field reportly kicking **s and taking names. :rolleyes:

As to Intel... I know of a few reports of overheating problems with their new dualcores, but others seem to have these working... and otherwise they seem to be relatively easy to setup initially. But not quite as strong of a performer as the AMD's according to reports I've read at least. And they definitely run hotter than the AMD's.

For dual Intel processors there's the tried and true dual Xeons.

If I were going to spend this much money on a system though I'd personally definitely go with the dual Opterons.

Perry

[Mitch]

The Dual processor / dual core thing........ SAW does not like either right ? Better to stick w/ a single processor ?

Going to skimp on the HD and pour the most $$ into the processor...maybe the AMD 4000 ? - Just get a 40 / 80 gb system drive and that's it... I'll continue to use my FW800 drives for audio cuz I can share with the laptop and keep the same drive path configs on both systems...no repathing when I switch from PC to laptop.

Perry, I'm totally following your lead here ! Do me right bro ! ... If this works out good, I'll be after a UAD at some point ...and I KNOW it works, cuz you said so !!! :eek:

[Perry]

The Dual processor / dual core thing........ SAW does not like either right ? Better to stick w/ a single processor ?

Going to skimp on the HD and pour the most $$ into the processor...maybe the AMD 4000 ? - Just get a 40 / 80 gb system drive and that's it... I'll continue to use my FW800 drives for audio cuz I can share with the laptop and keep the same drive path configs on both systems...no repathing when I switch from PC to laptop.

Perry, I'm totally following your lead here ! Do me right bro ! ... If this works out good, I'll be after a UAD at some point ...and I KNOW it works, cuz you said so !!! :eek:

:eek: Mmmm.. well, I'm steering you as best I can. ;) :) This stuff is never really bullit proof though... but this is pretty safe ground we're standing on here for sure.

As to the the dual cpu and dualcore situation... SAWStudio is designed to utillize 2 processors and this can be a very cool thing. But it's ummm... well, more complex is I guess a good way to put it. And using 1 processor is less complexity. In the days of the dual P-III 1000 Intel processors I loved the dual rig I had.

But... it depends on a lot of factors. The thing with the single CPU rig is that it is safe, tried and true. And with the speed and overall power available with the CPU's that you can buy today... and the savings in cost over a dual cpu system... it arguably makes more sense to go with one of the high powered single cpu systems (though dualcore is not really much more money).

OTOH... from everything I read, dualcore is not going away by any means and this isn't just a fad or a specialty item. These will become the mainstream cpu for both Intel and AMD very rapidly and this is the plan for the future of desktop computing... parallel processing. Expect to see *more* cores! Quadcore... and more. Single core CPU's will most likely be "antiques" and/or extreme budget items in the very near future.

But for now... right now... If you want to go with the 4000+ AMD for sure this will be a major performer. With the Gigabyte mobo and a gig of quality ram and other equal quality components this will be a serious powerhouse Daw.

As thing stand right at this moment, today, I'd recommend this over the dualcore. It's just still a bit too shaky to recommend ... at least by me. The ADK Pro guys might say otherwise but you'd have to ask them about that.

I have invested in a dualcore rig myself and expect to get that sorted out and use this as my main rig... and I'm looking forward to this. But... maybe I'm a little nuts with this stuff. :D And the thing is you can build a powerhouse single processor rig today with the Gigabyte board and upgrade this later to the dualcore if you like... after the dust has settled really well on this. This is what I recommend that you do. The choice of course is yours. ;)

I'm putting my dualcore rig together only as a separate rig... my current rig is still working. Once I get the dualcore sorted out I'll only have to move over my soundcard and DSP cards. That way I'm never "down".

About the UAD-1... in my opinion this is something that you have to really want in terms of the plugins that it provides. It isn't something (in my opinion) to get to save cpu cycles from your system processor in order to make things easier. If anything the UAD-1 adds complexity and they can be pretty darn finicky.

I like having mine and don't want to get rid of them, but I take them for what they are and realize that there are limitations in using them. One issue for us SAW users is that they don't like to see buffer changes and part of the beauty of Bob's design is that it allows (and handles) buffer changes.

In some instances with certain orders of plugins and such the UAD-1 freaks over this and sometimes you're restricted in their use. You might have to use them specifically pre or post or otherwise make special allowances for them in SAWStudio depending on what else you've got going. They don't always get along with other things all that well and this really isn't just an issue with SAWStudio... it's an issue with the UAD-1. Personally, I just accept this and use them accordingly.

I'm not trying to discourage you here, just wanting to "do you right"! :p Seriously though... If you really want the UAD-1, if at all possible, I'd suggest getting this now and having ADK install and configure this for you from the get go. But... it could be done later and they will work with this mobo... as I said I have 2 in my rig.

FWIW, I like your choices in terms of trade offs between hard drives and cpu power and I agree with these decisions... go for the more powerful processor. Down the line I don't think I've ever regretted doing that. Generally you absorb the cost and forget all about that, and later you'll be happy with the extra power. If you stay one or two processor levels back from the top with todays CPU's this should be a good spot. :)

Perry

[Perry]

Hmmmm... actually, giving this some further thought. That 4000+ processor is not necessarily your best buy as far as money versus performance. Go for this if you like of course, nothing at all wrong with it. It's just not perhaps the best bang for your buck. The 3500+ or 3700+ models should give you very near identical performance for less money.

With the 4000+ you are still a couple of bins back from the top (and much more expensive) single core performers... the FX 55 and FX 57... and so this doesn't really change what I said earlier, but it's something to consider at least.

Also, there's a confusing assortment of models throughout the speed range... with different models having sometimes the same speeds. To make matters worse some places don't distinguish between these and just post prices for the various speeds with no destinction between models.

Rule of thumb is I'd stay with the newer AMD "San Diego" (1 MB Cache) or "Venice" (512k Cache) models on S939 for single core. These have improved memory controllers over the earlier models that are still on shelves and available.

Again ADK will be on top of all this and this shouldn't be any problem... just thought you might like the info.

Best of luck,

Perry

[Scott P]

Perry,
Thanks for the help. Right now I'm looking at:
MSI K8N Neo2-F Socket 939 NVIDIA nForce3 Ultra ATX AMD Motherboard and Dual AMD Athlon 64 3000+ Venice 1GHz FSB Socket 939 Processor Model ADA3000BPBOX.

Any comments?

Thanks again,
Scott

PS: Just a reminder. This is for RME digiface I/O

[AudioAstronomer]

Perry,
Thanks for the help. Right now I'm looking at:
MSI K8N Neo2-F Socket 939 NVIDIA nForce3 Ultra ATX AMD Motherboard and Dual AMD Athlon 64 3000+ Venice 1GHz FSB Socket 939 Processor Model ADA3000BPBOX.

Any comments?

Thanks again,
Scott

PS: Just a reminder. This is for RME digiface I/O

Dual will probably yeild little performance gains for the price right now... hoping Bob "fixes" (makes better) the dual processor support soon :)

[Bob L]

Sorry Robert, but there is not much more to really fix for dual support, in my opinion. It is highly overrated in my experience... especially for something like a streaming audio or video app. There is not much that can truly be sparated out and processed until preceeding data is processed and summed into the mix.

The stabilty issues seem highly related to factors outside my control, like video drivers and firewire drivers and soundcard drivers... these all have to be perfect for everything to hold water... and this is simply not yet a perfect science. :)

That's not to say that I can't dig in and spend more time and research to fix every possible loophole on my end... but I truly don't believe this will lead to any noteworthy performance gains... therefore it's hard to justify the time and expense.

Bob L

[Scott P]

Okay. So should I ditch the dual processor approach for one really fast processor then?

I was thinking that I would get more speed for the money using a dual.


Thanks,
Scott

[Carl G.]

Sorry Robert, but there is not much more to really fix for dual support, in my opinion.
Bob L
My worry is the news about Intel... planning everything here out as Dual Processing. Did I hear that right?

[Perry]

My worry is the news about Intel... planning everything here out as Dual Processing. Did I hear that right?

Seems so. As far as I know the immediate roadmap for both Intel and AMD is multicore processors for the mainstream desktop market.

Good news (at least for a while) may be that single core processors get cheaper and cheaper as time goes by.. bad news is that they may not progress all that much further from what we have here today, unless the gaming market keeps single core going for a while yet. Currently there are no advantages for multicore for any games, but that could change too... and probably will as multicore becomes mainstream.

My guess is (and indications are) that more and more apps will start to support multicore processing, since this is the roadmap, and single core processors will fade out of the limelight. How long this takes isn't a certainty... I suppose... but at least in writing Intel and AMD have both indicated that this will definitely be where there major efforts will be directed from here on out.

I expect that they mean what they say in this regards and I expect persoanlly that this will continue to happen fairly rapidly. Single core CPU's have most likely seen their day... whether we like it or not. :eek: :)

Perry

[Perry]

Okay. So should I ditch the dual processor approach for one really fast processor then?

I was thinking that I would get more speed for the money using a dual.


Thanks,
Scott

Mmmm... well, perhaps you would. :) If you get it working of course.

But today.. right at this moment... I'd have to say yes to your question here and say go for the single core processor.

As I've said, I'm personally putting together a dualcore rig... but it's somewhat of an experiment at this point and depending on the outcome I'm not sure how I'll end up utilizing this. It *might* become my main Daw... I hope so.... but maybe it won't. Don't know yet. :)

And since Bob has stated here that this offers little performance gains for SAWStudio in relation to possible negative impact, I'd definitely take his advice into careful consideration. :)

I wish I was further along with testing my own dualcore rig and could comment more from personal experience, but I guess I can't really complain about being too busy to get to it lately. :rolleyes:

According to various reports I've seen though, in cases where people actually have these performing in a "working" environment.. the results are very good.

What we're in right now is a transition period... moving from single core to dual core and multicore. It'll take a few days. :D

But right now there are still too many people reporting problems.. freeze ups, crashes, etc... especially in relation to firewire and/or UAD-1 use.

Until I actually see this working well myself, I just can't recommend dualcore... not quite yet. Too scary still... too new... not enough data as to exactly what works with what and what doesn't.

But as I stated in other posts... indications are that we all *will* be using this eventually. And probably sooner than one might think... unless of course you buy up on single core products right now and hang on to 'em! ;)

But again.. today... I'd have to recommend you go for the single core and don't worry about it! :) That's what I would do.

All the best,

Perry

[Perry]

Perry,
Thanks for the help. Right now I'm looking at:
MSI K8N Neo2-F Socket 939 NVIDIA nForce3 Ultra ATX AMD Motherboard and Dual AMD Athlon 64 3000+ Venice 1GHz FSB Socket 939 Processor Model ADA3000BPBOX.

Any comments?

Thanks again,
Scott

PS: Just a reminder. This is for RME digiface I/O

Ooops... sorry Scott, I didn't notice this at first, but you have a bit of a conflict in your specs here. The AMD 3000+ Venice is a single core cpu... but a good one! :) For the difference in price I might consider the 3200+ (or the 3500+ even) but the 3000 would certainly be a good performer. And for single core do go for the Venice or San Diego models.

Perry

[Scott P]

Perry,
Thanks a lot for following this so close and I sincerely appreciate your patience. Like everyone else, I don't have the money or the time to waste with experimenting. I use my DAW full time every day and can't afford to have any down time. At this point I think I have a couple of questions just to clarify what I think you've said.

1. Are dual processor rigs stable?

2. It looks like the consensus is that one fast single core is as good or better than a dual core for this application. Is that correct?

Scott

[AudioAstronomer]

Sorry Robert, but there is not much more to really fix for dual support, in my opinion. It is highly overrated in my experience... especially for something like a streaming audio or video app. There is not much that can truly be sparated out and processed until preceeding data is processed and summed into the mix.

The stabilty issues seem highly related to factors outside my control, like video drivers and firewire drivers and soundcard drivers... these all have to be perfect for everything to hold water... and this is simply not yet a perfect science. :)

That's not to say that I can't dig in and spend more time and research to fix every possible loophole on my end... but I truly don't believe this will lead to any noteworthy performance gains... therefore it's hard to justify the time and expense.

Bob L


I would assume more improvement is possible, seen some other a/v softwares getting large gains from dual-processing BUT still funny enough rarely get close to saw on a single... So perhaps not. Either way Im sure you know what's up with it.

On 2 processors, is it not possible to split plugin threads across the cpu's assuming they are paralell (on different tracks)? From my understanding so far, with the VST and DX spec this is possible even for plugins that know nothing about multiprocessor and perhaps as well with native?

Already work this way... or not possible... or ..?

[Bob L]

Robert... in my engine tracks are processed one at a time because they all contribute and interact with the routing in various ways... especially when you start taking advantage of the keying features...

Aux information builds and can loop back on itself depending on any plugin that alters buffer sizes...

The VST protocol does not allow for altering buffer sizes, so its much more straight forward...

But things must progress in a serial fashion... even across tracks... many buffers depend on data from other buffers being finished first... it gets very complex...

I think what you are seeing is many programs touting their dual processor efficiency as a marketing thing because that's a current buzzword in the industry... but as you already noted, in the end... SAWStudio still is a tough one to beat performance wise. :)

Bob L

[Carl G.]

in the end... SAWStudio still is a tough one to beat performance wise. :) Bob L
And that's what counts!....
not to mention, features wise, tech wise, and FUN wise!

[Dan Hauck]

I would agree. My new machine uses an AMD3500+ and I can't imagine wanting much better performance at this point. If Bob says that there can be stability problems with dual cores I'd tend to take his word for it. Stability outweighs everything else in my book. When things break down in the middle of a session, it looks real bad to the client.


Dan

[Naturally Digital]

I think what you are seeing is many programs touting their dual processor efficiency as a marketing thing because that's a current buzzword in the industry...For the most part, I would suspect that this is true of many apps out there. I would like to mention however, that I've done some extensive testing on nuendo and it did a 'nice job' of spreading the plugin load over two processors. Not sure if that's what Robert is referring to or not...

Another one worth looking at is the latest v4 mixer software from Soundscape/Sydec. It now supports VST plugs and also spreads the load out over dual processors. I was quite impressed by that.

Granted... this is VST.

I've been quite happy with the performance of SAWStudio on my dual proc machines... Funny enough, the mention of it being dual proc aware was one of the things that first drew me to the program.

*If* it were ever possible to squeeze a little more performance out of the dual setups w/SAWStudio, that would only be a bonus. If not, it isn't going to ruin my day.

Scott,

My dual processor machines are stable. Some more than others.;) If you decide to go dual, I can only speak for the Tyan MB's. I think the newer ones are better than the older Tiger MP and MPX's that I'm running. I have a dual zeon with a Tyan MB and it's awesome.

As Bob mentions, it really depends on the other hardware having good drivers and such. I think "keep it simple" is really important for stability. Use a tried and true video card and a reliable audio card. I've got Soundscape, RME, Lynx and Creamware cards all running in different dual proc machines. I don't have enough long-term experience with the RME and Creamware (as in years) to know for sure but the Soundscape product is very stable for me.

As soon as you add UAD-1 or Powercore to the equation, things can get ugly in a hurry.

[Perry]

Perry,
Thanks a lot for following this so close and I sincerely appreciate your patience. Like everyone else, I don't have the money or the time to waste with experimenting. I use my DAW full time every day and can't afford to have any down time. At this point I think I have a couple of questions just to clarify what I think you've said.

1. Are dual processor rigs stable?

2. It looks like the consensus is that one fast single core is as good or better than a dual core for this application. Is that correct?

Scott

Hi Scott,

I'm happy to help. Fact is I've gained tons of valuable information from this forum... so it's always nice to be able to contribute some back. :)

So, to your two questions..

Short answers first..

1. Are dual processor rigs stable?

I think you mean "dualcore"? If so..

Maybe.. sometimes.. if you're lucky... today.

2. It looks like the consensus is that one fast single core is as good or better than a dual core for this application. Is that correct?

Yes, it looks that way. :)



And now... if you're interested.. here are the (much) longer answers:

1. "Are dual processor rigs stable?"

Depends on who you ask. I've read reports from people that swear their dualcore rigs are working great... and I have no reason to disbelieve them. But (and their's always that But! ;) ) I've seen more posts on various forums of people having problems.. again, especially with Firewire and UAD-1's.

My wife's dualcore 4200+ that I built for her is working great and it's a screamer for her graphics work (Photo Shop, Illustrator, Corel Draw, etc)... and it's very stable... but it's just for her graphics work and uses the on-board audio for sound.

Also, I'm assuming here that you actually are refering to "dualcore" rather than "dual processor". There is a definite distinction of course in that true dual processor rigs have 2 separate cpu sockets whereas "dualcore" has one, although (for instance) a dual socket AMD Opteron can accept "dualcore" processors as well. But, that's getting beyond the topic here for the moment I think.

Another distinction between "dualcore" (like the AMD X2 processors) and "dual processor" (like the AMD Opterons) is that the Opterons are fairly mature at this point and there are many such Daw rigs in the field and though I haven't actually tried on myself, I feel confindent to say that these are in fact stable and extremely powerful. ADK Pro labels these as "King of the Hill".. for what it's worth. And I have talked with people that have these in use.

OTOH, I haven't heard any direct reports from anyone using a dual Opteron with SAWStudio specificaly, though I don't see why this should be a problem.

Still another distinction between these (and for most people probably an important one) is cost. A dual Opteron is not cheap. But a dualcore X2 AMD system can be built relatively cheaply though, especially now that AMD has released the lower end X2 3800+.

So... as best as I can put it at the moment...

Dual processor Opterons.. stable and extremely powerful.. but costly.

Dualcore X2 AMD... reasonably priced and very powerful, runs very cool, but too many reports of problems to safely recommend for a Daw as of right at this moment, unless perhaps you had someone like ADK Pro build one for you with a warranty that it will work properly for you (and I believe that they'll do that).

Dualcore Intel.... very reasonably priced, powerful but less so than AMD's dualcore. I've seen statements from system builders saying that dualcore Intels are comparable in performance to equivelent dual Xeon systems... but for less money. Mostly stable, but some reports of overheating issues and/or noisey due to heavy duty cooling solutions to prevent overheating, though others report this is not a problem at all and only requires reasonable cooling (Zalman, etc).

Here's a thread I lifted from another forum regarding the Intel/AMD dualcores....

"The Dual Core does help regardless of the brand but we do find AMD systems to be more problematic than Intel at the moment and mostly related to compatibility issues with UAD-1 cards. The other issues we have seen are the following;

1. With nVidia 3 chipsets there are Cubase/Nuendo USB dongle issues.
2. With nVidia 3 Sound Forge and CD Architect do not recognize new DVDRW drives (Pioneer DVR9, Plextor and others).
3. With the VIA chipset you will not see the above mentioned problems but perhaps bandwidth is not as good.

With an Intel Dual Core system you will loose 5% performance but you will gain compatibility and stability.

Just my opinion Smile

Guy Cefalu
Sonica Audio Labs "

But then there's this as well:

http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,122284,00.asp


2. "It looks like the consensus is that one fast single core is as good or better than a dual core for this application. Is that correct?"

Mmmmmm... short answer again... At the moment.. yes. Definitely this is the "safe" thing to do.

And definitely you can build a very powerful single core system. Personally for this I would look at an AMD 3500+ to 4000+ system depending on budget available. Others of course might recommend Intel systems.

Here comes the long answer now... :rolleyes:

But (there it is again!)... I still say that daulcore is where we'll all be very soon. Of course I could be wrong. But I have to say I very much doubt this.

I might compare this to when (a relatively short while ago) we were all considering Windows NT to be *the* OS of choice for our SAW rigs. And (sigh).. I wish it were still true really. But, things change... "Progress" in the computer arena propels us forward and we are forced to move on whether we like it or not.

Dualcore is what we're going to be looking at from here on out. I don't think there's much doubt of this at all.

http://www.intel.com/pressroom/archive/releases/20050823corp.htm

http://news.com.com/Intel+powers+up+plans+for+low-power+chips/2100-1006_3-5842125.html?tag=nefd.top


As Intel has officially put it now.. "NetBurst (the architecture behind the Pentium 4) is dead," said Kevin Krewell, editor in chief of the Microprocessor Report.

AMD has had multicore on their roadmap for a while now and is aggressively pursuing multicore technology and is, if anything, currently leading the pack on this.

One interesting thing is that while Intel appears to be going completely into multicore technology, AMD just might continue a high end line of single cores for the gaming community, where they are very strong... at least for a while. I expect to see games start to use multicore to share the workload for the enormous demands of new gaming technology though and then those will disappear rapidly I'd expect.

And so I think we'll be forced to deal with dualcore processing regardless of anything else. As we had to move on from our very safe and stable NT rigs we're going to have to deal with dualcore as well as we build new systems. (We're also going to eventually have to deal with other things too.. like the new Windows OS and the ever growing use of PCI-E.. but one thing at a time... let's not do that here right now. ;) )

Well... about the PCI-E situation. Funny enough it appears that the AMD dualcores are working pretty well on S939 NForce 4 SLI boards with PCI-E.

Also, rumour has it NVidia is working on a fix for the PCI-E problem with audio for DAW work and claim they can fix this (of course we still won't have soundcards for the PCI-E slots yet!)

Anyway, since Bob did build dual processor support into SAWStudio long ago, my hope is that as dual processing takes over the market (and it certainly will) we'll be sitting perfectly fine here in SAWStudio land. The transition should be relatively painless. :)

All the best,

Perry

Oops.. meant to reply to your statement, "I don't have the money or the time to waste with experimenting. I use my DAW full time every day and can't afford to have any down time."

I understand this totally... and that's why I recommend that you go with the single core system right now. I use my DAW every day as well and I can't afford down time either. That's why I'm building the dualcore as a seperate rig. My situation was that I wanted another "additional" rig anyway, so I decided on this route since the dualcores were coming on to the market and initial reports were encouraging... and because I like to keep up with the newer technology. And *somebody* has to do the experimenting! :rolleyes:

Whatever happens I know I'll find a use for the rig.. so no worries there.. but I keep my 3700+ AMD/Gigabyte K8NS Ultra 939 running as my main DAW in the meantime. IF the dualcore works out it will become my main DAW and the 3700+ the "additional" DAW. Otherwise, it'll probably be the other way around.

Hope this helps to explain. :)

[Carl G.]

Interesting quote out of that article on Intel's new multi-Core platform to be released in mid 2006:
""We will deliver 'factor of 10' breakthroughs to a variety of platforms that can reduce energy consumption tenfold or bring 10 times the performance of today's products."

Sure'd be nice if they could just even keep the same processing power at 1/10 the heat of the Prescotts!!!

[Perry]

Interesting quote out of that article on Intel's new multi-Core platform to be released in mid 2006:
""We will deliver 'factor of 10' breakthroughs to a variety of platforms that can reduce energy consumption tenfold or bring 10 times the performance of today's products."

Sure'd be nice if they could just even keep the same processing power at 1/10 the heat of the Prescotts!!!


:) Hi Carl...

Yeah... true enough! I think Intel has taken a bit too much heat (pun intended) over the temps of their processors and they'll probably go the other way now with CPU's that you can keep your drinks cold with. ;)

Intel has the power saving technology already in play with their M processors... we'll just have to see where they go now. I think we can at the very least thank AMD for keeping the pressure on.

This may get very interesting. At any rate, looks like multicore CPU power is "the next big thing" for sure. Hopefully it'll be a good thing for us. We'll being finding out soon enough I guess.

Perry

[MMP]

I think multicore systems will get more stable as they become mainstream. Drivers will have to get fixed.

I will definitely be "trailing edge" on this change over, however.

Regards,

MM

[Perry]

I think multicore systems will get more stable as they become mainstream. Drivers will have to get fixed.

I will definitely be "trailing edge" on this change over, however.

Regards,

MM

I think this is going to be coming on so strong and fast there'll be no choice but to get it right... hopefully. :)

And yeah... "trailing edge" as you put it so well :D is probably the best plan for the moment. And in spite of how it may sound... that's basicaly what I'm doing too.

I'm definitely not one of the guys that jumped in this fire without looking and are now swimming in the stew. ;)

As soon as I have any concrete info with my own system though I'll be sure to post about it here... assuming it isn't already old news by that time of course. :)

Perry

[Scott P]

Perry, lots of stuff to look at, and I will, but actually I was talking about a literal dual processor (2 individual processors) machine over a single fast one.

What's your opinion there? It looks like SAW isn't taking advantage of the dual processors, and I don't know if anything else will either. I use the usual variety of SAW natvie plugs along with Waves stuff.

I know at one time Bob was working on the dual threading thing, but it seems that's not a viable thing anymore, so I was wondering if there's any advantage.

Thanks,
Scott

PS: Thanks for being the experimenter. I ish I could, and maybe someday I will, but not today. :D

[Bob L]

Scott... SAWStudio has specialized code that DOES take as much advantage of dual processors as has made sense within the engine... it is definitely dual aware... and does split threads specifically to each processor in an exacting manner... please understand that.

Splitting threads to different plugins in a parallel fashion, I have found is not necessarily a plausable route to higher performance... and DEFINITELY complicates things in the stability department. A mixing engine that allows aux send splitting and pre and post patches as well as return and bus subgroup patches and keying from other tracks is a SERIAL operation... things NEED to happen in a linear fashion... the next buffer cannot be processed until many other previous operations are complete... so what you end up with is a whole series of independent threads all waiting on each other to complete before they can do their processing... this ADDS kludge to the engine performance... as well as incredible complexity that returns virtually NO benefits in overall performance.... at least in my experience.

SAWStudio splits the load to the different processors in a way that creates the highest performance results factor... and that is to split all user interface and display redraws and meter handling to one processor, and all engine activites to the other...

The results... as stated many times... an overall improvement in display reaction time and meter response as well as user response time to keyboard and mouse operations under heavy loaded sessions, that will otherwise start to bogdown on a single procesor once the MT loads climb above the 50-60% range.

Is it worth the extra expense... to some, I'm sure it is... but I have found, still, that its much easier to stabilize and reach similar performance specs with a single hi-speed processor and a well tuned system.

Bob L

[ttako]

Hi everyone,
After hunging on several internet forums and asking all my fellows from the
Computerdivision from a company I am working for as well as alking and mailing with Scott from ADK I have the following toughts:

1
. Intel sonoma based Notebooks (like the type 7000 at the adkproaudio website)
is very good for SAW! (using a FW800 PCMCIA card and for example 2x RME Fireface and two internal 60 GB 7200rpm HDD and an extra FW400 external hdd
using the built in FW400 port. It has a DVD DL burner as well for backups and a GigabitLAN for using SAWSTUDIO's TCP/IP capabilities You can use two or more
of this setup for more CPU power and track count ...
2.
As Desktop I think the ASUS A8V or the Gigabyte K8NS ultra 939 and the AMD
x2 4400 CPU (easy to OC to around 2.7GHz clock).
It has lot of horsepower. And as said earlier If you want to add CPU powerand/or
track count, you can use several machines using the TCP/IP capabilities of
SAWSTUDIO.
If someone has an older Pentium 478 socket PC, it can be upgraded to a Sonoma
and can be OCd to around 2.3-2.5GHz. (at this speed the CPU power as like the power of a DUAL XEON P4 machine clocked at 3GHz!!!)
To do this you have to buy a socket adapter from ASUS.
I think this is the best way to upgrade a PC now for a great power PC at low cost.

I personaly will have two PCs with AMD x2 4400 and the Gigabyte Motherboard
and two RME Firefaces per machine.
I then will connect them as Master/slave using TCP/IP. This will be a setup for live recording and Post production. (I can record this way 80 CHs at the same time
at 96kHz or 112 at 48kHz. I will have 40 analoge inputs, 8 SP/DIF and 64 ch of ADAT at 48kHz)

I think such a setup will rock!! ( and all this costs with 4x RME FF800 and two
19" LCD around USD 8000!)

I am just curious, what Bob would say about my toughts above?

Cheers,

Tamas

[Bob L]

Tamas,

I say...go for it and send us pictures. :)

Seriously... no telling what problems you may run into... it all sounds good... just make sure to keep the system install clean and lean.

Good Luck.

Bob L

[ttako]

Sure!
I just can't await it! It seems, that I will have all the money for it at the end of september... I will pack them in two 19" 10U racks...

Tamas

[Perry]

Perry, lots of stuff to look at, and I will, but actually I was talking about a literal dual processor (2 individual processors) machine over a single fast one.

What's your opinion there? It looks like SAW isn't taking advantage of the dual processors, and I don't know if anything else will either. I use the usual variety of SAW natvie plugs along with Waves stuff.

I know at one time Bob was working on the dual threading thing, but it seems that's not a viable thing anymore, so I was wondering if there's any advantage.

Thanks,
Scott

PS: Thanks for being the experimenter. I ish I could, and maybe someday I will, but not today. :D


Warning.. this is a long post! The coffee was good (extra good!) and I had a few minutes... so....



Hi Scott,

I would go into the fact that SAWStudio does support dual CPU's... and has for a long time... but, Bob has already answered this quite well so I'll just add my own thoughts here.

FWIW.. I like dual processor rigs... if they work well. I've had two in the past. One worked extremely well for me (at that time) and the other one worked sort of ok (but I think this had more to do with other issues.. like the chipset.. rather than any thing to do with the actual dual cpu issue).

I *really* like *exactly* what Bob describes when he explains that the results are:

"an overall improvement in display reaction time and meter response as well as user response time to keyboard and mouse operations under heavy loaded sessions, that will otherwise start to bogdown on a single procesor once the MT loads climb above the 50-60% range."

This is exactly what I love about a dual cpu environment. What I don't like of course is it causes problems in other ways... but this doesn't necessarily have to be the case I think, and of course whatever it is... dual, single... it has to be assembled and configured properly and with compatable hardware and software.

And when Bob says "Is it worth the extra expense... to some, I'm sure it is..."

Yes, that would include me.. :) I love the smoothness of the screen redraws and the "feel" of such a rig in use. For me this is what it's all about. I want it to feel "like hardware" is the easiest way I can think to put it.

This is why I've invested all along in hardware such as the Mixtreme soundcards (with onboard DSP) and now the much more powerful Mixpander soundcard.

And just to add here as a side note.. with the DWave driver and the Soundscape cards I get a very similar "feel" up to a heavier load than otherwise I've experienced with a single CPU and anything other than the DWave driver... though I haven't compared this lately and things may have changed now.

OTOH.. When Bob says, "but I have found, still, that its much easier to stabilize and reach similar performance specs with a single hi-speed processor and a well tuned system." he makes a very good point! :)

And then there's the price....

Cost wise... compared to an actual dual cpu rig (with two cpu sockets) ...you could go for top tier single cpu performance. On the AMD side this would take you up to the AMD ATHLON 64 FX-57 PROCESSOR S939 SAN DIEGO 2.8GHZ with 1M L2 CACHE.

No doubt this could be the basis for one heck of a powerful DAW rig... or for a bit less money you could drop down one tier to the AMD ATHLON 64 FX-55 PROCESSOR S939 SAN DIEGO 2.6GHZ 1MB L2 CACHE. Or below that there's the AMD 64 4000+.

Will this be as "powerful" as something like the dual cpu Opterons? Especially if you go for a pair of the top power Opteron CPU with similar specs compared to a single cpu... I doubt it. But you have to weigh in cost and "complexity" into the equation. (or not! :D )

Depending on which processors you choose, a dual Opteron could run you in the $3,000 US range. This could go up as high as $4,000 if you go for the very top of the line Opteron CPU's (with 2MB cache), but let's say $3,500 would get you a top notch rig.

As to being stable... again, I've never seen anything from someone directly reporting SAWStudio use on an Opteron rig. But it should't be a problem, as far as I know. Otherwise they are reported to be very stable.. and very powerful.

But then there's the dualcore X2 line.. and this is where things get more complicated... at least at the moment. The top X2 4800+ is actually slightly cheaper than the top single core FX-57 and a whole heck of a lot cheaper than building a top shelf dual Opteron system.

But it's a new platform and all the kinks aren't quite worked out yet.. though I figure they will be relatively soon... hopefully. ;)

Mmmm... well, answers to these questions may hinge around how you work and how the dualcore/dual CPU's come into play with your workload. *IF* you usually have lot's of tracks and plugins, etc.. a very heavy work load.. then this extra power may give you a better DAW experience.

For me I think it will... and that's why I'm willing to experiment a bit with the new X2 CPU's. And by the way... I didn't mean anything by the "someone has to experiment" remark... just kidding about. :D And for what it's worth "experimenting" right now means that it's sitting behind my desk awaiting my attention. :rolleyes:

Another thing with the dual cpu/dualcore rigs that comes into play is if you are running more than one app at a time... this may also help with things like CDR burning while doing other things... any kind of "multi-tasking".

And again... besides all of this... resistance to this whole "dual" (and we should probably start thinking "multi" here :eek: ) is, as the saying goes, rather futile I think. At least in the long run.

It all comes around to what you want to do "today" though of course. All I can say is that I personally *want* a multi-processor rig for myself. And of course I want it to work perfectly, with no downside what so ever! And... I wat to spend less money for it than a dual Opteron rig costs right now (of course!)

So that brings me back to the whole X2 situation. Ummm... I gotta get back to that rig and make it work for me!

Finally... about the dual Opteron... if you have the dollars to outlay on this it *might* be a good investment for a few years of use... which in a lot of ways is about all we can expect now anyway. I'm just reluctant to spend this much on such a rig knowing how they turn over so fast. Still, if I had the extra money.. or if I could say that money weren't a consideration, this is the route I would take. And this *is* ....as far as I know right now... the "King of the Hill" as far as Daw rigs go... and as ADK Pro put it.

But money is a consideration and I'm going to hang in with my single core 3700+ AMD for now, until I can get the X2 rig happening. Any day now..maybe.. I hope!!!

Best of luck,

Perry

[Perry]

Sure!
I just can't await it! It seems, that I will have all the money for it at the end of september... I will pack them in two 19" 10U racks...

Tamas

Ahhhh... another experimenter!!! :D

What Bob says is true... no telling what problems you may run into... but hopefully it will all go well and I definitely want to wish you the best of luck with this as well. And hey... do keep us posted here about how it works out.

Good luck,

Perry

[Scott P]

Bob and Perry,
You guys are amazing. I sincerely appreciate all of your time and advice. The last time I had to "spec" a rig was about 12(?) yrs ago (486, win 3.1, Spectral Synthesis, that is still lurking around here somewhere) and it was a lot to sort through then, especially when I didn't have guys like you to refer to. So thank you very much for your patience.
It seems like the real decision for me is mostly between screen redraws/metering performance and reliability/stability. I have to go with reliability. I can live with a slow screen redraw, I can't live with instability. It not only slows me down tremendously, but it looks bad in front of clients who we all know are wondering why we aren't using "that other DAW". A discussion I won't even try to get into.

Bob,
Thanks for explaining the pros/cons on the dual processor issue. It makes a lot of sense the way you've explained it.

Perry,
I think I understood your "experimenting" remark the way it was intended. :) I deeply appreciate you and others on that bleeding edge front that figure stuff out for those of us that can't or won't. All of your information is relevant and deeply appreciated.

I'm still keeping track of this thread and refering back to it, so if you can think of anything else I need to know. Please let me know.

Thanks yet again,
Scott

[Perry]

Not much else to say I guess except again... good luck with it!!! :) I don't think you can go wrong with a top tier Athlon 64 single core CPU in an Nforce 3 mobo (like the K8NS Ultra 939) or Via mobo (like the Asus A8V Deluxe) that will except dualcore later if that becomes the way to go.

Slightly off the topic here, but I lifted this from another forum where some guys are going on about the dual Opterons.. in this case with dual core CPU's for some quad processor action redering anaimation. Intersting rewsults I thought.

Here it is:

This is sort of off topic, but I thought it might be of interest to some of you.

Yesterday, one of the video guys at work and myself ran a comparison of his dual G5 2.7GHz vs a dual Opteron 275 (2.2 GHz dualcores) on a couple of After Effects renders. He's a good guy, and a Mac fan, so it was good natured competition.

Actually, it was no competition. The quad Opteron crushed the G5, badly. Render time for the dual G5 with 6GB of ram was 24:10. Render time for the quad Opteron with 3GB of ram was 7:28. Less than 1/3 the time. Ouch. The quad Opteron ran like a quad G5 at 3GHz+ would, if one existed. My man's eyes glazed over at the thought of 10 hour renders turned into 3 hour renders.

I think the video department is about to get a couple of quad Opteron render stations. :-)
_________________
Tyan 2885, Matrox P750, 4GB, RAID 0+1, Decklink, 4xUAD-1, 2x RME MADI, N3, XP Pro SP1

4 DAWs as above

Regards,
Brian T



Bob and Perry,
You guys are amazing. I sincerely appreciate all of your time and advice. The last time I had to "spec" a rig was about 12(?) yrs ago (486, win 3.1, Spectral Synthesis, that is still lurking around here somewhere) and it was a lot to sort through then, especially when I didn't have guys like you to refer to. So thank you very much for your patience.
It seems like the real decision for me is mostly between screen redraws/metering performance and reliability/stability. I have to go with reliability. I can live with a slow screen redraw, I can't live with instability. It not only slows me down tremendously, but it looks bad in front of clients who we all know are wondering why we aren't using "that other DAW". A discussion I won't even try to get into.

Bob,
Thanks for explaining the pros/cons on the dual processor issue. It makes a lot of sense the way you've explained it.

Perry,
I think I understood your "experimenting" remark the way it was intended. :) I deeply appreciate you and others on that bleeding edge front that figure stuff out for those of us that can't or won't. All of your information is relevant and deeply appreciated.

I'm still keeping track of this thread and refering back to it, so if you can think of anything else I need to know. Please let me know.

Thanks yet again,
Scott

[Naturally Digital]

_________________
Tyan 2885, Matrox P750, 4GB, RAID 0+1, Decklink, 4xUAD-1, 2x RME MADI, N3, XP Pro SP1

4 DAWs as above

Regards,
Brian T
The only problem I see with this DAW setup is that according to the Tyan website, that MB only has 5 pci slots...:confused:

Good story though... My Mac friends are gonna hate me for it!

[Pedro Itriago]

Good story though... My Mac friends are gonna hate me for it!

Can they still hate something more than having "Intel Inside"?

[Perry]

The only problem I see with this DAW setup is that according to the Tyan website, that MB only has 5 pci slots...:confused:

Good story though... My Mac friends are gonna hate me for it!

Awww... if they're real friends they'll forgive you! ;) :D

How's it going Dave?!?!

Perry

PS: The more I see about these Opteron rigs the more I want one. I wish now I hadn't spent the money on the X2 really and just gone for the glory! :rolleyes:
Seriously.. this looks like it'd be a very good long term investment. I may consider it yet.

Anyway... Cheers! :)

[Perry]

Can they still hate something more than having "Intel Inside"?

Well... looks like they're going to have to learn to live with that one!!! :rolleyes: :D

[Naturally Digital]

How's it going Dave?!?! Hey Perry :)

It's goin well thanks! BUSY! For a few days anyway LOL! There's been lots of progress on the studio lately... Some generous friends have been helping out and it's really helped! I'll have a pile of pictures and/or video real soon. I've been concentrating too much on the construction and therefore limping along without setting up my gear the way I'd like. It's starting to get quite frustrating (such as during today's session)... Anyway, things won't be this way much longer as I've just about got the finishing done on my small suite. I'll set the gear up there and then it's on to constructing bass traps and painting/finishing the main room.

I got another forensic job this week... those are always fun.

Anyway, I'm actually dying to get my website further along so I can share the fun with you guys. Won't be much longer I hope. I also need to get some more of my work up on SAWStudio radio...

My backer (me LOL!) is getting low on capital so I'll be turning my efforts to managing the sales and marketing dept soon. Ah, so much fun!;)

Last week was very exciting. I had a VIP visitor so I really cleaned the place up.

Oh, what the heck... Here's a couple of pictures of some trim being installed around the bathroom door and after clamp removal on the computer room... No nails allowed!!!

Cheers Perry!

[Perry]

"No nails allowed!!!" Wow... you ARE serious!!! ;)

Hey.. that's cool stuff Dave! Way to go! I've been trying to get more work done on my place too and I'm just about ready to take some photos to add to the web site.. finally got a decent digital camera for this. Just finished repainting and now I'm waiting for an order of some additional acoustic materials to arrive.. supposedly Thursday... and then I could (I think) take pictures in the control room.

Maybe I'll dig up that thread from a while back and put up a couple here? What was that called... "your mixing position" .... or something???

Anyway... good stuff Dave! One day maybe I can get out there for a visit after you finish your room! :)

Cheers for now!

Perry

[Mitch]

..just wanted to say thanks again to Perry, Bob and others chiming in on this thread. Just hung up the phone with Chris at ADK......... help is on the way !! :D

How's your progress Scott ?

[Scott P]

How's your progress Scott ?


About to get things nailed down. Thinking about NForce3 and AMD 3000+ for now. I have a few "needs" and that's about what I can afford in the package. I may look for a step up, but like everyone else, money is tight these days.

Also looking at SAPPHIRE 1024-TC13-05-SAL Radeon 9250 256MB 128-bit DDR AGP 4X/8X Video Card. See any problems there?

Thanks, I'll let everyone know how it's working out when it happens.

Scott

[Naturally Digital]

Also looking at SAPPHIRE 1024-TC13-05-SAL Radeon 9250 256MB 128-bit DDR AGP 4X/8X Video Card. See any problems there?I'm running a Sapphire card in one of the machines here... No problems so far. I think it's a 9200.

[Perry]

About to get things nailed down. Thinking about NForce3 and AMD 3000+ for now. I have a few "needs" and that's about what I can afford in the package. I may look for a step up, but like everyone else, money is tight these days.

Also looking at SAPPHIRE 1024-TC13-05-SAL Radeon 9250 256MB 128-bit DDR AGP 4X/8X Video Card. See any problems there?

Thanks, I'll let everyone know how it's working out when it happens.

Scott

Hi Scott.. that should make for a nice rig. Stay with socket 939 and the Venice core cpu and you should be fine.

If you plan to use UAD-1's some people think the Asus A8V Deluxe (socket 939 with Via chipset) is slightly better as regards the UA cards. UA has also suggested that the UAD-1 is happier with the Via chipset. Otherwise I believe earlier you were looking at the MSI NF3 board and that should work well also.

FWIW, the Gigabyte K8NS-Ultra 939 has worked out well for me and is what I'm currently using for my main Daw rig. I went with this mainly for the Firewire 1394b on-board support.

If you do decide to spend a little more the AMD 3500+ cpu seems to be a really good "sweet spot". OTOH... if the 3000+ will give you enough power then there's no difference in "sound" of course... and you can always upgrade rather easily later with a more powerful cpu as the prices fall. Also, if you're into this sort of thing, you could probably overclock the 3000+ easily to 3200+ and above speeds with stock cooling without sacrificing stability.

Best of luck with it! :)

Perry

[Mitch]

Perry / Scott FWIW,

ADK recommended the Asus if I was planning to use UAD cards (just as you say Perry) - They too, recommended the 3500 as the best performance/price point right now.

So thats what I got....the AMD 3500 / Asus, 2gig ram, Matrox 650 dual DVI, a 40gb system drive, a front access, 120gb in a caddy (will treat this as "blank tape"...new drive for different projects/clients, easy access) and then 3 x 300gb 16mb buffer maxtors for sound libraries.

Should be here in about 3 weeks.

Let us know what you end up with Scott.

[Perry]

Perry / Scott FWIW,

ADK recommended the Asus if I was planning to use UAD cards (just as you say Perry) - They too, recommended the 3500 as the best performance/price point right now.

So thats what I got....the AMD 3500 / Asus, 2gig ram, Matrox 650 dual DVI, a 40gb system drive, a front access, 120gb in a caddy (will treat this as "blank tape"...new drive for different projects/clients, easy access) and then 3 x 300gb 16mb buffer maxtors for sound libraries.

Should be here in about 3 weeks.

Let us know what you end up with Scott.

That should rock and roll!!! And you let us know how this system works for you once you get it Mitch! :)

Out of curiosity... what caddy did ADK recommend for the removable drive?

Hmmmm... hey... you've got over 1000 Gb's of HD space! :eek:

Cool stuff,

Perry

[Mitch]

Perry,

Not sure on the brand of caddy... I'll ask. I wasnt going to max out on the HD but dang, for $162 per 300gb drive, I couldn't help myself ;)

Only loose end..... what is the "plus" you refer to when mentioning the AMD 3500 PLUS ? ... I'm not sure what it means or what I'm getting ....

Thanks again for the ADK referal !! They have been great to deal with so far. Sure hope the computer ends up being 1/2 as friendly as the staff is !

[Perry]

Perry,

Not sure on the brand of caddy... I'll ask. I wasnt going to max out on the HD but dang, for $162 per 300gb drive, I couldn't help myself ;)

Only loose end..... what is the "plus" you refer to when mentioning the AMD 3500 PLUS ? ... I'm not sure what it means or what I'm getting ....

Thanks again for the ADK referal !! They have been great to deal with so far. Sure hope the computer ends up being 1/2 as friendly as the staff is !

Hi Mitch,

Thanks Mitch... I'd be intersted in knowing about that caddy.. And yeah... picked up a couple of drives just today. They're getting so cheap it's crazy! :eek:

The "plus" you asked about is part of AMD's description of the processor. The name.. like 3500+.. doesn't reflect the actual cpu clock speed, but is meant as a reference in comparing the actual "real world" power of the processor to an Intel cpu that does have this clock speed.

It's all advertising hoopla.. and some people don't like this rating scheme. I don't mind it myself and the actual clock speed data is readily available if you want to know what it is. And some vendors list this with both figures.

At any rate, this method does have relevance in my opinion, since Intel decided to develop the P4 strategy around sheer clock speed and simply comparing clock speeds doesn't give any sort of meaningful comparison for users to go by.

The AMD processors basically have kept a comparable power structure at slower clock speeds than Intels CPU's. An advantage to this is that the AMD's generally run cooler than comparable Intel CPU's... at least for the last little while.

And now the whole "faster is better" mentality seems to be shifting with the advent of desktop multicore processing and the fact that Intel themselves seem to be steering away from the "bigger numbers is best" way of thinking.

Personally I think a lot of people will still want to see the highest numbers as a way to decided what to buy... but not us professionals of course! :rolleyes:

Hope this helps to answer the question.

All the best,

Perry

PS: Now, I'm definitely not wanting to get into an Intel versus AMD debate here... for what it's worth. Just trying to answer the question that was posed. Intel users are of course entitled to their own version of this story if they prefer. ;) As always I'd say.. use whatever works for you! :)

[Mitch]

Thanks Perry !

Does the "plus" perhaps refer to the cache size maybe ? I just went back and looked at the config, and I have a 3500 w/ a 512kb cache.....and I notice that the same 3500 also comes w/ a 1mb cache ?? Any appreciable difference ? If so, it's a $60 bump from 512 to 1mb ?

If you're ever in the LA / Ventura area, I owe you a dinner and drinks Perry !!

[Perry]

Thanks Perry !

Does the "plus" perhaps refer to the cache size maybe ? I just went back and looked at the config, and I have a 3500 w/ a 512kb cache.....and I notice that the same 3500 also comes w/ a 1mb cache ?? Any appreciable difference ? If so, it's a $60 bump from 512 to 1mb ?

If you're ever in the LA / Ventura area, I owe you a dinner and drinks Perry !!

The "plus" doesn't designate anything to do with the Cache size. That is usually designated by a different CPU name. For instance there is the 3500+ Venice (socket 939) and then there's the 3700+ San Diego with a bigger Cache (but still socket 939). I'm not aware of a 3500+ with 1 MB Cache. That should be the 3700+ San Diego. You're thinking anyway is the same as mine there and for the difference I went with this... not sure it's dollars well spent or not though... hard to know when this is kicking in any to improve things without testing and comparing. The ADK guys could probably say for sure. I just decided to go for it because I like to spend *all* of my money just to keep things interesting.. apparently. :rolleyes: :D

Anyway, usually the larger Cache means a slightly higher rating as far as their branding goes... whether this reflects into anyone in particular seeing a benifit is another matter, but this is how thay do it.

If you're looking at different (but still similar) CPU listings there, just realize that there are differnt "steppings"... or versions.. available. Or in some cases this means a different socket configuration, but same speed.

Within the same pin configuration (in this case socket 939) there can be different versions that appear to be indentical if you're viewing a simplified description.

A little confusing maybe... but in general you just want the newest cpu version. For the 3500+ this is "Venice".

The "Venice" and "San Diego" have a newer (and improved) on-board memory controller than the earlier chips.. like the Winchester and Clawhammer.

This has to do with how the on-board controller handles the memory if you populate all four memory slots on the motherboard.... with older chips tihs would have a slight penalty, but none with the newer CPU's.

And maybe the new versions run a bit cooler (?) if I remember correctly... otherwise performance would be essentialy identical as far as I know.

And hey... Sounds like fun! ;) I do get to LA every now and then and have friends living in the Burbank area. I'm long over due actually and might try to get down before the years out... or else shortly after. I'll let you know if I do. :)

By the way... I LOVE good Mexican food! :)

Perry

[Mitch]

You got it Perry ! Let me know if / when you get around this way.

[Scott P]

Hi Scott.. that should make for a nice rig. Stay with socket 939 and the Venice core cpu and you should be fine.

If you plan to use UAD-1's some people think the Asus A8V Deluxe (socket 939 with Via chipset) is slightly better as regards the UA cards. UA has also suggested that the UAD-1 is happier with the Via chipset. Otherwise I believe earlier you were looking at the MSI NF3 board and that should work well also.



Best of luck with it! :)

Perry


Thanks again. I'm not looking at using any of the UAD stuff right now, but that could change. I am, however looking to find an excellent reverb/convelution board. I haven't had a way to use one in the past, but maybe in the near future. Any suggestions?

Scott

[Scott P]

Anyone know where I can find a tweaks list for Win 2000?



I'm running a Sapphire card in one of the machines here... No problems so far. I think it's a 9200.


Thanks David. That's good to know.

Scott

[Perry]

Thanks again. I'm not looking at using any of the UAD stuff right now, but that could change. I am, however looking to find an excellent reverb/convelution board. I haven't had a way to use one in the past, but maybe in the near future. Any suggestions?

Scott

Do you mean a DSP card with reverbs?

There's the TC Powercore of course.. they've got several reverbs available powered by thier DSP... but no actual convolution that I know of.

There's also the DSP on the Mixtreme and Mixpander cards from Sydec. I use the Wave Mechanics and TC Reverbs on my Mixpander all the time... but these are "real time" plug-ins in that there's no "build to mix" possible ordinarily with this route.

In a trking or "live" situation these are nice though in that they really don't use any significant resources from your CPU at all. For mixing you have to do this basically in real time to use them.

Perry

[Scott P]

Do you mean a DSP card with reverbs?
. but these are "real time" plug-ins in that there's no "build to mix" possible ordinarily with this route.


Perry

Yes, I meant a DSP card, sorry. And thanks I hadn't thought of the "build to mix problem". However, some of the bigger mixes tale almost real time anyway, though they may not with a new rig.

Have you had any compatibility problems with the TC?

Also. When using two SAWStudio's in tandem, will it "build to mix" just like it was one machine? I may opt to link these two together if it does.

Scott

[Perry]

Yes, I meant a DSP card, sorry. And thanks I hadn't thought of the "build to mix problem". However, some of the bigger mixes tale almost real time anyway, though they may not with a new rig.

Have you had any compatibility problems with the TC?

Also. When using two SAWStudio's in tandem, will it "build to mix" just like it was one machine? I may opt to link these two together if it does.

Scott

Hi Scott,

I've had very little problems with the Powercore. It usually behaves well. The one exception is that occassionally the "Intonator" plugin (similar to auto-tune) use to get an error and die and I'd have to restart the program (or the computer) to remedy this.

But... I don't recall ever having this problem with my latest Daw rig. (how soon we forget! :) ) And FWIW, I like it well enough that I plan to upgrade it to the newer Mk II version soon.

As to the real-time mixing using dsp cards like the Mixpander.. this is only with some cards. The Powercore and UA card will work with "Build to Mix" function.. though if there are problems with the UA card this is where they will sometimes show up.. with glitches in the audio.

At any rate, I've pretty much always mixed down in "real time" for music projects anyway so it isn't an issue to me. I actually prefer to do it this way. I like to give a final "top to bottom" listen as the mix goes down. I like to shift gears and become a "listener" instead of the "mixer" and find this works well for me.. kick back, feet up, etc

For some types of work though, and for some situations, I would take an entirely different view (like working on jingles and such where sometimes every second counts and the clients are waiting! :eek: )

But for music projects... this is the least of my concerns.. and really not a concern at all for me. I'm basically using a second machine as a mixdown unit. To some this is undoubtably archaic.. but well... this is how I usually work. :)

Your question about linking SAWStudio refers to the TC/IP link??? If so, though I do have plans to try this for a midi rig running MWS on a separate computer, I haven't gotten to trying this yet so I can't answer about this. AS far as I know this would work the way you describe though... maybe someone can confirm this?

All the best,

perry

[Bob L]

At the moment, TCP/IP linked machines are independent when assembling a final mix... if you use them in realtime to build a mix to a mixdown device, there is no concern.

In order to actually build mixes out of real time... most likely much faster, then you actually will build mixes on each machine and have to combine those files into a new final mix.

I have looked at possibilities of passing the linked mixes automatically back to the master machine to blend into the master machine mix... this may happen in a future update.

Bob L

[Scott P]

I'm assuming that I could use the TCP/IP function to build the mix in real time while recording it onto one of the machines. That would be fine. I just want to keep the project where I can make mix adjustments easily as well as have the final mix file translate into other .edl's for mastering, etc.

Thanks,
Scott

[Bob L]

You can do that.

Its also easy to build the mix on each slave machine and then copy the mix files over and line them up in a new composite edl and build the final.

Bob L