After being busy with other things in life for a few years I have recently started getting back into music and audio. I needed some audio mixing so out came my trusty old system with 3x ADA, an RME Digiface and a nice and small SFF PC. Unfortunately age is taking its' toll on the old PC. The fans would only run full speed. That's a lot of noise, totally unacceptable. Back in the day when I first found this small desktop PC it worked so well that I purchased a spare. It took some time to adapt that one to rack mounting, now it fits and sits in the case. All working again. But it is old hardware, runs XP as an OS and may not last long anymore. So, I am looking into upgrading. I want to keep using my interface which is an RME Digiface. It comes with a PCI card. I am rather fond of the Digiface as it is extremely reliable and has great driver support from RME. Decent compact and reliable small computers are easy to find, but they don't make them with PCI slots anymore.
Two questions:
1. Can I run 32bit SAC on W10 64b these days? Or on W10 32b? Unfortunately I cannot afford to upgrade to 64b SAC.
2. Can anyone recommend a somewhat recent standard SFF desktop pc model that has a PCI slot? Not PCI express.
My more detailed requirements for question 2:
- SFF (fits into 2RU height, together with a Digiface on a shallow rackmount tray)
- One PCI slot (probably on a riser so it sits sideways, to fit 2RU)
- Preferably a used Dell, Lenovo or HP, somewhat recent (newer than Core2Duo)
- In these times budget is limited, so I am looking for small and cheap.
- Should run current W10 OS, preferably 64b, can do 32b if that runs better with 32b SAC.
Suggestions are most welcome.
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