Hi,

Completed my new PC build about a week ago.
Intel DP35DP
Intel Q6600
2GB Kingston DDR2 800MHz Ram
3x 500GB Western Digital Caviar Drives
Arctic Cooling Freezer Pro 7
Asus 7300GT 256 Mb Passive Cooled Graphics card - PCIe

Built to run Cubase 3.1 and Softsynths via my existing Delta 1010. Running quietly, reliably and quickly!

Thanks to Martin Walker, Conz & Peter C for their advice.

Would I change anything?
Well, the Graphics card Has DVI & VGA outs. I’ve two 19” LCD’s on VGA connectors. When using the DVI out via an adaptor, that screen is slightly out of focus with a slight “shimmer”. (Tried adaptor that didn’t suffer from this on my old video card – same results). Dedicated VGA out is fine. I’m sure native DVI would be fine also.

Old machine was P4 2.6.

New machine: Carefully researched to be cheap, but with maximum upgrade / overclock potential.

Motherboard/chipset: Gigabyte GA-P35C DS3R £70
Processor Intel: e2140 £40 OCUK
Graphics card: nvidia 7200GS £25 Scan
Audio interface: EMU 1820m from old P4
DSP card: On the Emu.

Memory 2GB Geil 6400, 4.4.4.12 at 2.1v. £37 OCUK
HD: Seagate 400gig £50 from computer market.
OS XP home £67 from shop
Cubase 4 Studio.

Has worked vey well. increased the count of Nebula3 Analogue Channel plugins from 4 to 14.
This increases to 24 when the e2140 is overclocked from 1.6 to 2.8 GHz. (42Celcius on Intel fan at 100% proccessor).

Latency: comfortably records at 2ms.

I'm extremely chuffed and smug.
Should I need more power, can slot in a cheap core quad Penryn in a year or two.
Perhaps DDR3 memory as well, if economically viable.

Note: the mobo does not have onboard firewire.
Very similar GA-P35c DS3 has buckets of USB slots and support for DDR3 at up to 1333. I originally ordered one of these, but it was Dead On Arrival.

--------------------
With a boom-a-lacka, zoom-a-lacka, wee.

Been going for about 4 days no issues yet aside from some dodgy memory

ASUS Commando Mobo (chosen for the 4 PCI 2.2 slots to take advantage of everyone flogging their PCI Powercores cheap to upgrade)
Intel Q6600
Kinsgton DDR2 800Mhz RAM
ASUS EN6200TC512 graphics
2 x Western Digital caviar 500GB SATA 2
X-Power PSU 450W (20db)
LG DVD Writer
TC Powercore Element
UAD-1
RME HDSP 9632
Cubase SL2.2 (still some way to proving if this can address all 4 cores but an upgrade needed anyway at some point)
Battery 2
Halion String Edition 2
EXS24
EVP73
WAldorf PPG/Attak

I should point out that I had to adjust the PCI timing on my old P4 2.8ghz to stop the Poco and UADclicking when they both addressed together. This doesn`t seem to be happening at the moment, so i'm leaving well alone.

Replies moved from another thread started in al good faith by bluesdog on Quad-Core systems, which would be better added to this existing one.

MW

Quote hifistud2:

---

OK...

Antec Take 4 case (4U)
Intel DP35DP Mobo
Q6600 proc
2GB Kingston DDR2 800Mhz RAM (due an upgrade soon)
Sapphire RADEON X1650 PRO 512MB DDR2 PCI-E DUAL DVI-I gfx card
2x Western Digital HD Caviar RE16/400GB SATA 7200rpm 16MB
1x Maxtor IDE boot drive, 120Gig - one that was just lying about.
MOTU PCIx 424 audiowire card.

Thus far, it's running superbly well, no glitches under XP Pro SP2 - and metering at roughly 23% of its hyperthreading forerunner, promising better than four times the performance.

---

Quote redleicester:

---

Compucase S411 rack
Asus P5B-E Deluxe
Q6700, previous Q6600 - Artic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro cooler
4Gb Geil RAM

1x 80Gb SATA2 system drive for XP32 and V64
1x 250Gb SATA2 Project drive
1x 250Gb SATA2 for samples
2x 500Gb SATA2 for more samples

1x Nvidia 7600GS 256Mb Silent PCIe for 2x 24" TFT
1x Nvidia 7300GS 128Mb Silent PCIe for 2x 20" TFT

1x RME HDSP MADI PCI running at 64 buffers for 1.3ms latency

1x TC Electronic Powercore Firewire

Dual Gigait LAN used for:
1x - NAS backup systems and MIDI-over-LAN
1x - EuCon

Substantially faster than previous E6600 CPU, mucly helped by newer coding in Nuendo 4 over Nuendo 3 (5% CPU usage in N4 over 16% in N3 at idle - was 30%+ in N3 with E6600).

Still not quick enough for me, and possible to max out, but I suspect I'm not representative of a "normal" user, given the I/O count (128 channels) and requirements of music for media, plus the overhead from running EuCon.

Specifically chose Asus for the combination of good feature set with rock solid reliability (had 20+ Asus mobos over the last few years, and never yet had a problem) - 6x SATA ports, TI firewire chipset and dual Gigabit LAN were requirements.

Self built and configured, not from retailer. Very stable, and exceptionally quiet, though not a requirement as it sits in a rack in the machine room. Fine under both XP32 and V64, though obviously plugin support for the latter, not to mention the Powercore are slow in coming.

---

This query from nickyquick about multi-core PC component choices and its replies has been converted into a new thread so that it gets more traffic and replies. Here's the link:

www.soundonsound.com/forum/showflat.php?Cat=&Number=558214


MW

Edited by Martin Walker (17/12/07 03:02 PM)

well i did want to come back and delete a couple of my posts to no avail.. a member told me it's a bit formal around here.. no cheap fix seekers welcome.. but i'd thought that's what this thread was for.. to help people.. anyway.. since I've apparently worn out my welcome rather quickly.. as evidenced by the lack of further posts i'll just take my leave.. it does make me feel rather important to have killed the thread all by myself.. lol.. and I'm still wondering if any of you actually make music with all these fancy machines.. post a couple of links to you music please if we at least have that in common.. here's mine.. cheers.. thanks for the help.. www.soundclick.com/nickyquick.. www.soundclick.com/rapster.. www.myspace.com/rapstermusic.. www.myspace.com/nickyquick.. www.imusicscene.com/rapster..



PS.. I will indeed be back to post about my new machine as soon as it's built.. guess that's all you wanted.. cheers..

--------------------
on the net:www.soundclick.com/rapster


Edited by nickyquick (15/12/07 08:18 AM)

Don't be so hasty Nicky - you've not worn out your welcome at all. This is the first time I've revisited this particular thread for a few days (I cover eight different SOS forums as much as I can), and it is coming up to Christmas when everyone has loads of conflicting priorities.

Also, this thread is primarily intended for people to post the specs of Working Multi-Core PC Music systems rather than queries about a possible new system. So, I've created a new thread from your queries so it appears in the main area and get more traffic and replies:

www.soundonsound.com/forum/showflat.php?Cat=&Number=558214

I suspect this will result in lots more replies for you. Hang in there

By the way, most of us do write lots of music with our PCs, but the SOS forums have a dedicated Web Music forum so folk can post their links:

www.soundonsound.com/forum/postlist.php?Cat=&Board=WEB

The top sticky thread there has been running for years and contains absolutely loads of member's web site links.


Martin

--------------------
YewTreeMagic

martin.. thank you.. for your patience and help.. I'll know my way around here much better now..:-) I've ordered all the components.. some, like the DP mobo are not in stock which tells me they are hot items lol.. hope to have it built by the new year.. then i'll post the compatibility/performance info.. so I'm wishing you a very merry christmas and a happy new year.. cheers..

nicky

Edited by nickyquick (19/12/07 09:06 AM)

My system:

Mobo: Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3
CPU:Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600
Ram:2gb Kingston ddr2 PC6400
Video card: Gigabyte 8500GT 256MB
2 Sata Hard Disks:1x250gb Seagate ,1x500gb Westerrn Digital
IDE Plextor dvd writer
Scythe Cama Cross cpu cooler

Audio card:RME DSP9632(PCI)
UAD-1x2(PCI)

OS:Windows XP Pro SP2
Cubase 4.1,Wavelab 4,various plug-ins

works fine

Hi! I use Pro Tools M-Powered 7.4.

I was just wondering - after reading several threads about the Nforce4 chipset, I was a bit concerned about the following:


I use up to 16 instrument tracks, each with the free Expand! plug-in on them.

With these instruments and plug-ins active (nothing is recorded on them, yet), is it normal for the CPU meter displaying that it's peaking at 30%? When you move the transport bar for instance, it moves a bit jittery (updates at about 15fps).


My setup consists of:

Foxconn K86100KMA motherboard
Nforce 410/6100-based chipset
Athlon 64 X2 4200+
2 GB PC3200 ram (double channel mode - but defaults to 333mhz for some reason)
Windows XP Home SP2
Delta 410 soundcard (old PCI version)
Nvidia geforce 8800 GTS graphics card


any feedback would be greatly appreciated

cheers

--------------------
My Music Page:
www.soundclick.com/KnFn

Edited by KorgieMan778 (04/01/08 12:25 PM)

Oops!

It is the Foxconn 6100K8MA motherboard - my mistake!

regards

--------------------
My Music Page:
www.soundclick.com/KnFn

Further to my positive comments on the Gigabyte GA-P35C DS3R.

The new 2.1 revision of the motherboard has both S/PDIF in AND out.

Note, no firewire onboard.

--------------------
With a boom-a-lacka, zoom-a-lacka, wee.

Hello,I'm making a big leap from a pIII dual 1.0Ghz to:
Motherboard : Asus P5K3 DELUXE wifi bios 0810
Processor : Intel QX9650
Memory : Patriot DDR3 1333 2Gb
Graphics Card : Matrox Millenium P960 PCIe
Audio Cards : Soundscape Mixtreme (original)& Mbox1
DSP Cards : UAD-1 x 2
Case : Antec Take 4 modified for PSU
PSU : Seasonic M12 700watts
I'm moving slowly it boots up with another video card,just waiting for the Matrox once I get that I'll put it trough it's paces.It's been a long haul and i want to do it right.I would like to thank the best Music Mag,SOS and the Staff plus all the people on this forum I really do appreciate all the help and tips also support we give each other. Peace Out

Hi Guys,

Got my new machine built:

Q6600 quad
Dp35DP MB
2Gb Corsair Cas 5 RAM
2 500Gb WD SE16 Drives
430w Seasonic PS
Big Old Antec Gaming Case with a 200mm fan in the top!
2 x 17" monitors (what fun that is!)

Running SX 3.1 with Colossus, EWSO Gold, B4II, BFD and some other VSTi's! It's running really well, and very quiet, I think it would be quieter in one of Peter's cases, mayber after I've paid it off, I'll save up for one!

It does, once in a while shut down for no reason, can't quite work it out, I ran MemTest on it, when I first built it, for hours with no probs, I think maybe that when I chopped down XP with NLite, I may have done too much, but it's not caused any sort of problems yet, just a little head scratching!

Thanks again to all the guys (Peter and Martin especially) who advised on my new build, well chuffed with it!

--------------------
'What do you mean dynamics? I'm playing as loud as I can!'

I have a question for those who have opted for Intel Core 2 Duo processors. Which chipset these work on and does the CPU work well with Pro Tools?

I'm looking into getting Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 3.0GHz (X38 chipset) so I will be able to happily game on the machine as well.

Any feedback would be appreciated, thanks! This is my first DAW build and I really want it to work out well

Edited by Maxwell (26/01/08 06:59 PM)

hi

i whould look at using intel p31-p35 chipset for audio.

necro

ok thanks necro ill look into that!

Well, after I set it up all seemed well until I tried to power down the computer and it wouldn't it would just reboots.Then I powered it down took out the Soundscape Mixtreme card boot it up,then shut it down it went fine.I guess what Paul said make sure the mobo supports 5 volt PCI hardware.Also on the Asus site there wasn't any mention of the voltage or PCI version,plus I've also emailed them but I've gotten no reply.

Sorry,I forgot I had to change the graphics card from the asus en8600 gt silent to the matrox p690 pcie x16 since the asus is takes up 2 slots covering 1 of the pci slots.It may just what some people need who want a single slot dual dvi card. Peace.

A bit after the fact but I built the following about a year ago (except the case and PSU, I just switched those last month):

Antex P182 Case
Corsair VX450 PSU
Asus P5B Deluxe-WiFi mobo
Intel E6600 dual core CPU
2Gb Corsair PC2-6400 RAM
Artic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro CPU cooler
Gigabyte nvidia 7600GT passively cooled graphics card
2 x 500GB samsung SATA drives
2 x 250Gb samsung SATA drives
Sony CD/DVD drive & Matsui floppy drive / card reader
Windows XP Professional
Creamware SCOPE home card + A16 converter
Presonus Firestudio

I did have a problem with clicks in the audio every 20-30 seconds, on both interfaces, and even at quite high buffer settings (256 or 512 samples). This turned out to be related to the intel SATA driver. I swicthed the drive interfaces to IDE in the BIOS and the problem went away.

The other minor niggle is that the SCOPE card only works in one of the two 'lower' PCI slots, and the third one is obscured by the graphics card which is 2 slots wide, so I'll need a new thinner graphics card if I decide to add some more DSP power.

The performance is great, I've set the scope card to 64 samples latency and I can have my external synths + some creamware synths and native VSTs all running into the cubase mixer with whatever VST fx I want to use + my TC reverb and various plugins on the creamware card without a stutter.

Edited by markhodges (31/01/08 08:07 PM)

Working like a charm:

MSI K8T Neo2-F mobo, AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200+ (Toledo) socket 939, 2 x Kingston ValueRAM PC3200 - 1024 MB, ASUS ATI HD2600 Pro graphics board AGP x 8 (dual DVI), Echo MIA and Echo AudioFire 4 (via Dawicontrol firewire PCI-card with TI-chipset), 2 x Samsung 320 GB SATA HDD

Edited by Nanno (06/02/08 06:21 PM)

Just built this one, so far working perfectly.

Asus Maximus Formula
2 x 2 Gb GSkill
QX9650
2 x HD3870 Crossfire GC
4 HDDs Sata & Sata II
RME Hdsp 9632
Cosmos 1000 case & Real Power Pro 1 kW

Very speedy, very stable, very silent.

MSI G33M, BIOS version 1.2
Intel Q6600 Quadcore G0 stepping
2 GB Mushkin DDR2 800
160 GB Western Digital SATA II HD
400 GB Western Digital SATA II HD
Seasonic S-12 430 PSU
Lite-On DVD Burner

Actually I just updated my mobo and cpu, every thing else I had already. Had some minor problems: I couldn't load
the RAID/AHCI drivers at F6, I needed to slipstream XP with SP2 in order to load Windows. Other then that the system flys. I did a minor overclock on stock voltage to 3 ghz. Projects in Cubase that were hitting 90% cpu with an Athlon X2 4400 are down to 35%. Very pleased, if one works with soft synths a quad core is a must...

--------------------

Asrock 4CoreDual-Sata2 LGA775 Via PT880
2 x Elixir 1024MB DDR2 667 PC5300 Memory
Intel Core 2 Quad Pro Q6600
2 x Radeon Sapphire 7000 (1 AGP, 1 PCI)
2 x Acer AL1706 and 1 Samsung syncmaster deluxe..
Sonar Producer 6/XP Home
Tascam US428
the MB/Processor/Ram was 225.49 from Micro Direct and went into an existing system. It fired up first time no problem. Ran XP install and asked it to upgrade the existing system. The only issue was that I needed to set /pcilock to get the startup stable, the displays would disappear regularly otherwise..
Whoops, no /pcilock did not save me, the system is getting the graphics cards confused on startup.... This is NOT a working quad system... watch this space..

Edited by BillC (11/03/08 08:31 PM)

Hi

ive finally decided to build my own DAW and after much research and looking at the successful systems on this thread ive decided on the following

Antec Sonata Designer 500 case
Q6600 quad processor
Dp35DP Mobo
2Gb Corsair Cas 5 RAM
250Gb WD SE16 HardDrive
500Gb WD SE16 HardDrive
I was also looking at the emu1212m for an audio interface, which seems to be highly recommended and at around £100 very good value.

So ive got the basics, but im unsure on a couple of things. First of all the graphics card. I dont plan on using the pc for anything other than audio work (ie gaming) so i dont want to spend massive here. Im also not sure on a good cd/dvd drive. Any suggestions?

Being a student off to Uni in september im looking for the best compromise between price and quality. However, i realise that a stable, working DAW is the most important thing, so if there looks like any problems, or anything ive missed, feedback would be much appreciated.

thanks
Andrew

I'm trying to get 3 x Delta 1010s to work at 96KHz with a quad core Q6600(!). After having tried every trick in the book, the problem I still have is random clicks that occur even when the system is not playing back audio (in other words they're not "drop-outs" ) but seem more frequent when the CPU is under load. Very frustrating indeed.
I've tried 2 different boards; Asus P5K Standard and a Gigabyte GA-P31-S3L with exactly the same results.
The 3 cards worked OK in a GA 3PXSL-RH AM2 (AMD Dual core) system at 96KHz but I need more power!
Any ideas anybody?

Oh yes, XP Pro with all the latest updates etc. and tweaks, Cubase 4.1.3

Quote necromunger:

---

hi

i whould look at using intel p31-p35 chipset for audio.

necro

---

Anyone got a successful system based on intels P31 chipset? I'm trying to upgrade on the cheap, and it strikes me these might actually be a better option then a cheap P35 as they do PATA without an additional chip, so one less thing to cause problems.

Being quite capable of bending spoons and stopping watches, I plumped for a dual core system from Millenium Music:

Asus P5K-e motherboard
Intel Core 2 Duo E6600
2GB Ram DDR2 800
Nvidea 8500GT 512Mb
80GB Windows Drive
320GB Audio Drive
Windows XP Home
19" Monitor
with Focusrite Saffire Pro 26 i/o
running Sonar 7


plus quiet case, quiet heatpipe cooling, acoustic treatment on the case.

This is my first personal machine. Used to use the band's old Pentium 3, hundreds of megahertz...

I'm totally happy with it. It seems fast, mega stable, and most importantly given the small space I work in - and provided you're not using the DVD drive - really inhumanly quiet, exceeded all my expectations on that front. The Saffire preamps and AD/DA converters sound great, is easy to use - only the Alesis i/o 26 really matches up to it, and that's a messy desktop unit, natch. More extensive hardware/software metering on the Saffire would be nice.

It took a little bit longer to arrive than expected (4 weeks instead of 3), but to be fair to Millenium that was down to availability of parts, and they sneaked it out last minute before Easter, that was really nice of them!

I'd heartily recommend the pro-build solution for anyone not confident in sorting their own out. I'd be quite happy putting the hardware together, but for me I wanted the software to be utterly stable and ready to go, at the end of the day i'm a musician not an I.T whizz. Spending all easter sussing out the inner complexities of XP's inner sanctum isn't my idea of fun!

does anyone know the difference between the deluxe/pro/premium/e versions of the asus p5k mobo? i was offered the pro version, and i think it fits my planed q6600 sys, but im not sure. i need Firewire competability and this one has 2.

Also, is memory from G.skill good?

Thx,

Z

I have just build DAW with Core 2 Quad and IP35 chipset:

Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 (4x2.4GHz, 8MB L2 Cache)
Abit IP35 Pro P35 motherboard
DDR2 4GB Transcend JetRam Kit 800MHz
ASUS EN8600GT/Silent graphics card

RME Fireface 400
Windows XPSP2 with DAW optimizations
Cubase 4.1.3

So far it seems to work perfectly even with low latency setup (128 samples on 44k).
Projects which had close to 100% CPU usage after unfreezing all tracks on MacbookPro (Core Duo 2.16GB, running XP on bootcamp) now use about 30-40%

Hi there, sorry this is my first post but I've just read all the way through this thread and thought I'd post while it's still fresh in my head.

About a year ago I upgraded to duel core...

Motherboard: MSI K9N-Neo AM2 motherboard nForce 550 Chipset
CPU: AMD64 X2 3800+
Memory: 2GB Corsair DDR2 XMS2 6400
Graphics Card:BFG 7600GT 256MB PCIe
Hard drives: 2X Seagate Barracuda SATA II Drives.
Optical Drive:LG DVD burner.
Power: 400W Q-Technology (Not Q-Tech)
Fans: Nexus quiet fans
Soundcard: Terratec DMX6Fire 24/96 PCI
Monitors: 2X Roland DS-30A 24Bit Digital

This system worked fine and I never noticed any excessive CPU use when working in Cubase SX 3.1. I wanted to keep the DMX6Fire from my old system because it had everything I needed, I liked the way the software control panel is layed out and it sounded awesome using the digital monitors hooked up via co-ax.

However, it wasn't until I started getting back into playing the guitar that I noticed how bad the inputs were. I'm getting system noise through all the inputs. The typical scratchy noises when you drag a window around on screen and grunting and grinding when the HDD's do anything all combined with a constant broadband wash.

I use guitar rig and this broadband sound in the background renders it barely usable, especially for recording. Just to be clear, this noise is present through the Mic in, Line in, Phono in on the breakout box and even present on the rear input on the card itself.

I've tried A ridiculous number of things...

Moved cards around... IRQ table showed all the pci slots were on the same irq with the graphics card.

Disabled and removed everthing that is possible... no difference.

Played with PCI latencies... No difference.

Turned the hardware acceleration down for the graphics card... no difference.

Tried a power supply conditioner... it may have removed a tiny amount of noise from the wall socket but everything else is still there.

Tried a new nexus power supply, no difference.

Borrowed my mates abit an9-32x motherboard which is tested as being compatible with the 6fire... no difference!

Tried screened sata cables in case it was interference from that.

Removed breakout box from case, coated and earthed the lead from the pci card to the breakout box with a layer of copper and aluminium tapes, then insulated it and earthed it to the case... No difference.

Etc, I even tried praying.

The only thing which had any difference was the spread spectrum in the bios. I never knew what this was for until I tried it and it basically reduces interference internally.

Which lead me to think it was all internal and nothing could be done. Further reading pointed towards the PCIe problem.

I can accept that the soundcard is out of date and perhaps more modern ones will have balanced inputs and better grounding and now I know more about it I am prepard to get something a bit better. I'm prepared to pay extra for better inputs. I guess I've learned that this card is no good with a PCIe motherboard but what concerns me is if I'm going to replace it, will I just get the same problem again if I carry on using a PCI soundcard? I've been looking at M-audio and such like.

I know it's a tough question but what would be better, an external USB audio interface or PCI... or PCIe? I'm lost.

Got my new PC and its working great!


Intel Q6600
Asus p5k premium p35 mother b.
2x2048 ddr2 800 pc 6400 Ram by g.skill
Grpe Point of view geforce fx7600 gs 512mb graphics card
Samsung 320gig HD HD321kj 16mb sata 300.
24'' wide samsung monitor
GHMX 73 Silentmaxx ita2767 box
GHN 450w be quiat Strait power BQT E5
windows xp home

Takes all the old projects from my centrino laptop with barely any sings of activity.

Now i just have to find some interesting projects to work on.......

I'm posting this primarily because I believe this will be the last system I can build for use with my parallel port MOTU MIDIExpressXT (verified working on long sysex dumps).

Gigabyte GA-EP35-DS3R (p35 +ICH9R chipset)
Q9450 2.66 Quad core (2 gig Patroit 9600 DDR2 mem)
MSI NX8600GT video + 2 monitors (1 in portrait mode)
1212m E-mu (love it, have another pc/1212m connected via ADAT)

I believe this is one of the last motherboards to include a parallel port (addon cards don't work with the ExpXT). You can't buy a USB MIDIExpressXT from MOTU anymore, which makes me worry about all my MIDI gear in the future. You can buy the parallel port adapter here -

http://www.pccables.com/cgi-bin/orders6.cgi?action=Showitem&partno=07123&r site=f.07123

I'd give this system a huge, but qualified recommendation, as you will need to update the BIOS to fix a latency problem.
I'm up on XPpro-SP3 using Sonar6p.

--------------------
Klockwerk

Thanks to some great suggestions and help from people on this site I am now the proud owner of this system:

CPU QX9650
Mobo ASUS P5E
ASUS video, basically a rebranded NVIDIA GForce 7100GS
EMU 1820m PCI card for audio
UAD-1e DSP plugin card

I am currently running 2G of RAM, I had heard of problems using 4G with a UAD card and didn't want to take the risk right away with a mostly new system.

I run Windows XP, recently upgraded to SP3.

I will say that at first I was getting alarmingly high CPU temperature readings. Intel suggest a maximum of 65 deg C and I hit this before actually running any apps. I decided to deal with this later, (possibly by re-attaching the heatsink or maybe getting a different heatsink) and started working with the processor throttled back to under 2GHz.

I should point out that these temperatures were measured using CoreTemp (the free utility). The ASUS provided temps were ridiculous - CPU at 21C, Mobo at 35C. Logically, this didn't make much sense as 21C couldn't have been far from ambient in the recent heat.

Firstly, this machine has stunning power compared to my dear departed, a 3.4GHz Prescott (which, incidentally, ran over 70C most of the time). I don't yet really need the extra power. With my largest projects from the old machine, I was hitting around 10-15% on all cores, even with the CPU throttled back. I was actually going to get a Q9550 but couldn't get hold of one - I had some work that needed doing so stumped up the extra cash for the QX9650.
I'll have to say, the extra power is not really necessary for me - I would have been happy with the Q9550 or even the Q9450. I've always felt that overclocking was silly for music due to stability and lifespan problems and also because it took time away from music to do the fine tuning. However, it's stupidly easy to do basic overclocking with this ASUS P5E board. Just for kicks, I ran the ASUS overclocking software and using only the auto settings I can easily run this board at about 3.2GHz with temperatures no higher than 56C. I easily run a 2ms latency on the 1820m without more than a 1-2 % increase in CPU from a latency of 20ms, and that much increase in the CPU is intermittent! I have nothing to worry about on the Delayed Procedure Call front, either - absolute maximum of 72 microseconds.

Which brings me to the interesting bit - it seems that my cooling system works much better after being run for a week or so. I don't know if this is normal but maybe it's that the heatsink compound I used, Arctic Silver, gets better with use? Or maybe the temperature sensors need bedding in? Either/or, I'm quite happy about it as the high temps were worrying me for a bit. I'd assumed I'd stuffed up on the heatsink mount somehow, although like most newbies I suspect I put too much compound rather than too little. Oh, I'm using one of those Ninja heatsink with piggyback mount fans and it's also very good. Quiet and obviously, now, efficient.

Anyway, I LOVE this machine - stable as a rock, except occasionally when running Kore 2 (par for the Kore-se:-)) as either stand alone or plug, with everything else it's yet to have an untidy end to an app, let alone crash the machine.

Another little story - originally I had decided on a well thought of DP35DP Mobo and bought one but it was DOA (I guess I was unluckly there). As I hadn't built a machine for nearly 10 years it was a bit of a nail-biter. Anyway, thanks to help on this forum, I determined it was the board and went to buy a Gigabyte 35 something but couldn't get hold of one quickly enough. Another suggestion from the forums was this P5E. I can't say how grateful I am for the help and how happy I am with this beast of a machine.

Hi all

I've just upgraded from Asus P4C800E-Deluxe with P4-3.2GHz Northwood and ATI Radeon 9600Pro to the following:-

Motherboard: Asus P5K/P35 chipset (4Gb Corsair 800MHz ram)
CPU: Intel E8400 Wolfdale (no overclocking)
Graphics: Gigabyte 8500GT passive graphics.
Audio: 2 x Creamware Pulsar II/Scope Project, 1 x Yamaha SW1000XG

Windows XP Pro installed with no networking at all. Nlite used to slipstream SP3 and remove all but essential drivers and components. Only six services running. Processor running at max 41 deg C, Zalman CNPS8700LED fitted.

Everything is SATA and no floppy. Disabled on-board LAN, Firewire, floppy controller and JMicron Raid controller in bios.

Projects that would previously flicker at around 50% processor usage are now registering hardly anything. No clicks or pops when I move windows around while playing audio. So far stability is excellent.

Regards

Stratt

Edited by Stratt (19/05/08 11:46 AM)

Ordered a Dell q9300 2.5ghz Quadcore, 2GB RAM, 2x160GB HDs on Monday and to my great suprise they arrived today!

I've spent the day bunging programs on it in a state of fear/excitement

My old P4 2.8ghz with 2GB RAM was failing after :

4 instances of Line 6's Gearbox
2 Stylus RMX tracks (not instances just two grooves)
3 instruments on Garritan Personal Orchestra.

This new one has been put to the test and let's just say it's like comparing the Millenium Falcon to a wheezy old bloke on a pogo stick.

So far :
4 instances of Gearbox
9 tracks (two instances) of Stylus RMX
7 instruments on GPO
5 instances of Autotune
4 instances of Waves RChannel thrown in.

Get this - it's hitting 25-30% on the CPU meter!!!!

Frankly it's f*****g outrageous how much more powerful this is than my old computer.

Now I can sit back and comfortably get on with my rock-orchestral compositions without worrying about things like bloody bouncing.

I'd say to any PC musician out there if you are upgrading forget dual core just go for the quad - you simply won't regret it.

Cheap upgrade time.

Q6600 (£140), MSI P6NGM Motherboard with built in passive graphics (£30), 2GB Corsair RAM (£30), 160GB SATA drive (£30). £240 inc. vat and delivery. Case, audio drive, CD burner, soundcard, psu etc from old machine.

Job's a good 'un.

Works fine with XP, Reaper, NI Guitar Rig 3 NI Xpress Keys etc.

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Battle flags are flown at the feet of a garden gnome.

Working a treat (with a bios upgrade!)

Darc Studio+ PC

2.4 Quad Core
Intel DP35DP Main Board
4GB RAM
XP Home
PCIe Graphics

Motu 828 MK2

2xPCIe UAD (finally working with bios update)

Works a treat!

Matt

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Amazing take, spot on, just perfect....right....one more time.

ASUS P5WDG2WS Professional 0905
Intel Core 2 Duo E6600
Corsair 6400C4 XMS2 4x1GB Modules
Radeon 7000 64MB PCI Graphics Card
Siig 3 Port PCI Firewire Card Using PCI-X slot
Onyx 400F


All working fine. Would like to know the impacts of PCI performance in comparison to PCI-Ex performance in terms of how the firewire protocol is used. Would the bi-directional data transfer of PCI Express have any benefits even though the bandwidth would be wasted on a FW400 interface?

Mostly it is working fine, just need to use 256 buffers most of the time. If working at 96Khz the latency is low 3 ms. If at 44.1K it is around 7ms. Would like to think I could get it performing at a lower buffer size with less impact on CPU. Depending on the project it can happen. 64 samples is an absolute no no. Immediate pops and glitches.
Is it even possible for a IEEE1394 interface to achieve such low buffer sizes?

Hey, Guy J imagine when you upgrade to a quad-core here you'll be happy for awhile.PEACE OUT