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Subject: Which motherboard for audio PC?

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Original Message 1/37 30-Jul-00 @ 11:33 AM - Which motherboard for audio PC?

emergencyone

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Can anyone recommend a board with a 133MHz front side bus, six PCI slots, 1GIG max ram or higher and Ultra Wide SCSI? I've looked at the Intel SE440BX just because it's compatible, but I'd like something more expandable and powerful...

Thanks.

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Message 2/37 30-Jul-00 @ 12:03 PM - RE: Which motherboard for audio PC?

sitar

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Have a look at ASUS motherboards? I just picked one up. 6pci slots, 133Mhz, don't know about the scsi. There's the link to their website.

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Message 3/37 30-Jul-00 @ 12:12 PM - RE: Which motherboard for audio PC?

sitar

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Sorry. I've been reading (to the best of my ability) the German site.

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Message 4/37 30-Jul-00 @ 12:16 PM - RE: Which motherboard for audio PC?

julian cope

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Which chipset was it based on? The only Asus boards that had 133MHz front side buses were VIA's. Aren't they supposed to be problematic?

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Message 5/37 30-Jul-00 @ 02:23 PM - RE: Which motherboard for audio PC?

sitar

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I hope not. I can't remember the name of the particular board I got. I'm at work. It's new so it might be a an Intel 815E chipset or 810/810E. What sort of problems should I look for and hopefully not find?

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Message 6/37 31-Jul-00 @ 10:52 AM - RE: Which motherboard for audio PC?

99devils

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I've heard good things about the ABIT BE6 boards.

-Craig

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Message 7/37 31-Jul-00 @ 05:31 PM - RE: Which motherboard for audio PC?

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interestingly the hoontech guys warned against 820 chipsets - and look what i found also at egosys website - they also list stuff about that chipset

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Message 8/37 01-Aug-00 @ 05:02 AM - RE: Which motherboard for audio PC?

Jasper

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the early via (133) chipsets were a bit crap.. well in my experience. but they improved the actual speed of the memory bus by about 50% with the 133A chipset.

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Message 9/37 01-Aug-00 @ 06:58 PM - RE: Which motherboard for audio PC?

Breakerbox

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ASUS k7V. thats what you need, it has the new via chipset, plus you can overclock it from the bios.

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Message 10/37 03-Aug-00 @ 03:03 AM - RE: Which motherboard for audio PC?

Breakerbox

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not that you would

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Message 11/37 10-Aug-00 @ 08:03 AM - RE: Which motherboard for audio PC?

pulaski

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take a look at the abit se6. it has 133 bus and supports the uata 100 drives. it got high marks for reliability but apparently the performance gains were not as high as expected. this will be fixed in further bios revisions though. also check out the abit raid 133...really solid and fast but you have to run winnt or 2000. it doesn't seem like there are too many 133mhz , uata100 boards out there yet that have proven themselves. thus, i'm looking at the asus cubx board rite now, which doesn't support uata 100 but uses the trusty bx chipset. seems tite. anyone heard anything on it?

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Message 12/37 11-Aug-00 @ 07:39 PM - RE: Which motherboard for audio PC?

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dud3, buy an adaptec $200 2940uw and a ide channeled mobo, which is a lot more flexible than static scsi. abit or asus.

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Message 13/37 16-Aug-00 @ 03:07 PM - RE: Which motherboard for audio PC?

Tomek S.

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Anyone heard of any incompatibility issues with the VIA 133A chipset? I'm looking around for a new audio interface, so I'd like to know...

Tomek S.

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Message 14/37 16-Aug-00 @ 07:52 PM - C4 Late Night Discussion

iago

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Event soundcards don't like VIA IIRC.

What about the new 266MhZ FSB mobos just about to hit town? These are coming late this year and are set to be the AMD standard for quite a while. A fast bus (as opposed to 133MhZ) has a highly beneficial effect on multimedia performance, relative to mere clock speed. Considering Intel's ballsup with RDRAM and the Thunderbird's hand-over-fist advantage over the Pentium III this may well be the way to go. Intel does not have a god-given monopoly on big musical iron :-D

What of SSE, the Intel technology capable of doubling the performance of many VST plugins, you ask? Well, the AMD website (see http://www.amd.com/products/cpg/athlon/pdf/3dnow_wp.pdf) states (and I quoth, heh-hem):

"The AMD Athlon processor features an enhanced version of 3DNow! that adds 24 new instructions to the existing 21 original 3DNow! instructions. These 24 new instructions include:

"12 instructions that improve multimedia-enhanced integer math calculations used in such applications as speech recognition and video processing

7 instructions that accelerate data movement for more detailed graphics and new functionality for Internet browser plug-ins and other streaming applications, enabling a richer Internet experience

5 DSP instructions that enhance the performance of communications applications, including soft modems, soft ADSL, MP3, and Dolby Digital surround sound processing. This DSP functionality is unique to the AMD Athlon processor and not supported by Intel's Pentium� III processor."

These instructions are AMD's own implementation of SIMD. Do not be offput by the graphics-oriented moniker, SSE also was aimed at graphics and web-apps (as these are the principle money spinners for computer manufacturers) but found applications in audio apps such as Cubase.

See also http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:www.sospubs.co.uk/sos/jul00/articles/athlon_xtk.htm+sw1000xg+amd&hl=en

BTW I am not an AMD rep... And bear in mind it might be worth waiting for the 760 MP motherboards which enable multiprocessing under Win2K (which also provides a substantial performance boost over Win9x with carefully selected audio components... e.g the SW1000XG works OK in Win2K with the new drivers... speshially with the DirectX Full Duplex Drivers). These should hopefully arrive late this year (according to AMD reports). That should provide more processing power than Windows will know what to do with for the forseeable future (sadly BeOS is in a beleagured state these days... but who knows with Microsoft's poxy dot.net strategy... Internet integration is Steinberg's justification for veering from the "broadband OS"... maybe dot.net could veer them back)

Hopefully these boards will have SCSI on them... as documented these take a lot of steam off the processor and PCI bus for high track counts. USB is a must, and if Firewire gets serious support soon I wouldn't be grumbling.

Running, say, Steinberg Nuendo (esp. when it supports VST2 real soon) on Win2K, and a dual AMD Athlon 1GhZ+ system with such features should kick some serious buttski. A Matrox Millenium G400 or better should leave the processor to concentrate on the serious number crunching required and provide dual screens support.

OTOH, when MAC OS X takes off next year Macs could get a serious lease of life, providing heavyweight multiprocessing for a decent RISC CPU already classed as a supercomputer. Motorola are having a hard time pushing the G4 past 500MhZ so the new Mac G4 is a dual processing system (Mac OS has support multiprocessing for a long time but OS X will have seriously smooth MP). If Mac OS X audio peripheral support (note the low latencies already reported of OS X audio drivers) can beat the rather tardy WDM drivers to the market then Emagic and Steinberg will have to support OS X on the latest Macs and therefore multiprocessing, this will affect their products cross platform (note the traditional Mac->PC migration).

Host procsessing is definitely the way to go, and would eliminate a lot of the risk investing in specialised hardware of limited market appeal and longevity, especially with the smoother multisasking of OS X and Win2K.

Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt, don't ya love it? NO!

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Message 15/37 17-Aug-00 @ 06:52 AM - RE: Which motherboard for audio PC?

Jasper

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I think you'd have to be brave (or stupid) to rely on a brand new motherboard for your audio. unless you really have a need for the power.

Honestly, save yourself a headache and go for an established intel chipset that works.

Unless you love fiddling with settings for weeks on end.

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Message 16/37 17-Aug-00 @ 09:33 AM - RE: Which motherboard for audio PC?

Tomek S.

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The only problem with 3DNow vs. SIMD is that I don't think any audio applications support the 3DNow at present point. I don't think it's much of a deal either, since not so many audio programs support SIMD either, and from what I've heard the performance boost isn't that drastic (maybe I'm wrong).
I've read about the problem with Event (or actually Echo) soundcards on their website - it seems the problem was with an old, er, 'IRQ routing miniport driver'.
All in all, it seems that this VIA chipset is a much more solid option than the new Intel chipsets, while BX chipset doesn't really support 133 FSB and some other things, that's the reason you won't see it in new (brand name) PIII PC's.
Anyway, I already have a PC with a Tyan mobo based on the VIA133A chipset, and it works really nice so far with Cubase and SBLive, just wondering if anybody had any experience about it's performance with more upscale audio interfaces.
Cheers,
Tomek S.

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Message 17/37 17-Aug-00 @ 07:09 PM - RE: Which motherboard for audio PC?

Breakerbox

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Before i got my asus k7v i checked bunch of wesite for reliability, and k7 motherboard are as relable as the intel motherboards, but i hearsd some motherboards are not happy with some video cards, i have a tnt2 athat i am gonna install when i get the k7 cpu, i will start a new thread when i am done.
i am aiming for a music production pc for under 1500$ including the sound card excluding monitor, i will test the new setup and put a new thread to show people if my setup is stable, i am going for 256 ram or 128, depends on how cheap i am gonna get the ram for, tnt2 agp card that i already have, probably hoontech soundcard or second hand pulsar with athlon750-800 overclocked to 1Ghz i already have a dsl modem.and midiman 2x2 usb midi interface. i hope this will help people for building a new pc or buying parts/hardware.

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Message 18/37 18-Aug-00 @ 04:47 AM - RE: Which motherboard for audio PC?

Jasper

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are you saying that you have an athlon setup that is reliable and works?

we could do with a list of peoples exact setups that works, people could check before buying stuff.

I might put a page together with this kind of info on.

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Message 19/37 18-Aug-00 @ 08:49 AM - Lies, damn lies and benchmarks

iago

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Sounds like a good idea... Would be great to have an audio benchmarking site a la Tom's Hardware, Sharky Extreme. I have absolutely NO interest in playing silly little games - MUCH more interested in 2D acceleration/multi-screen support/compatibility issues in a graphics card than 3D - that's surplus to requirements.

It would great to have some performance greedy apps and have some standard benchmark tests (weeding out any systems which are not rock-solid stable - this CAN be achieved by cutting down the potential causes of a crash - for instance, using a dedicated music boot based on 98Lite, as well as following all the standard tips - see Prorec for an example) e.g. max polyphony in Reaktor/Sync Modular/Vaz for some carefully pre-selected ensembles (as VST2 plugins for both Logic and Cubase, and if you absolutely must, DirectX for Cakewalk - ugh), along with minimum reliable latency achieved. Anybody fancy lending me some hardware for such a test? Dan Philips, are you reading this ;-)

The fact is there is a paucity of information available from anywhere on such issues, beyond Sound on Sound magazine and a few sites such as Kilo's, Prorec, Harmony Central. Perhaps such comprehensive testing would raise the stakes for audio manufacturers, resulting in more reliable and competitive products. The more we can clarify the relative merits of different setups, the better deal all of us under-represented musos will get.

I hate all these people who say "Why would you want such a fast PC? What would you want to do with it, except running [f**king] SETI?" - two words - SYNC MODULAR, ya putz, the perfomance I could get out of it on a 2x Athlon 1GhZ would rival a Pulsar or maybe even an Oasys -if I ran SynC (which, unlike Reaktor and Vaz, is flexible enough to do good acoustic modelling) at at least 2X output frequency to replicate the Oasys antialising - and for a very competitive price.

Going host helps guarantee your musical and financial investment in a system - x86 compatibles aren't going out of fashion anytime soon, MI manufacturers come and go.

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Message 20/37 18-Aug-00 @ 09:02 AM - RE: Which motherboard for audio PC?

iago

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Please find above a comprehensive list of tips on optimizing your system for audio.

I found this on an interesting thread on cubase.net discussing optimisation

http://www.cubase.net/ubb/Forum2/HTML/003049.html

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Message 21/37 18-Aug-00 @ 09:39 AM - RE: Which motherboard for audio PC?

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well, when the funds all arrive that is exactly what i want to do - test out boards & chips etc with hardware - and build lists cos remember we too are looking for stable systems... now, we have a stable vst system for the hoontech to supply, but they dont recommend anything athalon or 133mhz wise, (although they tried it ok with a celeron 500ish apparently & got an easy 30 tracks), so you can see, we need to make some experiments. hopefully we can acheive that to even a small degree as it is important.

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Message 22/37 19-Aug-00 @ 12:41 AM - RE: Which motherboard for audio PC?

Breakerbox

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i should be done with my new pc at the end of this month, i will buy the soundcard last, probably brend new hoontech, the company sells them over here in Washington(state) told me if it doesnt work they will refund me. So we will know if this setup doesn't work (with the athlon overclocked and the asus motherboard) so people wont do the same fault I did, and if it works... it would be a guideline for people trying to build a cost effective pc. And if kilo is down, i would put up an article about it with pics and stuff too.
I think people should build their own pc, believe me...
if you can hookup your jacks to your mixer and can do splits on your sampler, building a pc is much easier. And you save money, and don't get the components you don't need like built in soundcards on bunch of manufactured pc's , and don't have to deal with the pre installed progs.

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Message 23/37 19-Aug-00 @ 12:46 AM - RE: Which motherboard for audio PC?

Breakerbox

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That article iago posted doesn't say anything wrond with K7?
So whats the deal people talking about Athlon cpu's.. because it is cheaper doesn't mean it's bad.

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Message 24/37 19-Aug-00 @ 10:20 AM - RE: Which motherboard for audio PC?

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it's cos of the chipsets the athalon uses not the actual chip that is or can be the problem, although this was some time ago, but it might still be a potential risk to a smooth system... we all know by now that ti takes about 1 year for drivers and programmes to actually iron out probs when new PC hardware spec's appear. and remember they write all the proggies and drivers on and for Pentium boxes...

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Message 25/37 19-Aug-00 @ 12:30 PM - RE: Which motherboard for audio PC?

iago

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Why shouldn't that change though? And if people did some rigorous testing with music kit at the start hopefully the problems would be ironed out sooner.

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Message 26/37 19-Aug-00 @ 04:40 PM - RE: Which motherboard for audio PC?

Breakerbox

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The way i compare them is to check out the tests from computer gaming sites, because they run quake3 for 12 hours to test the system stability, i know it is a game, but it use all the components to their fullest.off coure that doesnt say anything about streaming audio from the harddrives, but athlon systems are as stable as intels.
and about scsi-ide thing, 1 second of 16 bit 44khz mono(sigle channel) recording is around 600kb (0.6mb), and if you have a 66 ultra ata drive which means it can stream up to 66 meg in one second, that gives you 100 channels to record (math 66 divided by 0.6), off course it is not gonna work that way since the speed also depends on the hd speed and where the data is recorded on the drive surface... but anyways, you should be at least be able to get 50-60 channels with decent fx... so why do you need a scsi drive ? and scsi drives have more compabilty issues then ide drives...and expensive too.
so if I am wrong tell me why.

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Message 27/37 19-Aug-00 @ 08:19 PM - RE: Which motherboard for audio PC?

iago

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Onboard SCSI isn't vital... But IDE control (despite bus mastering protocols) still take up more CPU cycles than SCSI controllers. Also SCSI is useful for external CD burners (which are more reliable and portable - check out the new generation of 2x capacity, 8x CD-RW burners). Plus bigger cases are more expensive (natch) - you will want at least two hard disks to store the swap file and hard disk audio on respectively (maybe 3 if you are using Gigasampler). AFAIK, IDE devices are generally internal beasts (if anyone knows better, let me know, because I am in the market for an external CD-RW at the moment - would get a Spressa 10x6x32 with bundled Wavelab but no ext SCSI version).

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Message 28/37 22-Aug-00 @ 06:25 AM - RE: Which motherboard for audio PC?

Breakerbox

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yeah you are right about the scsi advantages, but i don't think it gives you that much for what you paying.

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Message 29/37 22-Aug-00 @ 10:33 AM - RE: Which motherboard for audio PC?

99devils

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I've never seen an external IDE device.

-Craig

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Message 30/37 22-Aug-00 @ 03:29 PM - RE: Which motherboard for audio PC?

Breakerbox

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cause there is none, altough you can get a parallel port conversion kit which is a box that you can put an ide drive inside and hookit up your pc's parallel port, probably they have usb ones out too, i don't know how good they are...
in my situation, i don't think i need a scsi setup, i am gonna have the 2 pcs networked that gives me total of 8 ide devices1 for dvd, 1 for cd-r, 1 for zip, and i got 2 hds.

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Message 31/37 25-Aug-00 @ 02:41 AM - RE: Which motherboard for audio PC?

phunkytek

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K, I hear you talk about the VST hoontech systems. What is that? I have Cubase on a pII400 and it cooks with 32 tracks at 16 bit and compressors, and eq's on every track, with full automation and master and a few insert fx. I want more though. I need to buy a new mother board and chip. The question i run into is, my dsp factory card is only made for a 100mhz system, and Cubase is optimized for p3's. I want to buy a board and a 1 gig chip. Should i be concered about the 100mhz card not working on a faster bus. Should I stick with 100mhz sdram and sys bus. Do they evan make 100mhz boards for the new 1 gig p3's.

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Message 32/37 25-Aug-00 @ 03:49 AM - RE: Which motherboard for audio PC?

boidie

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I believe Pentium E-Series processors (600E etc.) support old 100MhZ motherboads?

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Message 33/37 25-Aug-00 @ 06:42 AM - RE: Which motherboard for audio PC?

Breakerbox

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The pci bus speed is same in all pcs, what you are talking about (i think) is FSB(front side bus) which is 200Mhz on new athlon boards. But the pci bus speed is still same (66mhz).

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Message 34/37 25-Aug-00 @ 12:39 PM - RE: Which motherboard for audio PC?

phunkytek

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So I'm getting the pci bus confused with system bus? So if I get a new board with a 133 sys bus, can i use my 100mhz ram, or should I trade it in for the newer faster ram since I plan to add another 256megs on my 1 gig machine? I currently use an abit, and i'm not shure which model, but it has a p2 400, and can switch to support pIII500. I would like to go 1 ghz. It has been a very reliable system for me. I think i'll just get the same type of board and chip only faster, and build a second pc with this board and chip. I can put this stuff together with no problem, but i don't know the diferance between an athalon or and E series pentium, or mother boards for that matter.

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Message 35/37 26-Aug-00 @ 12:54 PM - RE: Which motherboard for audio PC?

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well, i think alot of the probs before may have been down to issues with the agp running at 66 - Ville just got the hoontech and is running it on, (if i remember right), an Athalon lump on a via chipset 133 board - he's only just set it up, and hasn't had time to test fully, BUT, so far he says no pops or crackles etc in win' MM audio app's.... but let's see how he get's on, we should know by a weeks time - if you interested follow the thread in Soundcard forum -

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Message 36/37 27-Aug-00 @ 06:58 AM - RE: Which motherboard for audio PC?

Breakerbox

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You can use pc100 ram with 133mhz system bus ( my motherboard supports it)
but you should better get pc133 ram since it is faster.

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Message 37/37 29-Aug-00 @ 01:58 AM - RE: Which motherboard for audio PC?

phunkytek

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I droped in on the hoontech thread and am blown away. I left you a question there K. Thanks for the info. I'll wait and see how the hoontech systems run before any large purchase. I may follow in suit since I'm using Cubase on a pc as well. Thanks , Brett

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