motherboard question

john interlock · Post by **john interlock** » Sun Apr 13, 2008 4:01 pm

Hi guys!

after many aeons of working out why my PC keeps crashing, I've figured it's my motherboard. So! a question for you all:

I'm looking for a VERY stable motherboard, preferably able to cope with the following components:

scope pro 14 dsp system.
SATA hard drive
4 gig of DDR2 800mhz - 1.8v
PCI-E video card

I also have an AMD Athlon 64 x2 6000+ AM2 processor.
I'd like to use that if possible, but if there's nothing that is that stable, What are your thoughts on intel systems?

The motherboard I was using and have untold problems with was this:
ASUS M2N32 WS PRO nForce 590SLI Socket AM2 SATA

Thanks for all your help guys!

Post by **garyb** » Sun Apr 13, 2008 4:18 pm

intel ALWAYS works.
still, it will need to be setup properly(which isn't hard).

astroman · Post by **astroman** » Sun Apr 13, 2008 4:36 pm

dunno if this one provides the performance you're after, but you may find darkrezin's comments about his system interesting

cheers, Tom

Post by **garyb** » Mon Apr 14, 2008 8:45 am

none. a waste of time.

Neutron · Post by **Neutron** » Mon Apr 14, 2008 11:12 am

and possibly sucking up 512megs of ram if you have 4 GB installed, even without a card there.

Shroomz~> · Post by **Shroomz~>** » Mon Apr 14, 2008 2:00 pm

astroman wrote:dunno if this one provides the performance you're after, but you may find darkrezin's comments about his system interesting

I really think if you're looking for bang for bucks, that's the way to go.

Shroomz~> · Post by **Shroomz~>** » Mon Apr 14, 2008 2:16 pm

I should've said, darkrezin's system isn't meant to be the heart of your studio necessarily. I think it sounds like he's building a secondary system with those specs (although I could be wrong).

valis · Post by **valis** » Mon Apr 14, 2008 3:20 pm

SLI itself is of little use, but the extra PCIe connector(s) are potentially more useful over time.. SLI just means that the slot will be 16x electrical, many boards with 2nd slots are only 8x or 4x electrical. I wouldn't choose a Scope machine based off that though... How future PCIe devices will play with Scope in the PCI bus is unpredictable though and remains to be seen.

Either way I'm not overly fond of Nforce motherboards, but sadly you don't have much choice if you're sticking with AMD.

darkrezin · Post by **darkrezin** » Mon Apr 14, 2008 6:33 pm

If you want SLI and PCI-E you have to go for Nforce4, which I've had some experience with and not had good results. NForce3 is rock solid though I've never tried it with a dual-core CPU. It may be worth adding that I've always used the Microsoft IDE drivers rather than the NVidia ones. They work absolutely fine.

Shroomz - I do run the same type of system for my main sequencing box. I'm not really convined by multicore technology - it seems like a lot of extra power/heat/noise/expense for not a huge amount of performance gain. As far as I know, if a sequencer is even capable of distributing various plugins over different cores, there is inherent latency involved with this type of thing anyway. I prefer to get the fastest single-core CPU I can on a chipset I know inside out right now - obviously in the future there will be no choice regarding multicores, but by then hopefully stable OS/software will actually exist to take real advantage of it.

valis · Post by **valis** » Tue Apr 15, 2008 4:24 am

There's no inherent latency in using more than 1 core. When you use more than 1 cpu there's an issue with cache contention (when 1 cpu is mapped to a spot of ram and the other needs to access it) with software that isn't properly threaded, but at this point most DAW apps will at least separate their process into 2 threads, 1 for audio/vsti and another for UI/Midi/etc. In fact most do well beyond that. The gains just are never going to be 100% per cpu/core for streaming data tasks (which audio is), more like about 30-60% improvement depending on the plugins you're using.

Imo, it's still a better at this idea to get a faster dual core than getting a slower quad core. Having an extra core around to take care of UI & background tasks is a big win, having 2 more cores than that sit underutilized is a waste of money when you could have gotten a faster clockspeed for the same price in a dual core & gotten more work done.

valis · Post by **valis** » Tue Apr 15, 2008 11:31 am

.65 core quads are hot, .45 quads (penryn in desktop/harpertown in xeon) are very very cool. My e5430's run at 36-41C with stock Intel ALUMINUM cooling (2u+fan style for Xeons). I was worried about the lack of copper initially but it was not a legitimate concern. The temps never really fluctuate, it's just that each core reports a slightly diff temp (using Core Temp 0.97.1 ), and the fan speeds ramp up slightly under load. They never even break 3000rpm though, the bios thermal management is set to 'workstation/quiet'.

Mind you I made sure I purchased a roomy case (Lian Li PC-G71) and had it modded with a custom top 120mm blowhole (for 2 120mm exits) and the side intake was modded to 120mm intake also. The only thing that runs warm in this box is the fb-dimms that this motherboard requires...

darkrezin · Post by **darkrezin** » Tue Apr 15, 2008 11:58 am

Thanks for the info/clarification Valis. I was indeed referring more to >2 core CPUs - my points were more referring to distributing plugins over more than 1 core, although obviously software will improve in this area over time.

valis · Post by **valis** » Tue Apr 15, 2008 4:54 pm

No problem. I've run SMP rigs for over a decade and have been painfully aware of the limitations of them over the years. Thankfully the last few years things are positively blissful compared to the way they were in the pre WinXp days.