My new Scan 3XS SA-i7 PowerDAW

[hesnotthemessiah]

Just ordered the following PC from Scan Computers:-


Case: Silverstone KL03B "Kublai Tower Series"
CPU: Intel i7 975 Extreme 3.33GHz 6.4GT s QPI
CPU Coolers: Thermalright TRUE Copper 120mm
Memory: 3GB (3x1GB) Corsair XMS3 DDR3 PC3-12800 (1600) 240 Pin Non-ECC Unbuffered CAS 9-9-9-24
NVIDIA Graphics: 2 x 512MB Gainward 8400 GS
Power Supply Unit: 650W Be Quiet Dark Power PRO BN073 Modular PSU 87% Eff
System Drives: 250 GB Seagate ST3250310NS Barracuda ES.2 7200 rpm 32MB Cache
Storage Hard drives: 2 x 1000 GB Samsung Spinpoint F1 7200 rpm 32MB Cache
Floppy Drive Flash Card Readers & Writers: Akasa Multi Memory Card Reader & USB 2.0 Port
DVD Writer: Samsung SH-S223Q BEBN 22x DVD±R 8x DVD±DL DVD+RW x8 -RW x6 x12 RAM SATA L scribe
Acoustic Sound Proofing: AcoustiPack ULTIMATE Multi-Layered Material Kit
Operating system: Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition SP3 OEM - Single Pack

It has the Gigabyte EX58-UD4 motherboard which has 3 PCI slots, 2 x PCIE x16, 1 x PCI x1 and 1 PCI x4. Enough room for 3 Powercores and the Xite. I went for the two Gainward 8400GS graphic cards because they were passive cooling (nice and quiet) and low profile, so wouldn't block any PCI slots. Went for two so that I could use 3 monitors (possibly 4 in the near future). The Samsung Spinpoint F1 hard drives have had good reviews. I don't think I will ever need 2 x 1TB of hardrive space, but they are so cheap these days and the the 1TB versions seem the best value for money. One for my samples and another for audio. Plus a 250 GB Seagate ST3250310NS Barracuda ES.2 system drive.

With my Xite (and Powercores) this should give me a system that will be able to handle anything I chuck at it for a couple of years. Need to find a buyer for my 4 X UAD1s (with almost all the plugins) and a 13 slot Magma Chasis now........although I might be tempted to keep them if I can afford to.

[netguyjoel]

Super Cool man!

IMHO, I would RAID mirror the 1TB drives, in case one dies in the middle of a project.

[Ben Walker]

You probably read this already, but Sound On Sound gave the Scan i7 machine a very positive review here. I think I'll be building my own i7 system later this year, but if I wasn't on such a tight bidget, I'd definitely be looking at a pre-built system like that.

[hesnotthemessiah]

Super Cool man!

IMHO, I would RAID mirror the 1TB drives, in case one dies in the middle of a project.

Yes, I will bring that up with the guys from Scan when they call me to go through my order. I must admit, I am not too wise on the ways of RAID and backing up in general! This time I want to make sure that I backup everything up regularly. Do you mean go for RAID1 - mirrored? Just been reading this SOS article http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/oct07/a ... ection.htm about data protection for DAWs. My head hurts!! Do you use RAID1 for samples and project audio backup and then imaging software for your system drive? Can you use RAID1 on 1TB drives now? The SOS article (from 2007) seems to say there is 750GB limit with RAID1. Plus you can only use half the drive's storage capacity. Would you notice a reduction in the performance of the hard drives using RAID1? I have read that you can get about 100 audio tracks playing with my setup not using RAID. I wouldn't need half this really. At least that's my opinion at the moment!

You probably read this already, but Sound On Sound gave the Scan i7 machine a very positive review here. I think I'll be building my own i7 system later this year, but if I wasn't on such a tight bidget, I'd definitely be looking at a pre-built system like that.

I don't really know enough to put together my own system - although assembling your own DAW would be the best way to learn. The problem for me would be, not so much, what parts would I need? but, how the heck do I put it all together? There's a short review of the Scan 3XS Power DAw in this month's (July) Computer Music. It got 9/10. Actual review is about half a page. Not a lot of info. They tested the 2.66Ghz model (with same hard drives as mine) which choked at just under 100 lots of 44.1kHz 24 bit WAVs playback!

[netguyjoel]

Yup! RAID 1 will give you automatic back up of your music & samples, keep the OS on the other drive like you planned!

RAID 1 is mirroring
It will write duplicates to each drive
When you writa a 100 MB file, 100 MB goes to drive x and 100 MB goes to drive y.
If drive x fails, you have an exact backup/duplicate on drive y
The (2) 1 TB will give you a total of 930 GB of storage using RAID 1, after formatting/striping. no need for imaging/ghosting/backup software...it's all done for you. Both HDs will apear as one drive letter


RAID 0 is striping
When you write a a 100 MB file, 50 MB goes to drive x and 50 MB goes to drive y.
RAID 0 gives you 2 TB of storage total & faster read/write times, but no redundancy...no backup. unless you run a tape or DVD or external disk backup system. Both HDs will apear as one drive letter

RAID 5 works like RAID 0, but you use an odd number of drives, 3,5,7, etc and will appear as one drive letter...and you can use 4,6,8 for hot spares in a RAID 5 array RAID 5 IMHO rocks the most, but it is expensive...especially if you start talkin SCSI drives & U320 controller cards, hot swap bay case, not SATA RAID controllers on motherboards.

[johndunn]

It has the Gigabyte EX58-UD4 motherboard which has 3 PCI slots....

Jeez, I looked everywhere for an i7 motherboard with 3 PCI slots. The only thing I could find was from ASRock:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6813157150

Newegg has the Gigabyte EX58-UD4D which has only 2 PCI slots, and I never thought to go to the Gigabyte web site to look for 3 slot versions. The ASRock board cost more, and has some serious issues, among which is the 1st PCI slot is right next to the video PCIe slot, so you can't fit a 2 slot video card in there and use the PCI slot. Plus mine went tits up after only about 4 hours so now I'm waiting for the replacement. Other problems too, probably all solvable, but I think your Gigabyte board will prove to be the better choice for a 3 card Scope setup.

But that Intel 975 Extreme...Sweet! I'm gonna overclock the living hell outta mine. On water, I'm hoping to see 4.0 gHz or so....

[hesnotthemessiah]

That was my main problem John - I wanted to have full use of all my PCI and PCIE slots. I need 3 PCI slots for my Powercore cards, one PCIE for the Xite and one spare PCIE slots for the future. The UD4 is configured so that the PCI/PCIE slots are placed:- PCI/PCI/PCIEx16/PCI/PCIEx16/PCIEx4/PCIEx1:-

The ASRock board cost more, and has some serious issues, among which is the 1st PCI slot is right next to the video PCIe slot, so you can't fit a 2 slot video card in there and use the PCI slot. Plus mine went tits up after only about 4 hours so now I'm waiting for the replacement. Other problems too, probably all solvable, but I think your Gigabyte board will prove to be the better choice for a 3 card Scope setup.

The video PCIe slots are right next to the PCI slots with the UD4 aswell John. Infact, they are right in the middle of them, so this board may not help you either. I need three displays (and possibly want to expand to four in the future) and so went for 2 lots of Gainward 8400GS graphic cards. Importantly for me, they are passive cooling (nice and quiet) and low profile, so won't block any of the PCI slots. Gone for the top spec Intel i7 CPU - 975 Extreme. I know it is damn expensive but i don't want to overclock and probably won't get close to needing to with this CPU and my Xite! Can't wait to get this baby up and running. All that CPU power to run loads of plugins with no problem, loads of hard drive space with the ability to record and playback loads of audio tracks and the wonderful Xite with all it's DSP power and PCIE connection which means loads more reverbs, delays and synths without the dreaded PCI bandwidth overflow!!

Decided to not go with any RAID configuration Joel. I have been reliably advised that, unless you really know what you are doing, it can be more of a hinderence plus it slows your PC down. I will just backup regularly to external harddrives.

[johndunn]

Right...I see from the picture it's the same problem with PCI slots being used as spacers for the PCIe slots. Too bad, but at least I'm not kicking myself for buying the ASRock now

It looks like anyone with a 3 card Scope setup or any other need of 3 PCI cards is going to have problems upgrading to the i7 boards. Well, I'll see what I can come up with, with the ASRock board and if I hit on anything that might be useful to Scope users I'll post what I found out.

[valis]

Good time for S|C to bring Xite to market then.

The other issue I see more & more is that some consumer boards will only have 3.3v cards supported. And in the server/workstation offerings you'll have 2 'extra' PCI-X slots (at 100/133mhz by default) but 3.3v keying only, so the 1 remaining 5v PCI slot isn't so useful to a Scope'r.