64 bits & pieces

[Gary_101]

hi guys

I'm finally taking the plunge and planning an upgrade to the "64-bit world" ...

(this is mainly due to a decision to edit HD video, which my 32-bit system chokes on)

I'm currently running 2 Pulsar cards in parallel in my win xp 32-bit system, Pulsar 1 and 2. It's definitely all the processing power I need for audio.

I thought, instead of keeping my noisy, old XP box, I'd buy a quiet new, somewhat powerful 64-bit system with Win7, and hope my 2 old Pulsars would chug away on this new system nicely. (i use mostly Sonar & sound forge for audio.)

A few questions for those who are currently working in the 64-bit realm:

1. Is Sonic Core's 64-bit version stable now?
2. Is there any consensus of what 64-bit motherboards work well with Pulsar's 1 / 2 ... ?
3. Recommendations on RAM (I'll likely get 8 gig for HD video work) ... ?

As an aside, I'll likely be working with Sony's Vegas Pro video editing package. If any of you do work in this realm, It would be cool to have your feedback on MOBO's ... display cards, etc ... that might do well with both video work & Pulsar cards...

Sonic Core seems to recommend ASUS with i5 or i7 chip & Radeon or Nvidea display ... is this a good idea to follow suit?

thanks for any updates & comments ....

Gary

[garyb]

i'd use an intel board myself. any board with an intel chipset and 3 slots would be good. you might even be able to use one with 2pci slots, but that gives you less fiddling room. if it's intel, it'll work. an i5 or an i7 would be great, but a core2 duo or quad will work very nicely too. the main thing is to disable ALL the cpu power stepping in the bios(EIST and other settings).

64bit is plenty stable, but there's no xtc mode for most apps. there are other disadvantages to 64bit, but it's about things not properly integrated in other software, not a Scope problem, for the most part. i prefer nvidia graphics cards personally, but ati cards work just fine.

[ChrisWerner]

3. I have some Kingstons here but I am sure your computer shop can give you a good suggestion as it all depends on what mother board you choose. In all this hardware maze I went always good not to buy the cheapest and not the most expensive.

I don't know the scale of your video work but when you buy a new hard drive too, get one with 7200 rpm (video audio stream and windows breath will thank you)

A fast video card could occlude one of the PCI slots because of its width, watch the motherboard layout.