The main thing I've come to believe in is if you are using an INTEL CPU, an INTEL chipset is a good choice. I've just started collecting pieces for a new machine - I've had good luck with ASUS motherboards and that's the direction I intend go to. NO EXPERIENCE with new boards and CPUs, but my choice at this point is an ASUS P5B with RAID - there are a few options - not sure which one I'll go for yet.

Just a note:
Just got an Asus mobo - ATHLON DUAL CORE cpu. Had a terrible time getting my TASCAM US-122 drivers loaded.
Turns out (acording to the geek!) the VISTA-ready boards are different. He installed a USB card and everything was fine. Man this thing is FAST!
Got it to support CUBASE SE 3 so I can't comment on end results yet.

Just a note:
Just got an Asus mobo - ATHLON DUAL CORE cpu. Had a terrible time getting my TASCAM US-122 drivers loaded.
Turns out (acording to the geek!) the VISTA-ready boards are different.
He installed a USB card and everything was fine. Man this thing is FAST!
Got it to support CUBASE SE 3 so I can't comment on end results yet.

P.S. Also issues with NVidia chip sets(according to TASCAM).

Thanks for the tips guys!
I think I will wait until the summer is over before i decide which CPU to buy. I think AMD is going to release their first quad-core cpu during the summer.
I haven't been very active on the compability issues concerning chipsets and audio software, but I remember there was some problems when nvidia switched from nforce 3 to nforce4? or am I wrong? but that's a year, or something, ago so it's probably not at problem anymore?

Asus P5B Deluxe

We just put together a DAW using the Q6600. We had the same question...which MOBO? Most of the folks over at AudioForums.com suggested the Asus P5B. We went with the P5B Deluxe. There is a newer motherboard, the P5K, but it has a newer chipset. We opted to stay away from a new chipset until tried and tested by other guinea pigs :lol:

Works great so far. We haven't stress tested it yet though.

Last [="http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=7574"]rumour[/]="http://www.dailytec…"]rumour[/] I heard about AMD's quadcore. And [[url=http://="http://www.anandtec…"]this[/]="http://www.anandtec…"]this[/]. Don't hold your breath, unless you really want to have an AMD system and/or are willing to wait a bit longer.

C2Q Xeons are used in the new powermacs. Intels quadcore is OK then, is it not? I am curious about AMD's (native) quadcore, though.

I now have an AMD 3800+ X2 (s939) with NVIDIA nF4 chipset. I use Cubase and ProTools (MBox2). The problems with nF4 seemed to focus on PCI performance. Because I work with FW(mLAN) and USB, I had no problems for me. NVIDIA got it down after a few revisions.

Just make sure the firewire chipset is Texas Instruments.

Kent L T wrote: Just make sure the firewire chipset is Texas Instruments.

That's what's in my board. Gigabyte uses these in most of their models.

I'm shopping for a MBD, and would like some clarification on the TI Firewire issue. I'm currently running a P4 2.4 GHz on an Asus P4B266 which does not have Firewire. I bought a cheapo firewire card so I could plug in my new Echo Audiofire12. I had seen the hype around the TI firewire controllers, so I did not look for that. The firewire card I'm using has the Agere FW323 chip. I haven't done a lot of recording with this setup, but I just finished two nights of 8-track location work recording a 90 minute concert two nights. No problems, no errors.

I've been eyeing the P5K series of ASUS motherboards, but they don't have the TI firewire chip. They use the same Agere FW323 I have on my PCI card. What's the issue with the non-TI firewire chips. Is it specific to a particular interface? What's the deal?

(Dead Link Removed)

Thanks - a quick read didn't provide much clarity, but I've now decided to get the p5B Deluxe instead - comparable peformance, proven track record, and TI firewire chip - plus it's $50 less than the other board I was looking at.

There are huge discussions on a few other forum(like cubase and others) on this doing a google search I am sure will yeild you more information than you really wanted to know :P

That's ok - I think I'll just blindly follow the herd.
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