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anonymous 28 January 2006

Hello,

I am new to this forum, and new to home recording as well. Right now I am trying to come up with a game plan to build a DAW, preferably with an

AMD 64 x2 3800+
Gigabyte GA-K8N Ultra-9 motherboard (with Nforce4 Utra chipset).

Are any of you guys using this hardware with any luck?

Video card is still to be determined, however I have no intention of running an SLI configuration. I'll also find a PCI soundcard to use as well.

Looking at previous messages here and on the web, I see that there is (or maybe was) some problem with Nforce4, PCI-Express video cards running in an SLI config with an AMD 64 CPU.
I have to admit that I'm not too knowledgeable about latency issues. Could someone please give me a basic rundown on this topic?

I was unable to located this post:

news.x-networks.de; thread: "Disappointed with the performance of Athlon 64"

but I read this one:

http://www.nforcershq.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=57659

A lot of questions were asked about things like 1st generation hardware possibly being the culprit. Have any of these questions been resolved?

I've got some questions for you guys:

1. NVIDIA has many Nforce4 chipsets: Nforce4, Nforce4 Ultra, Nforce4 SLI, Nforce4 SLI x16. Are the reported problems associated with all of these chipsets? I've only seen the plain-jane Nforce4 be associated with the probs.

2. Has this issue been resolved in any way (driver fixes, newer hardware, etc.)?

3. Does the problem exist with both AMD 64 and AMD 64 x2?

4. Is there no issue with Intel / Nforce4 Ultra / PCI Express?

Should I just walk away from the AMD 64 x2, Nforce4 Ultra, PCI-e game altogether?

Thanks,
Angus

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Comments

anonymous Tue, 02/07/2006 - 02:54

Is that really true?
That would be great news since the Asus AV8 (THE DAW mobo as it seems) looks a bit outdated and I do not want to invest in old stuff.
Have you done any tests that show that the performance problems are gone (even with mid-range graphic cards?)

Since when have things changed?

Very interested,
Dominik

anonymous Tue, 02/07/2006 - 08:33

Sounds good!

Then what motherboard would you recommend? What about the Asus A8N-E? It has a nVidia nForce4 Ultra chipset. So I can reach the same low latencies as with the Asus A8V, even when I install a PCIe graphics card (not the latest gaming machine, but something from the mid-range). The reason why I am talking about the graphics card again is that I have in mind that the nForce4 chipset has always been said to show "acceptable" performance when no big graphics card is installed.

Please tell the community what configuration and driver you have in mind (and tested), since I am sure that there are a lot of us willing to invest in the more modern PCIe-enabled mobos.

Also the always-referenced RME page should be changed accordingly then.

To be even more concrete:
I have the following configuration in mind:
- Athlon 64x2 4400+
- Asus A8N-E
- ATi X850 XT ViVo 256MB PCI-E
- Firewire-Card (which one) to connect my Edirol FA-101

Would that be ok? What kind of "driver updates" are needed?

Best regards,
Dominik

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