DAW system that needs upgrade help

Markw82 · Post by **Markw82** » Tue Apr 20, 2010 5:51 pm

Hi,

My friend put a system together for me a while back, and was sketchy with freezing before, now that problem is gone, I think it was a problem with the memory that he changed in the bios. I know there is a mismatch between my memory and what can be changed in ths bios, the voltage doesn't match up exactly. My memory requires 1.65 v, and my bios will only let me change it to 1.640. So I'd probably opt for getting a different motherboard or ram or both.

It is a noisy machine, and I would like to get a great system running even if it means ditching and selling some parts, and upgrading others. Running windows xp, soon to be windows 7. Specs

Intel Core i7 920 Quad-Core Socket LGA1366, 2.66Ghz, 4.8GT/s QPI, 8MB L3 Cache, 45nm (Retail Boxed) (BX80601920)
http://www.canadacomputers.com/product_ ... _id=020622

Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD3R Socket 1366 Intel X58 + ICH10R CrossfireX Triple-Channel DDR3 2000+/1333/1066Mhz Dual GigaLAN 7.1Ch Audio 6x SATA 3x PCI-E X16
http://www.canadacomputers.com/product_ ... _id=021356
rev 1.0 (there is a newer one rev 1.6)

OCZ (OCZ3G1600LV6GK) DDR3 PC3-12800 1600 MHz Gold XTC Triple Channel Kits 6GB (3x2048MB) T/C
http://www.canadacomputers.com/product_ ... _id=020538

Asus EAH4670/DI/512M ATI Radeon HD 4670 Chipset (750MHz ) 512MB (2008Mhz) DDR3 Dual Display PCI-Express 2.0 Graphics Card
http://www.canadacomputers.com/product_ ... _id=026465

Antec Three Hundred Mini Tower Gaming Case 300 ATX 3X5.25 6X3.5INT No PS Front USB & Audio
http://www.canadacomputers.com/product_ ... _id=018460

Corsair TX Series CMPSU-650TX 650W ATX 12V 52A 24PIN ATX Power Supply
http://www.canadacomputers.com/product_ ... _id=015708

2 - Western Digital Caviar Black (WD5001AALS) 500GB SATAII 7200RPM 32MB Cache
http://www.canadacomputers.com/product_ ... _id=020449

My system is noisy and loud even with the fans on their lowest setting. So I am looking for a recomended quiet case, and possible changes to my system to make the best out of it. I have been recently told for optimal firewire performance you need to have a Texas Instruments chip. That would be my only special requirement. please help!

I want to have a good quiet stable DAW.

Thanks

Mark

ces · Post by **ces** » Tue Apr 20, 2010 6:27 pm

You need to focus on the components, not the case.

First thing, replace all your fans with Nexus fans running at 7 volts.

But even before you do that. Unplug your case fans and your cpu fan and your GPU fan. Then listen to see what kind of noise your PSU makes. Then cycle through one at a time to see how much noise each fan running by itself makes.

Markw82 · Post by **Markw82** » Tue Apr 20, 2010 6:58 pm

Oh good point, I forgot to mention I had these fans installed

Scythe S-Flex 120mm (1200rpm) FDB Bearing Chassis Fan (SFF21E)
http://www.canadacomputers.com/product_ ... _id=014034

which model exactly should I be looking at? I'll be shopping at computercanada - close to me and I like supporting them

Part of me really wants to get a new case. I have done research on the case, and there is no rubber between nuts and bolts, I have stuck my head close to the machine, and people complain about ringing from the metal to metal contact.

ces · Post by **ces** » Tue Apr 20, 2010 7:04 pm

Markw82 wrote:Oh good point, I forgot to mention I had these fans installed

Scythe S-Flex 120mm (1200rpm) FDB Bearing Chassis Fan (SFF21E)
http://www.canadacomputers.com/product_ ... _id=014034

which model exactly should I be looking at? I'll be shopping at computercanada - close to me and I like supporting them

Part of me really wants to get a new case. I have done research on the case, and there is no rubber between nuts and bolts, I have stuck my head close to the machine, and people complain about ringing from the metal to metal contact.

Those are OK. Are you running them at 5 volts? Start there. If you are running them at 12 volts, that may be part of your problem.

EDIT: I made a mistake, 5v is good for slipstreams. For the s-Flex use 7 volts.

Markw82 · Post by **Markw82** » Tue Apr 20, 2010 7:22 pm

Do you change that in the bios I'm assuming? What would I be looking for exactly, would it just say fan speed? I'm pretty newb.. haha I do have the fans set on the lowest speed.

JamieG · Post by **JamieG** » Tue Apr 20, 2010 7:50 pm

For fan speed, you need some cable adapters that set fan voltage lower than the default 12V, or if your motherboard is compatible - software called SpeedFan. Your motherboard might also have some software that works.

Do what ces suggested and manually stop or disconnect some of your fans to see what is making the most noise in your system and start by addressing that.

Are you still using the stock CPU cooler?

If you are, consider replacing it with a Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus or a Scythe Mugen 2 Rev. B (probably the best/reasonably priced cooler listed in the shop you mentioned). You might want to replace the Coolermaster's fan with a S-Flex fan though. The Mugen 2's fan should be fine.

There are better CPU coolers available if you are willing to widen your shopping horizons. NCIX and Newegg.ca should have a wider range of options.

Try to see if you can control the fan speed of your graphics card - ATI's Catalyst program should allow you to set fan speeds to something quieter. The Arctic Cooling Accelero L2 Pro is compatible with your 4670 and is supposed to be reasonably quiet - if you are up for swapping an aftermarket cooler on your graphics card as well.

Alternatively, swap your graphics card for a passive low power model.

Your HDD is probably a louder model, but that's something you can address after fixing your fan noise problems. Depending on your speed needs, a WD Green/Samsung F2/F3 EcoGreen or WD Blue / Samsung F3 Spinpoint may be a better choice, or even an SSD if you can spare the cash.

If you stick with your current case, suspend your HDDs using rubber elastic, remove the top 140mm fan and block the top exhaust hole and side intake hole with some appropriate material. Also cut out your fan grills on your other fans and use rubber mounts instead of metal screws.

If you want to go with a replacement case, the Antec Solo is the default recommendation, particularly if you don't want to get into more DIY quieting solutions. You should be able to get away with only a rear exhaust fan and a CPU fan.

ces · Post by **ces** » Tue Apr 20, 2010 8:15 pm

Markw82 wrote:Do you change that in the bios I'm assuming? What would I be looking for exactly, would it just say fan speed? I'm pretty newb.. haha I do have the fans set on the lowest speed.

1. Get one of these. It makes it easy to experiment with different fan voltage settings.

http://www.performance-pcs.com/catalog/ ... s_id=25981

2. May I assume that you don't have any special video display needs? And that you don't plan on doing any overclocking?

3. I take it that you have the standard intel CPU cooler.

ces · Post by **ces** » Tue Apr 20, 2010 8:41 pm

Markw82 wrote:Part of me really wants to get a new case. I have done research on the case, and there is no rubber between nuts and bolts, I have stuck my head close to the machine, and people complain about ringing from the metal to metal contact.

It is improbable that your case is causing the noise. It has no moving parts. Moving parts are causing the noise. Those moving parts belong to your components.

Whatever case you get, it is going to have at least two 120mm holes through which any noise from inside your case will escape. You will not be able to stop that. The first step is to correct the major causes of noise.

You need to determine which moving parts are causing the noise before you can make any decisions. Determining that can be surprisingly difficult.

If it turns out to be your PSU and your video card are you willing to replace them?

What kind of audio work are you putting the computer to?

Markw82 · Post by **Markw82** » Tue Apr 20, 2010 8:59 pm

Thanks for the informative answers! Okay at this point I don't mind spending some money or taking a bit of a loss to get a system I'm fully happy with. If you say the Antec solo is quiet, I believe you. They don't have that particular case in stock, tho I could always order it in. Any other case worth noting?

I'll upgrade to it, get the pci card that controls the fan speed..Any easier way to change the fan speed voltage? How exactly does it work, once you install the card?

Which SSD drives would you recomend? I know for a DAW setup people recomend 2 harddrives, one for programs, os, one for audio. I thought my harddrives being new and all should be relatively quiet, this is dissapointing.

I have the stock cooler for my cpu. I would upgrade the cooler. I kind of want to start from scratch on this system, I know the power supply is good, read reviews on it being quiet, and the cpu is fine.

The motherboard, graphics card, and memory I'd like to be 100% compatible because I know mine aren't. The mismatching of the ram voltage to motherboard voltage, that bothers me.. What would be good components to put together? I don't mind selling off stuff to get what I need.

I will probably buy a cooler if they're only $20 - $40 that's not too bad.

What kind of performance will I be looking at in a low power passive graphics card? I should mention at some point I will be doing some video editing in the near future, will this be affected with a passive low power card?

I'm doing audio recording, at most 4 tracks at once. With an M-audio profire 610, runs on firewire.

ces · Post by **ces** » Tue Apr 20, 2010 10:16 pm

Let's break things into bite sized issues.

1. A quick dirty solution by the way is to get some long cords and put the computer in another room.

2. The solo is a nice case. but you should first fix the noise problem, then focus on moving your system to a new case. You noisy components will be just as noisy in the Solo.

3. The fan speed control board works very simply (there are other versions of it, but it is the most flexible). You plug it into one of your PSU's power cables. Then you plug your fans into the fan control board. If you want 5v, you plug it into the 5v plug, If you want 7v you plug it into the 7 volt plug. It is cheap and simple. Any of the alternatives will turn turn into a rats next of wires and most of the alternatives have reliability issues.

This unit, you can just place on your computer's floor. Just plug your fans into and you are off and running.

4. Don't overreact out of frustration. You will needlessly drive up the cost of fixing your problems, and maybe even mis fixing them the second time around.

5. Things to do first:

Down volt your scythes to 7 volts.

Diagnose where the noise is coming from. This is not optional. The ready shoot, aim approach is the cause of your unsatisfactory system. I did the very same thing, and wasted the same kind of money on the system I got before finding this site.

Then I spent needless extra money fixing the problem. You don't need to do that.

6. Things to do next:

I predict you are going to need to change your PSU, your video card and your PSU. If you replace them with the right components, your noise problem may just disappear. But don't replace something without first determining it is generating noise.

Get the Seasonic x 650 PSU. Depending on ambient temperature, if you stay under 300 watts it be baxially silent. Its fan will not kick in until you exceed 300 watts. You system will not exceed 300 watts.

Get a Thermalright HR-01 cpu cooler and the optional Thermalright duct (you will need the blue one). Use your back case fan to feed fresh outside air into the HR-01 plus fan array. Use that fan to do the work of two. If you need more cooling, place a second fan on the other side of the cooler.

Get a nexus fan and a 1950 rpm Gentle Typhoon fan to experiment with.

Get some kind of fan controller so you can alter the voltage going to the fans and experiment with different speeds.

7. Things to do last:

(a) An 80G Intel SSD for a boot drive works. I would use the 80G Crucial 225 SSD for data drive. Get an external docking bay for your WD drives. If you need to go really quiet, you just disconnect the docking bay from the computer.
(b) Go to the motherboard mfg site and get a list of the approved memory for the board. Limit yourself to that memory. Use it to replace your current memory.
(c) get a dedicated firewire PCI board. Buy it from whomever is going to install it for you.
(d) Replace your video card. The fastest passively cooled video card is the PowerColor go green 5750, but perhaps the powercolor 5450 will work OK for you, it generates very little heat and costs only about $50 to $70. Almost always heat ultimately translates into noise.
(f) you are going to need a Video card cooler to cool your fanless video card. The Scythe Musashi and one by Akasa seem to be well regarded here. I don't know that much about video cards, so you should get more specific advice on the subject from someone other than me.

bonestonne · Post by **bonestonne** » Wed Apr 21, 2010 7:27 am

To address the FW issue, I have seen cases with people using that exact board that have problems with running Firewire Audio devices. Now, it's not 100% across the board, people have issues with it, and there are people who don't.

TI is the recommended FW controller because they paired with Apple when Firewire was created, so all other manufacturers who do firewire are "third party" to some people, and others consider it sub-standard. At the same time, there are certain VIA chipsets and Agere chipsets which people do have great success with, but even that is a hit or miss. Using a TI chipset does not guarantee perfect compatibility, but it's strongly recommended.

As for the noise with your computer, you have don't have very many sources of noise, but the hard drive might be vibrating, and your fans might just need to be selected better.

Zalman Fanmates + isolating the hard drives will do better than anything else. I don't see the need in a new case really. I don't see the point in upgrading components unless it's needed. The Graphics don't seem underpowered or overpowered, and I don't see the point in changing that.

You're looking to tweak what you have, not replace it all. As for running standard for alternate memory, sure, get compatible RAM, but working primary on DAW systems now, I find that the RAM usually is not the first problem to overcome.

Markw82 · Post by **Markw82** » Wed Apr 21, 2010 9:06 am

Yeah, I've had firewire issues with it actually. This was my first system that was custom built for me, I shouldn't have left it up to my buddy, even tho I thought he was good with building systems. The way I see it, I want to sell off the motherboard, and possibly the case. I don't mind spending a little more to get something that will quiet the pc down better.

I wonder if I can still salvage the memory and graphics card for a new system, or get the low power graphics card as ces mentioned. I have read good things about the harddrives and power supply I have. But yes isolating them would be a good idea.

what motherboard would you recomend that has TI chip for firewire.

btw is Windows 7 home alright? Any other benefits of going to pro, other than the ability to use some xp software?

bonestonne · Post by **bonestonne** » Wed Apr 21, 2010 9:25 am

I wouldn't suggest any motherboard with a built in FW port to work perfectly.

http://www.siig.com/ViewProduct.aspx?pn=NN-E20012-S2

That SIIG card is strongly recommended for use with FW audio devices, and is compatible with all new and current computers that have PCI-e slots.

I use Windows 7 Home Premium x64, and I have no trouble with the OS. I have an older TI based PCI FW card which does work flawlessly, however I do not have the room in my system for it, so it's not there anymore, but I still have the card for testing/future upgrades.

I think if you want to do any upgrades, I'd just upgrade the motherboard and fans. You could get an SSD for OS/apps, but I don't see why you should upgrade so much, if you have the hardware, there's no reason to not use it.

I have a WD Raptor for my OS and apps, and i use the free space left on my WD640 for scratch, but I've been looking into upgrading to a 1tb drive just for scratch, or swapping the data onto a 1tb and using the 640 just for scratch.

I don't see anything wrong with the graphics you have, for a DAW, some graphics acceleration is needed, and I think your current 4xxx series is just fine, because I've read shady things about that lower power card ces mentioned.

I would definitely check the manufacturer website to make sure that Windows 7 drivers are available. I've seen tons and tons of cases where people didn't check this, and then go complaining to the company.

onboard FW chipsets i find are usually problematic, whereas a PCI/PCI-e card just isn't. It's a very touch interface.

Markw82 · Post by **Markw82** » Wed Apr 21, 2010 10:16 am

Ah that is discouraging to hear onboard firewire chipsets are problematic. I guess I could always try a motherboard with a TI firewire chipset, if I have troubles, order the pci card asap. What motherboard would you recommend for my system? Then it's a matter of finding a mb that works with my ram and cpu, hopefully I don't have to upgrade the memory.

good advice on checking for windows 7 drivers, I'll be sure to do that. I know my m-audio profire has windows 7 drivers.

ces · Post by **ces** » Wed Apr 21, 2010 12:40 pm

bonestonne wrote:I don't see anything wrong with the graphics you have, for a DAW, some graphics acceleration is needed, and I think your current 4xxx series is just fine, because I've read shady things about that lower power card ces mentioned.

What have you heard about it? The PowerColor go green 5750 or the 5450?

ces · Post by **ces** » Wed Apr 21, 2010 12:56 pm

Markw82 wrote:Ah that is discouraging to hear onboard firewire chipsets are problematic. I guess I could always try a motherboard with a TI firewire chipset, if I have troubles, order the pci card asap. What motherboard would you recommend for my system? Then it's a matter of finding a mb that works with my ram and cpu, hopefully I don't have to upgrade the memory.

good advice on checking for windows 7 drivers, I'll be sure to do that. I know my m-audio profire has windows 7 drivers.

Why don't you select your firewire card first. Then select a board that others are using with it. Then go on from there.

But maybe first would you please make is clear about whether you are starting with a clean slate. If that is the direction you want to take please make that very clear. Otherwise it gets hard to start going in one direction and then have the parameters shift.

So, do you want to start with a clean slate? Do you want to save what you can?

If you stay ambiguous in between and shift around as we make recommendations it becomes almost impossible for us to provide clear guidance. Sort of like working for a boss who keeps shifting what they want of you, then makes decisions based on information that he never disclosed and which may be flawed (you have had one of those haven't you)

If you do that, in effect you are the one making the recommendations to yourself, based on assumptions that we don's even understand well enough to challenge.

Does that make sense to you? Which direction you chose probably makes no difference to anyone here. But you sort of have to pick one for any of us to make any consistent recommendations.

It does seem like both bonestonne and I think you can do more with your current components than you think you can. But starting off with a clean slate is always more fun.

Markw82 · Post by **Markw82** » Wed Apr 21, 2010 1:28 pm

Yeah you're right I need to focus and go one path. I think I do have a few good parts I'd like to see what I can do at this point and save what I can.

I guess I would pick up the SIIG card, I didn't really see any firewire pci cards at canadacomputers that have a TI chip.

I think it's probably wise to sell off my motherboard/case, the other components seem usable to me. What would you put together?

ces · Post by **ces** » Wed Apr 21, 2010 2:44 pm

Markw82 wrote:Yeah you're right I need to focus and go one path. I think I do have a few good parts I'd like to see what I can do at this point and save what I can.

I guess I would pick up the SIIG card, I didn't really see any firewire pci cards at canadacomputers that have a TI chip.

I think it's probably wise to sell off my motherboard/case, the other components seem usable to me. What would you put together?

So is it save what you can or sell off the motherboard/case?

Markw82 · Post by **Markw82** » Wed Apr 21, 2010 3:18 pm

I thought selling the motherboard/case is salvaging what I can. I assumed starting from a clean slate was just selling the system, or selling parts and start a brand new build from scratch.

I would like to save as much components as I can, but now I know that there is problems with my motherboard and ram first off, and I would like to spend more to get a case that is already a little more quiet. I am completely newb to all of this really, a few months back I knew very little.

bonestonne · Post by **bonestonne** » Wed Apr 21, 2010 5:21 pm

I'm glad you mentioned you're running M-Audio hardware, I do tech support for them.

The Windows 7 drivers are USUALLY stable, however it's important to know that issues with the hardware is usually hardware related, to FW chipsets and lack of adequate power management.

I would go with the SIIG FW card no matter what, because it's tested and confirmed by Digidesign to be working.

I would say any X58 motherboard or similar would be fine, because you should use the SIIG FW card to solve any problems with FW.

That should allow flawless usage of all your existing hardware, I think you should be able to simply swap out the motherboard and use the SIIG FW card and then everything *should* work out fine.

Double check DPC Latency, and then you should be ready to rumble.

ces · Post by **ces** » Wed Apr 21, 2010 6:01 pm

Markw82 wrote:I would like to save as much components as I can, but now I know that there is problems with my motherboard and ram first off, and I would like to spend more to get a case that is already a little more quiet. I am completely newb to all of this really, a few months back I knew very little.

I thought the only problem with the motherboard was that you wanted different memory (you were not comfortable with the voltage) and it needs the SIIG card installed?

I may have missed some detail, but if that is correct, the case, the motherboard and apparently the video card are what there is to save.

bonestonne · Post by **bonestonne** » Wed Apr 21, 2010 6:19 pm

If you buy a motherboard that will work with existing RAM, all you need to do is then purchase the FW card for a fully working system. Case is an optional upgrade.

That's just how i see it.

ces · Post by **ces** » Wed Apr 21, 2010 6:41 pm

bonestonne wrote:If you buy a motherboard that will work with existing RAM, all you need to do is then purchase the FW card for a fully working system. Case is an optional upgrade. That's just how i see it.

Given the price of memory, that probably makes sense. Whichever is more costly, that is what should stay.

Markw82 · Post by **Markw82** » Wed Apr 21, 2010 9:19 pm

Bonestonne, cool that you work with m-audio, they make excellent products. I had an m-audio audiophile 24-96 when I first was getting into recording, never had problems with their products.

Yes, that's what I'd like to do ideally, find a motherboard that works with my existing ram, and more than likely upgrade my case, and purchase the fw card, cpu cooler, fan for video card, control the fan voltage/speed, and whatever else is needed to quiet the puppy down. Then I think I will finally be happy with this system. A many few dollars later lol What is a good reliable mb that fits my bill?

I looked up Asus p6t, my memory is compatible as well, decent price. There are quite a few listed, I'm confused on which to get.

http://www.canadacomputers.com/advanced ... 55a&page=1

btw what is dpc latency, and how do I check it?

ces · Post by **ces** » Thu Apr 22, 2010 3:29 am

Markw82 wrote:Bonestonne, cool that you work with m-audio, they make excellent products. I had an m-audio audiophile 24-96 when I first was getting into recording, never had problems with their products.

Yes, that's what I'd like to do ideally, find a motherboard that works with my existing ram, and more than likely upgrade my case, and purchase the fw card, cpu cooler, fan for video card, control the fan voltage/speed, and whatever else is needed to quiet the puppy down. Then I think I will finally be happy with this system. A many few dollars later lol What is a good reliable mb that fits my bill?

I looked up Asus p6t, my memory is compatible as well, decent price. There are quite a few listed, I'm confused on which to get.

http://www.canadacomputers.com/advanced ... 55a&page=1

btw what is dpc latency, and how do I check it?

Asus or Gigabyte boards are good. I would get a uATX board unless you really need a lot of PCI cards. Doing so gives you a lot more case flexibility.

Even though you are going to get a firewire card, get a motherboard with a built in firewire as well. It is unlikely to cost extra, and it gives you a backup firewire port in case you have problems with the card firewire now or in the future.

I am not that knowledgeable about video cards. bonestonne seems to be very knowledgeable about them. If your current video card is passive why bother changing it. If it is not passive, why would you not change it to a passive card.

What size motherboard are you going with? ATX or uATX?

Markw82 · Post by **Markw82** » Thu Apr 22, 2010 7:01 am

Good point, I will aim for a board that has built in firewire, just incase. I don't forsee ever using more than 2 pci or pci-e cards, so yeah the uATX size sounds good to me. I think I want to lean towards asus because of my problems with the gigabyte thus far.

I don't know a lot about videocards either, that's why I opted for a lower cost card, it was only $80 I believe, if a cooler fan isn't too much of a cost, it'll probably be cheaper to do that, then to buy a new graphics card.

ces · Post by **ces** » Thu Apr 22, 2010 7:09 am

Markw82 wrote:I don't know a lot about videocards either, that's why I opted for a lower cost card, it was only $80 I believe, if a cooler fan isn't too much of a cost, it'll probably be cheaper to do that, then to buy a new graphics card.

I just did a quick check of your board. It has a fan. It may be a nice video card, but it has a fan. You don't want a fan. Fans make noise.

This is the one you want:
Asus EAH5450 SILENT/DI/1GD3(LP) ATI Radeon HD 5450 Chipset (650MHz) 1GB (800Mhz) GDDR3 Dual Display DVI/HDMI/D-Sub PCI-Express 2.1 Graphics Card
http://www.canadacomputers.com/product_ ... _id=030149

It is a 5450. It costs $ 72.99. It uses the least watts. it has no fan = quiet.

ces · Post by **ces** » Thu Apr 22, 2010 7:32 am

If you can do with a dual core chip, we can build you a system that is not just quiet, but is silent.

Please go here.

http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/2009 ... ,1384.html

http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/2009 ... ,1405.html

These are benchmarks on two audio encoding applications.

My guess is that the most heavy duty application you are going to be doing is audio encoding. Perhaps bonestonne can confirm that to be so.

If this assumption is correct, not only can you get by with a dual core Clarkdale, it will be faster than your quad core for audio encoding. The Clarkdale CPUs they are benchmarking here are the i5-660 and the i5-661. Heck you might even consider the new i5-680.

If you go with one of these chips, you will be able to use a fanless PSU and you will not need no stinkin video card. The video comes built in. It is a win/win/win configuration.

Even under applications that work best under 4 cores, a non-overclocked i5-680 is probably equal to (or most likely faster than) a four core Q9550 CPU.

The i5 650 overclocks to 4GHz without increasing any voltages and with very little energy penalty as a result. Or up to 5GHz with a modest energy penalty. On overclocked i5 680, overclocked to 5.5GHz. will likely be faster than the i7 920 under almost any benchmark or application outside of an intensive IT center database application.

Because of thermal limitations you can't overclock the quad chips much past 4GHz without water cooling. So you can take the same air cooler that will get a quad to 4GHz and ramp the dual chips up far past the 4GHz barrier.

bonestonne · Post by **bonestonne** » Thu Apr 22, 2010 7:57 am

http://www.thesycon.de/deu/latency_check.shtml

One of the most important tools for any DAW before starting.

Should clear most questions up about that. Latency can be caused by the CPU itself clocking down during idle. Normally this is good because it conserves power, however in a lot of cases, at least with M-Audio products, it will cause nasty latency spikes, which will render your audio clips unusable. I've had my share of issues with it, and I've been looking into ways to prevent it.

Running a PCI-e FW card should prove to be very good, and shouldn't show any signs of latency issues, however if you do have problems with it, there are some fixes. They aren't 100% effective unfortunately, but the drivers are currently under development, and by the end of may, there should be a new release of drivers. M-Audio actually isn't a very large company, so driver development isn't completed in a week or two weeks like it could be with much larger companies.

As for the Asus P6T, I would opt for the P6T SE if you could, as I've seen issues with people using the P6T, but not with the P6T SE. I have no idea why, but that's just how things are.

ces · Post by **ces** » Thu Apr 22, 2010 8:03 am

bonestonne wrote:Latency can be caused by the CPU itself clocking down during idle. Normally this is good because it conserves power, however in a lot of cases, at least with M-Audio products, it will cause nasty latency spikes, which will render your audio clips unusable. I've had my share of issues with it, and I've been looking into ways to prevent it.

If that is so, isn't he best off with a 775 socket system?

Presumably these applications will adapt to these new hardware standards. But why wait. That can take years to happen. Heck it looks like they haven't even yet adapted to take advantage of quad core architecture.

A low cost high end 775 system circumvents the problem, doesn't it?