Magma Expressbox7 EB7 Which one? Gen I or II
 

Hi

Not enough DSP, so I am looking for a used PCIe Expansion Chassis so I can get more HD PCIe Accel cards. I have a 12 Core MacPro (2010). It looks like the Magma Expressbox 7 is the way to go. I see there are 2 different generations of the EB7, Gen I and Gen II.

All I am seeing for sale in the used market is the Gen I, is there any real need or upside to the Gen II version?

The Gen II is double the throughput, but does an HD5 PCIe card system need that, or when would it be needed?

Also, I can't find any compatibility information on Expansions Chassis and ProTools 10 in Avid support. . . does anyone know the link to that info?

Avid article on the EB7: http://avid.force.com/pkb/articles/e...-II&popup=true

I would have gone HDX a long time ago, but Avid did not bother to support the blue faced 192s and WAVES has not done AAX DSP either, so it seems me, and everyone else I know that already had HD3, is sticking to ProTools 10 with the old cards. I bet if all the math was revealed, AVID is actually loosing business revenue by their planned obsolescence strategy, but that is another topic all together.

Please advise is anyone knows more about which Magma EB7 I can/should use, and any other associated caveats related to moving the cards out of the MacPro and into an expansion chassis.

Thanks!

Re: Magma Expressbox7 EB7 Which one? Gen I or II
 

I think both are approved, Video & GCI both need higher bandwidth than Audio
the other related links seem MC related

To your other point, there were functions that were not doable in the old architecture and the old chips were End of Life/no further development
Parts manufactures discontinue parts lines regularly, I will not bore you with the hell I went through looking for an old Dolby PL Decoder chip for a system that needed it (it was cheaper than redoing the whole room but but it was a major PITA)

Re: Magma Expressbox7 EB7 Which one? Gen I or II
 

The EB-7 is indeed the way to go. I got one about 9 months ago and am running it in my MacPro 1,1 with 7 cards. It is awesome.

I seem to remember reading something about the Gen II not being qualified for HDX but since you will be sticking with TDM I dont think it will matter.

There is absolutely no reason to wait around for a Gen II box as the Gen I is much, much more common and also fully supported by AVID.

There are two potential caveats I should make you aware of:

1. If you are planning to run more than 5 cards you will have to budget for a new PSU for the chassis.
2. You should also replace the front fan for a silent one. The stock one is incredibly noisy.

Regarding the PSU: Make sure you get a juicy one. Most EB7's are 6+ years old which is absolutely no problem as far as the components are concerned (it's just a rack with a couple of PCB's). But the PSU's will be knackered and not able to adequately power more than 5 cards under load.

I used to have a ton of unexplainable, intermittent Kernel Panics when running HD7. The crux was that all cards alwyas passed DigiTest which only tests the funcionality of all the chips. However, problems started arising when the chips were under load as they draw considerably more power then.

Because of the way each mix is evolving different chips on different cards will be allocated even if you are failry consitent as far as track count/voice allocation and plug-in usage is concerned. That means erratic behaviour is very difficult to pinpoint. A bad PSU can screw things up in more ways than one so if you buy a chassis and start having issues this should be your fisrt port of call.

I recently spent some long and very painful hours troubleshooting my system until a member on this forum pointed me towards the PSU as a possible cause (I should use this opportunity to thank Bob Nagy again for doing so).

Once I swapped out the PSU all of these problems went away. It is very easy to do only takes about half an hour.

Regarding the fan: I bought this one which is absolutely brilliant and not very expensive at all.

I would definitely get an EB7. It works very well and prices for Accel cards are very low right now. I am surprised there aren't more people buying them at this point.

Re: Magma Expressbox7 EB7 Which one? Gen I or II
 

Since you have 7 cards, does it see all 7 card chips?
Thinking about going this route when going to PT10HD.

Thanks,

Marc

Re: Magma Expressbox7 EB7 Which one? Gen I or II
 

Sorry to hijack this thread. I have a Magma P7R464 and have 7 cards fitted you mentioned you changed the power supply in your EB-7 because of kernel panics. im just wondering if this is related to my issue sometimes I suffer waves plugins not passing audio sometimes and I have to reload the sessions. Im wondering if its because the chips are drawing lots of power. My magma has the factory power supply in. Once again sorry to hi jack this thread

Re: Magma Expressbox7 EB7 Which one? Gen I or II
 

Yes it does. It is fully supported / qualified by Avid.

Re: Magma Expressbox7 EB7 Which one? Gen I or II
 

Really not sure as I have stopped using Waves plug-ins. I seem to remember vaguely having this issue years ago but cannot be certain now.

I suppose the thing to check is whether this is a common problem or whether it is unique to you. Also, is this something that's a recent development on a system that was fine before? I wouldn't have thought that certain plug-ins cause the chips to have more of a power draw than others (when taking the same amount of DSP).

Maybe try running a test session without using TDM and see if it happens on purely native sessions as well.

Re: Magma Expressbox7 EB7 Which one? Gen I or II
 

Wow, that's great news. So your able to use all those chips.
9x7=63 total chips for 7 cards? right?

Or does it let you just use 6 cards with chips and the 7th card for inputs?

Thanks,

Marc;)

Re: Magma Expressbox7 EB7 Which one? Gen I or II
 

Yes, you have 63 chips available and how you use them is up to you.

However, some plug-ins take more DSP depending on which chip they are instanciated on. That is the same for all TDM rigs though, regardless of the number of cards you have.

Thx again for this info.
I think I'm going this route for my mix setup.
I use Logic Pro for music anyway but, having more cards would make the mixing process easier/quicker.

I really appreciate this info,

Marc;)

Re: Magma Expressbox7 EB7 Which one? Gen I or II
 

Just added more HD PCIe cards to my Digidesign EB7. I had 4 cards and now I have 7. I did have one crash, but did work for a couple hours. I am wondering if the Power Supply limitation is the issue, and if so it is no brainer to upgrade the supply, or is it a fringe issue?

It is put together and in a rack at the moment, but it seems it is a standard ATX power supply? Curious what size repleacement Power supply would right for 7 HD PCIe cards, a 750Watt like this, or? Wondering the HD cards use more 12VDC or 3.3VDC, because it seems these larger repalcement supplies have less 3.3VDC Amperage than the original Magma 550Watt Supplies?

I did a bunch of searching/googling, and could not find the current draw spec for the HD Core/Accel cards. A link to that data, at full load, would be great.

Hoping someone has been thru these details. Thanks in advance!

Re: Magma Expressbox7 EB7 Which one? Gen I or II
 

I never managed to find out the current draw of the Accel cards but the PSU I ended up using a replacement was a Corsair 850W. I only bought that one because it was the only one in stock in my local shop at the time. The one you linked to is 750W which should be fine, too. A regular ATX will fit nicely so you will have no problems there.

I also replaced the stock fan with a BeQuiet! SilentWings and the difference was phenomenal.

I hope this resolves your stability issues. What computer are you running?

Enjoy your chassis - it's amazing how quickly you will take HD7 for granted. I am now running a HD2 alongside mine...

Re: Magma Expressbox7 EB7 Which one? Gen I or II
 

I did a lot of searching and could not come up with the spec either. I have an inquiry in thru the back door at Avid, hopefully they will come up with the current draw spec for these cards, and if so I will post the information.

2010 Mac Pro 2.66 12 Core 24GB RAM OS X 10.8.5 Pro Tools 10.3.10
I see you are running OS X 10.9.5, which I presume you know is not supported Supported List, any issues other than the uninstall? I worry about all the 3rd party things, such as Native Instruments, Celemony/Melodyne, Universal Audio Quad, etc. . .

Re: Magma Expressbox7 EB7 Which one? Gen I or II
 

Ok, now running HD 7 in my Digidesign Express Box 7 chassis. I could not find a spec, but since all the power supplies I looked at (from 500W-1000w) all have about the same current rating @ 3.3VDC, I assumed the HD Cards draw most of their power from the 12VDC rail, like a PCIe Video card, so I upgraded the supply to this 850W power supply.

After that, worked last night for a couple hours, no problems. Came back today and Pro Tools crashed 3 time in a row on loading session, even after complete power cycles on everything. The 4th time was a charm. I did keep all the crash threads, but they are not readable to my inexperienced eye. Worked on a mix for an hour after that without any problems. . . Hope this is not going to be a continuous problem. Thoughts?

Re: Magma Expressbox7 EB7 Which one? Gen I or II
 

I would say keep an eye on plug-in cache. Most people turn it off completely but I tend to leave it on if I am pulling up sessions with (near) identical plug-in assignments. I have experiences regular crashes when switching from one large project to another (maybe even at a different sample rate) and Pro Tools can't handle figuring out which plug-ins should remain or which plug-ins should go where - exacerbated by the fact that Accel cards have different kinds of chips in them.

WHich version of Pro Tools are you running? I have recently upgraded to 10.3.10 but am finding it less stable compared to 10.3.8 so will be rolling back at the next opportunity.

Re: Magma Expressbox7 EB7 Which one? Gen I or II
 

I know this is like a year later and Avid has moved on however I can get an EB7 for a Native system I am considering also there will be external graphics cards involved. Is this still a good purchase. I will be running Ultimate at some point but Natively PCIe card. Is this possible?`

Re: Magma Expressbox7 EB7 Which one? Gen I or II
 

Not sure I understand the need for a chassis when all you want to put in it is a single HDN card?