New life for an old build !!!
 

I've been stable since 2010 with my Pro Tools 9/Win 7 build. I decided to do a few hardware upgrades, and try to keep it running ... even longer !!!

upgrades:
1. motherboard: GA-X58A-UD3R ---> update to latest bios version FH
2. CPU: i7-930 quad ---> i7-980X hex
3. RAM: 6 x 2 = 12GB ---> 4 x 8 = 32GB
4. drives: 3 int WD Black HDDs ---> 3 int Samsung SSDs

Note:
The 4 ram sticks are indeed running in triple-channel mode. The Gigabyte manual clearly says that you can use 3, 4, or 6 sticks in triple-channel mode. To achieve triple-channel mode, you must insert the 4 sticks into certain specific slots, as the manual states. I was skeptical... First, I put in 3 sticks for 24GB, and it was fine. Then I tried adding the 4th (all 4 matching sticks are 8GB each). It worked right away - 32GB in triple-channel mode. Memtest86 = 0 errors. The extra ram will be helpful for my video editing projects.

Pro Tools 9 non-HD is (still ...) working. I changed the processor prefs to use 11 cores. I haven't run a lot of PTools on it quite yet, since I just finished this upgrade yesterday. I'll try to beat-up-on-it soon.

I did some more research, and decided to attempt some very gentle overclocking. I bumped it up from 3.33 MHz (stock) to 3.9. I also made sure the ram was running at the mfgr spec of 1600MHz.

Finally, I did a video render test of a recent video edit project. I timed this render before and after these upgrades. The render after upgrades was 44% faster. Wow!!! CPU temps under full-load (i.e. during the video render) were 65-72C.

So far so good!!! A pretty cool upgrade. I learned a lot, and it didn't cost me a fortune!!!

Re: New life for an old build !!!
 

I did a very similar update to my old i7 950 rig with the same mobo. It ran PT9 and 10 really well(it was always good, but the 980X was a nice bump in horsepower). It did NOT do well with PT11(which was why I built a newer system), but for 9/10, it was dandy. I am confused on how 4 sticks can run triple-channel(unless BIOS makes the system ignore the extra RAM):-) Is there are noticeable difference between 3 and 4 sticks?

Re: New life for an old build !!!
 

Check out page 16 of the Gigabyte manual http://download.gigabyte.us/FileList...d3r_v2.0_e.pdf Bios is definitely running all 4 sticks in triple-channel mode. The extra ram does help with my video editing program. (But of course PT9 is a 32-bit app, so it sees no benefit from extra ram.)

Re: New life for an old build !!!
 

Happy user with the old mobo X58a-UD7, Almost 10years...almost change everything thou except motherboard
CPU : i7930 to Xeon W3690 (very cheap on ebay 100$)
RAM : 8gb to 24gb
GPU : 9800GT to GTX970
System Disk : Raptor 10k rpm seagate to SSD 850pro
Hackie OsX : 10.6>10.8>10.10>10.12 (i dont know why . Change Os on even number)
Change Bios battery Once :)

Sent from my CPH1609 using Tapatalk

Re: New life for an old build !!!
 

Thanks for that - a reminder for me to do this ...