PCI-X G5 and HD core and process cards

[Charles Schaefer]

I was researching and want to confirm the following before getiing one of these refirbished Macs 2.5 or 2.7:

Are the old HD core and process cards compatible with PCI-X?
I am loking to get a M9748 or M9457.

Also, the compatibility docs say that the 2.3 and 2.7 G5s have issues. Does anyone have any experience with these?

[Howardk]

Digidesign's compatibility documents are your friends. . . and are not far away on this website. Please follow 'em or you are likely to have serious grief, or at best more difficulty distinguishing/solving normal problems that tend to pop up.

[Charles Schaefer]

I did study them but when I first looked I thought PCI-X and PCI Express were the same. To my understanding they are competely different and PCI-X just has different voltages and PCI Express has totally different configuration of connectors.

I just wanted to get a human confirmation.

Since I am planning on just 2 cards I assume 2.7 Dual G5 is fine I think

[WildHoney]

I recently upgraded from an MDD dual 1.25GHz G4 to a dual 2.7 G.5 and my HD Core and Accel cards seem to be working perfectly fine.

[jeremyroberts]

Since I am planning on just 2 cards I assume 2.7 Dual G5 is fine I think

Yes, 2.7DP is fine --

HOWEVER - since you are only planning on 2 cards, why not consider the new PCIe and the much faster processor?

If I were starting from scratch today, I would only buy the latest, greatest, newest hardware. Why buy into last year's technology?

I have the 2.7 DP and it's great -- no issues. But I'd buy the dual core machine in a heartbeat if I didn't have to deal with hardware exchange costs. You can never have too much processor speed or ram.

[Charles Schaefer]

PCIe $4k for 2 cards. That's the thing, I have 2 cards and I am willing to spend the 2.5k for a g5. but 3.5k(g5) + $4k. That's 8k for an upgrade. I think I can get at least 3 years out of the 2.7 G5 upgrade.

Thanks All