PCIe Install

[Jeffrey Talbot]

Thanks to my Digi rep, I got my HD2 PICe cards over the weekend and put them into my new Quad G5. As was expected, the install was painless, although I do hate the fact that taking out the screws that hold in the blank panels and hold down the PCIe cards in G5’s have to be accessed at a slight angle. Don’t drop one of the screws like I did once.... it’ll get under the motherboard and took me a good 20 mins to get it out.

PT7.1 works great. I was on 6.9 before, so this was my first experience with PT7.x There were no problems opening older session, and while I didn’t have a ton of time to test out the new system, recording a bunch of 192k audio tracks with a ton of plug-ins was no problem. I do like the “look” of PT7. It seems much less cluttered. And finally... a keyboard shortcut for Bounce To Disc! All the plug-ins seem to work under PT7, but there are a few I have to upgrade.

I was also amazed that the PCIe card has so few connectors to the motherboard. Kind of like the difference between SCSI connections and Firewire... one has so many, and one has so few, yet both do basically the same job.

At any rate, I was told that I had the 1st PCIe order, so anyone who is considering upgrading to the new cards, everything went well for me.

[ed hamilton]

What's the upgrade/exhange pricing???
I can't find it anywhere.

thanks!

[Wolfgang Eller]

And finally... a keyboard shortcut for Bounce To Disc!

No - you´re kidding!
In the end really?
After just 5 years or so they really found a free shortcut?
Amazing!!!

[CharlesL]

Say, can you confirm if the PCI-e "core" card is an "Accel core" now? saw it in another thread, but really need to get a good confirmation. Thanks!

[Jeffrey Talbot]

I can confirm that the 1st card is listed on the box and labled on the connector end as "Accel Core", the 2nd card is listed as "HD Accel".

I was asked to keep the pricing info confidential. Digi has been very helpful in my recovery from Katrina. This is the least I can do for them.

[CharlesL]

Oh, this might be wonderful news for some of us "would-be-upgraders"..

I've asked this in another thread too, but, if it doesn't take too much of your time, could you please also verify that when it says "Accel Core", it means that your HD|2 is actually equivalent (in terms of DSP power) to the "old" HD|3 ??

Thanks!

[c-tone]

I think that a better and easier test to see if it really is an "Accel core" is to run as many instances of Accel only plug-ins as possible, and see if the Core card will run them. I don't think an "Accel Core" plus an Accel card would necessarily equal the processing power of the "old" HD3 (depends on which plugs you run).

[Dutchmuzik]

I spoke to a Digi rep on Friday and this is how it was explained to me. The new PCIe Cards have the same "power" as the PCI-X cards as far as running tracks and plug-ins BUT because of the PCIe bus these cards had to be redesigned with more chips to equal the power PCI-X HD systems have. He said Digidesign would release more info in the coming weeks on why they had to do this. Of course a PCIe system is not expandable beyond 3 cards so PCI-X is the way to go for bigger setups and a proven technology with PT.

[ryan de topanga]

Of course a PCIe system is not expandable beyond 3 cards so PCI-X is the way to go for bigger setups and a proven technology with PT.

[/QUOTE]

Is that because there are no PCIe to PCIe expansion chassis available yet, or is there some limitation that Digi is putting on these cards? I just called Magma and they confirmed that they are working on a PCIe to PCIe system, that will be available June 2006 at the earliest.

I'd like to upgrade now to a Quad G5 and HD2 PCIe now and know that in the future a Digi approved PICe to PCIe chassis will become available. Is there any reason that 6 of Digi's new PCIe cards won't work in a future PCIe to PCIe expansion chassis?

[Jon_Atkinson]

Of course a PCIe system is not expandable beyond 3 cards so PCI-X is the way to go for bigger setups and a proven technology with PT.

Not sure that's correct. i think that was originally quoted by Digi before their expansion chassis was available (I believe it's now shipping, or imminent).
The limitation would be six cards in total, as this is the number of slots in the Digi chassis (as opposed to seven in the Magma)

I may be totally wrong on this, but I get the impression that everyone was lead to believe that PCI-X machines would be available from Apple for at least a couple more months.... therefore Digi were suggesting if you were in need of a larger setup, then a Dual 2.7 (or whatever) was going to be the answer, with a PCI-X chassis. In the end Apple dropped the PCI-X 2.7 about two weeks after the dual-cores started shipping (at least in Europe they did!)....