HD cards with two sync connectors

[milesofwire]

Are the HD cards with two sync connections not desirable?
Why are there two?

[Darryl Ramm]

Because that is not an old a HD Core or old Accel Card it’s an old(er) HD Process card. Lots of old posts on DUC with more info.

You have to be very careful what exact card and family of technology, including the bus interface (PCI, PCI-X, PCIe) you are looking at and then worry about Pro Tools and operating system compatibility.

[John_Toolbox]

There are 2 formats of HD cards, the newer PCIe and the older PCI. The PCI HD cards have the PCIX form factor, but the extra row of pins is not actually used, so they will fit and function in a PCI slot.

For PCI you have:
HD core
HD process
HD accel

The core and process cards have about half the power of an accel (similar to a MiX farm vs DSP farm). There are also some plugins that require accel to run.

All PCIe HD cards (core or farm) were accel. The ideal rig for HD imho is a 2009 or newer Mac Pro with Hd3 PCIe and pro tools 10, or if you want Hd6 you’d need the magma PE6R4-I chassis(the ONLY PCIe to PCIe chassis that was approved by digi). The used prices on PCIe are so cheap these days I don’t think it’s worth going with a PCI HD setup.