Urgent questions regarding Motherboard/CPU

[musicfest]

Hi,

I couldn't go on with my previous post for some reason-maybe its closed.

Just wondering if anyone can give me more info on motherboards etc..

Does the A-bit Be6 Revision II board run okay with the Digi001.

the system I'm planning on using is:

P3 700E CPU
Abit Be6 Revision 2 Mb
128 MB SDRAM 133Mhz
30 Gig Seagate Barracuda (audio-are these drives okay?) 7200
15 Gig Seagate 5400 rpm (system drive)
32MB Riva TNT2 M64 video card
ATX Midi Tower Case
48x sony CDROM

does the motherboard support the 133Mhz Ram,
what speed does the video card run at, are the two hard drives listed there suitable for running a digi001 system-

im looking at picking this system up on monday (sunday for most of you).. and I'd appreciate any advice from anyone..

my e-mail address is [email protected]
I plan to check this board every few hours or so.

Thanks for all your posts in my previous message about motherboards. I can't wait to (finally) get this thing up and going..

Regards,
Bill Roebuck

[musicfest]

Also,

Any probs running the slower system drive (5400)..

Thanks
Bill

[dthomca]

Hi Bill--

The Abit MB uses the 440BX chipset, which only "officially" supports PC100 RAM. I believe that the PC133 RAM will work, but you won't get all that you want out of it. Also, the processor (PIII 700E? or 733?) doesn't "officially" support the 133Mhz FSB (the "E" means Coppermine architecture [sometimes deleted from model numbers above 600Mhz], the "B" means 133Mhz FSB).

All of the above is true if you don't want to overclock, which (from what I gather as I've been doing way too much research on this trying to find the best system to buy if Digi isn't going to support Athlon...still waiting....) is pretty much an accepted practice among hardware performance junkies. The Abit board that you mention apparently has a BIOS that allows the user to tweak the system voltage to get the higher bus speed without messing with jumpers on the MB. From what I understand, the thing to watch if you're going to overclock is that you get a video card that can support the out-of-spec AGP slot (it will run at about 89Mhz, instead of the 66Mhz that it's designed for). Anandtech (http://www.anandtech.com) has an article that test about 30 video cards and tells you which ones seem to work.

I haven't done it (overclocking) and am a bit leery of it, but if you want to run at 133Mhz, your choices are overclocking or buying a MB with the new Intel 815 ("Solano") chipset (Abit makes one [SE-6] that I've seen on the market already), since the Digi001 has problems with the Via Apollo 133 chipset. However, Digi hasn't said whether or not the 001 works with the Solano chipset, nor have they posted thoughts on overclocking (I doubt they will endorse it). Anyone else out there overclocking?

That said, I'd definitely buy the PC133 RAM (the difference is usually about $10-15), but I'd look at getting a "B" processor if you're concerned about running at 133Mhz. Although you're MB won't natively support it right now (and you should probably make sure that it will support it at all), my thought would be that Digi will eventually support some MB that runs 133Mhz natively and a new MB is a fraction of what a new processor costs, so get stuff that looks like it will migrate up to the new spec.

Good luck.

Dan

[musicfest]

Thanks Dan,

Still not making much sense though.. apart from the fact we've been given a real good deal on this system-and its insides don't suit each other too well.

I'm kinda after a quick buy the day after tomorrow.. without any stuffing around with motherboards/video cards etc.

So digi001 works / doesn't work with 133Mhz Motherboards?

Whats the whole deal?
Wish someone could just say `buy this'. Sure the digi001's great.. if you can get a system that will run it.. or spend all your money changing what you've bought so it actually works..

What's the point in buying 133Mhz Ram if you can't use the extra speed?

You speak to computer salespeople and they say `you idiot how come you don't want a motherboard supporting VIA?- and you say, it doesn't work with our sound card.. they say, `well whoever you're getting it off needs to get with it-/ salespeople ive spoken to really don't have a clue.'

Anyhow.,. all these questions I have, I wish could be answered..

Are there any boards at an equivalent price to the Abit Be6 Rev2 motherboard? or perhaps a little more- that support the 133mhz ram..

what about video cards? confused if the Tnt2 card will even work at ALL..

Any help - especially from Digi would be most appreciated.

Bill Roebuck / John Mclennan
[email protected]

[MIL]

Hey check out www.wavedigital.com if you don't buy from them try and get a system with the hardware they have listed. Good luck

[bstaley]

Bill,
One of the advantages of getting PC133 RAM even if you are only running a 100mhz frontside bus is that you can usually get away with running faster memory settings in the BIOS. It's not a huge difference, but it is there.

The best thing you can do is to buy a Creative Labs Annihilator Pro AGP card. Every online review I've seen shows that this card has no problem running with 133FSB (89mhz AGP).

I would recommend the Abit BE6 II or the ASUS CUBX for overclocking the 440BX chipset.

As for harddrives, I have a 7200RPM 27GB Quantum Fireball Plus KX and it works great.

I hope some of this advice helps.

[KroNEe]

I am running a celeron 2 566 coppermine that I bought for $129 running on a special slotkit that has ajustable voltage settings
and am running 850 mhz @ 100mhz buss x 8.5 multiplier (locked by intel inside chip) at 1.8 volts. this thing runs great. I had it clocked at 977mhz @ 115mhz fsb with 1.9 volts
but steped it back down to run at the 100 mhz
spec of my ram and motherboard, whitch by the way is a Asus p2bf with generic ram.
I just bought 001 last night and is running well so far. I did have a pci buss to busy for reliable audio transfer error at first but after creating a new hardware profile for pro tools disabling my Alesis Adat Edit card alls well. So far I am very impressed with the 001. I love the inerface
cant wait to uninstall steinbugs cubase after I rebuild all my songs in pt ~


<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif">quote:<HR>Originally posted by dthomca:
Hi Bill--

I haven't done it (overclocking) and am a bit leery of it, but if you want to run at 133Mhz, your choices are overclocking or buying a MB with the new Intel 815 ("Solano") chipset (Abit makes one [SE-6] that I've seen on the market already), since the Digi001 has problems with the Via Apollo 133 chipset. However, Digi hasn't said whether or not the 001 works with the Solano chipset, nor have they posted thoughts on overclocking (I doubt they will endorse it). Anyone else out there overclocking?

Dan<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>



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~KroNEe~

[WayneM]

Hi again Bill,

I've been doing a bit more reading up and hopefully may have a few more answers to your questions. The penny finally dropped for me a little earlier this afternoon about the whole CPU, bus speed, multipliers etc. So I hope all the following info is correct. If there are any obvious mistakes could someone please let me know. [Extremely long answer following...]

The short answer is yes the CPU & motherboard configuration you have in mind fits with what Digi recommends. The P3 @ 700MHz has a 7.0 multiplier inside the CPU which effectively cannot be changed. This chip is intended to be used at the 100MHz buss speed (i.e. 7.0 x 100MHz bus speed = 700MHz P3). The BX chipset was designed to be able to handle this 100MHz frequency, so therefore the Abit BE6-2 (which has a BX chipset) is okay to be used.
The buss speed (I think its also referred to as the external clock) used in the motherboard (M/B) affects the chipset and everything else plugged into the M/B (i.e. Such as the AGP devices [video card], and the PCI devices [soundcards such as the Digi 001 card, SCSI adapters, TV capture cards, all that sort of stuff]). PCI and AGP devices have been designed to run at particular frequencies - i.e. PCI at 33MHz and AGP at 66MHz. To achieve this a multiplier has to be used against the buss speed. The BX chipset has multipliers of 2/3 and 1 for the AGP port and ½, 1/3 and ¼ for the PCI ports. If you are operating at a 100MHz buss frequency you can use a 2/3 multiplier (i.e. 2/3 x 100MHz ) to run the AGP within specification at 66MHz. To get the PCI running at spec you use the 1/3 multiplier (1/3 x 100MHz = 33MHz).

So that's all working dandy. The P3 @ 700Mhz with a 100Mhz buss speed and using a 2/3 multiplier for the AGP and 1/3 multiplier for the PCI means that everything is working okay. The RAM is also working at 100MHz which is what is was meant to do so that's cool too.

It starts getting a little more complicated if we think about 133MHz buss speeds. Why would you use a 133MHz buss speed? Why - because it goes faster!! In fact a 667 P3 working at 133MHz will generally out perform a 700MHz P3 working at 100MHz (not by a heck of a lot but it still happens). The BX was never meant to be run at 133MHz. However a lot of people have tried it out and it works rather well. In fact some people (such as Toms Hardware) have pushed the BX chipset even further to speeds of 150MHz and above to get even better performance. In fact this is the way you can overclock a system - you raise the buss operating frequency above what it was meant to be. As I mentioned earlier the multiplier controlling the CPU chip speed is set within the CPU itself and cannot be changed, so you have to increase the external clock speed to make it go faster. In earlier Intel chips it was possible to change this multiplier however Intel ruined that fun by making it unchangeable.

Say for instance we bought a P3 667MHz which is meant to use a 133MHz buss and tried to run it on the BE6-2. It would run okay except the RAM is now running at 133MHz (same as the external clock). Also the BX chipset only has a 2/3 and 1 multiplier for AGP so the lowest the AGP port could be run at is 2/3 x 133MHz = 89MHz. Some AGP video cards can't handle this being so much greater than the 66MHz specification. The PCI slots are okay at this buss frequency as the BX chipset does have ¼ multiplier (133MHz x ¼ = 33MHz) which keeps the PCI within spec. The Via and 815e chipsets have a ½ multiplier for the AGP so they allow the AGP to run within spec while operating the external clock at 133MHz. So if you wanted to overclock a BX board to 133MHz you would either use AGP video card which can handle 89MHz or use a PCI video card. If you tried using your P3 700Mhz at 133MHz instead of the specification 100MHz the processor would be working at 7.0 (CPU multiplier) x 133Mhz = 933MHz. If you could get that to work without frying your CPU it would be a seriously fast PC (relatively unlikely to work though).

Okay onto the rest. Its a good idea to get the 133MHz RAM. Why?? Well because it is very close to the price of 100MHz RAM and you would have a greater chance of being able to use again in a future PC upgrade. It may not be the case but for an extra $10 its worth the punt. Also if you wanted to experiment with alternate buss speeds above 100MHz you could. The BE6-2 allows 1MHz increments so you could make a few slight increases to the standard configuration (if you're game - and willing to take the risk).

Regarding your HDD's. Tom's Hardware did a recent review of different HDD's. While they didn't give some of the more important info for recording (i.e. seek and writing times) they did present results for the seagate baracuda 1 and the baracuda 2 - which had quite differing results. I don't know of any likely problems with using the slower drive (especially considering that you have 2 x UDMA 33 and 2 x UDMA66 ports each of which can take 2 drives). Just remember that UDMA66 requires a different cable from that of the UDMA33 to get the full performance. Anandtech did report some incompatabilities in the Highpoint ATA66 controller (which the BE6-2 uses) with some devices including certain types of HDD's. Anandtech reported the CMD controller on the ASUS CUBX was apparently less problematic.

I think that covers most of it. I do have a few more comments though...

When I first learnt about the Digi 001 I was quite excited. The ins and outs on that thing were pretty much unmatched at that price point. But I've gone off the 001. Why?? Because of its limitations and because you're effectively locked into Digi's plug in format and locked out of DirectX and VST unless of course you already own Cubase, etc. At the moment I use n-track studio with a sound blaster live. The card certainly does not have the numbers of ins and outs which I require and the inputs somewhat colour the sound - but it does the job in the short term. N-track ( www.fasoft.com ) is an excellent program which allows you to use Direct X (such as Jezars excellent Freeverb [ www.dreampoint.co.uk ] or Bill Wal's MaxX ) and VST effects. Its does not look as flash as 001 but it does a hell of a job (and for $35 US it is excellent value) - don't be put off by the price this little program does nearly everything - everything which is important anyway - that PTLe does at a very small fraction of the price. However if I wanted to use my little program with the 001 hardware I would be limited to 2 tracks - the same as my SB live card now. I use a Yamaha 01v desk with ADAT lightpipe out and it would be useless into the 001 using n-track. The plugins from FASoft and places such as Dreampoint vary in price from $0 to around US$20 and some of them are excellent. Sorry Digidesign I like my Direct X, VST plugins and n-track too much (and their price tags). If only your hardware would let me use them 001 would be near perfect for me. It looks like the MOTU 2408 might be the answer for me (and its dropped to less than that of 001 in my part of the world). I also don't need a PhD in computer science to put together a compatable PC. I haven't ruled 001 out completely but there are a few things not in its favour. Just my 2 cents worth.

Hope I answered some of your questions Bill.

Regards

WayneM

[McKellip]

Two cents????!! I think you just gave us a dollar!!! I can not believe I just read that huge post, I need to get a life.

By the way, (I am just kidding here) You should get a life too Wayne! I think you have been buried in those computer mags too much! Now go make some music!

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RLM

[WayneM]

Yeah, too true RLM. It all started when I had to find out what PC would work with a 001... Oh well if nothing else I've had an education in configuring PC's!

WayneM