Quote:
Originally Posted by David Sandwisch
Hi Everyone,
It's been a few years since my last post but my homemade P4 Xenon system with an original HD Core and Process card (HD2) has been running faithfully for 7+ years now. This forum has always been a valuable source of information and helped me build 2 custom computers as well as solve a few issues. I value everyone's input and hope I may share my own experiences to add to the wealth of information gathered.
My Windows XP PTHD2 computer has been running great as mentioned above but I think it's time to start thinking about upgrading to a faster processor, more ram, SATA hard drives etc... Essentially I want to build a new computer using the latest technology but still be able to use my original PCI ProTools HD cards.
I will read up on the many posts in this forum but it's a little overwhelming as I've been unable to keep up the last few years. Here are my questions and please feel free to ask me anything. I thank you in advance.
Does anyone have experience building a computer with Intel Quad Core processors and MB to run the original PTHD cards?
Are there any current modern motherboards that support 2 full length PCI slots next to each other that my cards will be happy with? It's been awhile since I researched MBs but everything these days seems to come with PCI-x etc... and I need original PCI slots, 2 at that.
Once I know what motherboard will work, building the rest of the computer is pretty straight forward. My goal is to end up with Windows 7 and PT 8. Currently I'm on 7.3 still on XP pro. I don't really have any other parts from my current computer I care about saving. Hard drives, ram, processor, graphics will all be new.
Basically my goal is to avoid having to exchange my 2 PTHD cars for the current Accel models as the price is quite large. FWIW I'm using a 96 I/O but that's still current and should be the same in a new system.
What do you guys think?
Thanks,
David
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Best board for HD PCI with a Core 2 Quad is the ASUS P5WDG2-WS-Pro. If you can still find one. They are worth seeking out. Grab a Core 2 Quad Q9550 while they are still cheap. Grab 4GB of Corsair XMS DDR2 800 with timing specs of 4-4-4-12 and a ATI video card with a minimal amount of memory. The P5WDG2-Pro has 2 PCI-X slots and 2 PCI slots. This will let you run up to HD3 and you will have tons of RTAS. This board has been used on 4-5 HD builds - Nick H, Bob Nagy, Guitarzan and a few others. This is probably the most trouble free of all the HD compatible boards.
Moving my LE rig from a P4 3.4GHz to a Q6600 picked me up about 700% more RTAS power.