Most cost effective way to upgrade PCIX to PCIe ?

[skeeters]

Originally Posted by Andy Caretti

Hi guys.
I've been in the same situation and at last i've moved from my old g5 to a brand new Hackintosh!
Yeah... with 900 euro i've build a Quad core 3 Ghz, 8 giga of ram, 1.5 Tera HD, with 3 slot for PCI X!
Now running OSX 10.6.4 with PT HD 8.0.3, it's just perfect!
This is simply the cheapest way to have OSX+Intel Cpu+PCIx!.

Originally Posted by maxon

he is wrong !!! there is no driver for PCIX cards on snow leopard :) hackintosh is not legal machine and you must have PCIE cards.

Only on the internet can speculation beat reality!

[maxon]

do you use virtualvia PCI - PCIE expansion chasis ? I am sure PCIX card directly in PCI Intel Mac (Hac) not works. No Intel PCI drivers from Avid.

[propower]

Originally Posted by Andy Caretti

My system is
MB: GigaByte EP 45 ud3r, cpu intel quad (i think is Q9550), Nvidia geforce 9800 gt 1gb, 8 gb of ram.

Take a look at eifx, a usb key that works as "bios for mac"
http://art-studios.net/goods/86

LOL.... I built that exact machine as well!! And then an i7 version without Efix....... yes these "work"..... but to get every last detail..... get ready for a huge time suck. So I got an ipad..... airdisplay (nope)..... so I got an artist series controller.... (nope).... So I use mirrored monitors every day...... nope.... so I went to install NI Komplete..... nope..... Korg Legacy.... nope.... So I want to boot to an external drive..... unless it is esata nope...... and please research efix carefully.... ...... the term "support" comes to mind .....
Oh yeah and how about trying to boot 64bit and make all that work (most hacks are all 32bit boot......

In all fairness there are solutions to all of these. It will just take time.... Your time.... and not an insignificant amount. After 2 years (and yes it worked) I bailed and got a used Nehalem mac pro and crossgraded. So much happier......

I do miss the ability to customize and do really silent builds. But to pull that off was more like $2K to build a state of the art i7 box. The Mac pro was only $500 more.....

To all who wish to brave that road..... best of luck......

[maxon]

Originally Posted by propower

LOL.... I built that exact machine as well!! And then an i7 version without Efix....... yes these "work"..... but to get every last detail..... get ready for a huge time suck. So I got an ipad..... airdisplay (nope)..... so I got an artist series controller.... (nope).... So I use mirrored monitors every day...... nope.... so I went to install NI Komplete..... nope..... Korg Legacy.... nope.... So I want to boot to an external drive..... unless it is esata nope...... and please research efix carefully.... ...... the term "support" comes to mind .....
Oh yeah and how about trying to boot 64bit and make all that work (most hacks are all 32bit boot......

In all fairness there are solutions to all of these. It will just take time.... Your time.... and not an insignificant amount. After 2 years (and yes it worked) I bailed and got a used Nehalem mac pro and crossgraded. So much happier......

I do miss the ability to customize and do really silent builds. But to pull that off was more like $2K to build a state of the art i7 box. The Mac pro was only $500 more.....

To all who wish to brave that road..... best of luck......

I believe old PCIX cards + virtuavia expansion box + hackintosh you can start PT 8.X

But for demonstration purposes only, not for serious work

[Andy Caretti]

@Maxon: I don't even know what "virtuavia" is. Stop it. Pcix works inside Intel+osx out of the box. You are wrong, deal with it.
I've proved to you with pic and links.


@propower: You are right. Efix support sucks. Actually i've done it with an usb pen and other hacks. But i've posted the Efix since is the easiest way to start and to learn some compatibility.
It took me only a week end during the summer to learn from "Zero" to "working".
But in the end the machine is solid and PROFESSIONAL
•I don't have and ipad, so i'dont know about airplay (by the way i don't thik this feature makes it more or less professional)
•Don't know about the artist series. But most of the controller don't work in the first time. I had to manually copy some files that were missing under the folder "controller" in the Digidesign folder and now my command 8 is working.
•I use dual monitor every day. No problem here, both mirrored or extended. Nvida geforce 9800 GT...no problem (can send you a pic if you don't belive it)
•NI komplete instelled without problems. I don't have Korg lecgacy...
Also installed latest iLife,iwork, reason 5, Live and a lot of plugins.. let me know if you need to know more..
•I diden't try to boot from an external drive. And i know that "target mode" doesn't work. But i don't really need it every day. Also because i have 4 drive inside for OS-swithing and OS-backup.

Except from the "target mode" you really can't tell that is not a mac.

So.. i'am not trying to convince anyone.
But i can tell you for sure that is working solid and professioanal, and a lot of professional users are working like this.
I've tried this for experiment, and now my old g5 is standing there unused without the HD cards.

And my quad core (don't know about i7) costed me just 900 euros which is less then the half of a Mac Pro.
But the problem for me is not the Mac Pro, or the money.. is the crossgrade.
If you are fine spending 3000 $ to crossgrade your PCIX to have the SAME 8 years old DSP power that you already have, then go for it.
I will never pay so much for have the same dsp... that will be replaced in less then a year.

This is the most cost effective way, and i just wanted to share my experience.
Hope this helps someone.
Cheers
Andy

[Ramtitam]

We've upgraded from G5's with PCIx to Nehalem 8core PCIe. To spend less money we went from HD3 to HD2 (sold one PCIx card) and started to use more RTAS plugs and for us that works great. We have a template where we use TDM on buses and masters and Rtas on everything else. Sometimes we have to change between RTAS and TDM for different reasons, but I must say it works great. We have tons of more power than before.

We also use a lot of VI's but the power of the machine is enough to handle both our VI's and the increased amount of RTAS plugs in the sessions.

[WernerF]

Do you use HEAT? If so, how do you get enough voices on a large session with all those RTAS plugins going? I'm maxxing mine out and having to go back to TDM in places to balance things out. I'm thinking about adding cards to my PE6R4, not selling the ones I've got.

[Sean Russell]

Originally Posted by WernerF

Do you use HEAT? If so, how do you get enough voices on a large session with all those RTAS plugins going? I'm maxxing mine out and having to go back to TDM in places to balance things out. I'm thinking about adding cards to my PE6R4, not selling the ones I've got.

+1

[propower]

Originally Posted by Ramtitam

We've upgraded from G5's with PCIx to Nehalem 8core PCIe. To spend less money we went from HD3 to HD2 (sold one PCIx card) and started to use more RTAS plugs and for us that works great.

Did similar but went fast quad plus HD2 to HD1..... I only work on smaller 44.1 sessions (32 track average) and no "heat" to burn up dsp (;-))..... Plenty of power for what I am doing. Total cost minus mac pro ($800).....

Another reason choose this route..... in 2 years my Mac Pro will be worth ~2/3 what I paid for it. Avid will have either a great native/LE/orHD_V2 system out and I will roll the mac and HD1 into.

For my money (since I will change machines every 2 to 3 years) Mac Pros have great resale....... In contrast.... My Hack machine sold after only 9 months for ~ 1/2 the cost of the parts......

-Lee

[Ramtitam]

Originally Posted by WernerF

Do you use HEAT? If so, how do you get enough voices on a large session with all those RTAS plugins going? I'm maxxing mine out and having to go back to TDM in places to balance things out. I'm thinking about adding cards to my PE6R4, not selling the ones I've got.

We don't use heat.

We use Analog channel in the same manner. We have grouped AC2 on all audio tracks that may need it and grouped AC1 on all busses and masters. These groups only control the AC. As far as I've listened to the HEAT demos I feel that AC is a better solution with more options as well.