asus P5E motherboard

[howie300]

Hello fellow protools users, this is my first post but i've been checking this forum out for quite a few years. Anyway, I've got a question about running PT under windows, I hope someone can help me out! I've always used mac for protools, but I'm seriously looking into PC for my computer upgrade from a G4. I went to the computer store with the specs from the "best system..." post but my computer guy told me most of the motherboards posted here aren't for sale anymore (I live in Hong Kong), and he suggested the asus P5E WS professional MB.. has anyone used it with success? I'm planning to go with the intel C2D Q6600 quad chip. I'm running an HD1 system now, non-accel version. thanks alot for any help you guys can give me!


ohh p.s., do I need windows xp pro? or can I purchase a home edition? thanks again!

Howie

[sunburst79]

Hi Howie.

XP home is just fine with the Q series Processors-no need for XP Pro

The page is due for a big update and a lot of the stuff is obsolete or nearly so. Basically any P965, 975X or P35 board will work just fine. Most of the builders have used ASUS boards so you will have a little better support with those boards. X38 and X48 should be fine but haven't been extensively tested.

The P5K standard should be available still. While I not familiar with the P5E WS if its using one of the chipsets mentioned above you should be fine.

If you planning on running more than HD1 than you probably want a ASUS P5WDG2 WS since it will let you run up to HD4 without the HD PCI cards interfering with the motherboards ports and components, which is the biggest issue with HD cards in anything other than a workstation board.

Check this Thead for some links.

Bob Nagy, NickH, and Markus44UK are all using the P5WDG2 WS board and x9blade is using the Gigabyte board he links to.

[howie300]

thanks for the reply! I found out the P5E board is an X38 board, and I'll try it out to see if it works smoothly, If it does I'll post my whole system specs so others can consider trying it out..

oh, can anyone suggest a video card that all know works with protools on windows? or does it matter? thanks again!

[sunburst79]

thanks for the reply! I found out the P5E board is an X38 board, and I'll try it out to see if it works smoothly, If it does I'll post my whole system specs so others can consider trying it out..

oh, can anyone suggest a video card that all know works with protools on windows? or does it matter? thanks again!

The video card really doesn't matter very much, Smaller is better-If you can find a card with 128MB of memory thats a plus as it will leave more memory available for PT should you ever run 4 GB. Avoid cards with HyperMemory(ATI) or TurboCache(Nvidea) as they draw from system memory and can confuse PT.

The Nvidea 6xxx, 7xxx and 8xxx serieis cartd are all workiing well along with the ATI X1xxx and X2xxx series, I expect the new 3xxx series would be fine but as far as I know no on has tried them.

The Nvidea 8500 series would seem to be quite popular amoung the Core 2 Quaders.

[Abdullah 1234]

thanks for the reply! I found out the P5E board is an X38 board, and I'll try it out to see if it works smoothly, If it does I'll post my whole system specs so others can consider trying it out..

oh, can anyone suggest a video card that all know works with protools on windows? or does it matter? thanks again!

Yes please le us know what was the result with your test for this mobo.

Best Regards,

Abdullah

[sunburst79]

Let us know how it works, the X38 Chipset is running LE just fine so you should be good there. As far as a card goes try to get one with 256MB or less of onboard memory- this will leave more RAM for Pro Tools. ATI or nVidea it doesn't matter which brand you use.