core2 duo + new mobo - safe to buy non intel board?

Terrac · Post by **Terrac** » Sun Apr 08, 2007 7:00 pm

It's time to upgrade the base hardware, and I could not find a clear answer in threads people had already posted.

creamware board : pulsar II pro (aka Scope Studio)
I use logic 5.0, and it's kinda picky during lots of tracks how well the board was designed.

is it safe to buy a non intel board
Specifically concerning PCI bandwidth

suggestions for LGA775 boards that will support 1+ Scope cards?

Post by **garyb** » Sun Apr 08, 2007 10:10 pm

no they don't have to be intel boards, any quality motherboard with an intel chipset should work. why not get an intel motherboard though? there aren't really any better quality boards out there and most other maker's boards that are any good are quite expensive by comparison. there's also a lot to be said for the likelyhood of stability when chipset, motherboard and processor are designed to be specifically compatible, and all are the standard that the os was designed to...

if you want to really experiment with overclocking, the intel boards aren't that great, it's true, but i prefer stability over speed in a tool that's supposed to allow the creative juices to flow. leave bleeding edge to gamers, unless you're primarily a gamer, in which case overclock away........

Lima · Post by **Lima** » Mon Apr 09, 2007 12:15 am

I'm using a good compromise between stability and overclocking capabilities wich is cheap too: I use an ASrock e-sata2 motherboard.
I use mainly for music and it works very well.
Performance are not so high (compared with the last motherboards) tho.

my 2 cents

Terrac · Post by **Terrac** » Mon Apr 09, 2007 5:49 am

Everyone, thanks for the help. I have taken what you said into consideration and have decided on the following setup. Please let me know if there are Pulsar related problems to this core setup.

Intel D975XBX2 LGA 775 Intel 975X ATX
Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 Conroe 2.4GHz LGA 775 Processor
2x 2gb DDR2 667mhz RAM
Nvidia 7950 Gfx card

This is an upgrade from the 1.4ghz althlon XP / DDR 333 system that has served me well for many a year. Although I did occasionally hit a PCI overload. I am hoping to double my track count with this new setup or at least be able to run a coupl of NI plugings in real-time without having to bounce constantly.

synthetic88 · Post by **synthetic88** » Mon Apr 09, 2007 7:58 am

I've had good luck building PCs based on the recommendations of arstechnica.com. Go to the System Guide and check out their good/better/best recommendations. The "Hot Rod" is usually a good choice for audio. I haven't built a Core2Duo yet, but notice that they recommend an Asus mobo, which I've used and liked.

http://arstechnica.com/guides.ars

Terrac · Post by **Terrac** » Mon Apr 09, 2007 12:44 pm

Most people interested in building a machine, and reading reviews are noob gamers. They want to overclock, and mod their machine like it's a 1996 Acura.

I care about stability. I like to go months on end without a reboot.
Overclocking will generally not yeild that level of stability.

You can find evidence of this mentality in the packaging of most computer components.
Gone are the plain boxes marked with a part number, and now you will find 3d rendered graphics of a girl in scant clothing.

I think of Ars, HardOCP, Toms, and most othter sites cater towards this 'extreme' gamer, and not to the hard core workstation user. Probably because we can keep a single machine for 4 years without too much upgrading. We make up a smaller market share.

anyways... rant over. my new parts should be here wednesday. i will post how my setup works after that.

bill3107 · Post by **bill3107** » Thu Apr 12, 2007 1:08 am

i do have the intel D975XBX2 which seems to be THE current most stable motherboard according to reviews.... This board offers 3 pcie x16 and 2 pci slots which is enough if you plan (like me !) to put 2 big scope pro inside. I am really happy with it : simple, stable and beautiful ! quite expensive but it is really worth it !

Jo

Terrac · Post by **Terrac** » Sat Apr 28, 2007 10:33 pm

I bought the th D975XBX2 and it's freaking rad... BUT check my thread on problem solving about the scope software installer crashing every time I try to run it under every type of windows startup (safe, debug, selective startup)

what am I to do..
I am running XP corp SP2

valis · Post by **valis** » Sun Apr 29, 2007 12:58 am

I had similar issues and it wound up being a 3rd party firewall that was causing issues with the 16bit WOW VDM (16bit code was not being allowed to execute).