MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum [a luky upgrade!]

erminardi · Post by **erminardi** » Sat Apr 22, 2006 5:20 am

I've upgraded my Carillon audio PC from Intel PIV 1.5Ghz, 768 Mb ram, AGP ATi videocard, Silent Molex radial cpu fan, to:

- MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum
- 2x512 Mb PC 3200 Dimm Kingston
- CPU AMD Athlon64 3.500 Ghz DH
- GeForce 6200 videocard DualHead (no fan, passive heatsink!)
- Zalman 7700 Al-Cu super silent CPU fan

My sistem features 2xUAD-1 and 2xScope Project, Cubase SX 3.2, Wavelab Lite, various N.I. soft synth, FX-teleport and Gigastudio 160.
After 2 days of hard testing, I can say that all seems to be stable. No strange beahaviors or blue screen

Win XP sp2 with XP lite action, Tweak XP, and Registry Mechanic.
Nothing disabled (hyper threading or similar.
The "AMD Cool and Quiet" feature is amazing: the noises are very, very low!!!
The mainboard is quite expensive, but is very top of the class, full of optionals (round cables, additional bays, accessories, etc.), I've selected this MoBo beacuse the 4 pci slots available + 3 PCIe slots + 2 Gigalan + Firewire + a lot of USBII integrated.
The CPU cooler is also amazing. A good alternative is "Arctic Cooling 64 freezer pro", also quiet and powerful.
I think that the MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum is the last >3 PCI slot remarkable motherboard of the market.
The 3.500 Mhz CPU version of AMD K6-64 is better than 3.200 or 3.000 because the lower Watts absorption and consequent lower heat produced.

A luky upgrade

Cheers!

ps. the results??? The new system, at standard BIOS settings (conservative setup) works 3,5 x old system!!!

All of my old biggest projects are now under 33% and the ULLI can be set at lowest step!

[ This Message was edited by: erminardi on 2006-04-22 06:25 ]

sharc · Post by **sharc** » Sat Apr 22, 2006 9:45 am

That sounds really cool. Is that 33% cpu/dsp? Any chance of a Masterverb test?

erminardi · Post by **erminardi** » Sat Apr 22, 2006 11:48 am

Please, let me know how to make a PCI performance test?
Do I must load a lot of plugins?
Can anyone explain this?
Thanks.

erminardi · Post by **erminardi** » Sat Apr 22, 2006 11:54 am

On 2006-04-22 10:45, sharc wrote:
That sounds really cool. Is that 33% cpu/dsp? Any chance of a Masterverb test?

The 33% is about AMD CPU usage. The DSP usage is obviously the same as before.

Ps. the last beta BIOS resolves a lot of stability issues described in other threads. (Nforce4 versus Nforce3, ecc.)

My only real "fear" is that MSI MoBo are described as "fragile" in durability...I really hope that's false!

_________________
Scope 4.5 + 2xPulsar II + 1xLunaII + 1xPulsar1 + a lot of devices = Pure Joy

[ This Message was edited by: erminardi on 2006-04-22 12:55 ]

alfonso · Post by **alfonso** » Sat Apr 22, 2006 12:20 pm

On 2006-04-22 12:48, erminardi wrote:
Please, let me know how to make a PCI performance test?
Do I must load a lot of plugins?
Can anyone explain this?
Thanks.

There is a thread here:
http://www.planetz.com/forums/viewtopic ... orum=19&72

You just have to load as many Masterverbs in a totally empty project until you reach PCI overflow error...naturally if you only have 12 dsp's you will probably have a dsp error first...that is ok. If you get a pci error before a dsp error tbat's the indication of your pci buss limit.

bronYaur · Post by **bronYaur** » Sat Apr 22, 2006 1:02 pm

the HT of AMD as hyper transpor bus enanche
the HT intel is hyper treading pipeline enanche

[ This Message was edited by: bronYaur on 2006-04-22 14:02 ]

erminardi · Post by **erminardi** » Sat Apr 22, 2006 2:10 pm

Thanks, tomorrow (or one of these days) I will try the Masterverb test.
Soon here will comes the report

Anyway, the reverbs are the only SCOPE plugins that requires a lot of PCI band because the need of system RAM.
This is not a real problem for me because I prefer the UAD's Dreamverb. (I work in XTC mode)

astroman · Post by **astroman** » Sat Apr 22, 2006 2:18 pm

On 2006-04-22 06:20, erminardi wrote:
...The "AMD Cool and Quiet" feature is amazing: the noises are very, very low!!!
The mainboard is quite expensive, but is very top of the class, full of optionals (round cables, additional bays, accessories, etc.)...

it's listed between 100 and 160 Euro (avg 120) in Germany - or did you get it with a lot of extras ?
The bad reputation of MSI seems related to a certain type of capacitors they once used and which didn't last very long - dunno if that allows conclusions about their general design quality.

cheers, Tom

erminardi · Post by **erminardi** » Sat Apr 22, 2006 2:52 pm

http://www.planetz.com/forums/viewtopic ... &0&start=0

erminardi · Post by **erminardi** » Sat Apr 22, 2006 2:53 pm

On 2006-04-22 15:18, astroman wrote:
On 2006-04-22 06:20, erminardi wrote:
...The "AMD Cool and Quiet" feature is amazing: the noises are very, very low!!!
The mainboard is quite expensive, but is very top of the class, full of optionals (round cables, additional bays, accessories, etc.)...
it's listed between 100 and 160 Euro (avg 120) in Germany - or did you get it with a lot of extras ?
The bad reputation of MSI seems related to a certain type of capacitors they once used and which didn't last very long - dunno if that allows conclusions about their general design quality.

cheers, Tom

paid 120 euros plus vat...

Shroomz~> · Post by **Shroomz~>** » Sun Apr 23, 2006 2:35 am

How are you running 4 Scope cards?

Can you try Alfonso's Masterverb test & post the results on the thread in the link he gave you above?

erminardi · Post by **erminardi** » Sun Apr 23, 2006 2:51 am

No, only 2 cards = 12 DSP (SCOPE)
The other 2 are UAD-1 with onboard RAM -> heavy PCI band not required.

Shroomz~> · Post by **Shroomz~>** » Sun Apr 23, 2006 3:04 am

Ah, I was reading your signature.

The reason for asking you to perform the MV test & post the results for us, is to enable a better picture to be drawn for people upgrading mobos etc. For example, you may not feel the need to do the test, but if someone has 2 or 3 SCope Pro boards running 30 or 45 DSPs & want to upgrade their mobo, they will most definately want to choose a mobo which performs very well in the MV test, such as Her Voigt's.

erminardi · Post by **erminardi** » Sun Apr 23, 2006 3:51 am

On 2006-04-23 04:04, Shroomz wrote:
Ah, I was reading your signature...

Yes, my signature is correct, but in my Host PC i have 2 Scope project in XTC mode [M'n'M pack], and in other PC (synth) i have installed 1 Scope home and 1 Pulsar 1 in SPF mode, as external synth [S'n'S pack].

erminardi · Post by **erminardi** » Sun Apr 23, 2006 3:20 pm

I've realized the Masterverb test:

6+6 DSP = 16 Masterverb
Limit DSP reached but no problem with PCI band overflow.

[ This Message was edited by: erminardi on 2006-04-23 16:22 ]

next to nothing · Post by **next to nothing** » Sun Apr 23, 2006 7:24 pm

exellent results!

astroman · Post by **astroman** » Mon Apr 24, 2006 4:40 am

Eminardi, would you mind to run a few sequencer tracks in a loop through your UADs and check if it has an influence on the number of MVs you can load ?

cheers, Tom

Shroomz~> · Post by **Shroomz~>** » Tue Apr 25, 2006 2:39 am

On 2006-04-23 16:20, erminardi wrote:
6+6 DSP = 16 Masterverb
Limit DSP reached but no problem with PCI band overflow.

Hi, just to clarify. Did you get 15 Masterverbs & reach DSP limit on 16 or did you get 16 without a single pop-up message?

Thanks
Shroomz

erminardi · Post by **erminardi** » Tue Apr 25, 2006 7:10 am

On 2006-04-25 03:39, Shroomz wrote:
On 2006-04-23 16:20, erminardi wrote:
6+6 DSP = 16 Masterverb
Limit DSP reached but no problem with PCI band overflow.
Hi, just to clarify. Did you get 15 Masterverbs & reach DSP limit on 16 or did you get 16 without a single pop-up message?

Thanks
Shroomz

16 without popup and only a red line at the end of DPS meter. 17th says that DSP are not enought.

UAD cards requires a relative low usage of PCI band, no problems in XTC: 16 Masterverb plus a lot of UAD's reverbs & others EFX.
Below 8-10% CPU consumption at 7ms ULLI!!!

My BIOS ver 1.A 110405, also available 1.B official update or 1.C beta update (only for win2k qiet control problems). All works ok for me, then I remain with 1.A.

For everyone that love overclocking is also available the Dynamic Overclocking Tecnology, works safely but it raises heat & noises problem for audio users...

Today I will experiment with CPU/system downclock: I wish to see if the temperature goes down.
i.e. from 3.500 to 3.200 Mhz, the power is anyway enought for me

erminardi · Post by **erminardi** » Wed May 03, 2006 7:18 am

After a lot of experiments I have the definitive verdict: the Zalman 7700 Al-Cu heatsink is better than Arctic Cooler Freezer 64 pro because his radial dissipation that sink all the system around. The Video card temperature goes to 69°C instead 76°C.
All without any case exsaust air fan!!!
All the system goes down with temperature compared to the previus CPU heatsink Arctic Cooler Freezer 64 pro.

Results after 8-10 hours run:
- CPU temp: 50°C (it was 54°)
- System temp (MoBo): 47°C (it was 51°)
- GeForce GPU temp: 69°C (it was 76°, warning treshold is 145°C)

External enviroment temperature today: 28°C inside my studio.

Noise are very very low, I can record my guitar/voice in front of the desktop case at 50cm of distance!!!

Here the topic about the heat problem:

http://www.planetz.com/forums/viewtopic ... forum=1&15