New rack PC - neew advice

Nebukadneser · Post by **Nebukadneser** » Wed May 09, 2007 12:24 am

I have come to the conclusion that my 1999 Compaq Presario no longer can keep up with the tasks. I have upgraded ALL components as far as possible, but the processor, an Intel Celeron 1.4, and a slow FSB will never make this a fast system.

I want to make a DAW myself, and am looking for a combination of a rack (19" 4 units), PSU, mainboard and processor . I plan to reuse my hard drives and scsi card. I need 3 PCI slots free for my Luna II, Pulsar I and Pulsar II.

Are the new PCI-e slots backward compatible? Has anyone recently made a Rack system they would recommend?

Neb

Post by **hubird** » Wed May 09, 2007 12:40 am

the cards physically won't fit in the PCI-e slots

(new macs offer only PCI-e, therefor I was forced to use two macs linked together, one with OS9 and cards, one with OSX and sequencer).
There are mobos with both PCI and PCI-e slots, I'm even not sure if each PCI slot will suite the cards, there was something...

Post by **garyb** » Wed May 09, 2007 12:09 pm

rack mount cases work just fine.
currently, i'm using intel dp965lt and dg965ry motherboards with the conroe core2 duo processors with 3 cards and no issues.

Nebukadneser · Post by **Nebukadneser** » Fri May 11, 2007 1:24 am

Thank you for your replies.

Are those ATX or e-ATX motherboards? The e-ATX motherboards are very expensive. Do you know of any good 4U cabinets that are silent? I have seen some from Chieftech for ATX mobos that looks good: http://www.komplett.no/k/ki.aspx?sku=108548

Do you know if it is at all possible to find motherboards w/ 4 PCI slots that supports Dual core processors?

Neb

Post by **garyb** » Fri May 11, 2007 1:38 am

these are atx and they are about $125 in the USA.

you can get a 4pci mobo, but you'll really have to search and it'll be very expensive($300-400) and likely not work any better.

Nebukadneser · Post by **Nebukadneser** » Fri May 11, 2007 1:45 am

The reason for asking for 4 PCIs is that I'd like to remote control my E-mu ultra 6400 samper via SCSI. The sampler is also expanded with ADATs and RFX card an works as a nice extension to my system.

Perhaps SCSI cards come as PCI-e? That will solve it.

Neb

MD69 · Post by **MD69** » Fri May 11, 2007 1:32 pm

Hi,

I am currently building my next PC with a E6700 on a supermicro PDSBE motherboard which have 4 PCI. The MB price is 194 euro in France but surely chipper elsewhere.

If you ' re not in a hurry I'll let you know how it goes (I need to drill an air duct in the PC rack as I run 3 Power Pulsar). Some components are not yet delivered.

My system will be as follow:
Supermicro PDSBE with E6700 and 4Gig of corsair XMS2 C4
a 7300 GS graphic card
a 400Gb Samsung SATA 2 Harddrive
a 150 Gb WD Raptor (for Halion samples)
a 600W ATX v2.2 Power supply
a 400Gb SATA 2 Samsung on eSATA (external box)

cheers

Michel

alfonso · Post by **alfonso** » Fri May 11, 2007 1:52 pm

MD69 wrote:Hi,

I am currently building my next PC with a E6700 on a supermicro PDSBE motherboard which have 4 PCI. The MB price is 194 euro in France but surely chipper elsewhere.

If you ' re not in a hurry I'll let you know how it goes (I need to drill an air duct in the PC rack as I run 3 Power Pulsar). Some components are not yet delivered.

My system will be as follow:
Supermicro PDSBE with E6700 and 4Gig of corsair XMS2 C4
a 7300 GS graphic card
a 400Gb Samsung SATA 2 Harddrive
a 150 Gb WD Raptor (for Halion samples)
a 600W ATX v2.2 Power supply
a 400Gb SATA 2 Samsung on eSATA (external box)

cheers

Michel

I am absolutely interested in how does this mobo perform, please keep us informed and don't forget to make a Masterverb Test

Thank you.

dawman · Post by **dawman** » Fri May 11, 2007 3:33 pm

I strongly advise buying an external DVD recorder / player. If you ever upgrade to the 15 DSP cards, they will force the internal CD / DVD drives right out of your 4U ATX rackmount.

I currently use 3 x DAW's in the 4U flavor, and have found that the 965 intel boards are cool and stable w/ Scope. Conroes, and Quads will work very well. OCZ Powerstream PSU's allow seperate rail adjustments in different voltages as well. I run everything stock, but I find the seperate power rails are good for the 4 x Raptors I run in a SATA RAID cage, w/o using any level of RAID. They have great little fans, and are as quiet as the new E series CPU's.

Look @ these www.servercase.com the CK480 is what I use. But buy them for 75 USD, shipping included w/ a shitty 400 watt PSU, on www.ebay.com Just give the PSU to an uninvited guest, or some one you don't like. As they are all crappy, and unworthy to power DAW's that we would use.

If you are looking for military grade cases, that can withstand Electro-Magnetic-Pulse weapons, try these @ www.siliconrax.com I'm sure those dogs can hunt, but my battles are won with the cheap old Taiwanese 4U's.

Be Fruitful, And Muliply,

Post by **garyb** » Fri May 11, 2007 4:56 pm

yes, there are pci-e scsi cards. this would be good, because scsi cards eat pci bandwidth which you want for scope. on the pci-e bus, it won't effect the pci bus.

Post by **hubird** » Fri May 11, 2007 8:21 pm

smart

ScofieldKid · Post by **ScofieldKid** » Mon May 14, 2007 4:36 pm

These guys have done good work in the past, both in production of systems and in testing those systems for audio. Good place to look if you just want some ideas as well...

http://www.adkproaudio.com/

dawman · Post by **dawman** » Mon May 14, 2007 5:46 pm

They build great Giga DAW's also.

Nebukadneser · Post by **Nebukadneser** » Mon May 21, 2007 11:05 pm

I have found a combination that I believe will work well:

Cabinet Chieftec 19" 4U UNC-410S-B 350W-ATX
http://www.komplett.no/k/ki.aspx?sku=10 ... w=detailed

Mobo: ASUS Commando (4 pci):
http://www.komplett.no/k/ki.aspx?sku=32 ... w=detailed

It will allow me to use my 3 x CW cards and 1 x Adaptec SCSI. SCSI for PCI-e is very expensive.

My (tight) budget will decide how fast processor and size of RAM. I will re-use my HD drives and CD/DVD drives.

Neb[/url]

Immanuel · Post by **Immanuel** » Tue May 22, 2007 2:18 am

PCI SCSI is a no-go with Creamware cards. It will such the PSI bandwith big time ... I heard .... and it does indeed sound reasonable.

Immanuel · Post by **Immanuel** » Tue May 22, 2007 2:20 am

Also keep in mind, that the 4u case might be 50,5 cm deep. Oftentimes computer sellers mess up H/W/B measures. It might be hard (or just expensive) for you to find a rack for it, if you want to tour with it.

Nebukadneser · Post by **Nebukadneser** » Tue May 22, 2007 3:26 am

The depth is 48.3 cm according to the spec sheet. The SCSI card has to be disabled when working with audio. It causes audible clicks on my current setup. Most likely since it shares IRQ with one of my CW cards.

Neb

Immanuel · Post by **Immanuel** » Tue May 22, 2007 3:31 am

Well, then make sure your rack will take a 50,5cm wide unit.

Me$$iah · Post by **Me$$iah** » Tue May 22, 2007 5:14 am

I run my scope system on a comp with 3 scsi drives.
It runs flawlessly. Tho it does sound reasonalbe that the scsi card would eat bandwidth....Hmm.... now Im intregued.

I may have to change some things around a bit and do some tests. Cept at the mo, like I say, my studio runs perfectly. Is it worth pulling it apart, just to try out some different configurations?

I keep reading and learing all the time round here. Keep it up everyone, you're all doing a fine job

astroman · Post by **astroman** » Tue May 22, 2007 5:39 am

just a guess... a good scsi driver works almost independant from the cpu, which might improve disk access compared to ata, compensating for what it might take from raw bandwidth on the other hand.
A drive is more than just access time and (theoretical) data throughput

Admittedly I'm still biased towards scsi... and the only reason that keeps me away from it is noise... I don't need 15k rpm

anyway, I'd never change such a well-performing system, it's like summoning up the demons
Eventually the only 'real PCI bummer' is the STW A100 reverb - it's outstanding in both quality and resource demand (probably like 64 asio-channels in 24bit)

The P100 is much more forgiving and that's about it afaik.

cheers, Tom