New I7 based system for Professional Recording Studio

[nahilton]

Hi I run a recording studio and am in need of a system upgrade .

I am very interested in your 3XS SA-i7 PowerDAW but have a few questions.

How many available expansion slots are there ? I have 2 uad one and 1 TC powercore pci cards which I would like to still use on the new system.

I also plan on adding a uad2 quad pcie ,ssl duende pcie and a further tc powercore pcie.
I may also upgrade to an ssl mx4 pcie audio card in the near future

So I need a minimum of 3 pci and 4 pcie slots.

Will the 650 watt power supply cope with this ?

Drives wise I would like 2 i TB audio drives in addition to the system drive.
Which drive model would you suggest as system drive ?

Consider that I may add a 2nd partition for a 64 bit OS in the near future

I need a quiet and cool graphics card without any bells and whistles but with the ability to run 2 monitors,will one of the ati,s you offer fit this criteria.

I plan on using win xp for the next 6 months to a year until 64 bit drivers become available for a couple of items but want the system to be ready for 64 bit from the offset.

So I,d consider getting 3 -2 gb sticks of ram from the start, leaving me room to upgrade to 12 GB in the future.

I understand only 2.9 -3.5 Gb will be available in xp 32.
Do you see any problems with this ?

Is it possible to put this system in your rack chassis rather than the tower you no offer ?

All my other computers are rackmounted and I prefer this setup.

What is the firewire chipset used in this system ? I presently use a MOTU firewire audio interface connected to my apogee rosetta convertors and need a TI chipset for smooth running.

Thanks very much for your time.

Regards

[leepen@scan]

Nahilton,

Glad to hear you're considering a 3XS system. Sounds like you've got a lot of requirements there! Your best bet is to give us a call Tuesday morning and we'll be able to go through this with a fine tooth comb to ensure you get the correct system. A dual boot environment may work out better for you if you plan on changing OS within six months. I'd say PM me but you need 20posts for that - just get in touch when you can and we'll look after you

All the best

[PeteG@Scan]

Hi I run a recording studio and am in need of a system upgrade .

I am very interested in your 3XS SA-i7 PowerDAW but have a few questions.

Hi, I look after our audio spec's so let me see how I can help you.

How many available expansion slots are there ? I have 2 uad one and 1 TC powercore pci cards which I would like to still use on the new system.

I also plan on adding a uad2 quad pcie ,ssl duende pcie and a further tc powercore pcie.
I may also upgrade to an ssl mx4 pcie audio card in the near future

So I need a minimum of 3 pci and 4 pcie slots.

The board currently on the audio spec is the Gigabyte UD4. It's the most most expandable X58 board that we carry (and chosen for testing based around that fact) but even so, it may come up short on slot availability. It's spec is:

3 x PCI (32 bit)
2 x PCI-E 2.0 (x16)
1 x PCI-E x1
1 x PCI-E x4

With the x1 & x4 slots being of the shorter slot sizes which i'm unsure if they are suitable or not with the cards you are looking at?

It is however one of a very small number x58 of board with that number of pci slots on as the standard figure is now 2. You will also have to give up one of the x16 slots for a graphics card too leaving you with 3 & 3 for the pci and pcie's. Looking through what's available it's possiable you are going to find it quite hard to meet your expansion slot requirements as they currently stand.

Will the 650 watt power supply cope with this ?

I think so. The basic spec with drives but minus extra cards shouldn't break 400w under load so it'll depend on what the extra cards require. We can check the specs once we establish the other key factors such as what the motherboard will allow expansion wise.

Drives wise I would like 2 i TB audio drives in addition to the system drive.
Which drive model would you suggest as system drive ?

The one that is on the spec would be my personal choice. The Seagate 250g ES drive is a very quick enterprise class drive which is designed to run under server type conditions for long durations. I felt it offers up some extra reliability for those situations where it's required (which for long normally hot studio sessions made sense).

Consider that I may add a 2nd partition for a 64 bit OS in the near future

At over 100 gig available per install, the should be plenty of room as audio and sample componants would be installed to the appropate drives.

I need a quiet and cool graphics card without any bells and whistles but with the ability to run 2 monitors,will one of the ati,s you offer fit this criteria.

Just about any of the ati's or nvidias we offer will handle multiple monitor support, and we only offer fanless solutions on the audio specs. As the are known issues between the recent nvidia drivers and the uad 1 cards through the Ati cards would be the appropate choice in this senario as you've mentioned.

I plan on using win xp for the next 6 months to a year until 64 bit drivers become available for a couple of items but want the system to be ready for 64 bit from the offset.

So I,d consider getting 3 -2 gb sticks of ram from the start, leaving me room to upgrade to 12 GB in the future.

I understand only 2.9 -3.5 Gb will be available in xp 32.
Do you see any problems with this ?

We've done a spec along these lines in the last week or so which has been working great, so the shouldn't be any.

Is it possible to put this system in your rack chassis rather than the tower you no offer ?

The cooling solutions we currently offer on the i7 audio systems are based around large heatsink cooling solutions. It's how we obtain the most amount of power with the least amount of noise from our computers. The sticking issue so far with rack mounts have been that the coolers we use are just under 3.5U in size, which means once you place a motherboard under it then it won't fit in a 4U case.

It's important to us that any rack mount solution we offer, performs to the same level as the other case options we offer and we are in the process of working out a custom 5U rack solution with one of the best silent case manufactors we've found to work with. The only downside is that we are waiting upon a prototype currently (next couple of weeks) so we're still a good month or so until we will be in a postion to offer them to our customers as part of a system solution.

What is the firewire chipset used in this system ? I presently use a MOTU firewire audio interface connected to my apogee rosetta convertors and need a TI chipset for smooth running.

The gigabyte boards are based around the T.I. chipset. Another reason we went with this model.

Pete.

[nahilton]

Thanks a lot for your reply Pete. I,m not in a big hurry so I can wait a month to see if the new 5u rack case works out.
Does the Graphics card have to go in a x16 slot?
I can maybe get away with 3 pci and 3 pcie but would prefer both x16 slots open if possible.

Thanks for your help

[PeteG@Scan]

I've had a look and the are a few options if you wish to go with a none x16 solution but none if you wish to run 2 monitors unless you have some pretty none run of the mill connections.

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/128MB...assive-Cooling

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/256MB...-Video-SFF-OEM

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/256MB...ve-Cooling-OEM

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/256MB...OEM-(Brown-Box)

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/256MB...I-OEM-BrownBox

Some of them are single output dvi cards and some are duel output but none DVi. I'm not sure if any of them would be fitting for your system with those outputs? A conventional x16 option maybe the only way to go i'm afraid. The UAD 2 card is a pcix x1 solution through as are most other sound cards, so I don't think having both x16 slots free is that important when postioning your cards.

I've been informed that the first production case has been made up, and the are some door refinements being made this week. We're hoping to get our test unit the week after next, and all being well we're on course for seeing them in stock next month.

If you'd like me to let you know when they are available drop me a email to peteg@scan.co.uk and I can keep you updated to our progress.

Pete.