Best processor/MOBO for a *stable* DAW...?

[vtieto]

I built my DAW a year ago with a Thunderbird/VIA chipset combo and it has *never* worked properly. I don't know for sure it's the hardware, but with my upgrade I'm not taking chances; I'm sticking to P4 w/ Intel chipset, and I'm tempted to stick with an actual Intel MOBO. As usual, there is a bewildering array of new chipsets to consider.

With **stability** more important than saving a few bucks, what do you recommend? I don't need top of the line, just something that works right. However, I'm using Reason w/ Sonar & Delta66 card, and all my sounds and effects are coming from soft synths and plug-ins, so I want as much CPU power as possible without spending a fortune. Guess I'm looking for that magic price/performance "sweet spot."

Anything I should be sure to *avoid*? Your recommendations are appreciated.

- Vinnie

[Jon Sick]

Im after the Asus P4S-533. Its an SiS chipset, intel processor based.

Amd = speed
Pentium = stability.

Just weigh up which is the most important... I'm after the stability!

Take it easy
Jon

[Ohsoflow]

is AMD faster than Pentium?
Pentium has twice the memory bandwith... when using dual channel DDR or RDRAM to take full advantage of that extra memory bandwith, Pentium is bound to be faster!

[blacknile]

My Asus A7V266 board has a VIA chipset and it is much more stable than any of my pentium systems ever were, including our new P4 2.4g systems we just got at work for more than twice the price of my athlon systems. I haven't experienced any problems with my AMD system yet and it is extremely fast.

[IRA1]

Please stay away from VIA chipsets. I do not want anyone to go through what I went through. I put together an Athlon XP 2100 system for use with my MOTU 1224 & 2408MK2 setup and the pops, crackles and instability made my setup useless. I previously ran a P3 800 and Im back to it again until I get my P4 setup. I am sold on the ASUS P4B533 board with a 2.4, just waiting fo rmy checks to start rolling in...
good luck

[vtieto]

Thanks to all for your responses.

I called tech support at M-Audio, makers of my Delta66 soundcard, and they said the following:

- stay away from VIA chipsets for their products
- stay away from SiS for audio
- go for the Asus P4B533; they have been using this board with good results. The P4B266 is also stable, though not as full-featured.

I'm going for a P4 processer w/ the Asus P4B533 (available at Newegg.com for $122.) It only goes up to PC2100 DDR RAM, but I guess you can't have everything.

- Vinnie

[jaq]

"stay away from SIS for audio"

That may be true for M-Audio's products, but there are many people (myself included) using SIS chipsets without problems. (I'm using SIS 735/AMD XP 1700+ with an Aardvark DirectPro 24/96, runs on WinMe and XP.)

Q

[This message has been edited by jaq (edited 12-06-2002).]

[Basslord1124]

Originally posted by vtieto:

- stay away from SiS for audio


Hmm that's strange...I plan on using the Audiophile for my soundcard and a potential Asus mobo I was looking at had an SiS chipset. I emailed Midiman about the situation this is what they said:

>>We have not test with this board or chipset specifically. We have tested
with the SiS 740, which is a very nice chipset which is of the same mold as
the SiS 745. The Asus boards we will always recommend. Good choice.<<

In fact, I just posted a message on here regarding the issue I was having (which should be ok BTW). The thing I have been told is stay away from Via...haven't heard anything bad concerning SiS chipsets. Strange how we heard 2 different things from the same company. Are there SiS chipsets for Intel as well? Maybe that's what it is...or maybe it's b/c we are going for 2 "somewhat" different soundcards (of course I always thought the Audiophile and Delta 66 were roughly the same thing). Who knows? http://www.audioforums.com/forums/confused.gif

[Ohsoflow]

i also contacted m-audio about SiS chipsets and this is there reply:
Hello,

Thank you for contacting M-audio. We apologize for the delayed response. We've been experiencing some e-mail problems and are trying to assist everyone as quickly as possible. Thank you for your patience and understanding.

We are not aware of any major issues with Sis Chipsets. We have only received reports of compatibility problems with Via chipsets. You should be fine with either of those boards.

Please let us know if we can be of further assistance.


looks like some internal communication problems at m-audio http://www.audioforums.com/forums/rolleyes.gif

"stay away from SiS for audio"... i have heared about problems with SiS in the past, but not from the last couple of chipsets...
if there are problems, i would like to know because i am also planning to use SiS655 with delta66...
anyway, looks like this m-audio employee hasn't been updated...

[knowdoubt]

I would guess that the m-audio rep that warned against SiS was ill informed about the recent line of SiS chips & is speaking from long ago experience with older chipsets. SiS used to make very mediocre chipsets a few years ago but they've invested a lot in new plant & R&D & now make excellent chipsets. For audio with AMD CPU there is really now only nforce, SiS & AMD chipsets to consider. I can tell you from 1st hand experience that the SiS 735/745 ..etc. series of chipsets work excellent with m-audio cards & MOTU cards. They are also very stable. For audio with Intel CPU there is only Intel & SiS chipsets to consider.

[vtieto]

In addition to calling, I also e-mailed M-Audio. My question was "Do you have any official recommendations for processor/MOBO/RAM these days? "

Their response was: "We recommend Asus motherboard and Pentium processors. You may want to steer clear of Via chipsets as there are known issues in conjunction with M-audio
cards."

They didn't mention a specific chipset for the Asus board, which leads one to believe it either doesn't matter or whoever wrote the e-mail didn't really know. Most of my research indicates the safest route is an Intel chipset.

I, too, was surprised to hear the warning about SiS chips from the M-Audio rep, as I had just read a glowing review of the SiS645 at www.tomshardware.com. (http://www.tomshardware.com.) Who knows what most of this information is based on ... much of it seems anecdotal. You can search the newsgroups and quickly find ten people who say VIA chips are a problem, and then ten others who say every DAW they've built has had VIA and they ran like a charm. After having been burned once, my inclination is to go with the setup that's the most universally recommended, which at the moment seems to be the Asus/Intel combo.

-- Vinnie

[Ohsoflow]

i'm afraid with VIA it is not purely anecdotical....
read this:
http://www.ofgb.org/reference/Computers/VIA/via%20controllers%20slow%20burst%20transfers.pdf

i would like to add to that, that you don't see that many anecdotes about Intel or (newer) SiS chipsets on the web.

[LeoIX]

FWIW...I just upgraded from a PIII with an Asus MB that worked great to a P4 2.4 on an MSI board with an SiS645DX chipset. Right now I am having a devil of a time getting Cakewalk or Sonar to not hang. I use a Delta 66 card. I have been doing the IRQ/Driver dance and haven't been able to get it working. Deltas seem to be real picky about drivers, i.e. in my old system the only way that I could get it to multitrack correctly was to use the original drivers, none of the newer drivers would work. I'm not sure if the new problem is a MB or driver issue, but I have considered trying an Asus 845E board to see if that fixes it.

[knowdoubt]

Originally posted by LeoIX:
FWIW...I just upgraded from a PIII with an Asus MB that worked great to a P4 2.4 on an MSI board with an SiS645DX chipset. Right now I am having a devil of a time getting Cakewalk or Sonar to not hang. I use a Delta 66 card. I have been doing the IRQ/Driver dance and haven't been able to get it working. Deltas seem to be real picky about drivers, i.e. in my old system the only way that I could get it to multitrack correctly was to use the original drivers, none of the newer drivers would work. I'm not sure if the new problem is a MB or driver issue, but I have considered trying an Asus 845E board to see if that fixes it.

Anything else change , such as vid card, OS..etc.? I agree, if all else fails return the board before it's past time for any warranty credit & move on. I know the delta/Sonar/SiS 735-745 chipsets (AMD platform) combo works fine together but could be there are some problems with SiS/Intel or that particular MOBO. Good luck.

[LeoIX]

Thanks for responding, knowdoubt. The MB wasn't my first choice even though MSI is a top-quality manufacturer and I had read good things about the SiS chipsets. Basically, the deal was too good to pass up at the time because the CPU/MB bundle cost what everybody else was selling the CPU for alone! Unfortunately the 14-day return period is up so I'll probably put it up on Ebay and get the Asus that I was after in the first place. Thanks again.

[Ohsoflow]

thanx for the info Leo!
it might well be a driver issue, but who knows?!

[quattro_xxph]

Maybe the newer SiS chipsets are OK, but the old one I used with a P3 (SiS 620) was crap. That or the crappy Jetway motherboard it was on.

[Nick Driver]

Any of the ASUS mobos with i845x Intel chipsets are the cat's meow for P4 (northwood) processor machines. Also if you're looking for stability and don't mind a complete absence of any overclockability, the genuine Intel brand mobos are rock-solid. A machine I built for a friend's studio nearly a year ago with an Intel i850 rambus mobo and one of the first 2.0a GHz P4's to hit the streets around here has been running all these months without a single crash or hang. Yep it sure was expensive back then, but the absolutely perfect reliability while the musicians are in the studio recording has been definitely worth it.

Speaking of MSI mobos, I just built a new machine for my sister's xmas present (general home PC, not a DAW), with an MSI 845G Max mobo (for only $81 !!!) and a Celeron 4 2.0GHz chip and it seems like it's gonna be rock solid too. This mobo might end up being one of the best bang-for-the-buck deals in a P4 mobo going right now.

EDIT: I just checked the price on the MSI 845G Max and it looks like all my favorite online sellers have gone up in price $10-12 since I bought this mobo about two weeks ago :-( It must have been too hot of a seller, eh?

[This message has been edited by Nick Driver (edited 12-12-2002).]

[Arranger]

I'm going for an ASUS P4PE in the ensuing weeks. Intel 2.4GHz, DDR333, Firewire, USB 2.0, S/PDIF, and an opportunity to delve into SATA and maybe hyperthreading over time.

The ASUS P4B533-E or P4B533-V would be good second choices.

Stability should be first. The processing speed will be fine for my purposes. These combinations are well known for stability and should be better than the best that was available less than two years ago.

[PedroRiver]

I think I'm late on this but.. Are you sure the SiS 745 chipset works fine with M-Audio, knowdoubt? It really should? I have a XP1800+/ASUS A7S333 (SiS 745) setup and I just got an Audiophile USB, and I get loud cracks and pops when recording, anywhere. This is not because it's USB, from what I've seen of similar 2496 users complaints. The retailed told me this chipset wasn't appropriate and I can't affoard a new board now.. So I need to know if it can work someway; have you seen this chipset running M-Audio correctly before?

Thanks!

Pedro

[knowdoubt]

Hi PedroRiver.
Yes, my best friend has that same MOBO & Processor with an maudio Delta 44 card on WinXP & it's always worked perfectly. I have
no knowledge of it's compatibility pro or con with the usb card you have. USB is a different animal & I wouldn't be so sure to count it out as a potential problem source but then there are many other things to consider also - Maybe a soundcard driver version issue, buffer settings for card &/or software, system config (& making sure no programs are running in background). Did you try disabling the onboard sound in case it's conflicting, (my friend has onboard sound + Delta44 working fine but with your problem you may want to get your system running as bare bones as possible 1st to narrow down the potential problem source.

All I can guarantee you is there is no problem issue with that MOBO & maudio PCI soundcards.
Any particular reason you went for a USB soundcard (not that I'm saying that's for sure the problem either)?

[PedroRiver]

Hello-
I chose the USB version because of the neatness of the breakout box, the two alternative 1/4" inputs, and because the converters stay out of the CPU [I've heard they can pick noise otherwise].
I had everything updated and no background apps when testing, but my audio disk was formatted as two partitions, and the audio disk was sharing IDE with the system disk. I've just read both can be reasons for problem, so I have something else to try. Let's see, thanks.

[Pretty Pretty Cyanide]

ASUS mobo with AMD XP 1800 here. Been so for a long time. So stable I don't want to say it anymore incase something bad is bound to happen

*knocks on wood*

[PedroRiver]

Connecting each hard disk to a different IDE controller and making the audio disk have one partition only solved part of my problems with the Audiophile on SiS 745: Now I can record normally on MME and WDM. However, ASIO still crashes XP to the blue screen! I'll have to contact M-Audio again. Cya-