Topic: RME PCI cards and SandyBridge motherboards. Incompatible??

Hi all,

I am just about to upgrade one of my 2 DAW's (after a MB failure) and am very interested in the current state of play, as regards the newer SandyBridge motherboards and how they play with older PCI based audio cards. I realize that these newer chipsets do not feature native PCI links, and therefore utilize a PCIe-to-PCI bidge to talk to PCI cards. There are however reports of incompatibilities between these SandyBridge MB's and PCI cards in general. Please see these links:

http://www.gearslutz.com/board/music-co … oards.html
http://forum.cakewalk.com/tm.aspx?m=2361123

As I have previously invested very heavily in RME PCI cards (2 X MADI and 2 X HDSP PCI cards) I cannot easily migrate to the new PCI Express variants at a reasonable cost. Given that the RME PCI cards are just as powerful as the newer PCIe variants, I find it very troubling that I cannot confidently move to a current mobo. I have looked at the Gigabyte and Asus Z68 boards, but cannot find much info regarding their compatibility with RME PCI cards, particularly the higher i/o MADI cards.

Anyway...
Any news on whether any of these PCI bridging problems has changed of late?
Are the new SB motherboards playing nice with RME PCI cards, MADI PCI in particular?
Which chipsets, board revisions or firmware versions should I be looking at?

If anyone has any info on working boards, it would be much appreciated. If not, I will send Scott at ADK an email and see if he can point me in the right direction or put something together for me . As I am based in Australia, I'm not sure whether ADK can help out, but I'll give it a shot. I will also give my local DAW builder a shot, however I believe he's not a huge fan of the SB boards and is still sticking to the X58 boards. I can understand his apprehension, however, going the X58 route means an increase in price for a decrease in performance and locking myself into a much older chipset. Any news would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks all.

Cheers,
George

Re: RME PCI cards and SandyBridge motherboards. Incompatible??

a comment on this. Chris Ludwig feel free to jump in here since you are the the one who did these tests (just dont disclose the usual :-O )

when we originally validated the SB platform both H67 and P67 we could fill all slots. including the PCI
HOWEVER if i recall (chris?) the PCI Madi would not work well due to its large I/O. but other PCI RME cards did fine. (PCIe Madi was fine as well)

somewhere along the way PCI stopped working regardless of what interface. it took some time but we narrowed it down to the ITE chipset (thats the PCI to PCIe bridge) its firmware had been changed.
supposedly now its fixed (having tested PCI cards again they do work but not RME Madi)

the only way to use PCI Madi is on X58
honestly the 980 (non x) is pretty much the same power as a 2600 sandy. (a bit better in fact stock for stock or OC for OC) and only about $200 more.

Call Vin have him take care of you i will even tell him what board to use for multiple PCI Madi.
( think we have already discussed this anyway)

Scott
ADK

Re: RME PCI cards and SandyBridge motherboards. Incompatible??

Hi Scott,

Thanks so much for your prompt response and for filling in all the gaps. I realize it's encroaching on your core business and your hard-one IP to ask you to divulge too much information, so thank you for pointing me in the right direction. I will definitely give Vin a call and get him to sort me out. I actually remember Vin back from when he worked at Awave, an audio distributor/retailer here in Melbourne, before he struck out on his own. He's a good guy and his DAW Bench site is a great resource, as are your benchmarks over at ADK.

It's a great shame about those ITE chips. I wish the high end MB makers would look into this stuff more carefully and possibly incorporate some decent bridge chips from TI, Pericom or PLX, so that we wouldn't have these PCI bridging issues. It's frustrating when such problems seem to hinge on a $4.50 chip, but I guess PCI is on the way out, and high end audio cards are hardly the intended market from a motherboard vendor's perspective. The PCI Madi card is also pretty bandwidth hungry, so I guess the fact that regular PCI is back up and running is a good thing.

So, basically it looks like X58 is the way to go for PCI Madi, despite it's age and a slightly higher CPU price. I'll get Vin onto it, and maybe point him to this thread so that he can contact you if need be. Your assistance & expertise is much appreciated.

Kind regards,
George

Re: RME PCI cards and SandyBridge motherboards. Incompatible??

Over at the Gearslutz forum there are also some posts about PCIe-to-PCI bridge issues (which Scott contributing some information, too). So you're not alone in this George.

Just because it came up here: Vin = TAFKAT? I didn't know he offered professional audio PC solutions himself. cool

Re: RME PCI cards and SandyBridge motherboards. Incompatible??

yes Vin= Tafkat
http://www.aavimt.com.au/

George, Vin and i talk at least once a week (well email) and IM chat.

Scott
ADK

Re: RME PCI cards and SandyBridge motherboards. Incompatible??

Hi George,
What Scott says is correct. The funny thing is the board that ADK tested in it's early stages was the one that had the defective chip set that had to be recalled. Any of the fixed so called Rev 3 boards and now z68 board seem to have this PCI bridge issue.
So basically anyone looking for a new Sandy Bridge based desktop had better not have any PCI devices.
Even generic Firewire and USB cards will not work. SO if you buy one the fewer PCI slots the better.
The X58a chip set boards do not seem effected by this but the almost all of the X58a boards only have 1 or no PCI slots at all.
The board that Scott mentions is the only one that will have enough functional PCI slots to do what you want. It has 3 slots. They will run 3x Pro Tools HD Accell PCI cards just fine or 3x RME HDSP PCI cards just fine.

If you are in Australia then I highly recommend Vin (TAFKAT) as a DAW builder.

Thanks Chris

Chris Ludwig
North East USA Sales | Synthax/RME
www.facebook.com/RMEAmericas
Twitter @RMEAmericas

Re: RME PCI cards and SandyBridge motherboards. Incompatible??

ChrisLudwig wrote:

The board that Scott mentions is the only one that will have enough functional PCI slots to do what you want. It has 3 slots. They will run 3x Pro Tools HD Accell PCI cards just fine or 3x RME HDSP PCI cards just fine.

The manual of the MADI PCI card has a chapter on multi-card operation. There are limits, even with good PCI implementation.

Besides the X58, one could still work well for a long time with a first-generation i7 or i5, e.g. with the Intel DP55KG, which works well and reliably here...


Regards
Daniel Fuchs
RME

Regards
Daniel Fuchs
RME

Re: RME PCI cards and SandyBridge motherboards. Incompatible??

Hi again guys and thank you all so much for your assistance.

Timur, Yes I saw some threads over at Gearslutz about the flaky SandyBridge PCI implementation. That and some references by Vin (ie TAFKAT) regarding the lack of native PCI on SandyBridge is what got me started on the quest for more information. I posed the same questions over at Gearslutz, however Scott & Chris have thankfully answered my queries here very quickly (the posts at Gearslutz get swallowed up pretty quickly with the sheer volume of threads!).

Chris, thanks for the motherboard details and for recommending Vin. I have actually met him briefly before and greatly value his contributions to the DAW knowledge-pool, especially through his DAW Bench site. It was actually his work on low latency audio interface benchmarking that led me to RME in the first place. I also know that he is renowned as one the best of the DAW builders in Australia. I will be speaking to him in this capacity very soon I hope.

It is through guys like Vin, Timur & Chris here at the RME forums, and the current ADK guys Scott etc. that I have managed to glean lots of valuable information regarding DAW set-up & performance, without the marketing spin that often leads people astray. Thanks again everyone for your help, and for the clear explanations about what is going on with the newer chip-sets. It looks like my RME PCI cards will soon find a new home in an X58 rig.

Kind regards,
George

Re: RME PCI cards and SandyBridge motherboards. Incompatible??

ChrisLudwig wrote:

Hi George,
Any of the fixed so called Rev 3 boards and now z68 board seem to have this PCI bridge issue.
So basically anyone looking for a new Sandy Bridge based desktop had better not have any PCI devices..

Thanks Chris

it looks like intel fixed the ITE chipset so PCI is working! even those crusty Audiophiles work now :-) but i can see it still being hit and miss based on who had what stock of older vs newer ITE chipsets laying around..

Scott

Re: RME PCI cards and SandyBridge motherboards. Incompatible??

Hi,
Nice Scott. Was it a BIOs, driver issue pr did they do another board rev?
I know you guys were working directly with them on the problem.

Chris

Chris Ludwig
North East USA Sales | Synthax/RME
www.facebook.com/RMEAmericas
Twitter @RMEAmericas

Re: RME PCI cards and SandyBridge motherboards. Incompatible??

Hi again,

Scott, just to be clear, when you say PCI is working now with the 'fixed' ITE bridge chips (either via a new physical batch of chips, or BIOS/driver improvements), does this information still only apply to the low i/o PCI cards? I assume that this fix is not sufficient to reliably use the higher bandwidth MADI PCI cards. I just thought I'd make absolutely sure before I call on Vin. I'm sorry if this is simply repeating what you stated above, however it seems like the ground is always shifting with this stuff. It's kind of like red wine and chocolate, one day it's good, the next it's bad, then hey presto, it's good for you again!

Cheers,
George

Re: RME PCI cards and SandyBridge motherboards. Incompatible??

ChrisLudwig wrote:

Hi,
Nice Scott. Was it a BIOs, driver issue pr did they do another board rev?
I know you guys were working directly with them on the problem.

Chris

firmware. they reprogramed the chipset thus newer boards should be ok. older stock not ok. (not a downloadable firmware)

Scott

Re: RME PCI cards and SandyBridge motherboards. Incompatible??

SuburbanStudio wrote:

Hi again,

Scott, just to be clear, when you say PCI is working now with the 'fixed' ITE bridge chips (either via a new physical batch of chips, or BIOS/driver improvements), does this information still only apply to the low i/o PCI cards? I assume that this fix is not sufficient to reliably use the higher bandwidth MADI PCI cards. I just thought I'd make absolutely sure before I call on Vin. I'm sorry if this is simply repeating what you stated above, however it seems like the ground is always shifting with this stuff. It's kind of like red wine and chocolate, one day it's good, the next it's bad, then hey presto, it's good for you again!

Cheers,
George

LOL red wine and chocolate... stick with chardonay/choc its always good. (well its been awhile so maybe not)

the PCI Madi is still not going to work. not enough bandwidth/latency ability on the bridge.

X58 is the only answer and up coming X79 i am assuming will be the same as it also has the bridge or even no PCI slots at all

Scott

Re: RME PCI cards and SandyBridge motherboards. Incompatible??

Hi Scott,
Ah so they haven't really fixed it as much as improved it slightly so that sound blasters and generic peripherals work on them just enough that the don't have t do a recall .....again.
Not surprising but pretty sad.

Chris

Chris Ludwig
North East USA Sales | Synthax/RME
www.facebook.com/RMEAmericas
Twitter @RMEAmericas

Re: RME PCI cards and SandyBridge motherboards. Incompatible??

If MADI is too much, what about UAD-1 or TC POCO PCI cards? Is throughput sufficient for these cards on PCI bridged bords (P67, Z68)?

Cheers,

    b.

https://granurise.com

Re: RME PCI cards and SandyBridge motherboards. Incompatible??

UAD1 works as does RME PCI cards (other than Madi) and most if not all PCI cards from others. have not tried a Poco card in yrs so not sure

Re: RME PCI cards and SandyBridge motherboards. Incompatible??

This is good news.

Thanks jcschild!

Cheers,

     b.

https://granurise.com

Re: RME PCI cards and SandyBridge motherboards. Incompatible??

Thanks to all for this great info.  I don't fully understand every word, so I'm hoping someone can help...

Will my older PCI RME 9632 work in Z68 motherboard?  I was just about to start building a rig with a Z68 mobo and an i2700 processor.  Bad idea?  Should I break open my piggy bank and go for a new X79 board instead?  Thanks!

Re: RME PCI cards and SandyBridge motherboards. Incompatible??

HI,
As long as you have the latest revision and BIOs for the z68 motherboard then you "should" be fine.
If there is an issue then I think it would be easier and possibly cheaper to replace the HDSP 9632 card with either a PCI-e equivalent or something like a Babyface or Fireface UC. This is of course assuming you already have the Z68 motherboard and CPU.
Thanks Chris

Chris Ludwig
North East USA Sales | Synthax/RME
www.facebook.com/RMEAmericas
Twitter @RMEAmericas

Re: RME PCI cards and SandyBridge motherboards. Incompatible??

Thanks Chris.  I don't have any mobo or cpu on hand yet.  I'm spec-ing out a new DAW.
Along with the PCI HDSP 9632, I also have a much-used RME AEB8-0, so I'd rather not have to replace them (though I love RME products and I will gladly upgrade this card when necessary and/or when doing so will give me a performance boost).

Can you suggest a way I might check for HDSP/PCI issues with a z68 mobo?  Check out the mobo manufacturer's forum?

thanks again!

Re: RME PCI cards and SandyBridge motherboards. Incompatible??

Hi,
AFIAK the latest revisions of the z68 Gigabyte, ASUS and MSI boards should be good. At least ones with 2 or less PCI slots.
Not that I would bother buying a board with more than 2 PCI slots at this point anyways.

Thanks Chris

Chris Ludwig
North East USA Sales | Synthax/RME
www.facebook.com/RMEAmericas
Twitter @RMEAmericas

Re: RME PCI cards and SandyBridge motherboards. Incompatible??

ATTN: Chris@RME or Scott@ADK

hi Guys:

I bought an XP system from ADK back in 2004 time frame and added 2 MADI PCI cards.

These were the Hammefall HDSP MADI PCI 64 channel/24 bit/192kHz generation 1 cards(as opposed to the current 128 channel version).

System still works!

All have worked great after I installed the upgraded BIOS in the first card (Which Synthanx graciously sent me!).

They are interfaced with an RME-648 and a SONY DMX R100 (The best mixer under $20k) w/ Sony MADI interface card for the DMX R100 (RME is the best in the MADI/IO arena by far).

I recently upgraded to Neuendo 5.5 from N4, Cubase 5 to Cubase 6, and Waves Platinum 6 to Waves Plat 8.

The system is showing its age with the VST 3 and the larger recording software memory needs.

I am trying to configure a new DAW, which I will be ordereing from ADK (Still the Best!,shameless plug, etc...).

My problem is that, both RME Hammerfall DSP MADI 64 channel cards are PCI (original, not PCIe) and I want to bring them forward into the new system. I dont want to have to buy new MADI cards all over again.

Have either of you verified the 2 PCI slot motherboard compatibility with 2 RME PCI Gen 1 MADI cards?

Also, in addition to needing 2 PCI slots, there must be enough physical room for both cards to fit side by side into them with the secondary expasnions included..

My desire is to have a Win 7/ i7 mother board with multiple processor slots and 24 GB of Ram, (4) 1920x1200 monitors via Matrox graphics card, with room to add newer onboard  DAW/Plugin cards, etc.

Your input is critical!

I have been involved in PCs, recording, and game development since 1981, buying the original Atari 800 PC (Way ahead of its time, both graphically and musically). In all that time I have learned that it is best to be on the latter end of technology rather than the "Bleeding edge", combined with compatibility problems. Thats why I have waited so long to upgrade.

After retiring from Take Two Interactive/Rockstar games in 2001, I started my current company, StormPowered.com and Storm Eagle Studios.

My setup has been used for both commercial game music, "Distant Guns" and "Jutland", as well as individual song writing & producing. Disruption of a production PC during development is the worst mistake one can make. I know, I learned the hard way!

Tech issue with recent RME MADI driver upgrade:

On a another note, after upgrading to the above mentioned software, the ver 2.52 RME driver did not wotk properly. I upgrade the drivers on both cards to 3.28 (or 3.27 which ever is the latest).

A strange thing happened that took me 2 days to figure out. All of the mappings in Total mix changed. Card 1 mapping was now card 2 and vis versa. You may want to make a note to older card users about upgrading from driver 2.52.


Thanks in advance.

Jim Rose
StormPowered.com
Storm Eagle Studios

Re: RME PCI cards and SandyBridge motherboards. Incompatible??

Sorry, one more question for Scott@ADK:

Are there any speed advantages in setting up an SSD (Solid State Drive) as the operating system drive?

Can Nuendo 5.5/Cusbase be setup to us a different drive to record to?

Thanks,

Jim Rose
StormPowered.com
Storm Eagle Studios

Re: RME PCI cards and SandyBridge motherboards. Incompatible??

Hi Jim,

As the original poster on this thread, I completely understand where you are coming from. I also use two of the older Madi PCI cards (not in the one system though) and am deciding what to do for my next DAW rig. As both Scott from ADK and Chris at RME have mentioned the high channel count of the Madi cards puts more pressure on the PCI bus than the simpler audio cards, so although the dodgy PCI bridges attached to the newer chipsets/motherboards may work for low i/o cards, this may not be a stable solution with the Madi cards.

I am also currently testing out a number of PCIe-to-PCI expansion chassis options in order to continue using my older cards in a newer DAW setup. Hopefully using a dedicated PCIe-PCI bridge within a new expansion chassis will avoid the problems associated with the dodgy on-board PCI bridge-chips. If this doesn't work out, it may mean upgrading to PCIe versions of the Madi cards. Expensive I know, however this may be the only stable solution, in order to take advantage of the greater memory and speed of the newer chipsets. The price of the expansion chassis also needs to be taken into account. Another potentially good thing about the expansion chassis option is that it will only use up 1 PCIe slot on the host motherboard. The two chassis' I am testing out are both 4-PCI slot models, so they will fit two Madi-cards plus their associated daughter-boards.

As regards video cards, I'm not sure about the Matrox cards, never used one, but the Nvidia Quadro workstation cards (Quadro NVS 450) might be worth a look as they support 4 displays. I use one of these, they are passively cooled (no fan) and they only take up 1 PCIe graphics slot. If you go this way, make sure your video card comes with the DisplayPort to DVI adapters, unless your monitors have DisplayPort connectors.

I'll let you know how things work out if and when I get the expansion boxes up and running. Flat out at the moment, but hope to get to it soon!

Cheers,
George

Re: RME PCI cards and SandyBridge motherboards. Incompatible??

Hi Jim,
That's allot of questions.. tongue
First I need clarification. Do you have 1 RME HDSP MADI PCI card or 2?
1 cards takes up 2 PCI slot spaces and 2 cards take up 4 spaces.
Scott does have a motherboard that uses the X58 chipset with 2 compatible PCI slots.
The trade off is that you will have less PCI-e slots available which will affect your future needs for adding DSP expansion cards.
I believe the board only has 2 free PCI-e slots.

If you have 2 MADI PCI cards then I would recommend replacing one with the HDSPe MADI PCIe card.
This will let you use the standard X58 motherboard ADK uses on the Quad Extreme system. It has 1 PCI slot for the old MADI AND 4 usable PCI-e slots for. One for the 2nd MADI PCI-e card and the rest for DSP card and other expansion.

The x58 chipset is a very solid and proven chipset and has tons of connectivity.

If you actually only have the one MADI PCI card then you are set to go with ths X58 chip set system.

You should be using Windows 7 Pro 64 bit for the new system.
Cubase 6 or Nuendo 5.5 depending on your plugins should be the 64 bit versions. Depending on what 3rd party plugins you are using though you might get stuck using the 32 bit versions. If you use allot of VSTi then you might want to look at Vienna Ensemble Pr as a 64 bit VST host to use along with the 32 bit versions of Cubase/Nuendo.


The reason all your routing got messed up going from the 2x version driver to the 3x driver version is because RME changed the device names in the registry. This is what Cubendo project look at. As far as the software cares you are using a totally different sound card now, which is way you have to reassign the ports.
There were also major changes to other parts of the driver and firmware which is why windows reassigned the card numbers.


Thanks Chris

Chris Ludwig
North East USA Sales | Synthax/RME
www.facebook.com/RMEAmericas
Twitter @RMEAmericas

Re: RME PCI cards and SandyBridge motherboards. Incompatible??

Guys:

Thanks for the response!

I have 2 PCI Madi cards. It is understandable about the driver upgrades. In addition the music.recording part,
we program our games and game manager in C++, Javascript, SQL and MS 3.5 Dot net. Having customers needing tech support is avery familiar topic with us!. You may wnat to make a note about it to save someone else grief.

One thing is for sure, Microsoft never tells the whole truth until much later in an operating system/development environment life cycle.

In searching through the major motherboard matix lists, it appears that there are several intel "San Clemete" chipsets that have as many as 3 PCI slots as well as 2 CPU slots. I believe these use the newer Intel i7 cpus. Have they been approved with the RME PCI MADI cards? I am willing to trade off pci-e slots if I dont have to buy another MADI card.

To this point, I have ran the current XP ADK system with both cards at very, very low latencys, 3-5ms. The recent software upgrades have forced me to raise that up to avoid crackling. I think the 32 bit PCI slots should be fine for the I/O in and out of the PC. The 64bit power of the i7 via the 64 bit software is intended for pushing the plugins and channel strips. I never record more than one track at any one time and usually bounce a temporary mixdown to one channel if I run into latency issues.
As for the plugins, I have been very happy with the Waves Platinum selection, but I do want to find a good sample/orchestra library plug in set and a replacement for the Stienberg LM Drums Plugins  (they still work!). I find it difficult writing drum tracks to individual drums/cymbals tracks. I have to have all of them open at the same time if they are one drum per track.

Thanks for all your help guys!

Jim Rose
StormPowered.com

Re: RME PCI cards and SandyBridge motherboards. Incompatible??

Hi Jim,
The X58 board with the 2x PCI slots I mentioned Scott having available will be perfect then. He can give you more details on the board in a PM.
I believe that board supports 24 gigs. The board will work with 2 MADI PCI cards just fine.
The dual (Xeon) based i7 system I think will be over kill from your description of what you want to do. The single X58 980X chip will be so much faster than your current setup it's not even funny. smile

If you are using Waves then you are best at this point sticking with the 32 bit versions of Cubendo. Waves still has not gotten thier act together and come out with 64 bit versions. You can have both the 32 bit and 64 bit versions of Cubendo installed at once. So once Waves releases a 64 bit version you can switch to using 64 bit Cubendo.

I you are wanting to expand ting on the sample library and soudn design side I would say a combination of Native Instruments Komplete Ultimate and Vienna Ensemble Pro would fill most all your sound design, drums, synths and orchestral needs for quite awhile.
They are both available in 32/64 bit versions.
For drums check out Battery that comes as part of Komplete.
Both Native Instruments and Vienna have a bunch of video overviews and tutorials on their sites.

Chris

Chris Ludwig
North East USA Sales | Synthax/RME
www.facebook.com/RMEAmericas
Twitter @RMEAmericas

28

Re: RME PCI cards and SandyBridge motherboards. Incompatible??

I have a question to this wonderful thread :-)

Will all the newer GEN3 motherboards have the "updated" ITE chipset, so that my PCI HDSP 9652 will work without any problems, and with lowest latency settings. I'm not planing to use more than a single PCI card in the mobo. And have thought a lot about the Asus Z68 GEN3 mobo, which I have been reading lots of positive feedback about, also from poeple using PCI audio cards in it. But I'm not really sure, if it's still depends on if the mobo is from an old or new batch?

SLL

RME Raydat, Asus Z370-A prime, i7 8700, Noctua D15s cooler, Corsair RM850x, Crucial 32GB DDR4 ram

Re: RME PCI cards and SandyBridge motherboards. Incompatible??

jcschild wrote:

X58 is the only answer and up coming X79 i am assuming will be the same as it also has the bridge or even no PCI slots at all
Scott

Intel's B65 and Q67 chipsets have native PCI implementation. You will even find Q67 based industry boards which combine a new Core iX CPUs with a good old ISA slot... :-)

And then there is always AMD, although I have no customer feedback or personal experience with current systems.


Regard
Daniel Fuchs
RME

Regards
Daniel Fuchs
RME

Re: RME PCI cards and SandyBridge motherboards. Incompatible??

I answered this also in another thread. I have built a system based on an ASUS P8Z68-VLX motherboard and my RME 9652 card works fine as far as I can tell. It was a challenge to find a mobo with a PCI slot, though...

31

Re: RME PCI cards and SandyBridge motherboards. Incompatible??

Thanks zuijlrn,

I haven't had trouble finding a Z68 board with PCI slot. Many of the gigabyte sandy bridge boards has one or two PCI slots. Also Asus as you and I found out :-)
But Asrock and I think MSI also has PCI slots on them. It's more difficult with X79 boards. But Gigabyte still has a single PCI slot on some of their X79 boards. I think PCI all ends with Evy bridge and up comming Z77 boards. So I'd better get a Z68 or X79 board now, unless I have to pay big money for new Raydat PCIe card, which really wasn't my intention :-)

RME Raydat, Asus Z370-A prime, i7 8700, Noctua D15s cooler, Corsair RM850x, Crucial 32GB DDR4 ram

Re: RME PCI cards and SandyBridge motherboards. Incompatible??

I haven't "stress tested" this setup with lots of I/O (it's my mix system), but I'm running a PCI Multiface in a new P8Z68-V GEN3 with a 2500K @ 4.5GHz (similar to zuijen), and it works fine so far.  That's not to say it won't go to hell if I need to max the I/O, but I do believe all current production Z68's with 1-2 PCI slots should be in descent shape.

That being said, I upgraded my Tracking DAW from the PCI MADI to the PCIe MADI for piece of mind - and I'll be going to a newer Sandy-E Tracking DAW in February :-)  MADI over PCI via a bridge chip = a big no-no!  Buying second hand RME gear is a good way to ease some of the pain, but RME PCIe gear doesn't cope up too often...

cool

MADIface-XT+ARC / 3x HDSP MADI / ADI648
2x SSL Alphalink MADI AX
2x Multiface / 2x Digiface /2x ADI8

Re: RME PCI cards and SandyBridge motherboards. Incompatible??

Any new info on this topic?
I too am going to get the Asus P8Z68-V LX and use my Digiface with the old PCI card (It's been rock solid for years on my Asus P5K / Q6600 XP rig). I only record 2 tracks at a time, but do a lot of mixing of high track count sessions. Should this work?

I'd like to avoid spending $500 on a new PCIe card if possible.

Thanks

The new system:
Windows 7 64bit
Intel i7 2600
SSD drive for OS
HHD for audio

Universal Audio 2192 for Ad/Da and Clock
Digiface w/ PCI
Averill 1272 pre

Re: RME PCI cards and SandyBridge motherboards. Incompatible??

MF-I PCI still running fine over here as mentioned above.  I run large projects like you, but only use a few I/O's on this particular system for mixing.  The i5-2500K is easily OC'd to 4.5GHz - Talk about a cheap powerhouse!!! :-O

cool

MADIface-XT+ARC / 3x HDSP MADI / ADI648
2x SSL Alphalink MADI AX
2x Multiface / 2x Digiface /2x ADI8

Re: RME PCI cards and SandyBridge motherboards. Incompatible??

I was looking at the P8Z68 V LX, I see you have the V Gen3. Is it important to have a Gen3 board?

Re: RME PCI cards and SandyBridge motherboards. Incompatible??

AFAIK - If you buy any current production Z68 MoBo with a current BIOS, you should be fine to run a PCI HDSP in it (I believe the PCI MADI card is still a bit much for the PCI bridge chip to handle, but that's 128 Channels!).

cool

MADIface-XT+ARC / 3x HDSP MADI / ADI648
2x SSL Alphalink MADI AX
2x Multiface / 2x Digiface /2x ADI8

Re: RME PCI cards and SandyBridge motherboards. Incompatible??

Good to know, Thanks!

Re: RME PCI cards and SandyBridge motherboards. Incompatible??

Have recently been getting some feedback that would indicate that this may well be the case.  Someone tried two MADI cards, which clearly did not work well, even one seemed to be a bit much. This may vary from board to board, though...

Regards
Daniel Fuchs
RME

Regards
Daniel Fuchs
RME

Re: RME PCI cards and SandyBridge motherboards. Incompatible??

sorry to have missed all this...

as of late we have not had any issues with PCI on P67 or H67  we do not use the Z68 as there is no point to it (added stuff has no efect on audio)
if it aint broke...

i dont see 2 Madi PCI working in any but X58 been down this road before..
X79 have no or 1 PCi slot and not native. however the X79 board we are using does work fine thusfar.

Daniel,
as to AMD yes the Gigabyte 990FX board we use gives me no issues whatsoever as far as compatibility
however its dog slow.. would be great for a tracking system but not so hot for editing large I/O counts.

funny that no?

Scott
ADK

Re: RME PCI cards and SandyBridge motherboards. Incompatible??

Scott, that's interesting. At least AMD do seem to stick to native PCI, is that right?

Have you tested any B65 based boards, by any chance?


Regards
Daniel Fuchs
RME

Regards
Daniel Fuchs
RME

Re: RME PCI cards and SandyBridge motherboards. Incompatible??

Hey Daniel,

yup still native PCI on AMD.
never tried the B65. once we validated the H67 and P67 i never looked back. if i recall we didnt like the slot layouts on the B65
and Z68 was pointless. (yes tested)

Scott
ADK

Re: RME PCI cards and SandyBridge motherboards. Incompatible??

Hi.

Is there any word on whether the HDSP PCI card works OK on Z77 motherboards.

(This is possibly the wrong forum, but this seemed like a sensible thread to ask on.)

Cheers,
Kai

43 (edited by scoring4film 2012-06-15 16:16:52)

Re: RME PCI cards and SandyBridge motherboards. Incompatible??

I can't aswer your question, but you may like to know that you can still run into issues with a PCI card on a newer mobo, even if the card technically "works".

My HDSP PCI "works" on my new Z68 board, but because the board uses a PCI-PCIe bridge chip, the card is not working as well as expected (i.e. as well as it did on an older board with native PCI support).  I learned about this the hard way.  Hope I can save you the trouble.

Re: RME PCI cards and SandyBridge motherboards. Incompatible??

Thanks for your reply.

Yeah, this is what I am trying to find out basically - can I get decent performance or will there be issues/degradation?

Cheers,

Kai

Re: RME PCI cards and SandyBridge motherboards. Incompatible??

I recommend you find a mobo with *native* PCI support.  PCI slots are often bridged these days - beware.

I wasn't aware of this, so now I'm in the process of trading up to an HDSPe.
Can't bear the thought of swapping out the mobo and rebuilding my DAW.

46 (edited by Lempereur1 2013-01-09 00:46:34)

Re: RME PCI cards and SandyBridge motherboards. Incompatible??

Hi guys:

Last year I decided to wait to upgrade my Studio DAW, which has 2 HDSP MADI PCI cards.

Waves recent 64bit upgrade of its plugins dropped support for Win XP.

It looks as if ASUS has produced the perfect motherboard to address the transition from the older PCI cards to the new PCI express world.

The ASUS KCMA-D8 motherboard is ideal for my need to use both of my older HDSP MASI pci cards and provide expansion for the new generation of RME cards when I can afford them.

Here isd the link http://www.asus.com/Server_Workstation/ … ifications
Here is the slot options:

Total Slot : 6
Slot Location 1 : PCI 32bit/33MHz
Slot Location 2 : PCI-E x8 (Gen2 X4 Link), Auto turn off if PIKE is occupied, MIO supported
Slot Location 3 : PCI 32bit/33MHz
Slot Location 4 : PCI-E x16 (Gen2 X8 Link)
Slot Location 5 : PCI 32bit/33MHz
Slot Location 6 : PCI-E x16 (Gen2 X16 Link)
Additional Slot 1 : PIKE Slot for Stroage expansion

The PCI slots are native pci.

Has this motherboard been approved or tested by RME?

Will I have any trouble running two older HDSP Madi pci cards?

Thanks,


Lempereur1

It is an dual AMD CPU board with an excellent arrary of options and 8 DDR3 memory slots!

Re: RME PCI cards and SandyBridge motherboards. Incompatible??

Thanks for posting up that info on the ASUS board. Nice transitional setup.
cool

HDSPe MADI-FX, M-32 AD, M-32 DA, ADI-8 QS, ADI 192 DD, ADI 648, Mytek Stereo 96 AD/DA

Re: RME PCI cards and SandyBridge motherboards. Incompatible??

Does anybody have an example of a Q67 or Q77 based MoBo that will provide native PCI slot(s)? So far, those Q*7 boards I have seen still use a nuvoton or ite bridge.

BR

Sebastian

Re: RME PCI cards and SandyBridge motherboards. Incompatible??

Hi Sebastian....

Here's a long thrad on the topic: http://duc.avid.com/showthread.php?s=76 … p;t=306672
There is an industry board from Jetway. B65 is another Chipset with native PCI, Gigabyte has a board there, IIRC.


Regards
Daniel Fuchs
RME

Regards
Daniel Fuchs
RME

Re: RME PCI cards and SandyBridge motherboards. Incompatible??

@ the often-mentioned Asus P8BC4L:

http://gplus.ru/images/new_shop/387481/ … _draft.jpg

Zoom in, top-left corner you see a beautiful nuvoton chip, just topping PCI Slot 4 and 5. Honi soit qui mal y pense ... well, if it doesn't work as a DAW board, you still have an expensive 4-port ethernet switch.