Updated information on DAW performance & compatibility with motherboards/chipsets featuring PCIe
©AGRONOVA/Anders Fahlén
18.01.2006 Version 1.0
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This chipset combination is used with the Asus A8R-MVP motherboard (MSI and Abit clones are to follow). Instead of being a single chipset solution as with the nForce4 incarnations, the chipset is based on a more traditional Northbridge (ATI RD480) plus Southbridge (ULi 1575) implementation. Four SATA II ports and 8x USB 2.0 ports are supported via the Southbridge. However, this motherboard only comes with 3 PCI slots and, based on tech reviews, there are reported question marks on sustained PCI I/O performance with the ULi M1575 SB (as with the SB450 used in combination with ATIs RDX200 chipset). Further, there are no native hooks to Gigabit Ethernet PCIe with this chipset. Users who need to transfer e.g. large audio/sample files via Ethernet in conjunction with other activities taxing the PCI bus may be affected by the comparatively low Ethernet throughput. At the bright side, USB throughput is though significantly better than with the SB450 and the mainboard shines in robust o/c capacity.
Stress test data:
Preliminary Thonex II stress test data (rme-audio.forum; 2005-12-20) with AMD X2 3800+, RME Multiface, but without DSP PCI cards, indicates that the Asus A8R-MVP performs not as well as the Asus A8N-SLI (more crackles and pops/clicks at low latency settings, < 6 ms) with equivalent CPU, memory, video and pci soundcard configuration. There are though no principal compatibility issues reported with a PCI soundcard-ATI X300 PCIe-AMD 64 X2 combination.
VIA K8T890CE
Based on this Northbridge chipset, including the VT8237R Southbridge, Clevo has recently released an AMD 64 dual-core compatible notebook, the D900K. It comes equipped with a PCMCIA slot and is compatible with RMEs Digiface/Multiface.
As of this writing, it is too early to elaborate on performance results and any compatibility-related issues.
Stress test data:
Initial stress test results (Sonar 3, Thonex) shows that this notebook combined with AMD 64 X2 4800+, 2 GB DDR400 and RME FF800 performs with impressive numbers (down to 1,0 ms latency setting [Sonar 3] and 2,2 ms [Thonex] without pops/clicks).
CPU/Chipset drivers and OS hot fixes
Users with AMD 64 X2 (dual-core) or Intel dual-core CPUs are recommended to install the latest CPU/Chipset drivers and Microsoft Hot fixes.
Users with Intel-powered 9xx chipsets are recommended to install the latest Intel Matrix Storage Manager with improved SATA/RAID/AHCI support if you are using Intel 9xx Express chipsets and experience pops/clicks in playback mode.
In particular, the Microsoft dual-core hot fix is recommended to be installed by users with dual-core CPUs (not only in cases where Power Management schemes are enabled as per MS instructions, which in any case should be disabled on computers used for DAW work). Some users have reported that host–based cpu metering and hard disk performance inconsistencies have been eliminated with the dual-core hot fix as well as cases with stuttering mp3 playback and improved overall stability.
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