PCI Express question.....

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kranky

kranky

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Ok, so I'm looking at constructing a new beast of a PC for my home studio. I currently use the Delta 1010lt PCI. If I'm not mistaken, everything is moving to PCI Express. And if I'm also not mistaken, PCI Express is NOT backward compatable to PCI 2.0. Assuming this is true, do they make mobos with both PCI 2.0 and PCI Express? I'd really like to keep my Delta 1010. thanks!
 
Yes, most of the motherboards have both PCI and PCE-Express slots, so you should still be able to use the delta. Just make sure the mobo you buy is one of them :)
 
PCI-Express just replaced AGP as a slot for your graphics card. All motherboards that have PCI-Express also have the standard PCI slots as well.
 
IronFlippy said:
PCI-Express just replaced AGP as a slot for your graphics card. All motherboards that have PCI-Express also have the standard PCI slots as well.
Click to expand...

Actually, you're incorrect. Most new mobo's are coming with AGP and PCI-Express.
 
My motherboard has 3 different kinds of PCI express slots, and three PCI slots. The biggest thing to watch for is that the motherboard you get has enough PCI slots for all of your cards.
 
Well, that's good news. However, isn't PCI Express intended to eventually phase out PCI 2.0? Anyone heard of a pro audio card that's PCI Express yet? Still too early?
 
Yeah, see...that's what I'm kind of worried about. My sound card is PCI. And I don't intend to get rid of it for a while. So basically, with all the new mobo's out not having PCI, I am screwed for upgrading.

I'm pretty much being forced to go Firewire if Delta doesn't issue a PCI-E version of the Delta 1010.
 
Its also worth mentioning that some normal PCI cards will work in PCIexpress ports. This was true for the Adaptec FW3200
 
They are but it is designed to be backwards compatable so if you look at the pinout, it will fit. Kinda like dual AGP ports that take both types of AGP card where some pins are not used
 
altitude909 said:
They are but it is designed to be backwards compatable so if you look at the pinout, it will fit. Kinda like dual AGP ports that take both types of AGP card where some pins are not used
Click to expand...

Nope. You're thinking of PCI-X. PCI Express (PCIe) is a serial bus and is completely incompatible with parallel PCI. There are only 36 pins on a PCIe connector, and 120 pins on a parallel PCI connector.
 
kranky said:
So what exactly is PCI-X?
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Basically 3.3v-only 64-bit PCI with a faster clock speed. It scales back to standard PCI when normal 33Mhz devices or 66MHz devices appear on the bus. Otherwise, PCI-X 2.0 can go all the way up to 266Mhz. Given 64-bit transactions, it theoretically peaks just over 2 gigabytes per second throughput, roughly equivalent to first-generation 8-lane PCIe.
 
kranky said:
Ok, so I'm looking at constructing a new beast of a PC for my home studio. I currently use the Delta 1010lt PCI. If I'm not mistaken, everything is moving to PCI Express. And if I'm also not mistaken, PCI Express is NOT backward compatable to PCI 2.0. Assuming this is true, do they make mobos with both PCI 2.0 and PCI Express? I'd really like to keep my Delta 1010. thanks!
Click to expand...

Check out M-Audio's web site. They explain the whole deal with their cards and will modify your card for PCI-X. ;)
 
I wonder if it would be worth it since, again, everything wants to go the way of PCIe.
 
macmoondoggie said:
Check out M-Audio's web site. They explain the whole deal with their cards and will modify your card for PCI-X. ;)
Click to expand...

As far as I could tell, the sum total of that upgrade involves a Dremel. The cheap *&&*@#$s screwed up their card and notched it as '5v only' when it was, in fact, a 3.3v card. The only difference I can see in my card is literally a new notch through a couple of ground contacts.

And of course, that's PCI-X, not PCI Express (PCIe).
 
Well, sounds like I won't be messing with PCI-X. I'll just stick to my original plan of purchasing a mobo with both PCI and PCIe. Yeah, that sounds good. Anyone have any recommendations for a good Intel based mobo? Oh, and is Intel the way I should go to power my Nuendo DAW?
 
Look at the pentium D. I just build a DAW based on this chip and it cooks. We did a burn in yesterday hooking up all eight inputs to his yamaha i88x and used 3-4 pretty heavy inserts on each track (live inputs mind you) and it didnt go past 10% or have latency clicks and pops at the 128 buffer so it has some muscle. We used a Asus board with the new 955 chipset (ASUS P5WD2) and it was solid for cubase. The only thing missing on the board was a firewire port (the premium version of this board has one, its like $30 more) but I decided to just buy an adaptec 4300, which worked out well since a Firewire TI chipset is pretty much required for any mLan gear

I think as far as bang for the buck, the D is the way to go short of Opterons. If you have decent amount of cash, I have seen 2 way Opteron mainboard processer combos for around a grand which nothing can touch right now performance wise (other than 4 way opterons :) )
 
The AMD Athlon64 X2's are kicking butt too!
I dig the responsiveness of a dual core system.
 
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