Now for the next question...Quad, Hex, or Octal Core?

[BIF]

This is excellent news then. Thank you for the info!

BTW, I have a few reasons for waiting until EOY to begin my build:

1. Waiting to see how HDD and SSDs develop in the next six months, both in terms of capacity and price. I'm hoping to see some promising developments in the 500 GB to 1 TB range of SSDs, as well as laptop HDD and SSD form factors for their quietness.

2. Want to give Intel some time to come out with news, pricing, or an ETA on 8 core processors, or prices to come down on the current crop of 6 core '-E' processors.

3. Want to see how Windows 8 shakes out. Not too thrilled about it at this time, but things change and this is an interesting time for computer technology.

[flickerflix]

A 960 GB SSD was just announced but it is very pricey!

[BIF]

Yeah, I see it at anand tech. $1,200, eeek!

I want to see 1 TB range for around $500 before I get too excited about SSD. That's just my own comfort level at this time.

[BIF]

Hmmm, I may have happened upon a new problem.

It seems that Asus is eliminating FireWire from their enthusiast and/or LGA2011 series of motherboards.

Asus is my preferred brand of motherboard, yet I still use a Presonus Firestudio Project that I have no need or desire to replace. The Presonus is a FireWire-only component.

So another question: will a drop in PCI-e 1394 expansion board suffice, seeing as how that data stream would now be going through the PCI bus? The way I see it, the biggest drawback is that I will be required to sacrifice a PCI-e slot for 1394 service for a few years at least... but I don't "think" it will interfere with graphic or UAD.

Beside the 1394 card, I foresee using only two PCIe slots for one graphic card and one UAD-2 Duo or Quad, at least to start, and down the road I may add a graphic card or a second UAD-2.

[Veneteaou]

Yes it will be fine.

[flickerflix]

Though notice a thread over in support where a user tracked down their problem with clicks and pops to the Presonus card or drivers

[BIF]

Heya, I found what I think is the thread you speak of.

I'm not convinced that the problem there was due to bad or dodgy drivers from Presonus. Those have been very stable since they provided 64 bit drivers, and that was a few years ago.

Here's what happened with my situation:

1. Windows driver for 1394 FireWire had to be "rolled back" or I would get BSODs galore... Even after a fresh install of windows 7! Don't ask me; I don't get the logic either. This was only the Microsoft driver for 1394 FireWire, and was not related to the Presonus drivers. The way I figured it out was by reading my mini dumps and noting that the system 1394 modules were always "near" the time of the crash. In my process of elimination, I unplugged the Presonus. The crashes stopped.

2. If memory serves, i found the solution in the presonus forums or maybe via a google search. So I rolled back the windows driver as noted (and left the Presonus driver in place), and the crashes stopped , even when using the fire studio.

No problems since then, hence my confidence in Presonus drivers, although my next interface will probably be Thunderbolt and not FireWire.

[Patanjali]

@BIF,


A PCIe card with a native (non-PCI-PCIe bridge) TI chipset would be best. It would only be a small x1 card, so I don't think it will preclude too much.


In my current contract, I am dealing with quad socket blades, which could hold 40 cores worth of grunt.

Anyhow, it got me thinking and I came across this case+motherboard from SuperMicro, which has two sockets, 8 hot-swap 3.5" drive bays and is 27dBA quiet:
http://www.supermicro.com/products/s...YS-7047A-T.cfm

It is capable of holding 2 x 8core E5-2600, and up to 192GB RAM.