# New intel x79 board and 8 gb of ram module sneak peek



## TintoL (Sep 13, 2011)

Hi all,

Just so you guys can have some candy for your studio workstation. Here are two very expected things:

*intel x79 new mobo:*

http://hothardware.com/News/Intel-X79Ba ... neak-Peek/

*Kingston new 8 gb of ram module:*

http://benchmarkreviews.com/index.php?o ... &Itemid=47


Tinto


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## José Herring (Sep 13, 2011)

Serious DAW power.


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## rgames (Sep 13, 2011)

Yes - looking forward to building a new DAW based on this chipset.

I seem to recall that they were using the Intel SATA III contoller w/ 10 ports or something like that - anybody heard anything on that?

That would be great because you could slowly add a bunch of the cheaper SATA III SSD's as prices continue to drop and have a bunch of SSD storage space.

rgames


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## MacQ (Sep 13, 2011)

Haha, love the link-through video there: 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JxLreKO_m80

I think East West will be pleased ... apparently their Play engine saps 4GB of RAM for a SINGLE GUITAR patch!! Haha, watch the video and it's proof!

~Stu


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## TintoL (Sep 13, 2011)

Yes, that will be a very powerful DAW. I have been waiting for it. 

Now, about rgames ssd expectations: I have been researching also about the number of sata III ports that will be supported, but, I think in this case what will be reality is something rather disappointing. I can not tell for sure, but, I think we will not see that many sata III ports in a single computer yet. The closest I have seen is an ASUS server mobo using socket 2011 and because of the two cpu, I think it goes as high as 22 sata ports, but it doesn't say anything about sata III. This one is a concept board that to me looks too much already.

http://ixbtlabs.com/news.html?14/71/72


Let's see what happens....



By the way... MacQ.... I can't believe it, 4G of ram for a guitar patch....


We need lots of ram this days....


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## chimuelo (Sep 13, 2011)

Not if you use LASS........ :mrgreen: 

It's exactly what I've been waitng for.
I won't buy one until next summer though since my i7/24GB works fine for me.
Im more interested in the 32GB laptop ADK will be offering..
Perfect mate for my XITE-1..

But for a cheap SSD beast, check out the 4..!!!___ x PCI-e 1X slots...
I hear there's 2 x SATA III ports, each can handle 2 x SSD's so this would be a great Kontakt DAW, especially if you got your NCW chops.

Imagine 4 x SSD's 128GB SATA III's.......................Coolness.


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## Scrianinoff (Sep 14, 2011)

The Highpoint Rocketraid 2720SGL is a PCI-E 2.0 x8 Raid card offering a maximum throughput of 4GB/s and offers SAS or 8 x Sata3 (6Gb/s) ports. Why focus on Intel offering us lots of Sata3 ports with its historically lackluster Raid performance when you can buy this baby for the unbelievable price of $139.

I am planning on equipping all 8 ports with either a Crucial M4 64GB or 128GB SSD, which have a maximum sequential throughput of 415MB/s. I know, i know, samples aren't usually streamed at 2MB block sizes. From what I can see, it's not 4KB either. In my trial period, HS appeared to use an average of 64 KB block size, at least on the Mac. If anyone has more detailed information on block sizes used by Play, Kontakt and VI Pro, then please let me know.

Eight times the M4s throughput, would give me 8x415= 3.2 GB/s, just shy of the 4GB/s of the controller.

A 512GB drive would set me back: 139 + 8 x 90 = $859
And a 1 TB drive : 139 + 8 x 165 = $1459

Alternatively, and I think I am going for this, I can buy two 512GB drives, using a total of 16! SSDs, and then either junction linking the 2 Raid drives in Windows 7, or even Striping them in Windows Disk Management (Software RAID-0). Theoretically the Striping could give me 2 x 3.2GB/s = 6.4 GB/s throughput, for the price of 2 x 859 = $1718.

Edit: Oops, I forgot to factor in the necessary sff-8087 to sata cables that provide the 16 Sata3 ports: 2 x 11 = $22


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## germancomponist (Sep 14, 2011)

WOW!

It`s getting better all the time. Old dreams come true!


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## noiseboyuk (Sep 14, 2011)

Excuse my ignorance, but do we know if these 8GB modules work with Sandy Bridge systems?


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## Scrianinoff (Sep 14, 2011)

noiseboyuk @ Wed 14 Sep said:


> Excuse my ignorance, but do we know if these 8GB modules work with Sandy Bridge systems?



Yes, most support 4 dimms, for a total of 32GB, mine does:
http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/Intel_ ... ifications

I needed a slave machine right now, so I have built it two weeks ago. The reason that I opted for a 2nd gen i7 (2600K) is that it supports the (future) 8GB dimms and thus 32GB. From what I saw, the 1366 platform is limited to a maximum of 24GB using 6 dimms. The other option was a dual Xeon server board that goes up to 192GB using Rdimms.

Perhaps my second slave machine will be a X79, if they supply boards with 8 dimm slots, which they most probably will, since the X79 offers 4 memory channels compared to the 2 channels of 1155 and 3 channels of 1366, then be prepared for 64GB!


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## BlueStar (Sep 14, 2011)

I wonder if there will be a time when we can easily have more RAM than we need


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## germancomponist (Sep 14, 2011)

BlueStar @ Wed Sep 14 said:


> I wonder if there will be a time when we can easily have more RAM than we need


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## synthnut (Sep 14, 2011)

When I turned 50, I had my lttle dreams like having too much ram .....I told my fiance at the time , that one day I would like to fill up on Lobster without eating all the filler like potatoes , salad, soup, bread sticks , etc ......That year she presented me with a 5 lb lobster !!!.....WOW !!!.....Anything is possible !!.........Jim


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## Garlu (Sep 14, 2011)

OMG!!! 

Gigabyte GA-X79-UD5

14 SATA ports! wooooow! and 8 RAM sloooots! o=?

Also, if you look closer here (http://www.nothingspecial.net/images/oc3d/x79ud5.jpg) it says: PCI Express 3.0


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## Garlu (Sep 14, 2011)

Info from the Gigabyte GA-X79-UD5 

_"The Gigabyte GA-X79-UD5 motherboard has support for two lots of quad channel memory as well as 3 way SLI and CrossFireX. The board supports up to a huge 64GB of quad channel memory and is the only one of the boards to feature 8 memory slots as the other boards sacrifice less DIMM slots for more of other features. 12 SATA ports (Six 6GB/s) and four USB 3.0 ports are provided. All three of the PCI-E lanes operate at 3.0 speeds when three way GPU configurations are enabled you will get 8X across all lanes (8X at PCI-E 3.0 is 16X at PCI-E 2.0)._"


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## noiseboyuk (Sep 14, 2011)

Scrianinoff @ Wed Sep 14 said:


> noiseboyuk @ Wed 14 Sep said:
> 
> 
> > Excuse my ignorance, but do we know if these 8GB modules work with Sandy Bridge systems?
> ...



Ah, good news - thanks. I made a similar decision to you, figuring Sandy Bridge was a good bet in the long term. Will be interested to see pricing.


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## rgames (Sep 14, 2011)

BlueStar @ Wed Sep 14 said:


> I wonder if there will be a time when we can easily have more RAM than we need



This will happen if the developers allow us to reduce the preload buffers (possible when running from a fast SSD). Kontakt has already done this and VSL is supposedly in the works. 

EWQL? 

rgames


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## Scrianinoff (Sep 15, 2011)

EWQL also did this with 'fast disk mode' in Play 3. 

Concerning Kontakt, ask noiseboyuk about the differences between theory and practise regarding Kontakt's pre-load buffers and memory load, or read one of his forum topics about it. Sadly even on the lowest setting the effects were far from what we all hoped they would be. But let's stay optimistic, perhaps Kontakt 6?

In the meantime I am happy that I have an escape route to 32GB on my current slave. 

Further, we're using more and more and bigger and bigger libraries every year. Then again, maybe it's true that 64GB is all we'll ever need. Uhm, who said some time ago that 640KB was all we would ever need... Sure, laugh it up, most people at the time strongly agreed.


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## Scrianinoff (Sep 15, 2011)

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/cor ... ,3026.html


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## rgames (Sep 15, 2011)

Scrianinoff @ Thu Sep 15 said:


> Sadly even on the lowest setting the effects were far from what we all hoped they would be. But let's stay optimistic, perhaps Kontakt 6?


I was able to cut my memory use roughly in half with no change in performance, so that's pretty good as far as I'm concerned.

EWQL fast disk mode is a change in the preload buffer size? I didn't know that - I thought the preload buffer is fixed.

That's only a Mac option, though, correct?

Why would they offer buffer size changes only on Mac?

rgames


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## Scrianinoff (Sep 15, 2011)

rgames @ Thu 15 Sep said:


> Scrianinoff @ Thu Sep 15 said:
> 
> 
> > Sadly even on the lowest setting the effects were far from what we all hoped they would be. But let's stay optimistic, perhaps Kontakt 6?
> ...



And by switching off fast disk mode in Play 3 on mac it adds half the memory load on top. Have a look here: http://www.vi-control.net/forum/viewtopic.php?p=3577799&highlight=#3577799



> EWQL fast disk mode is a change in the preload buffer size?



Who knows what fast disk mode really is? What I saw is that it lowers memory load, and that can only happen because it is pre-loading less sample data, and loading less .... less what??



> I didn't know that - I thought the preload buffer is fixed.



On Windows it is, on Mac it is not. Here: http://www.vi-control.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=22574&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=219



> Why would they offer buffer size changes only on Mac?



Because the Mac version of Play was way behind in memory load apparently.


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## TintoL (Sep 15, 2011)

There have been very good comments in this Thread.

One of the most importants is what Rgames said:



> This will happen if the developers allow us to reduce the preload buffers (possible when running from a fast SSD). Kontakt has already done this and VSL is supposedly in the works



I actually haven't tested it yet because I am more or less new in this, but, what I can say is that I rather invest in a bunch of ssd than investing in ram. There will never be enough ram... as soon as technology gives you more ram, the developers come with HS witch is incredible but heavier. So, If we could have smaller buffers so we don't have to load so much into ram, we could work with the hard drive instead of ram. That way we will not end up with 4 slave computers each with 24 gb of ram or so.

For now I think I am very happy with the possibility of a new DAW with an X79 mobo... and also happy with the possibility of having 32 GB of ram. I wouldn't dream yet with the possibility of getting into 64 gb of ram because to me 8Gb of ram in a single module it's still a rumor. There is very little reliable info about that (or at least that's what I have seen). I have seen those modules for minimum 300 dollars... and that's way too much. If someone else knows something that can corroborate that those modules are coming and for a descent price, I will love to know it.

Another thing I wanted to ask is about something that Scrianinnof said:



> The Highpoint Rocketraid 2720SGL is a PCI-E 2.0 x8 Raid card offering a maximum throughput of 4GB/s and offers SAS or 8 x Sata3 (6Gb/s) ports.



I am sorry for my ignorance and I would love is someone could explain this to me. I know that the raid card can control the ssd hard drives, but, when I see the actual raid card, I don't see the sata ports. How do you connect the hard drives with this card. (again, sorry for the stupid question)


Thanks again to all for your help.


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## Scrianinoff (Sep 16, 2011)

TintoL @ Fri 16 Sep said:


> There have been very good comments in this Thread.
> 
> I rather invest in a bunch of ssd than investing in ram. There will never be enough ram...



I already invested in a bunch of ssds. Still I want to invest in Ram too. Ultimately it all depends on your way of working. If you want to have an enormous template, with every instrument and every articulation playable at once, then there's no escaping it. You will need a lot of ram, or a lot of slaves. In contrast, my Macbook core2duo 2.4GHz with only 6GB of ram (the maximum) and a 512GB SSD, can load only 1 powerful HS Leg BC+Slur+Port at the same time. But it works! It can play 2 to 3 voices of this 1 patch at the same time. Then if you bounce the Violins, you can unload them and load the Celli, and so on. It 's not fast, but it works. If you want a fast workflow .....



TintoL @ Fri 16 Sep said:


> Another thing I wanted to ask is about something that Scrianinnof said:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



It's not a stupid question, you just missed my edit that I added some 10 or 20 minutes after I posted the Rocketraid information, or you overlooked it. The good thing is, the prices of those cable dropped! They're now 10% cheaper! Since you need 2 to have 8 Sata3 ports, they now only cost you $19.90. Hurry! Here, now with a link and a picture: http://www.excaliberpc.com/593826/norco-c-sff8087-4s-discrete-to-sff-8087.html

And about being ignorant, I feel I have been ignorant, albeit in a different sense of the word, by striking a quite pedantic tone in reply to Richard in my previous post, now that I re-read it. I am sorry about that, especially in light of the contributions he made over time in this forum.


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## JohnG (Sep 16, 2011)

actually, I don't think you were pedantic. helpful, more like.

cheers


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## TintoL (Sep 16, 2011)

Thanks for taking the time to explain all that to me Scrianinoff.

Now, talking about ram and Daw...

I have few questions regarding to workflow vs computer hardware. This will define the purchase I am going to do as soon as SB-E is out.

The approach I am following to set up my studio is by using an Overclocked I7 with 16 GB capability as my daw, and leave it as clean as possible. Meaning, that my intention is to load all samples from the slave computers and try to only load plugins and reverbs in my daw.

The reason I want to set up my studio like this, is because wile composing I find a bit boring to be sited waiting for all samples to load... I rather have a good template ready outside my daw and have my daw relaxed for playback. 


This will define the money I am going to expend in the new SB-E computer I am getting, possible 2 of them depending on the cpu I get. 

If the computer I will get is going to be a slave computer with lots of ram, then, the coming I7 3820 that is locked I think will be enough to run the samples. That CPU is coming for around $300. 

But, If in the other hand I plan to load all those samples plus mixing in the same computer as my main Daw, I think the story will be different. If that's the case, I think it will be a better idea to get a fully unlocked I7 3930K, and that one is going to be $600... a lot more money.

I just wanted to see what the experts senior members think will be a better approach. I actually just put together an overclocked I7 2600k with 8GB of ram and putting my old core quad duo as a slave, but that slave is not too fast for what my expectations are. That's why I am researching so much about all this new hardware stuff...

Anyways, I think this reply is long enough already...

I thank you guys in advance for all your feedback.

Tinto.


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## rgames (Sep 16, 2011)

There's no simple answer but you can break it down into two basic problems: streaming samples and running synths/plug-ins.

If you use a lot of synths/plug-ins, you'll need CPU power.

If you just need to stream a bunch of samples, you'll find that CPU doesn't matter so much (so long as it's a decent CPU - my slaves are both i5's and they do fine streaming 1500+ voices each at 128 sample buffer over the network). For streaming samples, the disk is the bottleneck. So SSD's help a bunch as does spreading the streaming across a bunch of different buses (i.e. multiple machines).

Even if you get one monster machine with a ton of RAM you're straining one CPU to manage *all* of the required activities (plug-ins, disk streaming, synths, etc). The system will perform much better if that load is spread out over multiple buses, each with its own CPU (i.e. multiple computers).

rgames


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## EastWest Lurker (Sep 16, 2011)

rgames @ Fri Sep 16 said:


> There's no simple answer but you can break it down into two basic problems: streaming samples and running synths/plug-ins.
> 
> If you use a lot of synths/plug-ins, you'll need CPU power.
> 
> ...



OK, PC gurus. so Fry's has a Gateway i5 with 6 GB RAM for $499. If I were to buy it beef up the RAM, and put in an SSD would it be of any real use for running a basic template of HS?


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## rgames (Sep 17, 2011)

EastWest Lurker @ Fri Sep 16 said:


> OK, PC gurus. so Fry's has a Gateway i5 with 6 GB RAM for $499. If I were to buy it beef up the RAM, and put in an SSD would it be of any real use for running a basic template of HS?



Probably OK for streaming HS - do you have any info on the components they use? The newer Sandy Bridge setups use the Intel SATA controller that gives about 550 MB/s with the latest SSD's. Also, if the motherboard has only 4 slots for RAM then you need to think about how much you want to use - 16 GB with 4x4 GB chips is cheap ($90 or so, that's what's in my slaves) but if you want more then you might be forced into getting 4x8 GB chips (pretty pricey right now).

One problem with computers by Dell/Gateway/etc. is that they often come loaded with a bunch of crap you don't need, so you'll probably want to wipe the drive and do a clean install of Windows. Overall, the low-end Dell/Gateway systems probably are not the best options out there for sample streaming but they might be fine with a few tweaks.

I haven't tried the i5 with HS but I did run some benchmarks with HB: http://www.vi-control.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=22511 I was able to run 14 separate but simultaneous patches (including all legatos) with CPU usage between 20% and 40%, so very do-able. My guess is that it could handle quite a bit more - I never pushed it to see where it broke down, those 14 simultaneous tracks were more than I'd ever actually use. Of course, it appears HS is more taxing than HB, so performance with HS will probably be a bit less.

Also, I got a price alert this morning that the OCZ Agility 3 120 GB SSD's are on sale at Newegg - $139 after $30 rebate. That's the lowest price I've seen on SSD's and they're among the fastest drives out there right now. Mine benched at 550 MB/s per disk via the Intel controller w/ the i5.

See if you can dig up info on the specifics and post them here. Price seems reasonable. You can expect to dump another $450 or so for RAM and a few top-end SSD's. With those tweaks it's probably fine fine for HS.

rgames


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## EastWest Lurker (Sep 17, 2011)

Thanks Richard. I will try to find out more.


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## ozmorphasis (Sep 17, 2011)

rgames @ Sat Sep 17 said:


> Also, I got a price alert this morning that the OCZ Agility 3 120 GB SSD's are on sale at Newegg - $139 after $30 rebate. That's the lowest price I've seen on SSD's and they're among the fastest drives out there right now. Mine benched at 550 MB/s per disk via the Intel controller w/ the i5.
> 
> rgames



Interesting Richard. Unless I'm reading this wrong, how are your test results for the ocz so different than what's found here?

http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/ssd-charts-2011/AS-SSD-Sequential-Read,2782.html (http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/ssd- ... ,2782.html)


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## Scrianinoff (Sep 17, 2011)

ozmorphasis @ Sat 17 Sep said:


> rgames @ Sat Sep 17 said:
> 
> 
> > Also, I got a price alert this morning that the OCZ Agility 3 120 GB SSD's are on sale at Newegg - $139 after $30 rebate. That's the lowest price I've seen on SSD's and they're among the fastest drives out there right now. Mine benched at 550 MB/s per disk via the Intel controller w/ the i5.
> ...



That's because you are (right in) listing the AS SSD results, which are sequential read speeds of incompressible data. *Sample data, especially encrypted sample data is incompressible*, at least compared to the average office use data.

Now, if you compare Richard's results to the IOmeter scores in those same Tomshardware 2011 SSD charts, you'll see they're only 5% off: http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/ssd-charts-2011/IOMeter-2006.07.27,2822.html The Sandforce chip in the OCZ Agility is a champion in compressing data, if it can be compressed of course. *For sample streaming always look at the incompressible data (AS SSD) results, and take into account both sequential and 4k with high queue depths. *

If you compare for example the rather cheap* Crucial M4*, to the roughly equally cheap *OCZ Agility 3* in IOmeter, the Agility is 1% faster in sequential reads for compressible data: 525 vs 530 MB/s. However, in AS SSD testing incompressible data the M4 is twice as fast: 427 vs 213 MB/s! In the 4k q64 incompressible results the M4 vs Agility is 156 vs 142 MB/s. Note that Crucial released a firmware update for the M4, which make it faster: http://www.anandtech.com/show/4712/the-crucial-m4-ssd-update-faster-with-fw0009/3, bumping the sequential incompressible read speed from the 427 (Tom) or 410 (Anand) to 506 (Anand), surpassing even, albeit only just, the Vertex 3. As far as I can see, Tomshardware is using the previous firmware version.

I am still planning on buying the Rocketraid card with 8 64GB Crucial M4's or maybe OCZ Vertex 3, or the Kingston HyperX, depending on the price fluctuations, and firmware updates, or new contenders. I'll keep you posted, it might take a month or two though, before I'll have test results.

Edit: Here you can see what happens when you try to 7-zip an HS folder of 1GB, it's not smaller, it's bigger!


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## rgames (Sep 17, 2011)

There are a bunch of different ways to measure the performance. I used the ATTO disk benchmark and got results consistent with what I've seen elsewhere.

The real benchmark we're interested in is how many voices we can stream. So the MB/s values are good for a relative comparison but the data of most importance are the streaming values I gave in those benchmarks.

This one used the Crucial M4's: http://www.vi-control.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=22055

This one used the OCZ Agility 3's: http://www.vi-control.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=22511

As shown in those benchmarks, both are able to stream more voices than I'll ever actually use. I never figured out where, exactly, they break down, so I'm not really sure what the real-world performance difference is. All I know is that they are both sufficient to stream what I need.

Also, when I was setting up and doing these benchmarks I was running two buffers in VE Pro. I've since switched to one buffer and it still does just fine. I tried zero buffers but got clicks and pops with the same setup described in those links. So 128 sample buffer on the DAW with one buffer over the network is the limit on this setup.

rgames


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## ozmorphasis (Sep 17, 2011)

Thanks for the posts guys. Good to know.


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## TintoL (Sep 20, 2011)

Guys,.... thank so much for your detailed reply. 

I feel a lot more comfortable with my current decisions in term of hardware.

By the way... I am not sure about something: I have been reading that in most motherboards that have the capability of having 2 or 3 pci-e slots, they share the bandwidth. The first one will run at 16 X then the second one at 8x and the 3rd slot at 4X. Lets say you end up populating the first one with a video card, the second one with a Rocketraid 2720SGL and a third one with another Rocketraid card. Wouldn't those two raid cards run slower and finally make your ssd run slower... Is this right, or I am getting something wrong here?

It feels great to be able to discuss this thinks with professional people from the field. 

Thanks so much, I really appreciate it. 

Agustin


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## Dracarys (Sep 20, 2011)

I've been looking at this for the past few days now, but will Sandy E be that much better than the first generation 2600k?

Is this thing going to take quads as well as hex cores?

It will be another 3 years until 8 gig ram sticks are practical. They aren't 1600 yet which I feel is a noticeable difference, and I wouldn't want kingston ram in my system.

I'll wait for Gskill :D


I'm about to upgrade to a 2600k and ASUS P8P67 EVO.
I would wait for this but it seems miles away and I can't wait any longer.

Also I still feel more content with a dual cpu, when funds are in order I would prefer a dual server cpu hexa cores instead of two Slaves.
If DAWs can handle it by then of course.


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## rgames (Sep 20, 2011)

TintoL @ Tue Sep 20 said:


> I have been reading that in most motherboards that have the capability of having 2 or 3 pci-e slots, they share the bandwidth. The first one will run at 16 X then the second one at 8x and the 3rd slot at 4X. Lets say you end up populating the first one with a video card, the second one with a Rocketraid 2720SGL and a third one with another Rocketraid card. Wouldn't those two raid cards run slower and finally make your ssd run slower... Is this right, or I am getting something wrong here?


Yes - that's the basic idea, and is precisely why it's almost always better to use multiple machines.

If you have a video card, sound card, USB controller, FireWire controller, and disk controller on the same bus, they're all fighting for the same link to the processor.

If you spread it out over multiple machines, each has its own link to the processor and, therefore, runs much more efficiently.

As I've mentioned elsewhere, this is why large computing problems are spread out over many machines rather than cramming a huge number of processors into a single machine. The processor is only a piece of the whole system - the I/O buses play a large role for most applications.

rgames


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## chimuelo (Sep 20, 2011)

Exactamente...
This is the sole reason for Blade Servers w/ Dual and Quad LAN.
The only reason I want the X79 is for the Quad RAM architechture.


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## TintoL (Sep 20, 2011)

What you are saying it's been consistent with other set ups I have seen around where they use dual cpu servers with lots of cards populated, and, at the end, it's just running at 50 % or less. 

It's better to have more slaves, each one handling less material and less stuff sharing the motherboard bandwidth, cpu and ram.

I saw the thread you created with your I5 benchmarking and the multiple systems it's the best solution. 

Thanks so much for your answer Rgames.


Agustin


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## Dracarys (Sep 20, 2011)

rgames you're definitely right about the slaves, I've done some research and apparently lots of cubase users have been stating only 20-30% more power from dual 6 cores vs one 2600k OC.

But here is where I'm really torn..

I'm looking at the 2600k and Asus P8P67 pro, this combo would run me around $600, and I would have to wait a couple years to upgrade to 32 gigs of ram when more practical. 

*vs*

The x79 and Core i7-3930K is looking really sexy, and with 8 dimm slots I can get away with 32 gigs, 8 x 4gb.
Intel says November for this cpu chip and Mobo, and this combo will likely be around $1100, estimating the mobo will be around $500.

Should I wait? These new chips may OC well above 5gz with the new technology, and of course an extra 2 cores with HT.

I also heard speculation of an 8 core of the Sandy E, you mentioned this leap wouldn't be beneficial, and I don't see an 8 core listed here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_future_Intel_microprocessors (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fu ... processors)



Would love your thoughts, and if you think performance factor will be worth an extra 600 dollars.!


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## Scrianinoff (Sep 21, 2011)

My *primary reason* for running multiple slaves is in limiting the effects of a SPOF (single point of failure) in a slave machine. After some reconfiguration of my template, the other slaves can take over the work of the broken slave, giving me a graceful degradation of my DAW service. In other words, *don't put all your eggs in one basket*. Are you sure your sole slave can be repaired in time before your deadline expires? Maybe that's a gamble you cannot afford.

About the dual Rocketraid. If I'm indeed crazy enough to buy 2 per slave, I surely wouldn't put a video card in my x16 slot, unless I would be a hardcore gamer, abusing my DAW like that. And the PCIe lanes situation is even worse than said a few posts before: if you occupy the second PCIe slot, both the 1st and 2nd will run in x8. I would put both *Rocketraids* in those two slots, *both operating in x8*. The third slot then has a maximum mode of x4 in the P8Z68 of Asus. In this mode a lot of other IO is swithched off, the PCIe x1 slots, the USB3 ports 3 and 4, etc. So even in this case the bandwidth is not shared. If you would want to attach *more than 3 screens* to this slave (why would you, it's a slave!) *then a video card *might be needed. I would put it in slot 3 in mode x4, if I needed a video card, but I do NOT. The memory *bandwidth of the 2600k is 21GB/s* at stock speeds, the *Rocketraids* provide a maximum of *4GB/s each*, *the pair of x8 lanes to the CPU are not shared*, i7 2*00 has 16 PCIe lanes offering 16 x 500MB/s = 8 GB/s, in this setup all 16 lanes are occupied by the Rocketraids. I don't see any memory channel or PCIe lane saturation here. But what's the use, no need to get worked up about it at all at the moment. Which sample player can eat 8GB/s? None. Yet. Better yet, what infernal music needs 8GB/s of sample source material? 

My *secondary reason* for running multiple slaves is the *problems* that might ensue by *pushing sample streaming engines* to untested territory. Nick Phoenix mentioned that Play might have (or has) some issues loading more than 80.000 samples, although SvK appears to have 'zero issues' loading 120.000+ samples in one slave with 24GB because 'it runs like butter, only smoother'. I know there are some *people here with dual Xeon 48GB setups*, both Mac and Windows. It would be great if one of them *could enlighten us concerning the performance of Play with 400.000+ samples?
*
About these *memory channel and PCIe lane saturation effects*, there is a lot of nonsense going around in too many places. It's a consolation that there is also a wealth of information out there from separate independent sources that are consistent, quantifiable and obtained using transparent testing methodologies. Where? The sites I already linked to are a good starting point. Go have a look there.

I want to thank Richard for his extensive test results he so generously posted in this forum. Don't get me wrong, I also consider that a wealth of information, without being ironic, cynical or sarcastic. In my view both 'wealths' do not detract from one another.


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## Scrianinoff (Sep 21, 2011)

http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/foru...-2500k-core-i7-2600k-processors-review-4.html

The Rocketraids would be connected to the magenta (or pink?) PCIe boxes at the top left in this picture. These PCIe lanes have a direct connection to the CPU. The situation is of course the same for any other PCIe x8 slot 1 or 2 storage solution, like the OCZ Revodrives. Note that instead the onboard SATA ports have to share bandwidth with everything else that's connected to the chipset through a 20G*b*/s (bits not bytes) DMI bus. This leads me to the idea that if you have a storage controller in one of your PCIe x1 slots, then it might perform better if you put it in an empty PCIe x8 slot 1 or 2, if the DMI link would already be starved by the SATA ports, USB ports, third PCIe slot, or whatever.

Whoever comes first with the correct answer why the picture quotes a 1G*B*/s bandwidth per PCIe lane instead of 500MB/s should be granted the price of being called the biggest know-it-all of this new know-it-all multiple-slave club. Is there anybody who can point us in the right _direction_?


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## JohnG (Sep 21, 2011)

I think it may be actually 20 GB / s, not 20 Gb / s -- the same typo is in every bit of the diagram, including the footnotes. 

If you look at the SATA part of the graphic it says 6 Gb / s when it's really GB. Same with the footnote on SATA (footnote 2).


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## Scrianinoff (Sep 21, 2011)

JohnG @ Wed 21 Sep said:


> I think it may be actually 20 GB / s, not 20 Gb / s -- the same typo is in every bit of the diagram, including the footnotes.
> 
> If you look at the SATA part of the graphic it says 6 Gb / s when it's really GB. Same with the footnote on SATA (footnote 2).



No, sorry, John, it's not a typo. I wish you were right though...

Sata3 is 6Gbits/s : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sata3#SATA_revision_3.0_.28SATA_6_Gbit.2Fs.29

DMI is 20Gbits/s : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_Media_Interface

PCIe lanes are 500MB/s in each direction : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PCI_Express#PCI_Express_2.0

Both DMI 2.0 and PCIe 2.0 are based on 5GT/s (GTransfers/s), the '2.0' is not a coincidence. Since the protocol dictates that every 8 bits are encoded into 10 bits, you get 5000/10 = 500 M*B*/s per lane. Since DMI on P67/Z68 is 4 lanes, you get 5GT/s x 4 = 20G*b*/s of encoded bits. On the PCIe x8 link you get 5GT/s x 8 = 40G*b*/s of encoded bits, giving you 4 G*B*/s of decoded bytes. The 4GB/s is in each direction, giving you 8GB/s in total. The Intel presentation diagram is misleading though in the sense that they quote the summation of the bi-directional speeds for the PCIe links and the uni-directional speed for the DMI bus.


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## Scrianinoff (Sep 21, 2011)

Now compare that to X79: 40 lanes of PCIe 3.0 goodness, offering us 20G*B*/s of uni-directional transfer speeds, divided over two x16 slots and one x8 slot. That is, using PCIe 2.0 cards. Using PCIe 3.0 cards, gives even more esoteric figures. Those PCIe 3.0 cards I haven't seen yet.

This allows us to install a Rocketraid 2760 in each x16 slot and a 2720 in the x8 slot. The 2760 offers 24 Sata3 6Gb/s ports and a cumulative transfer speed of 8G*B*/s and the 2720 8 ports with 4G*B*/s, for a mind numbing total of, wait for it, 56 Sata ports.

Storage shopping list:
2x 2760 + 1x 2720 + 14x sff8087-4xSata cables + 56x 64GB SSDs.
Crazy stuff, indeed.

If this could bring patch loading times to well within one second, even for HS powerful system patches legato port+slur+bc 13 with all mic positions, wouldn't that obviate the need to load ginormous templates? Wouldn't that clean up the DAW working space? Yeah, I'm dreaming.


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## jamwerks (Oct 12, 2011)

Didn't notice anything said about TB on these new boards. Thought that was the connections of the future. :?:


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## Scrianinoff (Oct 12, 2011)

Tomshardware posted a review of 4 hardware raid cards. Among them is the Highpoint Rocketraid 2720SGL that I mentioned in this thread. What I find really disturbing are the very disappointing SSD Raid0 performance figures of Crystaldiskmark for the 2720. Normally I hold Tomshardware in high esteem. Yet, these figures are nowhere near the figures you will find elsewhere. I posted this as a comment in the review, but no reaction yet.

Here are the results:
*331 MB/s on 5 x SSD* by Tomshardware http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/sas-6gb-raid-controller,3028-16.html

*669 MB/s on 2 x SSD* by some guy in Istanbul http://forum.hardwarena.com/index.php?topic=19732.40

*2278 MB/s on 8 x SSD* by Tweaktown http://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/43...gl_sata_6g_raid_controller_review/index7.html

*1241 MB/s on 4 x SSD* by some guy on youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yUYZx1zj9UA
*
1227 MB/s on 4 x SSD* by same guy on youtube 4 months later http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0lMap1plneI&feature=related

See how nicely the 2720 scales with the number of SSDs in the results of the others. That why I find it extremely difficult to ignore how consistent the results of the others are compared to Tomshardware's results.


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## Scrianinoff (Oct 12, 2011)

The same inconsistency can be found in the abysmal IO performance figures of Tomshardware compared to the results of others. My assumption is that something went very very wrong in Tomshardware's test.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/sas-6gb-raid-controller,3028-13.html

http://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/43...gl_sata_6g_raid_controller_review/index5.html
Look at the 0.5K to 4K figures and how nicely they scale with block size around 45 K IO/s. Note that these are for queue depths of 1! For higher queue depths look at the Crystaldiskmark results linked in my previous post.


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## Scrianinoff (Oct 12, 2011)

Based on the results obtained by Tweaktown (using 8 SSDs) the 2720 still dwarfs the performance of even the OCZ revodrive *3* X2 480GB: http://thessdreview.com/our-reviews...cie-ssd-review-atto-crystal-and-as-ssd-tests/


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## Scrianinoff (Oct 12, 2011)

What I would really like to have seen in a review is the CPU load of the 2720 card. Since some of its raid processing is done by the CPU. This is also the secret to its high Raid 5 and 6 performance figures. I am confident that in Raid 0 the performance penalty will be negligible, but would like to have seen some hard evidence.


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## Scrianinoff (Oct 12, 2011)

Scrianinoff @ Wed 12 Oct said:


> Based on the results obtained by Tweaktown (using 8 SSDs) the 2720 still dwarfs the performance of even the OCZ revodrive *3* X2 480GB: http://thessdreview.com/our-reviews...cie-ssd-review-atto-crystal-and-as-ssd-tests/



Then again, if you look at the Passmark performance for the Web Server Benchmark, which I think is closest to the type of data transfer patterns of sample players, the 2720 is on par with the Revodrive.
http://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/43...gl_sata_6g_raid_controller_review/index8.html
http://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/43...l_sata_6g_raid_controller_review/index10.html

Yet, if you compare the PCMark Vantage results, the Revodrive 3 X2 leaves the 2720 in the dust.
http://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/42...drive_3_x2_pci_e_480gb_ssd_review/index9.html
http://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/43...gl_sata_6g_raid_controller_review/index8.html

Maybe this becomes a difficult choice after all. Still, the 2720 route with 8 x 64GB SSDs is by far cheaper than a Revodrive 3 X2 480GB. And if real world performance is lacking compared to the Revo, then one could always use the argument that surfaced here somewhere before, that it does not matter, since the performance is much more than what is needed anyhow


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