Which motherbord for a Delta 1010lt

[mykuhl]

I am looking at upgrading my system, and wonder if anyone has any advice on upgrading my motherboard, with a look to what will suit my needs for live sound/recording.

Cooling, speed, reliability, noise and familiarity are all factors for me.

I would prefer to go with AMD, because they don't get as hot, and I am familiar with them. However I have heard people say that Intel are more stable, and better for signal processing.

I have also heard many people say that it is idiotic to not go for a 64-bit processor - with a look to future-proofing, while others have said that a 32 bit hyperthreaded will be much better.

I also am told that it is better to have as many PCI-e x16 slots as possible, but this seems to drastically increase the price.

I'm not made of money (note the 1010lt, not the straight 1010) but I would rather cry once and buy once.

Also, I'm from New Zealand, so giving me links to sites is a waste of your time, as the freight and taxes are horrendous, and it is much better to buy things here with the current exchange rates anyway.

Also. please don't recommend Mac's. I like my right mouse button.

[glc]

You only need one PCI-Ex16 slot - for the video card. The ones with 2 slots are for SLI using dual video cards.

If you prefer AMD, any quality brand NForce4-based board (example: Asus A8N-E) would be my recommendation, with a Venice core Athlon 64.

If you prefer Intel, the most economical quality solution would be an Intel 915P-based board (example: Asus P5GD1) with a 6xx series EMT64 processor.

The industry pros who don't use Macs prefer Intel for this use due to the slightly better performance for this use (hyperthreading seems to be the key word) and absolute stability of Intel on Intel, but there's no reason why you can't use AMD. You can get reasonably quiet properly cooled reliable speedy solutions either way.

[SonicVanguard]

M-Audio does recommend an Intel-Intel combination when running any of the Delta series cards.

[mykuhl]

I believe that PCI-e 16x is backwards compatible - meaning that it can take a PCI card, or if they develop a PCI-e sound card in the future then I can use that. I can't see me getting 4 LT's any time soon, but it's worth planning ahead.

If anyone knows that they are not backwards compatible, please let me know.

[glc]

A PCI-Ex16 slot is only backwards compatible to slower PCI-E cards (which essentially don't exist yet), not legacy PCI. All dual PCI-Ex16 boards are designed to support 2 video cards in SLI. I would personally get a board with a single PCI-Ex16 slot and the most legacy PCI slots possible. It's going to be a while before PCI-E replaces legacy PCI for cards other than video.

[Xayd]

i don't see the benefit of 64 bit CPUs on a Microsoft OS as of yet.

there is an advantage with intel and video encoding, and a noticable one, due to hyperthreading. however if you're only doing audio recording, you don't have to deal with hours/days of encoding going on on your PC, so..

/shrug

since AMD doesn't suffer from only being an option with VIA motherboards anymore, i would say personal preference. but then again, no intel chipset has had any PCI bus issues that would cause such problems, ever, to my knowledge.

[bruder]

I'm running a Gigabyte 7N400L with a Delta 66 and the Omni IO box. No problems.