Notes on the selection of Athlon-based motherboards
in DAW configurations

June 24, 2002
Revised November 21, 2002

Edited by: Anders Fahlén
contact: anders@agronova.se
(not an RME employee but a passionate user of RME products!)

Introduction

Gone are the days when Athlon-based motherboards were viewed as inferior for use in digital audio workstations (DAW). Actually, the Athlon processors do not host any DAW-related problems per se but reported compatibility issues are related to previous VIA chipsets with the VIA 686B Southbridge and imperfect VIA chipset drivers.

Below you will find compiled information regarding newer chipsets and motherboards with Athlon processors reported by users and independent builders to work well in DAW configurations.

Computer technology is developing as quickly as a fresh fish turns old in the air. Should you invest in a DAW configuration now or is it better to wait until tomorrow? It has been wisely said that you should base your decisions on what needs you have to care for in the present situation and the 'foreseeable tomorrow' rather than to contemplate about what may be around in the uncertain and distant future. The same goes with all kinds of vapor-ware and hyped statements – in the DAW world don’t believe in synthesized benchmarks but rather wait until real-world audio stress tests have been done!

Based on users' findings in DAW work, the SiS 735/745 and the nForce 415/420-D chipsets currently have the highest I/O bandwith of Athlon-based motherboards (this may change with the recently released nForce2 motherboards). On older mainboards with VIA Northbridge/Southbridge chipsets, e.g. VIA KX133/KT133/133A/266/266A, PCI bandwidth (burst transfer) and latency may be improved by installing a PCI latency patch (information: http://www.tecchannel.de/hardware/817/8.html; download: http://www.chip.de/downloads_updates/downloads_updates_8642512.html. PCI bandwidth may be important if you are stressing the PCI bus with plenty of DSP processing during audio work while simultaneously recording/mixing plenty of solid tracks or are using a PCI RAID card. It may be less important if you are only recording 8-12 tracks at a time and don’t simultaneously use massive DSP processing. For further readings regarding compatible peripherals needed with each chipset do a search at any of the major DAW/audio forums around.

Good luck and enjoy your RME-Athlon combination! If you have any successful RME-Athlon combination not yet identified, or come across important compatibility issues, please contact RME at

mailto:support@synthax.de.

Disclaimer: The following information is compiled from web-based public information at DAW forums and users’ direct reports to the editor (see detailed information at http://www.rme-audio.de/techinfo/amd/index.htmand http://www.rme-audio.de/english/techinfo/amd/index.htm

RME is not held responsible for any compatibility issues that may arise from use of this information in combination with RME products. All information is left 'as is' to improve the peer-to-peer services on how to successfully build RME-Athlon DAW configurations. The user is ultimately responsible for any actions taken.

Single CPU chipsets:

AMD 761

(http://www.amd.com/)

Suggested motherboards: Gigabyte 7DXR+, Asus A7M266, Epox 8K7A+

Pros:    Relatively plenty of user reports describing the chipset as stable and with few DAW compatibility issues (e.g. newsgroup rme-audio.forum: 2002-02-07).

The AMD 761 Northbridge supports up to four GB of registered DDR RAM and 266 MHz FSB.

Cons:    User reports incompatibility with APIC and the Gigabyte 7DXR+ (pops and clicks with RME Digiface; newsgroup rme-audio.forum: 2002-02-19). Works well with PIC enabled in BIOS and Windows XP.

Relatively low I/O bandwith (http://www.aceshardware.com/read.jsp?id=45000290).

Most motherboards with AMD 760 are built around the VIA 686B Southbridge and needs update with the 686 patch (fixes data corruption when transferring large files).

Most motherboards limited to ATA-100 hard drive support.

Not as high native Emagic Logic Adio plugin counts as with the nForce chipset

 (newsgroup rme-audio.forum: 2002-02-25).

nForce 415/420D

Suggested motherboards: MSI K7N415 Pro/K7N420 Pro, Asus A7N266-C/Asus A7N266-E.

Pros:    Single chipset with high I/O bandwith and TwinBank 128-bit memory architecture with very high memory bandwidth (http://www.aceshardware.com/read.jsp?id=45000290; http://www.nvidia.com/view.asp?IO=twinbank).

Excellent real-world DAW stress test reported (approx. 40 stereo native Platinum Reverbs on 5 continuous looped tracks at 1.5 ms latency with Emagic Logic Audio 5/5.1, RME Hammerfall 9652, Athlon XP 2200+ and Asus A7N266-C; http://www.digitalnaturalsound.com/logic_dsp/msg/910.html). Latest bios revision will increase PCI bandwidth under specific conditions and is reported to increase the number of available platinum reverbs in LAWP 5.x.

According to Matthias Carstens, RME: “The best Athlon-based chipset tested by us so far” (newsgroup rme-audio.forum: 2002-05-08).

Cons:    Relatively expensive motherboards.

One user reports compatibility issues with Matrox G450 card and the nForce 415 chipset (Asus A7N266-C; pops and clicks at lower latencies). Editor’s note: Matrox technicians confirm that they do not presently test their graphic adapters with the nForce chipset (http://forum.matrox.com/mgaforum/Forum9/HTML/008781.html). ATI Radeon 7500 and GeForce 3 Ti500 are reported by users to work well with Asus A7N266-C. The nForce 420 (Asus A7N266) does not seem to have issues with Matrox G450 dual-head (newsgroup Product.SONAR: 2002-03-19). On the Asus A7N266-E the user needs to install BIOS v. 1001s or later and manually set the FSB and memory speed jumpers to 133 to make the AGP Bus run at nominal speed (http://www.asusboards.com/forums/showthread.php?s=c4b2680fba1c9537cdca8edc1296e771&threadid=15297).

On-board audio shares interrupt with PCI slot 5 and USB (Asus A7N266-C).

No BIOS update currently available to MSI’s line of nForce motherboards fixing PCI writes problems limited to data transfer of 20 MB/s and below (http://www.tech-report.com/news_reply.x/3704/). Fixes are available for other brand-named nForce motherboards.

SiS 735/745

Suggested motherboards: ECS K7S5A/K7S6A, Asus A7S333 and MSI 745 Ultra.

Pros:   Single chipset with high I/O bandwith (up to 1.2 GB/s) with multi-threaded and parallel communication with hardware (http://www.sis.com/products/chipsets/oa/socketa/735.htm).

Relatively inexpensive motherboards.

Praised by a number of independent DAW-builders and users for good DAW performance and stability (e.g. newsgroup alt.sekd: 2002-06-03; newsgroup Product.SONAR: 2002-05-25).

Excellent real-world DAW stress test reported (24 continuous track of 24-bit/44.1 audio with bandwith-intensive DSPs added-on in Emagic Logic as VST host; newsgroup alt.sekd: 2002-06-06).

Few reported compatibility issues with DAW hardware.

Onboard sound, LAN, USB, etc. can be selectively removed from the PCI-bus (only on K7S6A with the SiS 745 chipset).

Supports both SDRAM and DDR RAM (ECS).

Cons:    Reports on slightly higher initial motherboard failure percentage with low-cost SiS 735 motherboards (newsgroup Product.SONAR: 2002-05-07).

Not congruently tested at RMEs lab.

VIA KT333

(http://www.via.com)

Suggested motherboards: Abit KG7-Raid, Asus A7V333 Raid XP, Epox 8K3A. Improved performance can be obtained by downloading the latest VIA 4 in 1 driver from http://www.viaarena.com/?PageID=2.

Pros:    Users report stable DAW configurations apart from incompatibility issues with the Motu PCI324…but you are a devoted RME user, right? (newsgroup Product.SONAR: 2002-05-07).

User reports good performance with Asus A7V333, RME Hammerfall 9652, Nuendo/Cubase and Windows XP with ACPI disabled. (http://www.nuendo.com/cgi-bin/ubb/postings.cgi?topic=000956).

Cons:   Not as good DAW performance as with nForce 415/420-D or SiS 735/745 (newsgroup alt.sekd: 2002-06-09).

Not congruently tested at RMEs lab.

VIA KT400

(http://www.via.com)

Suggested motherboards: Gigabyte GA-7VAXP and Asus A7V8X. The latest VIA 4 in 1 driver can be downloaded from http://www.viaarena.com/?PageID=2.

Pros:    Supports DDR400, 200/266/333 MHz FSB, AGP 8X, USB 2.0, serial ATA, Gigabit LAN, overheat protection (C.O.P), etc.

V-Link interface between the Northbridge and the Southbridge chipsets with 533 MB/s bandwidth.

Accepts the new Athlon XP 2700+/2800+ (Barton) CPU line as well as the old Athlon XP (Thoroughbred) CPU core.

Supports over-voltage settings on the CPU core via BIOS (2.05 V with Asus A7V8X and 1.925 V with Gigabyte 7VAXP).

User reports good performance with Asus A7V8X and RME HDSP (newsgroup Product.SONAR: 2002-11-01).

User reports no compatibility issues between Asus A7V8X and RME Hammerfall 9652 (http://forum.nuendo.com/forum/Forum3/HTML/001888.html).

Cons:   Performance generally lag behind with DDR400 SDRAM compared to DDR333 SDRAM memory modules (this pattern may change when new BIOS revisions and faster CAS latency DDR400 SDRAM memory modules are available). The Gigabyte 7VAXP is presently the case of exception – having equivalently as good performance with DDR4000 as with DDR333 (http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.html?i=1721&p=12).

Some mainboards have no PCI divider option (Gigabyte 7VAXP).

Present KT400 chipset and BIOS versions have not performed significantly better in synthetic benchmark tests than the KT333 chipset.

(http://www17.tomshardware.com/mainboard/02q3/020905/kt400-16.html).

Equal or better DAW performance may be obtained from SiS/AMD/nForce chipsets (the promising nForce2 chipset will be released shortly after the introduction of the KT400).

Not congruently tested at RMEs lab or by any significant number of DAW users. You’re presently much on your own here as a DAW user.

NForce 2

(http://www.nvidia.com/)

The new nForce2 chipset from Nvidia has just been released in retail mainboard versions (November, 2002). Only a few retail versions have so far been tested wherefore it is premature to make any comments on its DAW performance. However, the first tests of the final releases indicate that this chipset holds promises of being the best DAW performer for the socket A generation of Athlon XP CPUs. The nForce2 supports dual-channel DDR400 SDRAM with a total memory bandwidth of 5.4 GB/sec, Inter-Bridge bus with an effective bandwidth of 800 MB/sec, IEE1394 ports, AGP 8X, on-board LAN and USB 2.0, etc. Initial tests with the pre-release version of the Asus A7N8X indicate that the nForce2 chipset may be the fastest with support for 333MHz FSB and DDR400 around among the single Athlon XP CPU mainboards (http://www.xbitlabs.com/mainboards/nforce2-kt400/). It is notified that the nForce2 is claimed to be compatible with the Athlon Barton XP with 400 MHz FSB via a BIOS upgrade (http://www.nforcershq.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1714&start=15). DAW pioneers are welcome to share real-world stress test results with RME users!

Dual CPU chipsets:

AMD 760 MP/MPX

(http://www.amd.com)

Suggested motherboards: Tyan 246X, Iwill MPX2, and Asus A7M266-D

Pros:    Improved DAW performance (speed and smoothness) compared to single CPU configurations, especially when working in multitasking environments (note: only available if OS and DAW software support dual CPU configurations and multi-threading respectively).

Improved playback DAW stability at high track and CPU loads (newsgroup: alt.sekd 2001-04-17).

Improved DAW productivity per time unit (newsgroup: alt.sekd 2002-05-08).

Improved VST instrument and DSP plug-in counts in combination with efficient DAW multi-threading and SMP implementation (http://linux1723.dn.net/forum/Forum11/HTML/001235.html)

ACPI configuration of dual CPU machines is generally easier/safer than on single CPU machines under Windows 2000.

Support for 64-bit/66MHz PCI peripherals (SCSI, RAID, Ethernet, etc.).

Cons:    Tyan 246X motherboards with dual AMD CPU support are picky regarding their proper hardware configuration and working environment, specifically RAM, PSU and heat dissipation: The 2460 supports up to six banks of double-sided ECC registered RAM memory in a maximum of three of the available four slots (the 2462 supports up to eight slots with the proper memory modules). Avoid Micron memory modules as they are presently not compatible with the chipset. The PSU needs to output a minimum of 30+A on the +5 V rail and a minimum of 155 W of the combined +5 V and +3.3 V rails (the Asus/Iwill boards use 12 V line for the Vcore and are therefore less picky regarding PSU specification). Brand-named PC Power and Cooling and Enermax PSUs with a minimum of 475 W are recommended for Tyan mainboards (newsgroup: alt. comp.periphs.mainboard.tyan 2002-09-28). Use latest BIOS versions to resolve Tyan compatibility issues with some graphic adapters. On-board USB port (Tyan S2466) must be disabled to avoid pops and clicks in PCI soundcards (newsgroup: alt. comp.periphs.mainboard.tyan 2002-10-15). Without appropriate case and CPU fans users have reported intermittent lockups at high ambient temperatures – dual Athlon CPUs may dissipate up to 150 W total (newsgroup: alt.comp.periphs.mainboard.tyan 2002-10-30; http://www.burningissues.net/hard/iwill/MPX2p2.htm).

A few users report problems with overheated ATX power connectors on the first revisions of the 2460 mainboards.

The AMD 760 MP/MPX chipsets will most likely not support the newer AMD XP 2700+/2800+ CPUs with 333 MHz FSB (the 760 MP/MPX chipsets support 266 MHz FSB).

64-bit/66 MHz PCI slots can only run peripherals at 3.3 voltage settings.

Earlier Asus A7M266-D BIOS revisions (prior to 1004) had minor CPU voltage issues

(http://forums.2cpu.com/showthread.php?s=79267c9cdefbe40fc63457babcf5df4c&threadid=15662).

The on-board USB port connection is broken in the initial versions of the MPX chipset wherefore the user will loose one PCI slot when a peripheral USB card is required (the Tyan S2466-4M has working on-board USB 1.1 port).

Use BIOS version 4.03 or later on the Tyan Tiger MPX mainboards to fix PCI IRQ routing problems and fixes for ATI Radeon 7500/8500 graphic cards.

DAW performance will be improved at a rather costly margin compared to single CPU DAW machines (DAW power will not be doubled by the inclusion of a second CPU).

Iwill MPX2 presently lacks a BIOS option to adjust the PCI latency (default values are not optimal for 64-bit/66 MHz busses), making it less suitable for SCSI-RAID hosts (http://www.burningissues.net/hard/iwill/MPX2p4.htm). Also, there are question-marks regarding its PCI-buses performance (the Iwill MPX2 is though by far the best over-clockable mainboard among the dual-Athlon platforms).

For more detailed reading and troubleshooting:

http://forums.2cpu.com/forumdisplay.php?s=170a0493df5e794c093c9021080ffef3&forumid=13; http://www.tyan.com/products/html/tigermp.html;

newsgroup: alt.comp.periphs.mainboard.tyan; newsgroup: alt.comp.periphs.mainboards.asus; newsgroup: alt.comp.periphs.mainboard.iwill; http://www.burningissues.net/hard/iwill/MPX2p2.htm