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***Updated 4-15-06
Nforce 4 is fixed “almost”
Since I was the loudest mouth piece about this issue, I thought I better be the one to release this. After 16 months of Nforce 4 motherboards plagued with issues due to PCIe, making them near useless for Pro Audio and in particular UAD cards, we now believe it is resolved.

We were able to run 2 UADs @97% and 1 Powercore @ 100% simultaneously with an RME fireface. (firewire on pcie) We also tried 2 UADs and a Lynx AES 16, as well as 1 UAD and 1 Poco. All performed very well with Nuendo 3 and Sonar 5.

Nforce 4 still shows a performance penalty of approx 10% over the long discontinued Nforce 3 ultra. We are continuing to work with both AMD and Nvidia to resolve this. The performance penalty only seems to happen in Nuendo 3. we have not yet tested Samplitude, Live, Pro tools, etc.

We can now recommend this chipset, however be advised we have not gone back and retested every Nforce 4 motherboard we had tested in the past. Nor do we intend to. For anyone owning Nforce 4 already I highly recommend you update your bios, and nvidia drivers.

I would like to thank UAD for their constant effort in working with us to resolve numerous issues with various chipsets during the last yr +. I would also like to thank AMD and Nvidia for their support with this as well. Also a thanks to Anders Fahlen in his pursuit of the issues and help getting the word out with all chipset issues.

Scott

3-28-06 update
We have found 1 AMD PCIe motherboard that works with everything (UADs and Poco) and any interface.
we still see a performance penalty at very low buffers (acceptable) where the FX 60 performs on par with the X2 4400 on older Nforce 3 boards.

The new Intel 945/955/975 Chipset now seems to have no issues regarding PCIe bandwidth hogging and higher powered video cards. this is great news as its the motherboard that supports Dual Core Intel. however we have noticed that when used with UAD or Powercore cards you need to raise your buffers higher than you would without them. we think this is still a PCI bus issue due to PCIe

AMD Dual Core X2 now seems to work OK with Nforce 4. However use caution. There is still a performance penalty at lower buffers and UADs willl not work. Powercore does work

Issues still remain with older items below!

There are a number of issues from the new Intel 915/925 chipsets as well as the new AMD Nforce 4 or Via K8T890 that use PCI-E video cards.

First let me state what does work.
An Intel 915/925 motherboard coupled with a very low powered PCI-E video card such as ATI X 300 LE or Nvidia 6200.
With this set up it works as good as the older 865/875 chipsets with AGP and gives you the benefit of the newer Intel Processors. (Increased Cache and support for 64bit OS) as well as speeds of 3.6G and 3.8G.

As you increase your video card power it decreases your ability to use the PCI bus (this includes Firewire and Harddrive I/O) therefore decreases your ability to use the system for Pro Audio. Some exceptions to this would be triple Bus Dual Xeon motherboards and its very hit and miss.
For AMD single core its worse, we have not been able to use any AMD single motherboard with PCI-E video successfully for Pro Audio.

For Dual Opterons things are differant, the New Tyan 2895 Dual Opteron and Dual PCI-E 16X motherboard is awesome.

The PCI-E architecture is brand new and in its infancy. From looking over white papers from various manufacturers and Intel, it would appear that it is not properly implimented yet. They are presently using a type of PCI to PCI-E bridge rather than a PCI-E controller. One of the reasons for this is it will require a near complete re-write of Windows as well as alot of software to properly impliment the protocol.

While other vendors have decided to sell this platform we feel at this time the negatives far outway the positives. Instead we use an 875 chipset with AGP that allows for the newer Intel Processors with out the downside of PCI-E.

We also feel that the AMD 939 outperforms the Intel platform therfore making it a moot point.

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