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pci ports on mac pro

R

Rocksteady

macrumors newbie
Original poster
ok well this may be a simple question and i could just be blind but i did check the web site before comming here to ask all you gentlepeople, but, my brother just came in and asked me how many pci ports, if any, there are in the mac pro, he does audio engeneering and wants to throw in a sound card (i have a mac pro with the x19 ordered and currently in transit)

sorry if it's just that i am blind but at least i assume it's an easy question, if you want to know the name of the card for any reason just ask and i will ask him tommorow
thanx
 
There are three PCI Express (PCIe) slots free in the Mac Pro. The other is occupied by the graphics card.

You cannot plug a PCI card into a PCIe slot unless you use a hammer.
 
Glen Quagmire said:
There are three PCI Express (PCIe) slots free in the Mac Pro. The other is occupied by the graphics card.

You cannot plug a PCI card into a PCIe slot unless you use a hammer.
Click to expand...

so there are no normal pci ports? what would you plug a sound card or any card that doesn't need pci-e?
 
Rocksteady said:
so there are no normal pci ports? what would you plug a sound card or any card that doesn't need pci-e?
Click to expand...
There are no PCI SLOTS at all...

Must use the new PCI Express cards.

BTW, what is the name of the card? and is it a PCI Card or PCI Express Card -- because it must be the latter, or you cannot use it.

Plus the switch to Intel on the towers, means that the drivers also need to be updated. But most of the cards for the PCI Express PowerMac G5 will probably be updated soon.
 
The Mac Pro comes with audio built in, including an S/PDIF interface so that you don't have to deal with the troubles of analog sound. Why not use it?
 
my brother does audio engenering, and wants a card for it, he has a digidesign mbox 2 and he will hook up the monitors to that i assume, but he wants audio directly from the comp i guess.... the card he wants is the delta 1010LT which means nothing to me, but i assume it's not pci e, anyway this is no big concern to me, just him, but he is not on a smarty forum like me so i asked for him
 
Okay, that's a bit different from from your typical sound card. Apogee have some PCI Express stuff, and there is lots of FireWire equipment out there.
 
iMeowbot said:
Okay, that's a bit different from from your typical sound card. Apogee have some PCI Express stuff, and there is lots of FireWire equipment out there.
Click to expand...

thank you smarty forum guy
 
iMeowbot said:
Okay, that's a bit different from from your typical sound card. Apogee have some PCI Express stuff, and there is lots of FireWire equipment out there.
Click to expand...

do you know any other card solutions? cheaper maybe... he just explained it all to me but all i got out of it was that firewire will work but not good enouh curse curse why can't there be sound cards for it.... so ya thats my story
 
Rocksteady said:
do you know any other card solutions? cheaper maybe... he just explained it all to me but all i got out of it was that firewire will work but not good enouh curse curse why can't there be sound cards for it.... so ya thats my story
Click to expand...

Yeah, the Apogee toys are a little on the expensive side.

I guess I'd have to ask, why won't a FireWire interface do the job? And if your brother is going to be doing heavy-duty recording on this thing all the time, when do you get time to play with your Mac? 🙂

[edit: I see that there is an PCI Express version of the MOTU PCI-424 system now. It would probably be best to contect them about compatibility (on the software end) with the Mac Pro. ]
 
Or look for an external usb audio card. For example in the broadcast world they use the Yellowtec PUC or Digigram's UAX220. But personally I think your brother is better of waiting for Digidesign to come up with a PCIe card. That will work much better with (hardware support) with the apps from Digidesign.
 
What about more PCI slots?

Hello,

Listened in and am curious about something:
I guess it is unlikely that Apple will ever bring out MacPros with more slots?
Anyone heard anything about that?
 
Last edited:
houser said:
Hello,

Listened in and am curiouys about something:
I guess it is unlikely that Apple will ever bring out MacPros with more slots?
Anyone heard anything about that?

TIA and regards
Janne A.
Click to expand...

It's almost certainly never going to happen.

The inside of the case is fairly packed as it is. The only place they could add it would be between slots 1 and 2, but if you get a double thick 16-lane PCIe card, anything you put there would get in the way.

For now, 4 slots is all anyone really needs, simply because there are barely any cards available you can actually put in there 🙂
 
lol,

Gone are the days of the sturdy 9600 with six slots...;-)

I want to upgrade my Protools 3-card-solution to a 4 or 5 setup...
Bit really don't want a chassis....
I guess the combo of onboard CPU horsepower on Mac pro and the 3 cards
I have for things like low-latency playback is probably the way to go for now.

Ah well,
thanx!
Janne A

slughead said:
It's almost certainly never going to happen.

The inside of the case is fairly packed as it is. The only place they could add it would be between slots 1 and 2, but if you get a double thick 16-lane PCIe card, anything you put there would get in the way.

For now, 4 slots is all anyone really needs, simply because there are barely any cards available you can actually put in there 🙂
Click to expand...
 
If he's using an Mbox then I assume he is using protools LE ?

If he wants to improve audio & latency but keep with familar protools LE 7.1.2 CS 2 (I think thats the ridiculous version number its upto now on intel macs) then he might be better off going for a digi 02 rack with its firewire interface.

A word of warning - a hell of a lot of plugins are NOT compatible with intel macs yet.

IK mulitimedia - Amplitube / T-Racks etc... (updating Feb/March 07)
Antares - AutoTune 4 etc.. (Updating Nov/Dec)

It's looking like the only way they are going to update is a full version number - i.e. Antares AutoTune 5 and hence these are not going to be free universal upgrades for existing owners.

So you have to factor in the cost of upgrading all your plug-ins and the time it's taking for them to be released, as if your used to using somthing like T-Racks all your existing projects wont work on your shiny new intel mac.
 
A very good Firewire audio interface for the Mac Pro is the Mark of the Unicorn UltraLite: http://www.motu.com/products/motuaudio/ultralite. MOTU also has other Firewire interfaces with more or less inputs, outputs and features you can also check out.

The UltraLite has sufficient analog audio inputs and outputs for most project studios and also has a pair of S/PDIF inputs and outputs. In addition, one MIDI in and one MIDI out is provided. Two of the analog audio ports can accept balanced inputs and have good quality microphone preamps with phantom power (needed for high quality studio condenser microphones). The MOTU Firewire drivers and Universal Binary (UB) and are high performance and low latency capable with acceptable CPU demands. MOTU provides a very capable DSP audio mixer on-board the UltraLite that can be controlled by computer or directly from the control panel of the UltraLite (this allows for near zero latency monitoring during tracking and punch-ins).

I am also an audio engineer and you can tell your brother that many other audio engineers think that the MOTU products are high quality at a fair price.

Hope this helps,

Dave
 
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