I wanted to build new PC, now that the Kaby Lake CPU's have come out & they only work with Windows 10.

From a user of the Fireface 800, or I suppose since the drivers are the main thing, any of the Firewire interfaces.... how well do they work with Windows 10?

I've been told to get the PCI-E Firewire card with the TI XIO2213B chipset, to go along with the FF 800.

Any problems with clicks, pops, blue screens of death, freezing, etc. with Windows 10? Or any any other major problems that would prevent you from choosing Windows 10?

I won't be using any type of video card either, only integrated from the CPU. I've read that video card drivers may cause problems for interfaces...

Those of you that have Windows 10, along with a RME Firewire unit (specifically the FF 800)... are you happy with the performance?

Appreciate any & all help!

Have a nice weekend

( I really want to use Windows 10 if they are no problems, since it's the system getting the most love in the form of updates,etc for the future)

 

Nope. So far, Kaby Lake runs fine with Win7 and Win 8 & 8.1 all x64 and x86 versions. These i have already checked, but its also being reported to work with MacOSX, Linux, ChromeOS, FreeBSD, Unix and probably every other OS is out there. Perhaps i am missing some odd new instruction implemented to work with some latest Win10 update (which i highly doubt), but it seems to work as fast as in Win10 if not faster. You shouldn't believe the hype that Microsoft wants you to.
Also, Win10 doesn't get more love. Security, reliability and compatibility updates support for Win 7 and 8.1 have been extended to July 2018, and for commercial customers to January 2020 for Win7 and January 2023 for Win 8.1. You would say ... but.. there's no but... MS said this and that,declaring the old systems as "obsolete" when they released Win10. And then they changed their mind scared shitless, because way too many people made the exact same simple thought. Win 10 sux and blows. The only good thing about it, is nothing at all. Unless you get off with Cortana that is. Oh i forgot, it boots 2 secs faster, and includes the "tickless kernel" hoax as well. (And before you say this and that, i have a working Win10 comp at all times in the studio, only now it runs the task of Witcher 3, Grim Dawn, Pro Evolution and other games in our spare time).
Sorry to deviate from the real question here, but if you are coming from a Win7 or Win8,8.1 system using an advanced hd backup system like Acronis True Image you can even transfer your already existing windows partition to a brand new machine with all different hardware.
Anyway you do it, a clean Win 7 or 8.1 install, seems to work flawlessly with Kaby Lake.
I hope this helps clearing the "landscape" of whats possible or not.
Cheers
PS: RME have tested themselves various hardware compatibility with the FF800, their results and advice can be found here: https://www.rme-audio.de/english/techinfo/fw800alert.htm
Scrolling to the bottom, you will find which products are officially reported to work with your card

 

Last edited: Jan 14, 2017

Would not go for Firewire generally. It's an outdated.
Still wondering why some manufacturer still use it, especially RME.

 

It seems from his post he already has the RME card. Oh, and the only reason Firewire is outdated is because Usb is cheaper. 99.9% of the USB cards out there are usb2 compliant and usb2 was introduced in 2000. How's this not outdated please?

Nope. Having your cpu handling video tasks is ok, but since the video card is built in the cpu, this will tax a physical part of your cpu with more operations, leading to more heat. This will lead to either more noise with the default intel cpu cooler because it will be forced to work harder, which is out of the question for someone who makes music, or the need for a 3rd party cpu cooler. Paying for an additional graphics card is about the same price as an aftermarket cooler (sometimes even cheaper), so spare yourself the trouble and get a graphics card like the (sane) rest of the world.

 

Personally I would go for traditional CPU and gfx card, having had no experience of onchip GPUs. It's a budget solution, really?

But there are good reasons why onchip GPU does have potential advantages. There's no reason the CPU will necessarily work any harder than if the gfx were on the PCI bus. Why would negotiating the PCI bus be less demanding on CPU than transferring identical data from CPU to onchip GPU? It would have to be very badly implemented for that to be the case. Is it that badly implemented atm, I don't know. Plus, the data doesn't have to traverse the PCI bus, instead just the connex to the onchip GPU so all data has a lot less distance to cover, which is worth something.

If the GPU isn't having to do much (it doesn't have to run Doom at 4K does it?) then heat isn't such an issue. And so long as you can dissipate it, it doesn't matter at all, really, does it? Same (less?) energy would be input to the system......

I have a 10m HDMI lead. My tower is in a cold, distant room. It's a super silent FX8350 (!) - only from 10m away. :D Long lead is $20. And you can get another cooler......even water. I use snow.

Still, I would suggest separate gfx and cpu is surely the way to go - at least until there is good reason to do otherwise. Budget? Latency would be much better onchip GPU at least in theory....but USB has a minimum latency of 1ms? So, cpu-gpu latency isn't going to matter.

 

You said it yourself . Because a simple "negotiation" type of communication is not advanced math calculations which is what any typical graphics card does. You could picture the way cpu and gpu work together (very simplistic way to put it but will do atm) like this: "OS has 25 polygons to be drawn and so the cpu "tells" the graphics processor to do it" . And usually that's the main involvement of the CPU when a dedicated GPU does the graphics calculations in order for the graphics to be drawn on your screen. And yes it's a budget solution, and it's mainly targeted from office computers up to "soft" gaming.
Moving now to our music environment, any DAW has some kind of 3d buttons and menus,or/and animations and scrolling type of graphics, most plugins etc. have 3d interfaces with all kinds of bells,whistles and animations themselves. While this would not make a modern Intel cpu's integrated graphics part throttle, because it is an easy task for any gpu, it will add more heat to the -already below than mediocre- intel cooler. In real world operation, chances are that in the middle of a heavily loaded project in your DAW (70-90%), without a dedicated gpu, you may face cpu throttling with the Intel cooler. Hence why, a simple 30-50 dlrs gpu will save you the frustration. And i'm sure you already know, CPU horsepower is never enough man.
Be well
PS: And if you want every ounce of what your cpu can give you (with or without messing with overclocking), a 3rd party aftermarket cpu cooler is highly suggested as well.

 

Last edited: Jan 14, 2017

Yeah, but I was on about onchip GPU. If the onchip GPU only needs the instructions that would otherwise be sent to the external gfx card then it's exactly the same CPU load - only with a much shorter distance and without PCI bus to negotiate. It really should take less CPU overhead leaving out the PCI entirely and the motherboard too, almost. There would still have to be reference to the M/B (ram) for gfx drivers, presumably, and the data to "fill" the gfx code.....but.....it would be more efficient, at least in theory. And it leaves out the distance to the GFX card.

Just imagine the PCI bus being on top of the CPU? It's quicker. And leave out transiting the PCI bus entirely? It has to be quicker. If you don't want to play Doom at 4k I think it might be a better solution. Low grade gfx is low power.....and anything that is presently done using PCI bus could be done more quickly onchip. It makes the chip more expensive but you save elsewhere $$$

I don't like having everything bundled into one thing but a "single" CPU with a pile of other processors onboard makes a lot of sense. We don't have separate ALUs do we? Or FPUs? We could do that with PCI cards......but we don't. PhysX started as a separate PCI card now it's onboard NVIDIA cards.

If we treated tracks in DAWs like tape - and bounced everything to audio - we'd have way more than enough power already, very cheaply, no matter how everything was configured. The only reason we don't is that we don't record audio - we get "live" vsts running instead of recording them. Otherwise it's a breeze? [I'm inspired to try some tests]

Essentially, the issue is to pay to have extra CPU or pay to have a separate GFX. Both do the same. It's all CPU with clock cycles being spent. So, the closer you can physically get it all, the better. Onchip gfx and sound has a lot going for it - but it lacks modularity and is aimed at budget solutions: one size fits all.

I would suggest buying all separate stuff, but in theory integrated everything should (one day?) perform much better.

 

Agreed, and this goes for the most part of your post as well, except all real world metrics/benchmarks/charts show a dedicated gpu to be faster. Why is that? I'm sure you know, but we omitted to mention that the biggest downside of integrated gpus, is they use the main system's ram. Even if the gpu is next to the cpu, it has to access and use the system's ram and this is not faster than a discrete card that has its own ram. When budget is an issue, the dedicated cheap low end gpu is the only solution for the best performance vs cost ratio.

Kaby Lake runs hotter than Skylake with no apparent gain in performance (about 1% faster and can become even 5% hotter). The 4core 7700k costs the same money as the 6core 5820k. Is it newer ? Yes. Better for music tasks? Not really. The 6 core is the proper way to go imho, as in the long run and under heavy load it will manage more tracks/more plugs. All music daws support multi-threaded execution now (perhaps not as good as they should but still it's there alright and improving year after year). A kind suggestion. Get all the info you can when building a new system. Unless your budget is unlimited, spending time to read the various websites with reviews etc, will save you from a lot of trouble, imho always. And don't be afraid to ask around

 

Last edited: Jan 14, 2017

Yeah, but GPUs need RAM too. Whether you pay for GPU RAM or system RAM - you have to pay for it. Likewise GPU cpu or system CPU.

Nevertheless, like yourself, I would go for separate not integrated. I want to play Doom (and give it 6.5 out of 10). Hmm.

 

Absolutely. I feel you, i do Grim Dawn hack'n'slash co-op with my studio mate like crazy. And i'm 50 going 51, what does this say lol.
Anyway, my thought is that opting for a Kaby Lake you either need an extra cooling solution or to reduce some heat from the cpu, grab a discrete gpu. But all this is based on terms of a 7700k cpu from a pc i recently built for a client of mine, and got to test thoroughly for a week. My guess is any i5 of the same series will not have the same overheating problems but it won't be as powerful for sure.
( Sad but true, i get to build more pcs for music than recording/mixing/mastering. And from an almost 90 square mtrs studio facility, the one room that makes the most money atm is the storage room @9 square mtrs, not to mention it has the least expensive gear from all the other rooms, wtf )

 

Last edited: Jan 14, 2017

I'm not far behind. Not far at all. I'm amazed Quake....whooops Doom can still hold my attention for a moment. I just ordered a Thoreau biography (for £30!) --- sod quake. :D I like Fallout4 more. Microsoft are promising Fallout in VR on their new gizmo. I would rather do that than read a Thoreau biog, I suspect. Ah well :D

Shame about your studio. Still, making PCs instead :D

 

Yeah, and to think making custom pcs, is a skill that grew from the need to stop getting screwed from the various pc builders of the late 90s era, is even more ironic lol. I had never imagined back then, it could grow to a side business. The good thing is, now that all falls apart here in Greece, i can still make a buck. Many fellow studio owners have closed business and took their gear home or to storage. Most large Athens studios to my knowledge (that is Neve and SSl based studios with large recording rooms and gear enough to record a 70-80 piece orchestra) are all declaring bankruptcy. And people may think or say we 've done something wrong, but generally speaking we didn't. It is not that we don't have a clientele, it's just the customer base has no budget to spend for the studio(s) anymore :-( In my sense anyone who will stand the test of time these dark (for us) times, will be able to come out with as less injuries as possible, but it will be really hard.
Now let's see if Fallout 4 is any good, 3 was good enough
Cheers mate

 

Hi Echoeko, I've been there... I just can say I'm perfectly happy using my more than 10 years old Fireface 800 on Windows 10 64 bit Home edition.
I'm using an EXSYS 16415 FireWire card (it has a TI chip) and read a lot from the RME forum where you will probably get other useful experience returns.
Best,
SG

 

You know that's quite a story? I think you should write about it. You have a duty to the goddess of the eternal court of history. There's a book in there. Perhaps you've already written it? You have a unique position from which to tell the wider tale. EQ and The Drachma, or something. :D

FO4 is good. Microsoft promise a VR version for their next XBoxy thing. Sunset over the apocalypse will really be something.

 

Im using a firewire card over pcie with my haswell i7

Its reliable and is proven to work, to some people this is worth more then having the latest and supposedly greatest

Certainly not outdated for professional audio use, there is only so much data transfer rate that you need