G5 PCI-X and Lynx AES 16

[Andrew S.]

Hi everyone:

toying with picking up a second hand G5 for a music server/torrent box as I am enjoying the Mac experience alot more this time around.

This seems to be the situation:

1. there appear to many, many versions of G5's;

2. some have PCI, some PCI-E and some PCI-X.

3. the Lynx AES 16 is either PCI or PCI-E, the former apparently the better sounding;

4. Tiger apparently "sounds better" than the current OS-X 10.5.7 (Leopard?).

 

Can I ask:

1.are the Lynx AES 16 PCI cards compatible with PCI-X?

2.which G5 is the one to look for - do the latter ones have better architecture?

3.Are they quiet or can they be made that way (replacing case fans etc): are the slower ones quieter or are the quad core's quieter.

 

Many thanks

Andrew

 

 

 

[tmfidelis]

Dear Andrew:

 

Please allow us to assist. We have experienced a plethoria of Power Mac G5s:

 

1. later dual core 2.0 with 4 RAM slots.

2. earlier dual core 2.0 with 8 RAM slots.

3. dual core 2.7 with 8 RAM slots.

 

Here's what we have experienced. The 2.0 units run quieter. Perhaps the 2.7 processors run hotter and engage the internal fans more frequently. Using 4x sample rate source material, (176.4k and 192k), taxes the processor. One may come to the conclusion to purchase a 2.7 but dynamic testing, (subjective), leads us to recommend 2.0 processors.

 

Tiger 10.4.1.1 is the recommended OS along with removing unnecessary terminal services and programs. Before updating the OS, loading a fesh copy of Tiger will consume 1.9 GB of storage. After updating approx. 2+ GB. I forgot but can look at one of my Power Macs to verify.

 

A Lynx PCI hardware I/O is the preferred card. We use early firmware and drivers although some are using more recent versions of such.

 

The PCI-X has greater bandwidth but believe it to be compatible with PCI cards. This has been replaced by PCIe. We also recommend staying away from liquid cooled units as they have been know to leak fluid.

 

Recent listening tests indicate 4 GB of RAM with Amarra version 3139 and 3145. We definitely experienced sonic improvements from 2.5 GB of RAM to 3.5 GB of RAM. We also installed 8 GB of RAM with the 2.7 processor and cannot state if the additional 4 GB was beneficial.

 

Chris can help strip the software and there are instructions somewhere in the site to turn off programs running in the background.

 

We hope this helps.

 

Maier Shadi

Tim Marutani

 

 

[Andrew S.]

That is wonderful advice.

The nice thing about an AES card is that it allows a much greater choice re Dac's than firewire alone.

May I ask does the AES have a word clock module so it can clock from the Dac, or is that unnecessary?

Also confirmation that the Lynx PCI card works with PCI-X would be great (there are alot of PCI-X G5's floating around).

many thanks

Andrew

 

[The Computer Audiophile]

The Lynx PCI card will work in a PCI-X slot.

 

[Andrew S.]

And the clocking?

 

[Audio_ELF]

My undersanding is that the G5 Macs you need to loom for are the Single or Dual Processor containing mono-core (solo-core / single-core) processors. The later G5s with dual core processors (may contain 2 processors to give Quad-Core) have PCIe archetecture so loose the advantage.

 

The PCI Lynx cards are generally considered superior to the later PCIe version.

 

Eloise

 

[Andrew S.]

Thanks very muchly!