I'm building a new DAW PC soon, should I go Socket 1155 or go state-of-the-art and jump into Socket 2011? What are the advantages/disadvantages? I haven't built a system since 2005...

bumpity-bump!

depends on your needs, unless you ae doing a ton of VSTi (and i doubt it since the age of your present system)
just go 1155 Z77 and a 3770

on the other hand a 3820 is the same price as a 3770 and its faster
the board for 2011 will cost more and you need 4 sticks ram vs 2

jcschild


depends on your needs, unless you ae doing a ton of VSTi (and i doubt it since the age of your present system)
just go 1155 Z77 and a 3770

on the other hand a 3820 is the same price as a 3770 and its faster
the board for 2011 will cost more and you need 4 sticks ram vs 2

Why do I need 4 sticks or RAM on the 2011 board?

I'm also concerned with connectivity. It seems to me that socket 2011 boards do not support PCI anymore. 

4 sticks "quad channel" most 2011 boards now have 8 slots for ram
2 stick means you are getting 1/2 the bandwidth as it will run in dual channel.

both 1155 and 2011 have PCIe to PCI bridge. as in NOT native anymore.
depending on what interface it may or may not work..
RME works fine in either
M-audio/Echo and few others probably not.. Lynx for the most part works.

PCI is pretty much dead at this point..

jcschild


4 sticks "quad channel" most 2011 boards now have 8 slots for ram
2 stick means you are getting 1/2 the bandwidth as it will run in dual channel.

both 1155 and 2011 have PCIe to PCI bridge. as in NOT native anymore.
depending on what interface it may or may not work..
RME works fine in either
M-audio/Echo and few others probably not.. Lynx for the most part works.

PCI is pretty much dead at this point..

Thanks. Since hardly anyone is making PCIe audio cards, and Firewire is on its way out, I have to settle for USB 2.0 now?

  Actually, afaik, 2011 X79 PCH does support native PCI, as do 1155 B75 and Q77 PCHs. So, I wouldn't say PCI is dead quite yet (unless board makers stop supporting their cards with current drivers). PCI can still offer better performance (esp. lower latency) than USB or FW.

no its NOT native its bridged.. there is no direct connect its bridged thru 1 of the PCIe connections
http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/chipsets/performance-chipsets/x79-express-chipset-diagram.html
as i said some cards work others will not

PCI does not nessesarily offer lower latency than USB/FW it depends on the interfaces you are comparing.
i would put an RME USB up again an M-Audio/Echo/Emu PCI all day long..

Elsongs.. there are many good quality USB/FW interfaces for low lantency
 
RME
Steinberg
Presonus VSL series
Motu Hybrids
M-Audio ultra 8 R
NI Kontrol 6
Lynx Aurora with FW/USB or Hilo.
 
 

Also, a highly recommended interface to consider is Rolands Quad -Capture (or Octa-Capture for more inputs).

http://www.rolandus.com/products/productdetails.php?ProductId=1166

the quad is nice but NOT low latency...