Hello All--
 
I'm just getting a little input from some of you esteemed fellow SONARists before I make my decision.
 
I have a project that is still in the comping/editing stage on my current DAW. I do my own mixing and mastering on this current DAW as well. I ordered a new DAW to take advantage of a special that UA was having one their UAD2 card, and so the DAW is now on its way to my house. Yay!
 
I initially was going to wait and finish my current project so I didn't have the migrate everything over to my new DAW and possibly have some kind of hiccup delay my project--but I'm wondering if it will be worth it because my new DAW is so much more powerful.
 
There's a caveat. The new DAW manufacturer is not sure my current sound card will work/be stable in the new DAW--so I may either be moving the sound card to the new DAW, or buying a new sound card.
 
All of my project audio is on a hard drive that will be moved from the current DAW to the new DAW, so plug-ins and the tiny details are what concern me--not to mention if I have to get a new sound card and learn that after so many years on the same card.
 
So, here's the question. Do you recommend moving the project to the new DAW now, or waiting until I'm done and then just move everything at my own leisure?--and make it less stressful I may add!
 
In a perfect world I would have waited and not purchased the new DAW until I was done with this project, but it saved me over $300 buying it now, and the DAW takes 4+ weeks to build.
 
What are your thoughts? I'm OK with tech stuff, but I may have to mess with the new DAWs BIOS to make the sound card work--and some of that time may be spent trying to work with the DAW techs over the phone that are in KY.
 
Mixed feelings here--hard to leave the new rig in the box and not "play" with it! But I'm recycling not only the sound card, but several internal hard drive, two monitors and a keyboard and mouse--so once I move over to the new DAW, it will be a royal pain to move back if I have to.
 
Thoughts? I know there is no 1 right or wrong answer. I just know from experience when I post something like this, at least one person brings up a point that I hadn't thought of or forgot, that helps me with the decision.
 
Thanks all!
 

razor
But I'm recycling not only the sound card, but several internal hard drive, two monitors and a keyboard and mouse--so once I move over to the new DAW, it will be a royal pain to move back if I have to.

Consider the option of keeping both computers in use by means of a kvm switch (I'm assuming that you only have space for one set of keyboard/mouse/monitors).  Most monitors have more than one input anyway so you probably wouldn't even need the video part of the switch.  You would need a second soundcard though.  The 2 PCs could also be networked so that HDDs could be shared between them.  Just a suggestion.

The big question is will a sound card from 2005 run on a modern PC? 
 I'd think about a new interface or at least ask if anyone is still running those on W7 or 8 64 bit. 
 
There's no problem with Sonar and even adding a new interface. I just changed interfaces and it made very little change to Sonar. The in's and out match up as long as the count was the same. In other words If a track was set to left input 1 it still is and the outputs are still 1/2.
I just get a MIDI in/ out assignment warning when opening my projects for the first time with the new interface. I just point it at the new device. 

Cactus Music
The big question is will a sound card from 2005 run on a modern PC? 
 I'd think about a new interface or at least ask if anyone is still running those on W7 or 8 64 bit. 
 
There's no problem with Sonar and even adding a new interface. I just changed interfaces and it made very little change to Sonar. The in's and out match up as long as the count was the same. In other words If a track was set to left input 1 it still is and the outputs are still 1/2.
I just get a MIDI in/ out assignment warning when opening my projects for the first time with the new interface. I just point it at the new device. 

That is the $300 question. DAW maker says probably not. Marcel at Echo says yes. I say I sure hope so because after forking out this much money on a DAW and having to upgrade my UAD card, I sure hope I don't have to also buy a new firewire sound card.
 
One piece of good news is that I heard I can get $200 selling my Layla 3G on eBay.
 
I think it's going to be very hard for me not to migrate my project over to the new rig. I mean, it's going to allow me to run more instances of things like track/bus compression.
 
If all else fails, I put it all back on the old DAW--right?

I really don't see where you will have a problem. Number one is your not migrating from 32 bit to 64 bit.. That's where the issues come in to play with plug ins. 
 
If the folks at Echo think the card will work then that must mean they have the drivers up to date. 
Only thing I guess you sorted out is that new computers don't always come with PCI slots, everything is PCIe now. 
 
 

Cactus Music
I really don't see where you will have a problem. Number one is your not migrating from 32 bit to 64 bit.. That's where the issues come in to play with plug ins. 
 
If the folks at Echo think the card will work then that must mean they have the drivers up to date. 
Only thing I guess you sorted out is that new computers don't always come with PCI slots, everything is PCIe now. 
 
 

This mobo has 1 PCI slot. The fingers are crossed!