Beepster
PCIe is supposedly much faster but the main problem with legacy PCI on newer motherboards is that the manufacturers now use a "bridged" connection as opposed to a "native" connection. This isn't generally a problem for most old cards people want to use but because of the high demands of audio it can choke the data and cause poor performance which can result in dropouts and crashes. I am not familiar with your MOBO but I have an ASUS as well and ran into this problem with my old Echo Layla card. If your case is sufficiently cooled then I'd say the better connection for your audio card trumps any slight temp increase. Just keep an eye on your system temps and if things start getting overheated add some case fans or even just leave one of the case panels off. I mean check out the temps now and google what is appropriate. If it's pushing the limits as it is then yeah... might be a concern but if the case is good I doubt it'll be a problem. Cheers.

 
Great information from personal experience. Thanks! However, does it matter if it's only a PCIe x1 that is available? The PCIe x16 is used up by the graphics card. So all I have left are several, standard PCI slots and one PCIe x1 slot.

Beepster
Oh and unless you are using it as a gaming system as well I doubt your vid card is going to get too hot anyway. I'm not too knowledgeable about those wacky high end cards though. I just have a $20 Gigabyte card with a gig of RAM. One little fan on the card and it works fine without any heat issues.

I enjoy a game or two so I do indeed have a stout graphics card!  If the firewire-card-to-be is small enough, then the graphics card will most likely still be OK as it has dual fans and can most likely vacuum any air around the firewire card with little resistance!  Plus, my case is adequately cooled; no problems there.

Sorry for the late reply (chilling out for the night). Unfortunately I can't help with that question as I actually just got a USB interface instead of another card based interface. I'd imagine it would again depend on the MOBO and how it handles the card slot connections. You could find out from ASUS about that kind of thing. Then maybe relay what you find out to Focusrite and Cakewalk tech support just to double check everything.
 
However even if the PCIe x1 is bridged it will still likely give better results with a good quality FW card. I actually did manage to get my Echo card working better through the PCI slot after some system optimization (you should look into this as well while talking to Cakewalk) so I can only imagine PCIe x1 would be an improvement. But that is outside of my realm of knowledge so best to ask the pros. Good luck.

If you're running a 64-bit system on 4GB of RAM or less, then more RAM will definitely help. That and SSD drives will give you the best performance boost. I especially love using SSDs for sample library streaming.
 
Scott

--
Scott R. Garrigus - http://garrigus.com - SONAR X2 Power! - http://garrigus.com/?SonarX2Power
* Author of the Cakewalk Sonar and Sony Sound Forge Power book series: http://garrigus.com/?PowerBooks
* Author of the Cakewalk Sonar ProAudioTutor video tutorial series: http://garrigus.com/?ProAudioTutor
* Publisher of the DigiFreq free music technology newsletter: http://digifreq.com/?DigiFreq
* Publisher of the NewTechReview free consumer technology newsletter: http://newtechreview.com/?NewTechReview

I find that good video cards and great video cards all run Sonar about the same. Biggest improvement for me was the Intel 240 gig sata 3 drive. It's not very often that an upgrade makes you say "oh, that's a big improvement". The SSD did it for me.

From a reverse perspective, when running under-powered on an old laptop, lots of things can cause an issue. As projects load up with plug-ins, moving my mouse could cause a drop out (video). Or the Windows Virus Scanner might try to scan a file after stopping the recorder after a song... gotta make sure that never happens by adding the exclusion folder. Block Windows updates. More RAM doesn't hurt if you're at 4 GB. A faster hard drive (man has the pace picked up in the last 6 or 7 years!). Windows 8 auto defrags unless you disable it. I don't disable it. With a careful balance of gear, you can do amazing things with a POS computer.

For me it is always about what tech has had a step change in power.
 
You have to look at how much more powerful the new CPU's/Drives are compared to your current one and decide if this warrants an upgrade.
 
Each time the tech of CPU gets better I gauge if it is worth an upgrade and if it is this normally means a motherboard upgrade as well.
 
This in turn probably means my RAM will not work on the new motherboard or at least not at the speed the new board can run at.
 
And why run a new Motherboard/CPU/RAM with an old power supply?
 
We all know power supplies fail at some point and usually end up taking out the motherboard etc. with them.
 
What I always do then is buy a barebones system which includes a new case/PSU/Motherboard/CPU/RAM and transplant my graphics card and drives into it.
 
One key thing when buying another PC is the motherboard...do your research!
 
Does it work well for audio streaming, has anyone had problems?
 
Research this well and then look for systems that use this motherboard.
 
So in summary the biggest thing that will improve your performance is a new PC! =)
 
 

truongquangtan204, please remove yourself from this forum. This is not within the agreement of the forum for you to advertise, and I have reported this to the forum administrators. Please find more suitable and acceptable ways of advertising your products and services.
 
In fact, you should give your own Spam Software manual a try. You might like the insights on fighting Spammers... 

Beepster
I built the new rig to handle whatever I can throw at it for the next 5 years or so (hopefully).

That was my plan (specs in the signature). I certainly see major improvments over my last DAW (older i7 12GB RAM), however as just about every component except the graphics card is a higher spec who know what's contributing to the improvment.