- Joined
- Oct 4, 2018
- Messages
- 1,496
- Motherboard
- Gigabyte C246-WU4
- CPU
- E-2278G
- Graphics
- WX7100
- Mac
Right. Maybe it would help to cool off and assume that the Metric Halo may plainly run fine off the on-board NIC rather than jump at elaborate workarounds in case it doesn't work…Indeed, my Metric Halo interface is 1 GbE. Elaborate tests have shown that real TB ethernet works best, as these have good drivers. This means an expensive Sonnet adapter(> 200eu) or the TB3-TB2-1GbE ethernet contraption.
If this is less sensitive to latency that I imagined, and stacked adapters are actually acceptable, hooking the Magic Halo on your switch and running everything, audio and general networking, from the 10 GbE NIC looks like a fine zero cost solution.The AQ107 works OK too, but is complete overkill for 1 GbE.
Else, a second-hand Intel X520/X540/X550 card with multiple interfaces, running off the server-grade ixgbe driver in DriverKit, should come well under 200 E.
GC-Titan Ridge, v.1 or v.2, has a 5-pin Thunderbolt header. If the motherboard has one, all is fine; else shorting pins 3 and 5 allows the card to run without the full header.It may be a better idea to get a simpler Z790 mobo without TB or 10GbE, and add these myself.
For example, I have an OWC Envoy Express that will not work properly on TB4.
I already have an AQ107 that works 100%, and sleeps well. I can use that in my new Hack.
If I get the GC-TITAN RIDGE (rev. 2.0), what exactly do I need from the mobo? a TB connector? Will it work at all without flashing?
Hot plug without flashing (but with the appropriate SSDT). Active Thunderbolt bus, and full Mac-like behaviour, if the card is flashed.
The card was a little under 100 E new, so $150 is a scalper giving you a friendly hair cut—which you may have to take if you need to secure a card for a build—but $1000 is chopping off the whole head with it.I just checked, GC-TITAN RIDGE (rev. 2.0) is sold out everywhere and it's unclear if it comes back in stock. I only see a couple of sellers on eBay. I never bought anything on eBay. Should I just go ahead and buy one? No idea what to watch out for, actually. Some sellers want over $1000, some $150, it's all over the place.
Seeing that Gigabyte has actively removed Titan Ridge support from some Z690/Z790 boards through BIOS updates, Gigabyte is best avoided indeed.Any suggestions for a proper mobo? I would prefer Asus, as I have had bad experiences with GA tech supt.
If you're unsure again, I'd suggest to open a thread under "Buying Advice", to write down your technical and functional requirements in tedious details and to grade them: Mandatory/Very much wanted/Nice to have/Could do without.
Use case: Build for (serious) audio work.
Target: Highest single thread performance.
Features:
* GPU slot (pretty much mandatory)
* PCIe 3.0 x1 or higher for audio card (mandatory)
* Thunderbolt (mandatory?)
** cold plug / hot plug / full Thunderbolt bus (grading very much helpful here also!)
* 10 GbE
* extra NIC
* WiFi/BT
* any other feature…
Hack level for the build: can experiment / proven to work / well-followed User/Golden build / God-level support from San José, CA…
Just writing everything down and thinking hard about priorities should help you even before the first answers come in.