DSP accelerator cards - are they still relevant in this day and age?

W

Woody Aki

New member
Hi all,

It's that time when I need to upgrade, and this time it's a no holds barred upgrade - i7 990X 6 core CPU, 12Gb RAM, SSD OS drive, RME Fireface 400...you get my drift. I'm also mulling over a UAD-2 QUAD DSP Accelerator card, and this is where I'm compiling all sorts of opinions.

My mind says that it would leave my CPU with a lot of processing power for other VSTi's, a mate of mine who happens to be a legendary House producer says that whilst he has one, his Waves plugins do the job nicely on his tricked up Mac Pro and he barely uses it nowadays, and another bloke says that they're a finely conceived marketing ploy after discovering how little processing his Powercore plugins used after they went native.

A penny for your thoughts...
 
I guess it's starting to be more of a question about whether or not you care enough about the sonic qualities of the UA plugins and that the DSP is just a nice extra.
 
krushing said:
I guess it's starting to be more of a question about whether or not you care enough about the sonic qualities of the UA plugins and that the DSP is just a nice extra.
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This seems to be was is known by users of waves and UA plugs that UA quality is just better so buying the dsp is worth it...

I'm buying three UAD-2 solo they're $700 a piece which is $2,100 total but you get a $500 voucher per card you buy that's $1,500 of free plug-ins and if you wait for a sale you can gobble up 10 plug-in quickly
and I plan on grabbing up a UAD-2 quad card second hand over on gearslutz for the low-low.. so I'll end up
with

7 sharc chips for great amount of dsp power...to run stuff like studer,ssl channel strips

yeah waves is getting cheaper and cheaper but from the audio files and user reviews is that UAD has just better plugs overall...

yeah some die-hard UAD users like one or two wave plugs better than UAD

Soundtoys,Sonnox seems to have some nice stuff from review..
but I'm going to grab a new i7 motherboard with four pcie slots so I have room to run what ever
 
Well I hear ya, but man can't live on UA plugins alone. And let's face it, the ratio of plugins one owns by other manufacturers to UA plugins is always around 5 to 1, if not higher. Furthermore, it really gets my goat that you can't use that DSP power to run other plugins other than UA's...imagine what a powerhouse your PC will be if that was the case!
 
This may be viewed as biased because IK makes native plug ins but I personally don't see a future in DSP cards. Computers processing power is growing and really even an off the shelf PC can run a decent amount of plug ins now. Spending over 1000 will easily handle most anything you throw at it plug in wise.
 
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always long as you have pcie slots in your computer dsp cards will be around....just like hardware units..many are in the box.. but hardware units are still around....
I hope more ppl go native then I can buy their UAD-2 cards off them for little to nothing ya yay!!! as Ice Cube would say
 
R.I.P TC PowerCore.

In light of advances in computing power DSP cards are not so necessary, but hardware dependent software does offer some level of protection against piracy and that's a good thing. I would not equate computer (hardware) based products to hardware products in regard to legacy use though, hardware simply connects while software must be compatible with the host.
 
hollandturbine said:
R.I.P TC PowerCore.

In light of advances in computing power DSP cards are not so necessary, but hardware dependent software does offer some level of protection against piracy and that's a good thing. I would not equate computer (hardware) based products to hardware products in regard to legacy use though, hardware simply connects while software must be compatible with the host.
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no necessary ...very true but if you like uad-2 plugs you can get the cards and plugs super cheap here soon for those who jump UAD-2 ship and go native...
I loving it... I'm a cheapo lol.. so I hoping to get a really good deal
 
hollandturbine said:
R.I.P TC PowerCore.

In light of advances in computing power DSP cards are not so necessary, but hardware dependent software does offer some level of protection against piracy and that's a good thing. I would not equate computer (hardware) based products to hardware products in regard to legacy use though, hardware simply connects while software must be compatible with the host.
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Yep they are a great dongle .

Also bear in mind that authors of the great plugs of the future will be happier the more protection a system can offer .
 
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