I have done more research and am leaning towards the AIO .

1)2)3)4 all sorted if I buy AIO

5) ???????????? There must be other AIO users here who can let me know if there is any noise with this PCIe card.
I read in a forum that RME fixed this issue and I am wondering how ? Hardware or software fix ? If hardware then what AIO hardware revision do I look to buy ?

Or is this all a myth ?

6) AIO does 2.5Gbps ( 500MB/s ) I take it that is 250MB/s both ways

I am just after some solid information so I can buy the best PCIe card and would appreciate some users experience with this before I buy .

Thanks

Based on my experience CPU consumption is not much more.
In the past I had also the "suspicion" it has to be a PCIe card.
Therefore I build afterwards a construct like this, to use the UFX as preamp on a RayDAT.
https://www.tonstudio-forum.de/blog/ind … RME-RayDAT

If you compare RME PCIe, FW, USB, thunderbolt solutions in terms of RTT between PC and recording interface,
then you will notice, that USB and Firewire are very close to PCIe/Thunderbolt based solutions:

If you create very big test projects with 400 tracks (!) and 2 VSTs per track (!), then you will notice,
that with the UFX+ via USB3 you can still playback with only 32 samples ASIO buffersize without pops and clicks.
See my blog article: https://www.tonstudio-forum.de/blog/ind … acks-de-en

In smaller projects with 2-3 VST instruments (Superior Drummer, Trillian, B4) I tried to find out whats better,
UFX or UFX in front of a RayDAT in terms of CPU, but tbh I couldn't find much visible difference.

I leave it up to you, whether you still want/prefer a PCIe based card.

I would rather than that suggestion to look at the UFX II. Then you have a real top recording interface with so many advantages. And as it is a 30 channel interface it still fits to USB2 which makes this very flexible.

I recommend the UFX II because it is the UFX+ (minus MADI, minus Thunderbolt) that has been designed last recently and hast latest converter technology, overworked preamps, analog section, better headphone outputs, better Durec, timestamps in Durec recordings, additional features to make standalone operation more complete, you can connect the ARC USB directly to the device which is nice for standalone operation.

If money is not limiting you, get UFX II. Otherwise look at UCX.
802 needs the old ARC to switch between standalone profiles and doesnt have auto set.

Look at this comparison sheet in my blog article:
https://www.tonstudio-forum.de/index.ph … 017-12-pdf

So my recommendation to you is, don't limit yourself (in terms of interface selection) too much because "you heard" that USB might be a disadvantage because of higher CPU consumption. Get the recording interface that covers your current and future demand. Recording interfaces that have been designed last recently usually have the latest converter technology, analog section, phones preamps. And look at the final cost, the AIO becomes quite expensive if you expand it to the full solution when buying each available module. Also I regard it as better to have 1 big USB cable from PC to rack instead of having to deal with breakout cables in the back of the PC.
And build your setup simple in terms of the number of TotalMix FX instances that are required to manage your setup.

If you use i.e. an UFX as Preamp and for AD/DA in Front of your RayDAT (like I did for some time), then you need to control the routing for each of the 2 Recording interfaces in 2 separate TotalMix Instances. Possible and can be easily hardcoded, but this is not everybodies taste. When connecting only pure Preamps or ADDA devices, this would not occurr, since you control the routing then exclusively on the RayDAT card.

The most flexible solution is to use RME recording interfaces together with the Octamic XTC, which can be configured as an AUX device, so that you can control the most required functions of this very versatile Unit via the one TM FX instance of your main interface (be it an UFX* or RayDAT or whatever). You only need MIDI cables for the remote control of the XTC. And even this can be topped if you would get i.e. an UFX+ which supports MIDI over MADI. Then you have 1 fibre cable, you can connect up to 8 XTC and build a fiber ring between these devices, where each cable maybe be up to 2km long and the you can remote controll all the 8 XTCs from the one TM FX instance of the UFX+, which makes the UFX+ with MADI to a very versatile unit. Octamic XTC also comes with MADI. And there are several other interesting preamps and AD/DA available to expand this solution further. Most versatile is the XTC and much comfort as you can control everything in the TM FX instance of the UFX+. Ok .. everything has its price, its not cheap, but very flexible, the only reason why I told you this, as not many people know about these advantages when using MADI.

Another nice feature of the new devices like UFX II and UFX+ is, that the MADIface driver supports many devices.
This means that ALL devices which you connect by MADIface driver can directly be accessed by your DAW or other application that supports ASIO, as of now you can access by this one driver these devices: UFX+, UFX II, MADIface XT / Pro / USB, OctaMic XTC, ADI-2 Pro, Digiface USB.

Ok so correct me if I am wrong but I think I am getting this PCIe card differences.

Raydat does not have dac but the AIO does. The ray dat needs a dac like adi-2 pro to process connect my speakers but the AIO doesn’t need this.

So the question remains what is the major advantages of the ad/da on the AIO vs the ADI-2 Pro ? Is it night and day to my ears ? Is the latest ad/da on the adi-2 pro worth the spend ?

I am still a little lost with the arc USB and why it’s needed in the raydat adi-2 combination

Also what is the connections available from the raydat to the adi-2 pro. Because my main focus with this upgrade from the babyface is the CPU processing I want a sound card that can communicate both ways simaltainiously so when my projects are big as they are I need that my cpu needs that.
With that said how does the raydat adi-2 really work together ?
What I mean is the AIO does Packet-based full-duplex communication ( both ways simaltainously )
  What about the raydat adi-2 combination  ? I assume the adi-2 will do the work via direction connection to the raydat via ADAT or AES ( I will not use the adi-2 USB connection  because of the same reason Iam upgrading ).
With premium ad/da + add ons put aside for the moment between the AIO and ADI, is there a TRUE Packet-based full-duplex communication WITH THE RAYDAT ADI combination or is there only one way once it reaches the ADAT /AES connection of the raydat.
Can you please elaborate on this as this is important to me ?

I am grateful for all the information your prividing . I get the arc USB remote and agree it’s awsome Thank you

I am still yet to find information on what happens at the connection point from the  raydat to ( a / any ) ADDA ! is this a one way communication via light pipe or duplex packet data via light pipe ?

I am  really curious if the UFX+ thunderbolt is duplex ( I bet it is ) and what is the line speed both ways being thunderbolt II ??

Light pipe is obviously (pun intended) a one-way connection of pure digital audio data, this is not comparable to a data connection like USB.

"Speed" is not a criterion, and there is more than enough bandwidth...

Regards
Daniel Fuchs
RME

Speed/Bandwidth is what I meant !

What is more than enough bandwidth ? Can we please have the gbps ?

So it must be no secret that the thunderbolt 2 does up to 20Gbps bi directional 10 each way I am now strongly considering buying a UFX + but only if I can get this information.

I am not interested in the USB 3.0 connection on this unit only the thunderbolt gbps please RME ?

Regards

Is there a UFX + PDF that may contain this info ?

to 1) I think you can deduce it from this link https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thunderbolt_(interface)

to 2) don't know why you ask this .. look .. you might know that all the channels of UFX+ are transferred instantly. There simply needs to be enough bandwidth to transfer them. USB3 (which is also full duplex) is able to handle the bandwidth of all UFX+ channels, thus thunderbolt also is capable of handling it.

USB2 bandwidth 480 Mbps (half-duplex) was alway sufficient to transfer 30 inputs and outputs (UFX, UFXII)
USB3 bandwidth 5000 Mbps (full-duplex) is sufficient to transfer 94 inputs and outputs (UFX+)
Thunderbolt     = 2 x 10.000 Mbps multiplexed
Thunderbolt 2  = 20.000 Mbps 1 logical channel
Thunderbolt 3  = 40.000 Mbps, I assume also here 1 logical channel

USB3 has approx 10 times the bandwidth of USB2 and is full-duplex. But the UFX+ has not 10 times the amount of channels, so USB3 should be fully sufficient to transfer all channels of the UFX+.

Thunderbolt is 4 -8 times the BW of USB3, so the BW for UFX+ is much much more than sufficient.

The Z820 PCIe slots connect directly to each cpu. The USB ports on the Z820 have to go through 2 x controllers first.
This is my main reason for wanting PCIe or thunderbolt as it will help my specific architecture flow faster for my cpu. Then I am interested “actual”bandwidth for ufx+ so as no bottle neck between nvme and lsi bandwidths, just making sure each component i buy is right. I appreciate all the info and know that rme drivers are special and that rme can do wonders with USB 3 and USB 2 interfaces hey I own a babyface and it’s amazing.  Sorry it’s late here in Perth and I am going to buy a ufx + as it will be the best for me.
Thanks again I will be back if I need some help with it.

Regards

Ok I am almost ready to buy the ufx plus either way this doesn’t matter but I am curious.

Does the ufx plus support thunderbolt daisychaining? I know there is only one thunderbolt port but would it be able to sit at the end of the daisy chain ?

If I have a UAD_2 Thunderbolt connected to my HP thunderbolt PCIe card can I connect the UFX plus into the daisychain port on the UAD-2 ??????

If so great
If not then I will buy the ufx plus and the uad PCIe octo

Need rme staff member to answer this please.

Regards