Magma EBU User Manual

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In the following section we will take a look at possible PCI Express 
expansion solutions using Magma’s EB7 chassis.  

Pro Tools® is a comprehensive 
solution for professional music 
editing. It offers advanced 
capabilities for recording and 
manipulation of music by controlling 
a large number of music tracks.  

This is done using at least one PCIe 
card with multiple Digital Signal 
Processor (DSP) chips onboard. 
From a system’s standpoint, the 
more PCIe cards (and hence DSP 
chips) are available, the more tracks 
can be edited and recorded digitally 
for a better final result. 

By combining the power of PCIe expansion through an EB7 system with 
multiple such PCIe cards, the same PC can record substantially more 
tracks. Additionally the same system may contain storage controllers 
(SAS/SATA/SCSI) as well as the hard drives for recording the tracks – 
all inside one box, freeing much of the PC hardware for other tasks.   

The table below shows a comparison between PCI and PCIe cards in 
terms of the number of recorded tracks.  

48KHz 

192 out of 192 

Using EB7-x8 PCIe Expansion 

96KHz 

96 out of 96 

Using EB7-x8 PCIe Expansion 

192 KHz 

36 out of 36 

Using EB7-x8 PCIe Expansion 

48KHz 

144 out of 192 

Using Magma CB4 PCI Expansion 

96KHz 

96 out of 96 

Using Magma CB4 PCI Expansion 

192 KHz 

13 out of 36 

Using Magma CB4 PCI Expansion