Will my older Digidesign hardware work on the new Apple G5?

Some Digidesign PCI Cards Cannot be Supported

August, 2003

Apple’s new Power Mac G5 computers include a technical change to PCI card support which renders some Digidesign PCI cards incompatible.

The G5’s PCI slots accomodate 3.3 volt-powered PCI cards only, compared to the G4’s PCI slots which supported mixed voltage cards (5.0 V, 12 V, or 3.3 V). While some of Digidesign’s PCI cards are compatible with both 5.0 V or 3.3 V PCI slots, others require 5.0 V-capable PCI slots and will be physically incompatible with Apple’s new Power Mac G5.

Note that while the G5 1.8 GHz and dual 2.0 GHz models have PCI-X slots, and the G5 1.6 GHz model has PCI (and not PCI-X) slots, all Power Mac G5s support 3.3 V PCI cards only. MIX Core, MIX Farm, and all Pro Tools|HD cards are 3.3 volt-powered PCI cards which comply with the G5 PCI specifications. In addition to incorrect voltage, 5.0 volt PCI cards will not fit in the PCI slots on any G5 models. The affected Digidesign PCI cards are as follows:

Digidesign PCI Cards Incompatible with Power Mac G5

*

Digi 001

*

Pro Tools|24 system cards, in Pro Tools|24 or Pro Tools|24 MIX systems:
d24 (core card on Pro Tools|24 systems)
DSP Farm

*

Pro Tools|24 MIX system card:
MIX I/O (Note: this is different than the MIX Core and MIX Farm cards. See MIX I/O Overview)

*

Audiomedia III (Toolbox)

*

Pro Tools Project PCI

*

Project II

*

Disk I/O (Pro Tools III Core card)

*

SampleCell II

* SCSI-64 Kit (included ATTO Express PCI-DC card is not compatible)

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