In this video for Pro Tools Expert's James Ivey is joined by Rich Rogers of Create Pro to find out Just how much more can James' Mac Pro (Cheese grater) be upgraded.

This time James and Rich have come up with the ultimate test for the  Universal Audio UAD-2 platform. Create Pro have provided James and Rich with a Cubix Xpander Elite 4 slot PCIe expansion chassis. This connects up to the Mac Pro PCI buss using PCIe card slotted into the mac adding another 3 slots to your Mac Pro.  Universal Audio have provided 6 UAD-2 Octo cards for the test. This means James and Rich will have 48 Sharc DSP chips to play with.

This is a world first, this test had never been done before not even by the R&D teams at Universal Audio. We know that the current maximum number of Universal Audio UAD-2 devices you can connect together at one time via any format is 6. Normally this could be a PCIe card, an external UAD-2 Satellite and an Apollo or 2, but 6 Octo cards is the most powerful DSP system that can be created on the UAD-2 platform.

In this first part of the test James and Rich decide to use the traditional Mac Power Test session that Russ created to test his Mac Mini and Mac Book Pro.  Concentrating on the only the audio channels watch as they load up different UAD-2 plug-ins to try to create the ultimate virtual console. 

During the video you will hear James speak about 2 plug-in charts. One is a Pro Tools Expert creation from when Russ tested the 2 different versions of the UAD Neve 1073 plug-in.  The other is from Universal Audio there they list the power requirements for all their UAD-2 plug-ins.