Questions about the 828 MK3 (Potential buyer)

[Grodon9999]

Hello, I’ve been a hobbyist DAW user since 1997 and I’m in the market for a new interface. My current one (original Soundscape Mixtreme) will never have 64-bit support and though she’s served me well it’s time for her to retire.

My current hardware is a Core I7 920 CPU, Asus P6T, 6 GB of Corsair RAM. Dual-booting XP and Windows 7 64-bit. I’m well aware that I’ll need to purchase a PCI/PCIe TI firewire card for best performance but that’s not a problem. I’m a recovering Cubase addict who’s current DAW is SONAR.

My question for the users of the 828 MKIII:

1. Assuming nothing is fracked up with my setup, how low of a roundtrip latency can I get with the 828 MKIII? I can currently get 4.5 ms round-trip latency on my Mixtreme at a 64-sample buffer which is good enough to me to play soft-synths/amp sims in real time without it feeling laggy.
2. The on-board DSP is really interesting to me. About how much power does it have to tracking? When tracking a live band, how many bands of EQ and Comps can you have going at once before it gets angry? I’d never need 4-bands of EQ and a comp on all 24 inputs, but a few effects is nice when tracking.
3. Do the DSP effects “print” when you record? If I’m tracking a vocal with the LA2A simulation, will it print with this effect or is it just for monitoring? Idealing for me the effects would not print when the signal is captured.
4. Mic pres good? Clean transparent?
5. Drivers stable at this point regarding 64-bit Vista/Windows 7?

Thanks in advance . . .