The Mother of All "Which Computer Should I Buy" threads

Reilley

Reilley

New member
I'm a beginner. I'm going to build a PC-based DAW, to run something like
Sonar + Ableton + an editor, with a decent interface [PCI or USB 2]
providing not more than 4 inputs, and maybe only two, since I'm going to be more or less doing my own projects, one track at a time. I need some advice on buying a computer.

I don't have a big budget, so it will be a mom and pop PC, [Compaq or other,] not a specialized unit. The questions which I need answered are:

1) Lots of posters seem to run more than one hard drive. Why? How desireable is this? Will most Best Buy/Future Shop type of computers have a bay available?

2) Lots of posters and writers run two monitors. I have two CRTs. What upgrading is required to do this, and how necessary is it?

3) Will all such common computers allow installation of a PCI interface card, without complication?

4) Is a dual-core pretty well necessary? One 'expert' told me that you need lots of computing horsepower not for recording, but for output, since you may have a zillion tracks of output. Another said not so, you can input a zillion, output is still stereo.

Thanks very much for any advice.
 
Reilley said:
I'm a beginner. I'm going to build a PC-based DAW, to run something like
Sonar + Ableton + an editor, with a decent interface [PCI or USB 2]
providing not more than 4 inputs, and maybe only two, since I'm going to be more or less doing my own projects, one track at a time. I need some advice on buying a computer.

I don't have a big budget, so it will be a mom and pop PC, [Compaq or other,] not a specialized unit. The questions which I need answered are:

1) Lots of posters seem to run more than one hard drive. Why? How desireable is this? Will most Best Buy/Future Shop type of computers have a bay available?
Click to expand...

Forget the box stores and look for a decent local builder. The unit won't cost you any (or much) more than a box store and you will avoid proprietary designs and cheap crap that lives inside the Dells and the Compaqs of the world now. Besides you're less likely to get ignored by some jerk who's lucky to have any job at all.

You can also get a local guy to build to your needs - like ordering a quiet computer case from Antec or some other builder that pays attention to noise issues.

Dual drives are very desireable and easily done to nearly any computer. The idea is that if you're recording something, you don't want the read / write heads searching for instructions from the program at the same time. It's asking for trouble and is unnecessary. So: load the operating system and the software on Drive C: and use the second drive (D; or whatever it ends up being) to store all the data - all the cuts and songs. Simple, cheap, fast and foolproof.


Reilley said:
2) Lots of posters and writers run two monitors. I have two CRTs. What upgrading is required to do this, and how necessary is it?
Click to expand...

Not necessary but it makes workflow much easier because you can have more information in front of you at one time without bouncing between screens and getting lost. You need a dual head graphics card.

I use two old Dell color monitors - 17" behemoths I picked up used for $20 each because they have no pedestal bases. I use paperback books and a kleenex box; they stay put. You have to do a little research on dual head cards, though. Try to avoid the hotrod graphics cards as they will have fans (noise) and will use resources without giving you any value. I picked up an old Matrox dual head card for about fifty bucks on ebay years ago - no fan and it does fine. Matrox is a pretty solid brand. It can get testy with ASUS motherboards, but Matrox has any driver patch you might need.

Reilley said:
3) Will all such common computers allow installation of a PCI interface card, without complication?
Click to expand...

Yes.

It might be worth while to learn about the new PCI express interface standard; I believe it is backward compatible with PCI cards and the advantage is that each card has its own spot on the buss and does not have to share resources with any other card. Translated: more speed, fewer glitches.

Reilley said:
4) Is a dual-core pretty well necessary? One 'expert' told me that you need lots of computing horsepower not for recording, but for output, since you may have a zillion tracks of output. Another said not so, you can input a zillion, output is still stereo.
Click to expand...

Nope.

It means more power and more speed, but its not necessary at all. One way to get a bit more bang for the buck is to get an ASUS motherboard with a "socket 939" chip socket design - that still has a good upgrade path for hotter CPUs in the future. You can also get an AMD 64 bit CPU chip that will give you much more performance than a standard 32 bit chip.

The computer's resources are used not in recording, but in mixing and in the use of effects; that's usually where an anemic rig will stumble. A cost efficient way to avoid resource problems is to upgrade to 2Gig RAM when you get the computer instead of leaving it at 1Gig.

All of the above just reiterates why you should avoid a big box store if you're building a single purpose rig. Otherwise, toss more RAM in and hope for the best. But for the same money and a little planning you can get a really nice DAW. Just don't expect to find it from a major brand. You can do it for under $700.

One other note - forget using any sound circuitry on a motherboard - at all. Forget an Audigy card or any other gamer or Staples - type card. You will need to go one step up here. Look for basic 24/96 or 24/192 cards with minimal inputs and outputs - the catalogs all have the same stuff. You can do pretty well without blowing a lot of money, but just forget using a gaming card.

Reilley said:
Thanks very much for any advice.
Click to expand...

Any time! :D
 
Thanks for that, Treeline. I should perhaps mention that as regards interface/card, I'm leaning toward the E-MU 1212M.
 
Good advice from Treeline. On one point I disagree. Intel dual core & 965 chipset is unquestionably king of the cpu heap right now. Anything else is a step backward.

The emu card will be fine. A firewire interface is also worth a look. Much more portable than pci, and more future proof at this point in time
 
just a few minor corrections:

a) socket 939 is dead for AMD. look for socket AM2 which takes advantage of DDR2 RAM. of course, that is moot if Reilley goes with an Intel board/CPU

b) PCI Express is not backwards compatible with PCI. most boards out there now have 1 or 2 PCI Express slots, 2 or more PCI slots, and several USB and Firewire ports. having all of these slots/ports on the board should put Reilley in a good position.

and to answer Reilley's questions regarding availble hard drive bays, the Gateway BTX cases have space for another HD. Compaq, HP, and E-Machines generally don't have room for a 2nd HD without removing something else.
 
The biggest upgrade I have ever had was going from an Intel p4 3.6g to an Intel Core Duo E6700 (975 chipset).

It is a HUGE difference. I can have many, many live effects now. My 3.6g would have fallen flat on it's face with maybe a quarter of what the E6700 has done and I have yet to tax the E6700 to the max.
I've ran 5+ effects for 20 tracks, without having to lock the effects and no bogging down of the system.

I swear, I'm completely blown away.
Not to mention this new processor runs so cool the CPU fan hardly even spins making the PC super quiet.
 
Well I'm of the opinion that if you seriously want to learn about your computer and make it the center of your studio, build your own. New Egg has the best prices on parts and fast shipping. Pretty great place.

Here's a guide to PC building. There's probably more and newer ones, just do a Google search.

If you aren't comfortable building them, NeoComputers.com built a PC for me several years ago and did a great job. Higher prices but free build. Don't forget to get a copy of Windows XP.

Anyways, for PC's, either go AMD Athlon 64 X2 (with the AM2 chip) or the Intel Duo Core processors. The big advantage and difference between these and cheaper processors will be two distinct processors on one chip as well as higher level 2 cache allowing faster processing of advanced operations that DAW's require. This processor setup should last you 3 to 5 years easily. I'd also recommend getting a mini-ATX board and case to save space. And even a cheap video card will have the ability to have two monitors...just check the specs and make sure you get PCI-X or AGP (depending on your board).

If you don't plan on doing a lot of tracks with tons of plugins and virtual instruments and things, you can get away with a "big box" computer. For your average user, they'll be fine. 8 tracks with simple plugs, you're good to go.

Personally, I'm ditching the PC and going Mac. OSX looks like a blast and now that they've gone Intel Duo Core, I can run Windows XP if I have to.

One way or another, get a second hard drive for your files and data. Only use the main hard drive for your operating system and your programs. I recommend external because you can take it to any computer. Also, make sure you get a lot of memory. At least 1 gig for basic recording and 2 gigs if you want to do tons of stuff.
 
fuzzrhythm said:
just a few minor corrections:

a) socket 939 is dead for AMD. look for socket AM2 which takes advantage of DDR2 RAM. of course, that is moot if Reilley goes with an Intel board/CPU

b) PCI Express is not backwards compatible with PCI. most boards out there now have 1 or 2 PCI Express slots, 2 or more PCI slots, and several USB and Firewire ports. having all of these slots/ports on the board should put Reilley in a good position..
Click to expand...

Hey - I'm learning something every day at this place. Sorry for the PCI Express error... :o I built my own (AMD64 3000+ chip) DAW with stuff from Newegg. I found it an excellent place to do business. The computer works fine, but I'll have to dig in to the BIOS a bit to install a DVD burner; never done that before.
 
Shouldn't have to do anything, just unplug the computer, pop in the burner, make sure the jumper is on cable select (or master/slave if you prefer but check the other drive then), turn on Windows and install the software. No drivers required, no BIOS tampering required (unless you turned off IDE support).
 
i've got an audiophile 2496 sitting around that I could sell you. it's a great clean card, i upgraded to more channels.
 
Yareek said:
Shouldn't have to do anything, just unplug the computer, pop in the burner, make sure the jumper is on cable select (or master/slave if you prefer but check the other drive then), turn on Windows and install the software. No drivers required, no BIOS tampering required (unless you turned off IDE support).
Click to expand...

The other devices are all IDE and this is on the SATA buss. I just have to activate the controller. Or so it tells me.
 
Treeline said:
The other devices are all IDE and this is on the SATA buss. I just have to activate the controller. Or so it tells me.
Click to expand...

SATA DVD burner? That's pretty slick. Yeah if you have to activate SATA, it takes two seconds.
 
Another very pleased Newegg customer here. I've built several boxes in the past year or so, all of it came from Newegg. Building is really the way to go imo. You can get the bare minimum to get you started, and upgrade things here and there as you go. If money is tight, don't worry about dual harddrives right off the bat, don't worry about CD/DVD burners at first, don't worry about 2G RAM. For a very modest price you can get a box up and running, then in a few months add a stick of memory here and there, add another drive here and there.

My recording box started off as an Intel Socket 478 (2.6G or something like that), Asus mobo, 512mb PC3200 and an 80G HD with just a simple CD burner, M-Audio Delta410 and my old Nvidia 5900xt in your average, run of the mill mid-tower. Over the past year I've added RAM at 2 seperate incriments (2G now) another HD (160G'r) another Delta 410 and a DVDR drive then transplanted it into a rack mount case with iso-matting and Vantec Stealth fans all around, rubber fan gaskets on the fans and PSU, HD silencer.
 
I'm also looking into the new computer market... but I don't really feel like going through the hassle of building one myself. I'm trying to get something pretty powerful, as I often do 16-channel simultaneous recording (and am able and would like to get to 24), and those recordings get a lot of FX treatment done to them. I'd like to go rackmount, 64 bit, dual monitors, and so on. I'll be using my RME Digiface/PCI card.

Any thoughts on the PCs from Full Compass or Sweetwater?

Full Compass' Dual Core PC looks like a pretty good deal...
http://www.fullcompass.com/product/319800.html

And Sweetwater's closest match seems a lot more expensive and has less power? What gives?
http://www.sweetwater.com/creation_station/rackdual30.php
 
That's the line one needs to ponder. If you have the money, great buy whatever looks good. However, for guys like myself, I can build equal to better than what you've posted for under 1k, and use the money saved for other new toys. weeeeeeeee
 
Creamyapples1 said:
That's the line one needs to ponder. If you have the money, great buy whatever looks good. However, for guys like myself, I can build equal to better than what you've posted for under 1k, and use the money saved for other new toys. weeeeeeeee
Click to expand...

Really? The difference is that much? I built my first computer (which I'm typing on right now), and so I know some of the details, but I've also made the mistake of buying the wrong components from time to time, which was just plain annoying. If (when I get around to it) I decide to build one, do you suppose you'd be able to look at my product lists and give me some advice on compatibility/noise/performance?
 
Sure, this place has several do-it-yourselfers, so there are some others that'll probably chime in as well. Feel free to post, we'll check it out.

Edit* In fact, I'll post some links here in a few.
 
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820161675 x2
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813138034
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16819116255
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16811219007
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822144415
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822144417 x2
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814161008
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817153026
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16832116175
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16827106019

$1.022.89

Faster RAM, Better Video card.

And for another 50 bucks or so you can get the iso-padding and Vantec Stealth fans. This case will accomodate 2 40mm, 2 80mm and 2 120mm. I only run 1 120 and 2 40s and mine is cool as a cucumber.
 
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