Building a DAW. Need tips

T

toka

New member
Hey!

Im gonna build a DAW. I need some tips on choosing some components for it. I want a nice and stable system which will not cost too much. I will buy a AMD Athlon XP 2,4 processor and 512 DDR RAM. I will use my Audiophile 24/96 soundcard with the OS Windows XP.

I havent decided which motherboard i will buy yet. Thats a though issue. Can anyone recommend me any good and cheap?

Also i will buy a extra monitor screen to my PC. Which GFX card should i buy that supports two monitors? I want the cheapest one.

Also i need some good fans to keep my PC as queit as possible.

All tips are welcome.

regards
toka
 
well if you're looking for stable, you could try a pentium on an intel board. i just built one without spending too much more than a comparible athalon and the stability has been outstanding, not to mention the performance. and here's the kicker, the stock fan that comes with the pentium processor is quiet as shit! AMD you gotta hunt around to find a quiet one cause the stock fan sounds like an airplane!

sounds like you're pretty set on AMD but just seems like less headache to go intel right now and it's not that much more expensive.

the matrox g450 should be able to handle two monitors fine without interfering with your audio.
 
toka said:
Hey!

I havent decided which motherboard i will buy yet. Thats a though issue. Can anyone recommend me any good and cheap?

Also i will buy a extra monitor screen to my PC. Which GFX card should i buy that supports two monitors? I want the cheapest one.

Also i need some good fans to keep my PC as queit as possible.

All tips are welcome.

regards
toka
Click to expand...

Get on M-Audio's web site and see if they recommend a chipset for use with your soundcard. If you plan to upgrade your soundcard find out which chipsets are recommended, If that info is not available e-mail them or some here can answer.

I use a aardvark q10 and went Abit BG7 board 845G chipset(Pentium 4.)

In general when I built mine AMDs were looked down on for DAWs.

For the two monitor setup definitely Matrox, the 450 is the least expensive card.

larry
 
I picked up a Geforce 4 MX440 based video card with dual VGA outputs this summer at Best Buy. It was only $99 and kicks the Matrox's ass in terms of video performance.
 
Toka

I've been researching an Athlon system myself. I plan to get a motherboard with an nForce2 chipset; check out this article:

http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.html?i=1759

and the forums on that site also. I don't know about this chip's compatibility with M-Audio products, though.

I am looking at the EPoX 8RDA, which is about $100 at newegg.

wren
 
Best to choose your software first, then build a machine to support it. You'll keep more of your money, time and sanity.
 
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