DAW MoBo, CPU etc...

S

Synkrotron

New member
Righty ho then... due to the fact that I've pretty much screwed up my current DAW during my recent upgrades to make my AMD PC quieter (trashed a hard disk that's going to take £600 to recover the data AND trashing the IDE0 controller on the motherboard) I'm now seriously thinking of making some major changes.

Before I start listing my concerns could I just say that I have used both Google and the search utility of this board and found many items on the subject but nothing that really satisfies me. So forgive me for raising questions that may have been asked/answered before.

OK, here goes:-

1) I've been AMD for some time and I'm currently on an XP2600+ which, despite many problems with various things, when it's worked all has been fine and I've had no issues with lack of CPU power.

But the AMD is noisy (or at least the bits that you need to install to keep it cool are). I've just upgrade the CPU and case fans and it's much quieter than it was but I'm wondering if I could go quieter still by switching to Pentium. The reason I say this is because all the PC's where I work are all Pentium based and they are much quieter than I've ever had my AMD even after upgrading my fans.

So, which would you recommend? AMD or Pentium. I'm not too bothered of going to 64 bit yet and I don't even need the latest and fastest 32 bit CPU...2.6 ghz or there abouts would do IMO.

2) having made my mind up about CPU selection I then need to think of a motherboard to stick it on.

This, I have come to find, is an absolute mine field... I read around and have sussed out that I need to select a motherboard whos chipset is based on the maker of the CPU so, for instance, if I plumb for an AMD then I'm better off finding a motherboard who's main chipset is also AMD. It seems that most recommend that you stay away from Via chipsets.

Then there's an absolute myriad of MoBo manufacturers (Asus, Abit, Gigabyte, ECS just to name a few.

Which brands would you recommend and which would you stay away from entirely?

3) RAM - Again, I've read a couple of articles about RAM. Go for branded RAM not generic... but which brands? Or are the pretty much of a muchness nowadays?


All the other bits and pieces I'm pretty much happy with. I've already decided that I'll start running with two hard drives (OS plus Audio).


I look forward to hearing your opinions ;)



andy
 
If you want your PC to be Quieter then use a Quiet Cooling system...

Generally the Noisiest thing in your PC will be the CPU Fan, If you for instance Installed a "Zalman CNPS700-CU" Cooler you would have Plenty of cooling power with allmost totally Silent Operation.... The Cooler is Quite Large so it has a Huge Surface area for dissapaiting heat so it doesn"t need a Very Fast or Loud fan to cool so It uses a 92mm 2500RPM 28CFM Fan that is totally silent.....

Upgradeing to a New P-4 system isn"t going to be cooler as the new P-4 CPU"s are actually quite a Bit hotter than the new AMD CPU"s, If you get an older P-4 CPU like a Northwood then they are Cooler and can be easilly overclocked (I have my 2.6ghz Overclocked to 3.2ghz) and if you use a Good Cooler Like the Zalman I mentioned before it would be allmost totally silent also.....

Cheers
 
Hmmm... interesting... so the new Pentiums are hotter (and possibly noisier) than the AMD's?

Perhaps I should stick to an AMD then seeing as I've just bought and fitted some quieter fans.

In the meantime, I've emailed Synthax for some advice (RME sound cards) on which MoBo would be best with their products.

I still fancy going pentium though and I'm not after the latest specs. A 2.6 ghz, perhaps just a little faster, would do for what I need I think.

So I really need to know which motherboard to go for...
 
Well if you are going to get an Older Model P-4 at say 2.6ghz then check out motherboards that use the Intel 865 and 875 Chipsets as they are Probably the Best chipsets for Running a P-4 in the Socket 478 Configuration....

I use an "Abit IS7" Mobo for my P-4 and it is an awesome Motherboard with Many great Features Like S/PDIF In/Out and Firewire and 6ch audio and it has Great Overclocking Features and Supports Dual Channel DDR Ram and it supports all P-4 and Celeron CPU"s in the 478 Pin Package....

You can find quite a Few Northwood P-4"s on ebay right now and these are some of the Best CPU"s Intel Made as they have a Low Temperature and are Easilly overclocked and they come in Speeds up to 3.2ghz and with Hyperthreading but with a 2.6ghz you can easilly overclock it to 3.0ghz or higher with a good Cooler.....

cheers
 
Don't forget the power supply. A cheap or server type power supply can be a major cause of PC noise.

I have an old dual 2.4G Xeon on a e7500 chipset board. The cpu coolers are surprisingly quiet, though I had to search a bit for a quieter power supply. Most cases now are far quieter than when it came out, so I had bought a new case.

Never had any probs with computing power though. ;)
 
OK...

I appear to be homing in on the Pentium 4 630 which runs at 3Ghz.

It's been a bit of a nightmare finding a suitable motherboard for this chip. I was led to believe, by the philrees.co.uk site (they build DAWs), that the Asus P5P800 SE board would be compatible but one site (microdirect.co.uk) was suggesting that the Pentium 4 630 required a chip set I915 or new and the Asus P5P800's chip set is I865PE.

On further investigation (and a good few hours later) I found quite a helpfull section over at the Intel site that has a search facility where you can specify a whole array of criteria. One thing that was confirmed was that the Pentium 4 630 did need an I915 chipset or better.

So I've now begun searching around for an Asus board (or some reason I seem to be set on Asus) with the required chip set. I'm finding that I am getting into technologies that I'm just not familiar with at all.

SATA for one... I've heard of it (Serial ATA), but how does it sit with Sonar? Up to now I've only come across mobo's that have just one ATA connector and god know how many SATA connections. I'm assuming that the ATA connector will be for the usual CD/DVD drives which means that I will be forced to go the SATA route for my system and audio drive.

PCI Express... what on earth is that? Where's the AGP connection gone? Looks like I've got to move away from AGP graphics and get into PCI Express x16 card... but again, how do they sit with Sonar?

And on top of all that, I've got to hope that my current sound card works with all this new stuff. I don't suppose there is any reason why it shouldn't but you just don't know. I'm using an RME Hammerfall Light DIGI9636 which is a great card. I've e-mailed them but up to now, no reply.

I know this is a bit of a long shot but is there anybody here that may be able to improve my confidence level w.r.t. building my new DAW? I've built loads of PC's in the past
(first PC was a 386) but I'm just not sure any more... particularly as I'm now getting serious about my DAW (it was a pure fluke that my AMD system functioned OK really).

andy
 
AMD Dual Core 64 X2 3800
At least 1g of Corsair/Mushkin/OCZ RAM(I have 4, but 1 is enough for most apps)
ECS KN1 Extreme Mobo or Abit KN8 mobo

Dual DVI VIdeo Card(matrox g550 for example)

ESI Juli@ sound card

that would be a bad-ass setup...I have something similar, and run Sequoia/Samplitude as my DAW.

I own a P4 and will never buy another one. I like my AMD much better...dont know why I bought the P4, always been an AMD guy. Intel blows.
 
You should have absolutly No problems running Sonar on the New Hardware Technoligies....

SATA is the New Hard Drive interface that runs at ATA-150 as opposed to the Fastest IDE Drives which are ATA-133, There is also SATA 2 which I think runs at ATA-300, but it doesn"t seem to be very widely available...
Most new motherboards will usually have 2 IDE Ports and a number of SATA ports(2 to 4+), So you can still use an IDE Hard Drive with one of the IDE Ports and use the other for CD/DVD Drives....I use a 200GB ATA-133 and a 120GB SATA...

PCI-Express 16x is the Newest and Fastest Graphics Interface which is twice as fast as AGP 8x Both Upstream and Downstream, With PCI-E 16X you can use 2 slots and Run 2 Video Cards at the Same time in "SLI" Mode so you can get twice the Graphics power of a single Card which is pretty awesome if you are into gameing....
There are also 1x,4x,8x PCI-Express slots for running other PCI Based cards...

Many new motherboards will also run on DDR2 memory so make sure you know what type of memory your new motherboard uses especially if you plan to use memory from your old system....

You should have no problem running Sonar or any other Music Software on a system that uses this Hardware configuration.....


Cheers
 
Well... finally made my choice :-

Tagan TG480-U22 £70.49
P5WD2 Premium £129.78
Pentium 4 630 £115.14
Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro £17.51
2x Corsair 1024MB TwinX XMS 5400 DDR2 £136.78
Asus AX550GE 256Mb £42.54
Seagate Baracuda SATA2 80Gb £36.43
Seagate Baracuda SATA2 250Gb £65.21
Sony DW-G120AB Dual Layer Black £28.62
Logitech Deluxe Keyboard Black (PS2) £7.05
19" AMW M199DS 8ms Silver Black DVI £160.96

I got the gear yesterday and I'v just got to the point where I can boot the beast up.

Shure is scary when you get to the bit where you power up for the first time;)


Everything seemed to boot up OK and I've left most of the BIOS settings to default.

Problem now is... I've stuck the XP Pro CD in and it won't let me install it because it say that it can't detect a hard drive. I must be missing something somewhere... I've followed all the instructions to the letter but can't find any special instructions when it comes to OS and SATA drives.

Ah well... another day browsing the net...


later


andy
 
WHAT A PRICK!!! I'm putting my SATA drive in one of these and the keylock is used to enable/disable the power to the drive. My last HD caddy had a keylock but it didn't need to be closed to power the drive up.

Not quite what I expected... but I formatting my new SATA now.........
 
Usually with systems that run on Just SATA Drives will require you to have the SATA Drivers on a Floppy Disk and to Load them before you Install Windows XP....

hope your new system works out for you...

Cheers
 
thanks dood...

XP loaded fine... but nothing ever goes that smooth.

Right now, my trauma appears to be that the Sony DVD/RW has suddenly buggered up for some reason :rolleyes:

I'm gonna try some of my other optical devices see if they work OK.
 
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