if you were building a pc...

G

gatezk

New member
what pieces would you use? assumings you had the funds for it? i seem to get mixed reviews for every company, so i figured id ask what you guys expericenced.

so far, i own a Delta 66 soundcard/omni studio set up.

and i decided on:
1) INTEL P4-3.2GHZ 800MHZ FSB 512 CACHE
2)RADEON 9800 Pro 128MB DDR

and iwas leaning towards :
1)P4P800 Pentium 4 w/ HT, Socket 478, ATX, 4GB DDR-SDRAM, 800MHz FSB

i was still rather unsure of what hardrive to get(i want 2 80 gig hard drives), RAM, case and cooling.

I was leaning towards buying a new computer, but after reading up, building seemed like the way to go. Any help would be great.

thanks in advace,

g
 
also...

if my 2nd harddrive was external running thru FireWire, would this be an effective way of keeping the computer cooler? and are the external ones noiser?

thanks again.

peace
 
Spend your money wisely.
For working with audio nobody needs 4GB of RAM.
Or a P4 3.2GHz.
Or external firewire drives unless you have a laptop or something like an imac.
 
true...

but i will also be using it for graphic design work and other such activities.

while the firewire drive isnt needed, i still think if i have the money now i should get the 3.2 and around 1-2 gigs. But i just wouldnt know what brands to get etc etc since ive never built my pc from scratch before.

i just want to have whats the latest now so that i wont have to rebuild another one later on. i rather just upgrade this one as time goes on(and as prices for ram drop etc)

so what 80 gig hard drive would you recommedn?

thanks, cuz im stumped since theres so many options
 
Wish I had the money to be on the bleeding edge! just looking at the current prices going from 3.0 to 3.2 will cost you about an extra $270.00, wow! well it's your money but I don't think a speed hike of .2 is worth that amount, but you know soon after you get your prices on it will drop like a rock...never fails.

So what I'm saying is save your money and get the 3.0, you won't be able to say you have the fastest, but in a few months you wouldn't have anyways. $270.00 can get you some plug-ins or mic or cables and stands, or countless other thing that will actually improve your sound quality, .2 won't!
 
i was using a p4 2.4 and it was plenty fast to handle cubase and bunch o plug-ins. I am thinking about getting one of those $400 dells for my studio...I am running the firestation so all I need is the firewire hookup.
 
the video card you have is overkill for a DAW. It is a gaming card not a graphics design card. Get a cheaper card (it's always nice to get a dual head card) and maybe a slightly slower cpu if budget is an issue. That way you can afford a better soundcard! We are talking about recording after all. 4 gb of RAM is overkill unless you are trying to make a ramdrive. 1 gb on an xp system should get you by nicely. I usuallly get western digital or maxtor hard drives. Those are the only two brands that have not failed on me. Ibm is complete crap, I've had several seagate drives go down also. Look at your audio chain, that is the most important part, i.e. you sound card. So what if you computer is fast enough to record 64 tracks with lots of plugs if those tracks sound shitty. I'd take a 500 mhz computer with a decent soundcard anyday over a fast computer with mediocre soundcard. You can do a full mix with a 500mhz computer with a little creative thought.
 
ok..

so you think i should upgrade my soundcard? thats one of the things i was pretty satisfied with.

i was just reading some reviews for the Western Digital drives claiming that while the initial performance was good, they tend to crash. thats what confused me, apparently there seems to be no general rule of which company makes the best harddrive. ill check out maxtor now.

at the moment, if i were to get a slower computer, i was thinking of gettin a preamp(avalon?) but aparrently my soundcard should be upgraded first? which ones do you feel have better quality?

thanks for the help. i need to order the new pc by the first week of september, so i really am grateful for the quick respones

peace
 
I just bought an empty 19" 4HE ATX case for my new "mobile" PC. I will put in it a mobo with Athlon 2600+ XP processor, 512 MBs of RAM, 20GB & 120 GB disks, a DVD burner, an old AGP display card and two Terratec EWS88D soundcards and stuff it in my 6 unit SKB case along with two Behringer ADA8000 8 channel mic preamps. That should give me a pretty portable recording rig capable of recording 16 tracks simultaneously for about 1500 euros. Almost forgot about the 15" TFT monitor but it still should stay well below 2Ke mark. It'll be running W2K and for recording software I'll use the n-Tracks Studio 3.3.

This is by no means trying to be a pro setup but it should be more than adequate for an amateur like me. If some pieces of it should not meet my standards it's pretty easy to replace those with better ones later on.
 
I'd be considering using XP Professional instead of Win2000.

As much as I don't like the XP eye candy, I'm finding it the most stable of all MS operating systems. Win2000 was the evolution of the NT kernel, and is great for business use. XP has far more support for multimedia apps, and is not end-of-life like Win2000.

I'm just now placing XP into my clients' sites, as it has matured and the service packs/hotfixes are in place and working. The secret to XP is lots of memory. 512mb is adequate, but get more if you can. IMO, 256mb is entry level and 128mb is barely workable.
 
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