Building new dedicated DAW. Are my specs ok?

LemonTree

LemonTree

Suck 'em and see!
I've been running an AMD 1800XP on a Gigabyte GV7XE+ with 512Meg PC2100 and 2x 40Gig ATA133/7200 hard drives on a dual boot system. Win98 for everything else and WinXPpro for the music (I'm a cool edit pro & Cubase SX user). I've decided it's time to build a dedicated DAW. In red are the parts I already have (one new part per pay check for the next 6 weeks). Do my specs look ok?


Pentium IV 3Ghz Processor
Asus P4P800 Deluxe Motherboard (800Mhz FSB)
19" Antec Rackmount locking PC case (1x120mm silent intake 2x80mm silent exhaust fans @18Dbls)1Gig of 3200DDR Fastram (400Mhz) 2x 512Meg matched strips for a staggering 800Mhz front side bus
80Gig ATA133/7200rpm system drive with 8Meg cache
160Gig Recording hard drive ATA133/7200rpm with 8meg cache
super silent 400Watt power supply running at 21 decibels...near silent
Maxtor G450 Dual head video card
Delta 1010 8in/8out soundcard
Delta 410 2in/8out soundcard X2

12 ins/24 outs Analog + S/PDIF

Any suggestions, hints or tips would be very much apreciated, thanks

Alec

P.S. My parts list was compiled after weeks of searches on HRDC. I think I have everything covered but just want to make sure. Should I see much of a noticable difference?
 
LemonTree said:
Pentium IV 3Ghz Processor
Asus P4P800 Deluxe Motherboard (800Mhz FSB)
80Gig ATA133/7200rpm system drive with 8Meg cache
160Gig Recording hard drive ATA133/7200rpm with 8meg cache
Click to expand...

My system is quite similar, but I went with the Pentium 4 2.8 Ghz since you can easily overclock it to almost 3.2ghz (with no special cooling). Save yourself some $$ for RAM. I have the Asus Mobo which has been rock-solid (be sure to d/l the latest BIOS) and I have 1Gb of Corsair RAM which is also very solid.

I'm also using a Serial ATA hard drive (180Gb) which I've partitioned for O/S & apps, and have a second 120Gb HD for those huge music and video files. The performance seems quite good, so you may consider SATA since most of the industry is headed there.

Which audio card are you going to use with it? (My weakest link now is my Audigy 2, which I plan to augment with an Audiophile 2496 soon.) You have good experience with driver support from M-Audio?
 
Hoodoo said:
Which audio card are you going to use with it? (My weakest link now is my Audigy 2, which I plan to augment with an Audiophile 2496 soon.) You have good experience with driver support from M-Audio?
Click to expand...


all 3 cards (1x Delta 1010 & 2x Delta 410's will be used in the system). I've never had any problems with the Delta cards although I know when first released there was a problem with XP drivers which has since been resolved for most if not all hardware configs. If anyone has this setup of CPU and MOBO runing delta cards I'd love to hear from you

and I have 1Gb of Corsair RAM which is also very solid.
Click to expand...

I'm going for the matched Corsair 2x512 PC3200 ram kit, that's part of the budget.


Also, I'm thinking of getting a DVD/R for saving the big projects...anyone recomend a good one?
 
LemonTree said:
Asus P4P800 Deluxe Motherboard (800Mhz FSB)
...
80Gig ATA133/7200rpm system drive with 8Meg cache
160Gig Recording hard drive ATA133/7200rpm with 8meg cache
...
Click to expand...

I use Delta1010LT with P4P800 (not Deluxe, no Firewire). Rock solid!!! Make sure you download their newest BIOS. It's been almost 5 or so BIOS update since I bought it!!!!! Not to mentioned drivers... Jeessss..., at least we know they work on it, tought their customer support is pretty lame. If you don't use firewire, nor planing to use it, then you can save ~$40 on plain P4P800 (not deluxe), and get yourself SATA150 HD :)

;)
Jaymz
 
James Argo said:
I use Delta1010LT with P4P800 (not Deluxe, no Firewire). Rock solid!!! Make sure you download their newest BIOS. It's been almost 5 or so BIOS update since I bought it!!!!! Not to mentioned drivers... Jeessss..., at least we know they work on it, tought their customer support is pretty lame. If you don't use firewire, nor planing to use it, then you can save ~$40 on plain P4P800 (not deluxe), and get yourself SATA150 HD :)

;)
Jaymz
Click to expand...

James is there any particular reason for getting the new BIOS?

LemonTree I run the P4P800, P4 2.8c, and a Delta 44, and it's very stable an reliable. Someone mentioned overclocking. If you plan to overclock, I've heard good things about the 2.4c chip. Otherwise just get the fastest chip you can afford. If you use a lot of plugins, they consume bigtime cpu.
Maybe just check that Corsair ram is on the Asus approved ram list.
SATA is worth considering as well.

Looks like a helluva rig
 
BULLS, thanks man...never thought to check the ram out. I'll get on that. I won't be overclocking...no need?

Also, my supplier doesn't stock the P4P800.... just the deluxe, seems like a fair price here in the UK (£89)

I don't know shit about SATA. I want one HD for system and one for direct recording. Any info (I'll search too) would be helpfull, thanks. I currently have 2x 30gig ATA133 drives (without the 8 meg cache)...do I need the 8meg cache on both drives or just the hard disk recorder?

Much thanks for all comments. I never built a pentium system before, always been AMD but with noise a factor and Pents running cooler (so I hear).....

Alec
 
P4s do indeed run cooler , mostly because Intel went to the trouble of designing a whole new chip rather than AMD who recycle their old designs. But that's how come AMD are so cheap.

I might not bother with SATA now, the fact is that your machine is gonna be able to handle any audio or even video editing you throw at it. Larger HD caches is always a good idea for any drive, but I guess like you say the priority would be for the one streaming all the data.

I imagine you'll have more than you need now. If you're ok for drivers etc I would choose Windows 2000 over XP still ... but that's splitting hairs!
 
noisedude said:
I imagine you'll have more than you need now. If you're ok for drivers etc I would choose Windows 2000 over XP still ... but that's splitting hairs!
Click to expand...


never thought about Win2000 as an option. Why?

I have XPpro...another question is, Fat32 or NTFS?
 
Well, 2K doesn't have any of the bells and whistles found in XP, so it's a bit more stable and efficient. But if you've got XP Pro that's cool ... make sure you work your way through that website that's all about setting up XP for audio. Can't find the link now, but someone will know it.

NTFS, btw. Quicker and less wastage of space. Depending on the size of the disk, XP will choose it by default anyway.
 
thanks noisdude, already know how to manipulate XP to remove all the crap I don't need from the sysoc file
 
Cool. Sounds like you're set ... damn, I enjoy building a new PC like few other things ... like buying a whole cupboard full of new foods from Asda and knowing it's still gonna fill you up the same as before, but somehow it'll be so much 'better'!!!

(WTH am I on about?)
 
Yeah SATA won't make a huge difference. They are marginally faster than parallel and they do have the nice skinny cables.

I'd also suggest using the biggest blocksize you can specify on your audio drive when you format it, as this performs best with sequential access
 
...........ok so asda is like a walmart for the UK? or do yall have walmart too?

oh yeah and as for the daw.....make sure you have enough system fans in there to keep that thing cool. i havent heard much about keeping it cool
 
Err ... Asda is much older than Walmart. It was originally a Yorkshire dairy. But since it became one of the big three supermarket chains Walmart came in and bought it. The main difference is the silly greeters on the doors who insist on asking you how you are as you try to get your trolley going straight.
 
i come in there with a bad attitude look on my face and the old guy looks like hes too afraid to say anything to me or give me a sticker for comming into walmart....i kinda like that.
 
noisedude said:
P4s do indeed run cooler , mostly because Intel went to the trouble of designing a whole new chip rather than AMD who recycle their old designs. But that's how come AMD are so cheap.

I might not bother with SATA now, the fact is that your machine is gonna be able to handle any audio or even video editing you throw at it. Larger HD caches is always a good idea for any drive, but I guess like you say the priority would be for the one streaming all the data.

I imagine you'll have more than you need now. If you're ok for drivers etc I would choose Windows 2000 over XP still ... but that's splitting hairs!
Click to expand...

So what is the excuse for the Prescotts, which run hotter and are even less efficient that the Canterwoods?

AMD doesn't completely redesign their chips everytime because they don't have to.

An A64 3400+ would stomp all but a P4EE. I would suggest at least taking a look at them.
 
I hear you. Intel did mess up with the Prescotts.

No, the reason AMD doesn't redesign is because they still don't have the R+D budget of Intel and they chose to concentrate on 64-bit stuff, which is where the Opteron has spanked the Itanium all over the park. They've done what they can well, but can't compete on all fronts. Athlons are still cheap (I wouldn't buy a P4 myself, but I'm poor) but their floating points are still usually well lower than P4s.
 
ok let me get this straight

if you get a raid controller for 2 eighty gig sata drives, wont you get twice the drive speed out of it, hence the raid makes it look like its one drive and uses both drives to read and write simotaniously?

ive never used a raid but this is the impression that i get when reading about them.

so if thats correct it be one good way to speed up your recording system

make sure and correct me if im wrong (someone with raid experience) :D lol

peace
 
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