Best components for DAW PC

[ErikTheRed]

I'm about to buld myself a dedicated audio recording PC, or DAW. I am looking for advice as to which components I should include.

Specifically I need advice as to which make and model of motherboard you guys reccomend. I know that I shoudl use only intel chipset boards and I'll put in the fastest Intel CPU that I can afford. I'll start off with 2Gb memory and work up as needed since I am a Cubase SX3 user and this is a memory hog.

I'm not going to buy an external (AGP) graphics card yet. I want to optimise my sound cards first so that there are a few IQRs used as possible.

I'm going to use 2 SATA 250Gb disks as well as a 120Gb IDE device. Why? I want to put in 2 seperate boot devices so that I can use the two SATA disks for windows boot and data storage while the IDE disk will also be bootable for internet connections with anti-viruse software, etc.

So, I have some answers but I need your help guys. Especially for the motherboard.

Thanks - Pete

 

[michaelst]

Pete...

I've used nothing but ASUS motherboards for the last 7 PC's I've built - DAW and DVW - and have had great success with them. They are stable and versitile. You might pay a bit more for them then others, but the support and reliability is worth the price.

They have good onboard video, and many models are capable of more then 2gb of ram.

 

[ErikTheRed]

Michael,

I too have had good luck with ASUS and also with MSI. I don't mind a coupla extra bucks on the essential componenets and I regard the system motherboard as the most important part of my system. If that ain't right then nuttin' else can be.

Thanks for yoor input.