DAW Build Questions

G

gsrouse

New member
Hello everybody! This is my first post here. I am about to begin building a DAW PC and I was looking for any kind of advice that could be offered. Here's the questions I have so far:

Rackmount vs. Midtower case -
I will be recording in the same room as the computer so I am looking for something quiet. I cant find noise level specs for rackmount cases but I was leaning towards a rackmount for portability. I was looking at either an Antec 4U rackmount with a 400W PSU, or an I-Star 4U with a 350W PSU. Does anybody have experiences with Rackmounts and their noise levels? If I go mid-tower I was looking at the Antec Sonata or one of the Lian Li silent cases.

Motherboard & CPU -
Everybody keeps saying ASUS is the best and most stable for audio. Can anybody comment on this? Are the NForce chipsets really the best for Audio? I've seen the NForce3 get bad reviews. As far as a CPU I seem to get as many votes for an Intel as I do for an AMD. Does anybody know if one is better for recording than the other?

RAM -
I keep hearing DDR 400.


I am obviously in the beginning stages now so Im just looking into the key components. I will be using my Tascam US-428 for sound, and I've read to avoid the VIA chipsets with it. I am going to do what it takes financially to build the best audio PC I can. I actually used to be an employed computer hardware technician years ago, but my life took me in a different direction. I am now lost in all of the new technology. Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks so much,
Scott
 
Make sure that the rack case uses 80mm fans... I haven't found a quiet 120mm yet.

Some recording software is mighty particular about what chipset you are using, as well as which HDD... for example last I heard (I've been out of the loop for several months) Digi didn't much care for serial ATA.

Personally I would stay away from bleeding edge. A lot of folk pertend that if it isn't the latest and greatest then you shouldn't consider it, but having a good chunk of memory (i.e., 512mb), dual monitors, and dedicated fast HDD is more important than the fastest (and EXPENSIVE) processor. The vast majority of people on this board record at 44/48KHz with older computers and produce some really really great stuff. You just don't need the fastest box... get something middle of the road and spend the money elsewhere.

Personally I don't think you can go too far wrong with ASUS, regardless of what you are doing with it, although I've heard good things about Intel, Abit, and others.... just stay away from the cheap seats and you should be fine.
 
The main thing is to get a good mobo.
I've just built a DAW on an Asus P4P800. It's a very reasonably priced board, comes with heaps of features uses the latest intel chipset (865) and performs out of its skin.

DDR 400 (or PC3200) is the ram to get - at least 512MB. I believe it's worth paying a few extra $ to get a name brand like Corsair, Kingston, Hynix, OCZ etc than generic no name ram. DDR stand for Dual Data Rate which means the chipset can perform 2 memory operations on every voltage cycle and so double throughput.

The lower speed Intel cpus are getting quite cheap now. I got a 2.8Ghz with mine, but a 2.6c or 2.4c will do just as well. The 'c' denotes hyperthreading which will keep you up with the curve for a while.

Make sure your HD has 8MB cache. I'm running dual 120GB SATA drives with no problems. The P4P800 also supports Raid 0 if you want to get adventurous.

I'd also recommend an LCD monitor. They're easy on the eyes and won't interfere with single coil pickups
 
wheelema said:
Make sure that the rack case uses 80mm fans... I haven't found a quiet 120mm yet.
Click to expand...

Huh? 120mm fans are usually quieter. Since they are larger, they can spin slower and still move the same amount of air. That's why the Sonata has a 120mm fan, not an 80mm.
 
Polaris20 said:
Huh? 120mm fans are usually quieter. Since they are larger, they can spin slower and still move the same amount of air. That's why the Sonata has a 120mm fan, not an 80mm.
Click to expand...
Well, you've been blessed. My 120mm's must of come off of a Harley.
 
Hello,

I have 3 120mm fans in my computer, one in the power supply and two case fans. Except for the one that came with my antec case they are basically silent, and even that one quiets down to decent noise and airflow with a fan controller. Wheelema, I see you live in CA, so I recommend picking up a 120mm antec fan from Fry's, the one in a yellow and blue box. They are something like 15 bucks and run extremely quiet.

About the motherboard and cpu, I'm currently using an AMD 2700XP and an ASUS board, and everything runs weeks at a time. BTW, unless you are going with an opteron or an athlon 64, you dont have to worry about an nforce 3, which is fairly new and might still have a few things left to be worked out. I'd like to see the bad reviews though, because I've only seen good ones. If you go with a socket A processor youll probably want a nforce 2 ASUS board or something similar. As for Intel vs AMD, there really isnt much difference right now. However, the 64 bit AMD's are keeping up with the intels in 32 bit apps, so when a good 64 bit recording program comes out, all bets might be off.

For memory, anything name brand is definitely the way to go; from now on I plan on using Geil memory exclusively. The platinum series especially gives just about the lowest latencies money can buy and isnt 150-200 bucks a stick like similar modules from other companies. If you were in fact looking at a 64 bit AMD, low latency is a good idea because unless you spend 4 or 5 hundred on the processor, its built-in memory controller will not support dual channel memory. Also, the ones that do support dual channel require ECC registered memory and usually a more expensive motherboard, which is basically money spent on stuff that only servers need. With AMD at least, DDR400 is fine unless you get a newer CPU that has a stock 200 mhz FSB. In that case, DDR433 or 466 might be a better choice because you can overclock without messing with the ram too much. Newegg has a great deal on geil 512mb ddr433 platinum series, 105 bucks a stick and does 2-2-2-6 timing. Doesnt get much better than that.

For the case, if you have a bunch of other rackmount stuff, the coolness factor goes way up if you can transport everything in one case. Otherwise, a tower is cheaper and usually easier to quiet down. Anything by antec is good, especially ones with rubber mounts for the hard drives and removable drive trays. Also the ones with the doors on the front really cut down noise when reading a CD. It can really get annoying when the computer decides to spin up a CD in the middle of a track.

Thats about all I can think of, except that two PATA hard drives in raid 0 will beat just about any single hard drive in both performance and cost, be it scsi, sata, or anything else. Hope this helps.

-Chris
 
Thanks for the replies so far. A lot of people on different boards are posting their comp specs. Im seeing a lot of the ASUS P4P800 boards. Does anybody know or have experience with the P4C800-E Deluxe boards?

About the bad reviews on the Nforce3 150Pro chipset I saw them on newegg.
Im curious about the need for 64bit compatability, but I will start a new post for that.

Thanks again,
Scott
 
The P4C800 boards use the 875 chipset instead of the 865. The 875 has intel's more expensive Performance Acceleration Technology. In reality these boards are no faster than the P4P800 boards which contain Asustek's own performance boosting bits, so they're not worth the extra money.
The deluxe versions of both boards have extra features like Raid 0+1
 
wheelema said:
Well, you've been blessed. My 120mm's must of come off of a Harley.
Click to expand...

Not really, I just have an Antec Sonata, which is pretty quiet. Get yourself a Zalman or Papst fan, and that'll help a lot.
 
For what it's worth, I'm using a tascam 428 with a Asus A7V8X mobo and have no problems with my Via chipset. I recently did a screw-around with Sonar 3 Producer and my barton XP 2500+ with 256MB of RAM with EXCELLENT results (all except my vid card fan going bad and making LOTS of noise that the condenser just loved to pick up to tick me off). I need more RAM, but I'm just saying I'm having good results with a via chipset and 428. :) I'm sure results vary somewhat, tho... heh. Just a thought. Oh, BTW, I buy EVERYTHING from NewEgg, whether the comp I'm currently building is for me or for someone else. But I think you all ready know how awesome they are... heh.

Brandon <><
 
If price is an issue, go with the AMD. Nforce2 is a solid chipset. The XP Barton 2500+ OC's like a mofo, so for $80 you are basically getting an XP3000 or XP3200. I use Crucial memory and have never had a problem. For my rig, I WISH I would have gone with the ASUS. My MSI K7N2 Delta-ILSR is solid, but I hear NOTHING but good things about the ASUS deluxe. :)

Inexpensive, high-performance, and stable are the most important factors to me, and AMD has never let me down. You aren't going to run WIN98 are you? LMAO!! Perfume on a pig.
 
Antec fans suck. I have a dozen Antec cases in stock now, and the fans are both noisy and low reliability.

Delta = Noisy
Panaflo = Quiet as it gets

I put Panaflo in all my client machines because of quiet operation, and very long life from the sealed oil-support bearing.

I'm a huge fan of Alpha PAL8045 massive heat sinks. I finally got around to running a cooling test, and found the factory recommended fan placement (sucking) is about 3 degrees (C) hotter than blowing orientation. Go figure. Alpha makes it very clear to use the sucking orientation.

If you have time, shop the AMDMB.COM forums and check out the complaints on the various boards. Asus, ABit, are my two favorites. I am running my workstation on an Epox for the last year, with zero problems.

Just Say No to overclocking. If you want more speed, buy it. Leave the OC to the hacking crowd. No sense in losing a recording session because your machine locked due to being on the edge of an OC issue.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top