Help building a computer

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corban

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Hey, I'm building a recording computer for the first time, the only other comp I've built is a POS for internet only. I'm looking at this motherboard

ASUS P5B-VM mATX LGA775 Conroe G965 DDR2 PCI-E16 PCI-E4 2PCI SATA2 Sound Video X3000 Motherboard

I'll probably want to set up dual monitors eventually, is that as easy as using an adaptor for the internal video on this board, or would I need a separate card?

Firewire, how do I set that up? I'm assuming I just get a PCI card for it and it works in any of those PCI slots, or does it need to be PCI-E16 or something else? I guess my main confusion for these last couple things is what the differences between those PCI slots are.

Raid. What's the deal? All I know is that it involves coordinating multiple hard drives, but I'm willing to learn if it's important. Do I want my mobo to be capable of that?

Processors. I'm looking at Intel Duo Core 6300 or AMD 64 X2, most likely. Any thoughts?

Hard drives. 7200 rpm is fast enough, no? Do I want a faster speed for my system drive?

I'm a bit of a novice when it comes to the computer tech side of recording, I've always worked with other people's gear, so sorry if these are stupid questions. Any input or other gear suggestions are greatly appreciated.
 
I don"t think the Integrated Graphics on this motherboard supports Dual Monitors.... You will probably have to buy a Video Card that has 2 output to connect 2 monitors.....

Yes your motherboard has 2 regular PCI slots so you could use one of them to install a Firewire Card.....

Raid is not a Necessary feature but it is Usefull if you are writeing huge ammounts of Data to your drives which you Won"t be doing if Just recording audio so this is a Feature you can Take or leave....

That motherboard only supports Intel CPU"s to the AMD 64 X2 will not work in that Motherboard, Go for the Core Duo as it is a Faster CPU anyways....

7200rpm is plenty fast enough for audio and even Video so you shouldn"t have a Problems with 7200rpm drives and if you need more speed then you can use the Raid Feature...

Hope this helps a Bit....


Cheers
 
Matrox makes pretty nice dual head video cards.

Get a Firewire card with the T.I chipset. They are very reliable.
 
Alright, with all of your suggestions I've also done my own research, and this is what I've got. Note that most prices are in canadian funds, so they'll seem excessive for USD.

Intel Core 2 Duo E6300 Dual Core Processor LGA775 Conroe 1.86GHZ 1066FSB 2MB Retail $235.40

ASUS Motherboard C2D P5L-VM 1394 945G Conroe LGA775 1066FSB DDR2 Audio VGA GBLAN $122.04

Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 320GB SATA2 3GB/S 7200RPM 16MB Cache NCQ Hard Drive $129.40

LG GSA-H22N DVD+RW 18X8X16 DVD-RW 18X6X16 Dual Layer 8X DVD-RAM 12X DVD Writer 2MB Black OEM W/ SW $45.80

Corsair Value Select PC2-4200 1GB DDR2 240PIN DIMM Memory $144.90

NORCO RPC-800 Black Steel 4U Rackmount Case - Retail $79.99 USD

The motherboard has integrated firewire as well as integrated video that supports dual monitors with an ADD2 card. I just need a system drive and a power supply. I'll probably also add another gig of ram soon enough, hopefully prices will go down. Any thoughts on how this all works together, what else I need, whether that's a quiet case, what to get for my system drive and power supply? Is 450W enough?
 
I wouldn't get that motherboard. It will work fine and all, but it's got the older 945 chipset. The P5B board in your first post uses the latest 965 chipset. There are other variants of the P5B that come with integrated firewire if you don't want to use a pci card
 
thanks, but what's the problem with the older chipset? this was the only motherboard i could find in my price range with integrated firewire and dual video capability. the 965 chipset doesn't seem to support dual monitors
 
googled the two chips and here's what I found:

By Charlie Demerjian: Wednesday 02 August 2006, 12:01



IT IS OLD news that the G965, AKA Broadwater is having problems. The latest embedded graphics chipset was unveiled at Computex to a crowd mainly glad to see that it had stopped raining outside.
The chip still is nowhere to be found, but luckily, early word from multiple sources is not encouraging.

It seems the last and more common stepping, C1, is a mess, with image corruption problems on top of the previously mentioned speed problems.

The current stepping, C2, is reported to put up the images more or less correctly, let's be fair, more correctly, but the speed problem seems pretty well fatal.

We are hearing that the chipset is actually slower than its predecessor, Lakeport/i945G. Much slower. Things get brighter in heavily shader intensive situations, but there is a problem there as well. We are told that if you go above 800*600, well, things approximate a slideshow, but with the added shader firepower, it is a very attractive slideshow.

The chipset's performance was described to me quite succinctly by one major OEM as 'it sucks'.

From what we understand, nothing short of a miracle will fix this chipset, it is more of a design problem than a bug. Basically, stick with i945G or go with ATI^h^h^h other solutions. This is kind of problematic for OEMs who want Centrino kickback money but also that Vista sticker. µ
 
Yep the 945 will be fine. On the daws I've put together, I didn't get motherboards with integrated graphics, mainly because they lacked other features I needed.
The other point is if you're into overclocking, manufacturers concentrate on releasing bios updates for the newer boards. Asus have tweaked the P5B bios to unlock the multipliers on the conroe chip
 
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