Help me build a pc

[whattaguy]

Ok. Here's the deal. I have about $1300 to spend on a pc, and I already have these parts:

Seagate 7200rpm HD 40GB
Plextor 24/10/40 cdrw
Aardvark DP2496
Sonar 2.0
Fruity Loops 3.4

So $1300 (or less) can get me a smokin' machine. Any suggestions? Or should I go with a Dell PC? I do not know that much about building a daw/pc (don't know parts are compatible with what), so be as specific as you can be with the parts. I am pretty sure that I could put it all together...it's just I don't know much of anything else besides what goes inside a Dell.

Any takers?

Thanks in advance.

 

[JFogarty]

Ok, you ARE me 2 months ago. Then I built my own daw. Had some trouble but nothing too bad. Before this, the most computer work I'd done is watching someone put a hard drive in my computer.

Aside from a few steps, its basically just plugging everything in where it fits. Computers are designed for the most part so that parts only fit where they belong. There are a bunch of good guides on the net, but I ended up not using them, cause my mobo came with a good one. Is that 1300 counting whatever audio interface you want to get?

Never mind, you've got the ardvark

Even if it isn't, 1300 is way more than enough to build a computer. I built mine for around 650:

Gigabyte gadx+ mobo
Athalon XP 1800+ (runs at 1.54)
60 seagate (audio)
40 gig IBM (apps)
matrox 450 dual head vid. card
Sony Cdrom./cd-r/cd-rw

with as much money as you have, you could just get a DAW maker to build you one. I wouldn't recommend a dell to anyone for audio.

With that money you could also go intel instead of AMD, I don't know much about that aardvark or sonar, so I don't know which would work better.

In terms of parts, any item mobo that is recent will do you good, and then slap in whatever P4 you want. check what kind of ram fits your mobo, and get a bunch of that. Then get a case, with plenty of power (300 W +) and plug it all in.

You can get stuff cheap from www.pricewatch.com
www.newegg.com and a few other places. check out www.tomshardwareguide.com

Email me if you want, and I can give you all kinds of advice

 

[silverhammer]

check out this website

check out www.tcwo.com . They have some good deals on barebones systems for amd processors. You just add your parts and you will have smoking performance for less than 500 bucks. Peace, Silver

 

[neirbo]

I agree with JFogarty. I built a DAW myself with basically no experience and had no real trouble. It was actiaAs long as you get the right parts, they just al fit together. The only thing I found a little scary was installing the heat sink on the CPU (because you can fry the CPU quick if it not installed right). You can usually get a computer place to sell you a Mobo/CPU cobo with the heatsink installed, so all you need to add are the drives, fans, cards and memory.

I also second JFogarty's suggestions on parts. The Gigabyte GA-7DX is highly recommended by the Aardvark tech support guys, and the Matrox G450 is a great card IF you are not into gaming (great 2D graphics, weak 3D graphics. Plus, dual monitor support). Your existing hard drive and CD should be fine. Just get a second drive (can be 4500 RPM) for your apps and use the 7200 for audio data.

You can also get a local computer guy to assemble the whold thing for maybe $100 over the cost of parts. I'd go this route before getting a Dell.

Good luck, and feel free to drop me an email if you have questions.

 

[neirbo]

Athalon XP 1800+ (runs at 1.54)

Hey JFogarty,

I noticed your 1800 Ghz chip is running at 1.54. I have the same MoBo, and an Athlon 1400 that ran at around 1100. I figured out that the default setting for the Mobo speed is for 100, even though my system can handle 133. By flipping the switch on the mobo to 133, my chip is now running at full speed.

 

[musikman316]

dont forget to get enough ram, only running 128 or 256 can slow you down, i say buy a stick of 512 for now, and add some more later...

 

[tommyp]

I am considering building a good recording pc myself, and have come across the following ideas (nb - i can't ascertain the reliability of this stuff, its just what i've read

If you buy an AMD chip, make sure the chipset on the motherboard is AMD (not VIA, or VIA/AMD hybrid). This, apparently, makes everything more stable.

With graphics cards, there's an old problem with the card clogging up the PCI bus in attempts to increase performance (graphics performance, natch) -so this is prolly worth avoiding. I think an AGP card should solve the problem, as (i think) it uses a completely different bus.

RE: Daisychaining HDs - when you do this, even with fast drives, the overall data transfer drops *right* down (its an IDE limitation, apparently). So you can have two UDMA 100 drives running in PIO mode if they share the same channel. This could be a problem for high read/write apps (as recording / monitoring audio is). I'm not sure if the same applies with a single, partitioned drive, but if it does, I would try getting a single big drive and backing up to a removable medium.

 

[Sangram]

Hey JFogarty,

I noticed your 1800 Ghz chip is running at 1.54. I have the same MoBo, and an Athlon 1400 that ran at around 1100. I figured out that the default setting for the Mobo speed is for 100, even though my system can handle 133. By flipping the switch on the mobo to 133, my chip is now running at full speed.

Umm...

That's absolutely a different thing.

The XPs rated at 1800XP actually run at 1.53. That is their full speed, unless you're overclocking it. This is a marketing gimmick from AMD that has most people confused. The new XP chips run at far lower speed than they say, but promise you that it'll work as good as a P4 running at 1.8 GHz. They're actually right, except for the fact that the 1800XP whips the P4 running at even 2GHz. They actually underpromise, but well, what can I say.

 

[Sangram]

I am considering building a good recording pc myself, and have come across the following ideas (nb - i can't ascertain the reliability of this stuff, its just what i've read

If you buy an AMD chip, make sure the chipset on the motherboard is AMD (not VIA, or VIA/AMD hybrid). This, apparently, makes everything more stable.

This is old hat. VIA chipsets have shaken off their stability problems for over a year now and are actually the best choice for chipsets for AMD processors. The AMD chipsets are a generation behind in technology, and perform very poorly compared to their VIA competition, like the KT 266A (The A is VERY important) and the KT333.

With graphics cards, there's an old problem with the card clogging up the PCI bus in attempts to increase performance (graphics performance, natch) -so this is prolly worth avoiding. I think an AGP card should solve the problem, as (i think) it uses a completely different bus.

A non-issue, really, all graphics cards you buy nowadays are AGP cards. You have to really look hard to find old PCI graphics adapters, specially for upgrading old systems.

RE: Daisychaining HDs - when you do this, even with fast drives, the overall data transfer drops *right* down (its an IDE limitation, apparently). So you can have two UDMA 100 drives running in PIO mode if they share the same channel. This could be a problem for high read/write apps (as recording / monitoring audio is). I'm not sure if the same applies with a single, partitioned drive, but if it does, I would try getting a single big drive and backing up to a removable medium.

Actually the drives will both show up as UDMA drives but the controller will not handle two drives on the same channel well at all, specially on operations involving both drives such as copying from one drive to the other. For most other apps it will be fine. It is advisable to use separate channels for each drive, unfortunately that means that one drive will share a channel with the CD drive/burner whatever. That is bad, as then the channel will operate at the speed of the slowest device, in this case the CDROM. some compromises to be ironed out. I find that both drives on the same channel actually work OK most of the time. They crawl while backing up data from one drive to another, but whatever.

 

[JFogarty]

Umm...

That's absolutely a different thing.

The XPs rated at 1800XP actually run at 1.53. That is their full speed, unless you're overclocking it. This is a marketing gimmick from AMD that has most people confused. The new XP chips run at far lower speed than they say, but promise you that it'll work as good as a P4 running at 1.8 GHz. They're actually right, except for the fact that the 1800XP whips the P4 running at even 2GHz. They actually underpromise, but well, what can I say.

Thats why its 1800+