How does this computer look?

[wheelema]

Solo...

A bit of a follow up...

If you were to go with the Asus P5B-VM you wouldn't have to shell out for a video card. I have had very very good luck with integrated video. It is not the fastest, but then, that is not important to you. Note that you can always add on a video adapter if you wish.

ASUS P5B-VM INTEL G965 CHIPSET SERIAL ATA300 MICRO ATX FORM FACTOR 1xPCI-E(X16)/1xPCI-E(X1)/2xPCI/4xDDR2 W/INTEGRATED VGA,SATA2 RAID,LAN(Gb),1394A,USB 2.0 & AUDIO (CPU TYPE:INTEL - SOCKET 775)
CORE 2 DUO E6300 1.86G (1066Mhz)
$313.78

CORSAIR VALUE SELECT VS1GB533D2 1GB (1024MB) PC24200 533MHZ CL4 240-PIN DDR2 DIMM
$130.10

COOLER MASTER CAC-T05-UW CENTURION 5 (SILVER/BLACK) MID TOWER NO POWER SUPPLY 5x5.25" 1x3.5" 4x3.5"(hidden) W/ FRONT I/O CONNECTOR, 80mm CASE FAN x 1 & 120mm CASE FAN includes COOLERMASTER RS450ACLX 450W POWER SUPPLY
$104.00

WD 160GB 1600JS SATA300 8MB 7200RPM (Bare drive)
$59.90 each or two for $119.80

LITE ON 16X SHM-165H6S BLACK OEM LIGHTSCRIBE DUAL DVD REWRITABLE DRIVE w/SW (White box)
$32.90

MS WIRELESS OPTICAL DESKTOP 3.0 PS2/USB KEYBOARD & MOUSE
$24.90

You total cost here, wholesale, comes in at $855.58.

Luck

 

[random.hero]

thats gonna be one bitchin recording computer when your're done with it...
i donno where you're getting your parts, and i donno about prices, but i do know www.tigerdirect.com has the best prices ive ever seen

 

[Bulls Hit]

Yeah I agree wheelma's setup is the business.

Just one thing to watch on that motherboard, it's only got 2 pci2.2 slots (the older ones). There's another more basic variant of the P5B mobo that has 3 pci slots, but no firewire or video.

And if you really wanted a stinkingly, searingly fast audio processing machine, for another $150 you could upgrade to the 6600 cpu with the 4MB cache.

I'm looking at a setup not too dissimilar to this for myself

 

[noisewreck]

the UAD-1 isnt a soundcard. Its a dongle to protect the UAD-1 plugins

he UAD-1 is more than just a dongle. It's actually a DSP processor that the UAD plugins run on. But soundcard it is not.

 

[Mindset]

Core 2 Duo's start at 180$

Yeah I know, but I'm talking about the midrange one not the lowest one. Which is still fast.

thats only for hyper transport which is limited to the memory controller. Its also worth noting that almost no AMD chips support DDR2 at this time (opteron excluded)

AMD chips DO support DDR2. Back then, they didn't because they didn't believe that the step from 400 to 533 or 667 wasn't giving enough extra performance to really matter. There's many boards out there that support AMD chips that run DDR800.

Financially unstable? thats a bit of a stretch. Intel has 80% of the processor market and does $10B in revenue quarterly

I ment financial trouble. Intel has had financial trouble since the start of the year. Go search for intel financial troubles. I didn't say they were going bankrupt, but they are certainly loosing ground. OF COURSE not at the very moment since the faster core 2 duos came out. Plus their dropping prices. But AMD will bounce back from this minor blow, as the price of their new chips fall dramatically. I myself used to be an AMD user, but switched to Intel because of the cheaper price of the dual cores.

As of the market share, yes Intel does have majority of the market, but AMD IS moving up on them fairly quickly every year.

 

[altitude909]

There's many boards out there that support AMD chips that run DDR800.

Yeah, looks like i'm a little behind. Didnt realize that the AM2 stuff was shipping already.

Here is something to drool about: Core 2 Quad

http://www.tomshardware.com/2006/09/10/four_cores_on_the_rampage/

 

[nukeitout]

SO

I have a Delta 1010, and with a Dual Core Pentuim D (one step under core 2) @ 2.8 GHz w/ 1mb per core cache, 800 mhz fsb, 1GB of ram, SATA HDD, i have a very solid machine that can handle whatever I throw at it. I can even record max quality while playing guildwars (i tried for the hell of it). I would suggest going with an intel chipset (800 or 900 series) because that is what all the major audio hardware companies test with. It's the only thing sweetwater will put in a system, too. I also disagree with the onboard video being sufficient, since a lot of newer programs use some form of hardware acceleration to produce pretty level meters. A decent 3d card can take over some of that work and smooth out the ui nicely. Plus onboard video steals system ram .

The multithreading ability of the dual core processors is a very nice boost to any recording rig. Even if the prog doesn't have native hyperthreading/multithreading support (most don't), XP will balance more of the os to the other core automatically, which will still step up performance. AMD's are good for gaming rigs, but for stability and multitasking intel is my choice.

My suggestion is go with an intel chipset board with onboard firewire, pcix16, any decent 3d video card in the 100-150 range (i prefer nvidia), minimum 1GB of ram (4 would be nice for some situations as was mentioned before), A minimum of a Pentium D 2mb cache processor (the entry one has half that in cache), A delta 1010 or similar card (I like the 1010), and two SATA drives.

the only difference between that and the high end sweetwater rigs is the error checking ram and support on the mobo (seriously, thats all). This is not an issue until your ram goes bad, so it doesn't really affect the home user .

Not trying to say anyone else here is wrong; this is all from my personal experience and research, which doesn't include many of the other products mentioned. Good luck with everything!

Oh, tigrer direct sells crap and refurbs, buy from newegg.com, they rock and so does their customer support. (don't try to save 10-20 bucks overall if it means using a crap company).


Randy

 

[corban]

pardon me for being an idiot here, but besides an old internet computer i built out of spare parts I haven't built anything until trying to now, and I'm not on to what all the specs mean. Can somebody explain why the intel core 2 DUO E6300 1.86G (1066Mhz) would be faster than the AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ 2.0GHz 2 x 512KB? The AMD has a faster clock speed, and because of their hyper threading or whatever, it's supposed to relate to much faster intel clock speeds, so my one-track consumer mind goes for that one. However, I remember reading that the core 2 has two 1MB caches, twice that of the AMD, and the front side bus is quicker too. To answer my own question, those two things are the ticket?