New Computer specs

  • Thread starter Thread starter NYMorningstar
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NYMorningstar

Recording Modus Operandi
My computer tech suggested the following setup for my audio projects.

P4 ATX 500W case
ASUS A8V-E Deluxe (Athlon 64 FX/64)
Chip AMD 64 3500 Box
2 PC 3200 DDR400 512M
74G WD 10000 RPM Sata
160G Seagate 7000 RPM Sata
eVGA N376 nVidia e Force 6800GT

It all seems high end to me and he says it will do all I need, understanding that I'll be running XP home edition and Cubase Sx 3 with lots of channels. I recall hearing of problems with high end video cards using too much cpu and causing clicks and pops but he says that this card carries its own memory and uses very little cpu. I'd appreciate any comments or suggestions on the setup.
 
That motherboard has 8 audio channels onboard "Realtek ALC850". I don't have a way to comment on its performance for a DAW, but if you search for it in Google you can find people complaining about it. I'm the type who would pick my favorite PCI soundcard out there, and build the system around it. I'm sure that the daw specialized audio like RME, Gadget Labs, M-audio and Motu are all much better for DAW's than Realtek ALC850.

The chipset is VIA who has a bad reputation for how they treat pci busses.

I've only looked at the motherboard in your list so far.
 
Thanks for the reply David. I'll be using a LynxTwo C card for the audio. What exactly did you mean when you said "VIA who has a bad reputation for how they treat pci busses"? Will that be trouble with recording audio? Do you think the video card will cause trouble? What would be a better athlon board for audio?
 
The problems with VIA extend into areas of not getting maximum performance of ide and scsi drives. If they've improved, it would be new news to me. It's not impossible for companies to fix their problems. I've looked around a few times, and haven't seen such breaking news about VIA. Asus does have boards with nVidia chipsets, so that narrows it down quite a bit. I'm just talking about safe bets for an Athlon 64 motherboard, and that would be nVidia or SiS chipsets. My knowledge of those two is that they're equal.
 
starting with software and audio interface and working.....

jdavidb said:
The problems with VIA extend into areas of not getting maximum performance of ide and scsi drives. If they've improved, it would be new news to me. It's not impossible for companies to fix their problems. I've looked around a few times, and haven't seen such breaking news about VIA. Asus does have boards with nVidia chipsets, so that narrows it down quite a bit. I'm just talking about safe bets for an Athlon 64 motherboard, and that would be nVidia or SiS chipsets. My knowledge of those two is that they're equal.
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backward makes so much sense. rme has posted a problem with nforce 4 and firewire. also problem with intel 955 and streaming audio over firewire.

to the previous poster:

www.videoguys.com has three do it yourself systems at 1000, 2000 and 3000 dollars, good to read why they chose what they did. most video editing is very similiar to audio, both streaming data.

www.tomshardware.com just had a shootout tween athlon and intel, for compatibility and power, also tests on several chipsets including via. via not so hot.

the chipsets we are talking about are the 'glue' chipsets that run the usb and pci and agp and pci-x bus and do general scutwork to interface the cpu to everything else. the biggest glue chip maker is intel, then nvidia, ati, sis, via and amd themselves. often it is the glue chip/chips and/or the bios on the motherboard that cause the incompatibility problems.
 
Thanks so much you two. I ended up getting the A8V Deluxe which has the K8T800 Pro Chipset. I also went with a cheaper video board and with the money I saved I upgraded to the dualcore 64X2 4400 processor. Following your direction I read alot more and I think I'm much better off. Thanks again!
 
jdavidb said:
The problems with VIA extend into areas of not getting maximum performance of ide and scsi drives. If they've improved, it would be new news to me. It's not impossible for companies to fix their problems. I've looked around a few times, and haven't seen such breaking news about VIA. Asus does have boards with nVidia chipsets, so that narrows it down quite a bit. I'm just talking about safe bets for an Athlon 64 motherboard, and that would be nVidia or SiS chipsets. My knowledge of those two is that they're equal.
Click to expand...

I second that. I've had nothing but hassles with via chipsets and I stay away from them now like the plague.
 
NYMorningstar said:
Thanks so much you two. I ended up getting the A8V Deluxe which has the K8T800 Pro Chipset. I also went with a cheaper video board and with the money I saved I upgraded to the dualcore 64X2 4400 processor. Following your direction I read alot more and I think I'm much better off. Thanks again!
Click to expand...

thats a good board I have one like it. The only thing is is that my emu-0404 audio card disables the onboard audio card and I cant choose which card to use even though the manual says thats its possible to use it with other audio casrds.liers. So I get no 7.1 surround for my movies. then again I have a system for that any way. Its nice to have two outputs on your video card. that way you can add a second monitor with out adding another card.
 
altiris said:
thats a good board I have one like it. The only thing is is that my emu-0404 audio card disables the onboard audio card and I cant choose which card to use even though the manual says thats its possible to use it with other audio casrds.liers. So I get no 7.1 surround for my movies. then again I have a system for that any way. Its nice to have two outputs on your video card. that way you can add a second monitor with out adding another card.
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I did ask you on the other thread you posted on about not being able to use your onboard audio.

I don't think you can use any other card with the 0404. I think this is true of most cards, but I may be wrong.

This was explained to me at the emu online forum at http://www.productionforums.com/index.php?f=52&sid=8ea18f3ed8d6e48e84e36d888c371ee9
 
My computer tech told me that he noticed he ordered the wrong mother board for me, the A8V Deluxe. He said he remembered I had told him I'd rather the nvidia chip instead of the via without the pci express. So he's reordering it. Am I right in figuring that the nvidia is a better deal than the via using the dual 4400 and a more down to earth video card?
 
I think that system is going to be great with a dual core or a regular Athlon 64 either way.

Which nVidia chipset did you get?

I just ran into a Via chipset problem recently with a scsi hard drive rig. All this scsi stuff works fine in other computers that I install it in except the one Via chipset computer I bought the stuff for. But, I found a later Via chipset computer around here, and the scsi stuff worked in that. The Via chipset thing is hit or miss which is why it's a safe bet rather than a definitive descision to get one of the others. I've got $200 worth of scsi parts now and nothing to do with them until I buy a new motherboard, processor and ram.
 
PCI-express would have been a great choice for a display adapter, but AGP is the same in this daw scenario. Since you're using a LynxTwo C which is pci, just getting the display adapter off the regular pci bus is great for a daw. Agp and pci express both do that.

The downside to agp is: with a mobo that has agp, that's all ya get at this time. One AGP slot and no pci express. With a board that has pci-express, you could go ahead & buy one that has three slots plus some regular pci slots.

Looks like we're gonna be buying pci-express sound interfaces in a couple of years, so I personally plan on sticking with agp video on the daw motherboard for now. Two years from now, I'll get all that pci-express stuff. It's definitely going to happen with sound interfaces. Pci express is a very big deal.
 
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