Opinions on this setup

[travis16vp]

I'm planning to build a PC. For the moment, I only plan to record 2 tracks at a time with either an M-Audio 2496 or a Lexicon Alpha with protools M powered. Can you let me know if the specs are ok?

INTEL Core 2 Duo E7400 (Socket 775, 2.8GHz, FSB1066, 3MB Cache, Boxed)

ASUS P5Q SE (S775, Intel P45+ICH10, PCI-E 2.0, DDR2, SATA, Gigabit LAN, 7.1 Audio)

OCZ 4GB Kit Platinum Edition (2x2GB) 1066MHz DDR2 PC2-8500 5-5-5-18

WESTERN DIGITAL Caviar SE16 320GB (WD3200AAKS, 7200RPM, SATA II, 16MB)

ANTEC Earthwatts 650W

Antec Sonata Elite (case)

I have read a lot of good things about the Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3R motherboard on this forum but I decided to go with the Asus P5Q. Are there a lot of differences between these two?
If the P5Q isn't a good one, which one could be an alternative? This is the site where I will order: http://www.descom.be/shop.php?cPath=51

Would I need a graphics card or is there one included in with motherboard?

I'm just planning to get the basics first and then maybe add some stuff like a second hard drive later. Any comments would be much appreciated. Thanks!

 

[suprstar]

2 minutes of googling indicates there's no video on either of those boards. I got an ASRock 780 with an AMD 6100+ 3.1GHz dual core, I went with that board because it had 2 video ports (1 vga and 1 dvi) onboard. So I have dual monitors going with just the integrated video. And I it cost $80.. There's probably a comparable intel board out there. Pretty much any modern hardware is enough to do practically anything you'd want to do recording-wise, assuming you arent trying to mix 100 tracks or something crazy liek that.

 

[buckkillr8]

Good specs, but I would opt for and recommend the gigabyte board over the Asus. Asus had taken a lately on boards and had yet to really bounce back. Gigabyte boards are strong and reliable and I like they're setup a lot more.

 

[Bristol Posse]

I had such a bad experience with ASUS P5 series boards (3 back to back failures on brand new P5Q Deluxe) I actually dumped all the ones that I had and switched to Gigabyte for my builds

Generally speaking the better the motherboard the less likely there will be on board video and as a hint you want a good motherboard. it is the nervous system of your machine and skimping on this component will affect the overall quality of the finished machine and how stable and durable it is.

You don't need a highend video card get an nvidia 8600 era card or earleir. A lot of these don't even need cooling fans so it keeps sytem noise down.

As Buckkillr8 said, Gigabyte have some nice boards right now. Texas instruments FW chips, Good reliability.

Corsair PSU are slightly better than Antec at the moment (there's not much in it though and both are made by seasonics) 650w seems like over kill, The corsair CMPSU 520 SX is a great PSU.

I prefer Crucial or Supertallent RAM. OCZ hasn't been great quality in my experience.

Everything else looks good