Pentium-based DAW Spec's

[alien]

Upgrading to a new system. Unfortunately, I have all but completely lost track of what's good and crap in the ole world of Intel. My studio machine is an older P4, but the rest are current AMD's.

So, what's your system specs (motherboard Brand/Model and memory Brand/Type would be wonderful)?

TIA

 

[smileypaul]

Well, you should be asking for 2 things.. what people use, and what you *should* get..


Personally, I use a Pentium 4 2.40a, with 2.5gigs of pc3200 ram.
I have a zalman all copper fan, keeps things cool, and runs nice and quiet.

I have a 13 gig Parallel drive installed that i use only for Winxp and Pro Tools
I have a 100 Gig Serial 150 drive installed that i use for audio...

As for motherboard, i use an AsRock P4vt8+, not th egreatest board... but does everything i need it to..



Now for upgrading to a new system, do some research, generally its cheaper to build your own (if you're capable). Look at the Pentium D's... rule of thumb says to buy 3 levels from the top.. no point in buying the best of the best right now, you'd be wasting money... get some ram with some tight timings.. and you'll be set.

 

[LemonTree]

good advice from paul there........

I built my rig 2 years? 18 months ago?
I forget now

P4 3.0GHz
aSus p4p800-E deluxe mobo 800MHz FSB
2 gig Kingmax turbo DDR400 ram in duel channel mode

160Gig Maxtor SATA for the stripped down windown XP system drive
160Gig Maxtor SATA for the audio recording drive
(2nd hand from eBay) Matrox G450 dual head video card


It's all in a 19" 4U rackmount with Zalman quiet CPU flower, Antec silent power supply and acousifans on the case ins n outs

I feed a delta 1010 and 2 delta 410s to give me 24 outputs back to my console. I've got no problem what so ever with streaming back 24 tracks of 24Bit/48KHz .wav files using a healthy array of software effects, plugins, etc.

I see absolutely no point on passing the specs of my computer untill they start the 64Bit recording with the softwear and brought the hardwear to handle it in at a rock bottom price.

More is usualy good but there is that overkill thing. Less spent on the computer leaves you more to spend on recording gear

 

[alien]

Oh yeah, I fully intend on building ti myself. I haven't bought an assembled PC since the Commodore 64 - ouch - I just dated myself lol.

My main concern is the varying variants of the P4's out there nowadays and the motherboard chipset.

I'll be running a Delta 1010 and a Delta 44. Latency and overhead for plugins is a must.

 

[notCardio]

good advice from paul there........

I built my rig 2 years? 18 months ago?
I forget now

P4 3.0GHz
aSus p4p800-E deluxe mobo 800MHz FSB
2 gig Kingmax turbo DDR400 ram in duel channel mode

160Gig Maxtor SATA for the stripped down windown XP system drive
160Gig Maxtor SATA for the audio recording drive
(2nd hand from eBay) Matrox G450 dual head video card


It's all in a 19" 4U rackmount with Zalman quiet CPU flower, Antec silent power supply and acousifans on the case ins n outs

I feed a delta 1010 and 2 delta 410s to give me 24 outputs back to my console. I've got no problem what so ever with streaming back 24 tracks of 24Bit/48KHz .wav files using a healthy array of software effects, plugins, etc.

I see absolutely no point on passing the specs of my computer untill they start the 64Bit recording with the softwear and brought the hardwear to handle it in at a rock bottom price.

More is usualy good but there is that overkill thing. Less spent on the computer leaves you more to spend on recording gear

Well, I've got an old 1 Ghz P3, but I'm really glad to find out that I could upgrade and still use my Matrox G450! (In my best Mr. Burns voice ) Excellent.

 

[notCardio]

I know what you mean, too.

Ever since they went to their new naming convention, I can't keep 'em straight either. And on top of that, I want a notebook now. Now that's really confusing, processor-wise.

 

[Enchilada]

It really depends on how much you want to spend.
You'll want AT LEAST 1GB Ram, I'd recommend 2GB for a DAW.
If Intel is the road you want to take just get whatever 775 CPU you can afford, as long as its dual core. The pentium D 805 isn't a bad budget dual core CPU.
Hard disk wise, if you can afford it, get 2 SATA drives the same and use raid1 (mirroring) to save any possible data loss. Make sure you get a motherboard with SATA Raid though. If you can't find one, see if you can find controller card.

 

[ryanformato]

Another thing you can do which would probably be a good idea would go to sweetwater.com and look at the specs they give for building computers. Just buy the parts they recommend and build it yourself. They usually put together very compatible parts.

Ryan

 

[smileypaul]

It really depends on how much you want to spend.
You'll want AT LEAST 1GB Ram, I'd recommend 2GB for a DAW.
If Intel is the road you want to take just get whatever 775 CPU you can afford, as long as its dual core. The pentium D 805 isn't a bad budget dual core CPU.
Hard disk wise, if you can afford it, get 2 SATA drives the same and use raid1 (mirroring) to save any possible data loss. Make sure you get a motherboard with SATA Raid though. If you can't find one, see if you can find controller card.

Have to beware with RAID, if you're using Pro Tools like i am, it does not support RAID ... As for the CPU's .. you'd be looking at the Pentium D's.. socket 775 ... the Larger the L2 Cache, the better... You can look at the EE (extreme edition) chips, but they are rather costly, and probably a little over kill for what you're doing... also, plug ins have the ability to chew up a lot of resources, you shouldnt have a problem with a newer system, just keep it in mind.

 

[Agent47]

Easy post. See below... Works ok for me, and I got it in November last year.

 

[alien]

Seems to be a bit of a misunderstanding lol

I already have it spec'ed out to have at least 1.5GB DDR2, P4 Dual core, 10K RPM SATA, and an x600 ATI.

My primary curiousity at this moment is the motherboard. I know who has the good ones for AMD CPU's, but have lost track of the intel platforms.

 

[jndietz]

I use my laptop

For Pentium motherboards... ASUS

 

[Enchilada]

I don't know much about intel motherboards at the moment either, but as long as you stick with the reliable brands like asus, gigabyte or dfi you'll be sweet.

 

[dachay2tnr]

I have had good luck with ASUS boards as well.

 

[Enchilada]

Yeah I've had 2 and rate them highly

 

[altitude909]

I built a DAW last summer based on a D and a intel 955 chipset (abit) and it is rock solid.

 

[BillyBo]

okay, first off... check newegg.com for your computing needs. great deals, usually the best, or second best, prices. and you can search for an Intel-based Mobo there.

if you are going with an intel chip that is dual core, i highly recommend an ASUS board.
see list: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...&description=&srchInDesc=&minPrice=&maxPrice=

then you have your choice of actual DualCore Pentium chips
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...&description=&srchInDesc=&minPrice=&maxPrice=

then your video card, audio card, case, power supply, RAM, and drives.

i just helped my friend build a computer from scratch. it's an awesome $2300 machine. all parts practically from Newegg -- or brand new eBay items. it's an AMD machine, so i wont bother listing the specs in this thread.

 

[Kiauma]

Supermicro makes some great boards, especially for xeon processors, which can be pricey, though the older P4 Xeons (400 Mhz FSB) and matching boards are becoming quite affordable.

The advantage to these boards is not only the raw processing power (especially for dual cpus), but that they can have two or more PCI busses, meaning you can push a LOT of data and not experience any lag. Onboard ethernet, and SCSI or SATA eliminates the data bus stress of having these devices plugged into the same PCI bus as your sound cards.

They can put out a lot of heat, but there are ways of quietly handling that problem.

 

[maximum octopus]

I have had good luck with ASUS boards as well.

I have had 3 DOA's in a row in the last 2 weeks. Actually 4 if you include the first one that worked but the onboard video was dead. I would go with the Gigabyte.

 

[smileypaul]

I have had 3 DOA's in a row in the last 2 weeks. Actually 4 if you include the first one that worked but the onboard video was dead. I would go with the Gigabyte.

End User error? seems a little far fetched...