The Mother of All "Which Computer Should I Buy" threads

  • Thread starter Thread starter Reilley
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You're correct, we could have gone with the crappier video card and some crappier RAM. Otherwise, according to your previous post, looks like we're about $748.13 UNDER budget. :D And a better box to boot!

If you're interested in reviews, check the product links, there should be plenty. I've not used this specific mobo/processor, hard drive config or video card, but I have the same case, same lightscribe drive, I've used the same RAM in several boxes. Just giving you a "real" price. If it's worth 700+ for someone else to build it. I'll do it for 500.00 ;)
 
I don't know alot about recording, but i do know quite a bit on building a computer. so here we go... just trying to help out those planning to purchase a computer. i'm gonna list a few routes so there's more of a variety.

1) CPU + motherboard

Intro: the core processing of your computer. other than that, it don't do much. everything get plugs in the mobo, CPU does all the work.

a) Intel core 2 duo E6300 or 6400 (under 200, the E6300 is 150)... this chip is a great OCer. i would get the E6400 for the higher multipler and OC that thing to about 3.2-3.5 on air if possible. and a E6400 @ 3.2+ghz is VERY fast... how fast? VERY VERY fast, it's like nothing you've seen before. Mobo you can get the DS3, or the ASUS PBN delux (i think that's the model)... these goes for 150-200+ making the total 300+ to 400. most likely you'll end up at 400 with the E6400 + mobo

b) AMD opteron single core or 3400+ single core. this is the cheapter route... newegg has a combo running for this. 3400 socket 939 + ECS extreme lite for 99 dollars. This combo will OC to 2.7-3.0 out of the box... the mobo is very nice... again cheap way out. it's not as fast as the intel duo core. but it's still VERY fast... if you ever used a P4 @ 4ghz... this combo is even faster... and if you used a P4 @ 4ghz you know how snappy it is.

Conclusion: those are the only 2 chips i would recommend. I don't wanna recommend AMD dual core because as of their price right now, the intel duo core woop it's butt in term of performance. Nor do i wanna recommend the celerons, the cache true does kill performance on these intel chip... i've had them before and that's my verdic on it.

2) Heatsink

Intro: it cools your CPU... that's it, a block of metal that gets clip on. the efficient is gonna depends on the size and the design.. there's quite a few in the block you can look at

a) the ninja (just search for ninja heatsink)... big block of metal... if you can find it for under 40, it's quite ok

b) the thermal take big typhoon... again big block... cools quite well cuzz it's big. and this is a cheap one. only 25 bucks pop up here and there at newegg

c) the artic cooler 64... i KNOW this one is good from reviews... word is it's also very cheap (around 30)... i looked at the design and the fans on this sink will probably give problems later on. i don't recommend it.

Conclusion: i recommend the thermal take big typhoon, it's cheap, it's not the biggest dog in the yard, but it's dam near the top... the essential when picking these out is that 1st and foremost it has to fit the socket you're putting it on (775 or 939)... 2nd you need it to be able to hold 120mm fan for the lowest noice production possible, you do not want fan noise when you record.

3) RAM (other wise know as memory)

Intro: ram are getting expensive... they might drop later in the year, but none the less you still need them... atleast 1GB or 2GB...i would go for 2GB

a) if you picked the intel duo core chip then you MUST go with DDR2... 2 GB in dual channel (2 identical stick) rated at PC6400... i can't stress it enough, you can get cheap ram, but these things can be reuse over/over and over again, just dive for the good stuff. it'll last you a while

b) if you picked the AMD single core chip then you MUST go with regular DDR... again 2GB in dual chanel rated at PC4000+... you need the speed to OC these chip..

Conclusion: prices are driving up mad for ram. we're looking at 150 for a pair of DDR and 200+ for DDR2... i would browse anatech forum or those techy forum where those guys don't need ram and willing to sell it under market price. ram are one of the parts you can buy use as long as it's from a reliable source, it's got no moving part. and if it break it won't work... there's no in between with RAM.

PSU: (other wise known as power supply)
Intro: well it converts your hosue electric to DC to use in the computer :)

a) the cheap route is the 600W ultra... you can get this for 20 after rebate. it's not known in the PSU community as a "great" performer. but ultra makes alot of computer component. they're ok. the PSU is modular (if you dont' know what it is, do a search for it, basically you can plug in only the cables you use, leaving the case less clutter with cables)... this thing is pretty beefy. and for 20 bucks i don't think there's any other one in the price range that will beat it.

b) expensive route is the more reliable purchase... 500W+ from brand name like antec, OCZ, fortron, sparkle, silverstone ect... these goes from 80+ to 150+... and YES they are more reilable that the ultra

Conclusion: people always talk about the reliability of PSU because if that unit go crazy, your computer is gone with it. it's not the Watts rating that's impressive when looking at these. it's the brand... that's all it matters. I would recommend the ultra for cheapness and decent performance. VS the top dog for about 5 times the money

Video card:
Intro: ask yourself, do you wanna play games?
a) you DO want to play games... well that calls for a beefy video card...right now the X950 or the 7800 is toping out. these goes for quite a bit, you can always step down from that and go with the X850 or 6800... in any rate. go to tom hardware (search at good)... the site has a VGA (graphic card performance) chart, that will tell you the model and it's performance in tests. then head over to newegg and check out the price, see which one is right for you.

b) you dont' game? eh, just grab the cheapest PCI-E you can find. about 128MB or 256MB will do. ANYTHING as cheap as possible... i recommend the 6600GT lol, it's cheap, u can get it for about 60 bucks as gamer upgrades their rigs. that's a really good card, i bet u can stil play alot of games with that thing.

conclusion: you're recording, nothing from the graphic card matters much, with the exception of onboard graphic (included graphic card in the mother board) it sucks CPU power, and u might take a performance hit when you are putting on filters/effect.

HDD (harddrive)

Intro: this is where u store your stuff (data, music, vid)... my favorite set up is gonna be 2 drives + so do read this part carefully. pretty much all drives are gonna be in ATA (or known as IDE) or SATA format.

a) Primary drive:

i) Raptor 74GB or 150GB... the reason for this drive as primary is that it's FAST... very fast loading time, SATA format, the FASTEST consumer drive besides SCSI drives. But they're expensive... about 200+ for the 150GB version. i did not list the 36GB version because that thing has less cache than these 2. as for the price right now, i'll go with the new version of the 74GB that has 16MB of cache... again they're expensive but you'll really feel the snappy action from these. also notice they're quite loud spinning at 10K RPM

ii) Seagate Perpendicular drive 320GB or 400GB... SATA drive. these are the FASTEST drive for consumer right after the raptors. new tech... 7200RPM so they are quieter. i would recommend this one as it's giving you more storage for less. the 400GB version goes for 100 bucks

iii) Seagate Perpendicular drive 320GB or 400GB... ATA drive.. same as above. the only advantage it has is that it's an ATA drive. and i'll discuss why in the conclusion. this is my absolute favorite pick for primary drive.

b) Secondary drive (and after) there's only 1 drive i would recommend in this

i) Seagate Perpendicular drive 320GB or 400GB... SATA drive no IDE... MUST be SATA.. recommeding 4 X 400 for a total 2TB system

Conclusion: the reason for IDE drive as the primary drive is because of the difficulties installing window on an SATA drive you need a floppy drive OR a sliptream version of window. This is neither hard or time consuming, but it's a pain in the ass.. and you got to do this EVERY time you install window in a drive. with the IDE drive none of this is gonna happen. Window Vista might fixed the problem already, but FOR now, i recommend IDE drives for window drive. And the reason i recommend SATA drive as secondary drives is because since you already got into window, the drive isn't an issue as much as point and click click... boom everything will work, SATA drive at this point gives better air flow in the case, no need to set pins.. ect... much better than ATA drives.

Sound card:

intro: for the recording system, the sound card is essential... there's quite a few that's been recommending on the forum, but like I stated before, i don't know crap about recording and have only had a few sound cards... so i'm gonna say what i think is most appropriate some basic understand
DAC = digital to analog coverter = your output to speakers
ADC = analog to digital converter = your input to record (probably more important for recording cards)
SNR = (signal to noise ratio).. this is the rating system for the DAC and ADC.. the higher the better... All card will have these ratings, the more expensive will mostly carries higher rating

Most of these cards will be in USB/Firewire/PCI format
USB = enough says, usb, i don't like it, slow transfer (but don't matter much when you're doing freaking sounds lol...)
Firewire = same as USB, a bit more stable
PCI = fastest bus on these flatform, the normal recommendation is that if you're working with alot of tracks at the same time, then this is a better flatform because it's got the highest data transfer rate. other that that the USB/Firewire is recommended.

a) the famouse M-audio 2496 and the 192 (PCI)... these are essentially identical card with the 192 being a little more expensive, and their plugs for input/output is slightly different. note that the 192 is balanced an the 2496 is not. doesn't make a big difference though. These however have no built in preamp. so you NEED a mic preamp to get this thing to work properly... they run from 100-120.. the 2496 can be have for 90 at musician friends.
113dB input and 108dB output

b) E-MU 0404 USB 2.0 Recording Interface... no idea, i'm gonna assum that it's the 0404 in USB flatform A/D: 112dB, D/A: 117dB 200 bucks. enough says lol

c) E-MU 0404 PCI 100 bucks. same as the one above, amazingly the rating is slightly different 111dB (A/D) and 116dB (D/A) (1db lower lol)

d) M-Audio FireWire 410 300 bucks, firewire.. never used before but the rating is this D/A 101.5 dB, A/D 99.6 dB (lower than the E-MU 0404)

e) M-Audio Delta 44 D/A 103 dB, A/D 99 dB 150 they do come with a break out box...

f) M-Audio Fast Track USB D/A 100 dB, A/D 100 dB crappy USB interface, only 100 bucks though

g) Creative Audigy 4 Pro... by this time i'm already hearing WTF this dude talking about? a creative recording card? YES... here's the rating
CS4398 (DAC) (120db) <<< same one in the E-MU 1820 and the E-MU 1616M
TI/BB PCM1804 (ADC) (112db) <<<< same one on the EMU 0404
plus this thing has a break out box and the cost? 90 bucks lol.

Conclusion: as you can see there's quite a variety, USB/Firewire flatform are more expensive, personally I like PCI even though i don't need the higher speed, but they are cheaper. and some of these PCI cards comes with breakout box, so it's not like it'll be a big hassel to plug stuff in. As i do stated, the 2496 is very very good, it's got a wooping 113dB input and 108dB output for only 90 bucks. that's the best price/performance ratio among all those cards except for the audigy 4 pro. my favorite pick for price/performance ratio is the audigy 4 pro. I have one... it's kicks butt.

Case:
Intro: what you gonna house the whole dang thing in, for recording purpose. i will only recommend 1 case. the AntecP180.. in the "quiet" case categories, this one beats out everyone in style/function and price. it's 90 bucks
a) antecP180 <<< as describe above


I'll update this as more info comes, comments are welcome as well as suggestion. i don't know everything, and this might be of help to people who does not know what parts to pick for their new computers.
 
Wow... lots of sweet info. It's interesting how it's easy to find PC-building info, and recording info, but not always both together, so thanks, guys!

A couple questions... creamyapples, how is that case for noise/heat dissipation? I was looking at the Antec version (take 3 or take 4), but it's like 3 times as expensive. I definitely like the idea of a rackmount case, though.

Also, in looking at the Core 2 Duo-compatible motherboards, it looks like several of them support RAID arrays... is this worth it? I want something capable of recording 24 48khz, 24 bit tracks simultaneously... but in doing the calculations, it looks like that's only about 23 mbs, which is well under the SATA 3.0 standard. Am I going to gain anything by using a RAID 0 array? And is it worth the trouble to get a backup with a RAID 1 array?
 
Raid really isn't my strong point, so I'm going to leave that up to someone more experienced. As far as the case is concerned, I used the iso matting on the inside walls of the case then bought Vantec Stealth Fans, they're made to run quite, though not completely silent. I'm only using a 120mm in the front of the case and 2 40mm in the back. There are places for another 120mm on the front and 2 80mm on what would be the top if rack mounted but I don't feel they are necessary at this point. With the stock CPU cooler and a stock cooler on my video card (5900xt) it's very very very quiet, though not completely silent. I have no issues with heat, everything stays pretty cool in there, even under pretty heavy loads. I don't have it rack mounted yet as I'm still planning out my rack build, but I'm hoping once it goes in there, what very little bit of noise is there is dampened even more. It's an excellent case for what it costs, it even has a bar on the inside with PCI/AGP stabilization bars that keep your add-on cards (sound cards, video cards, etc) in position, even if you move the case around, you'd never have to worry about the cards coming lose. The only down side to the case is that the manufacturer assumes that you'll be using at most 1 CDrom drive and 2 harddrives (or vice versa) as the only place to mount the HDs is in one of the 3 5.25. bays. This could easily be resolved by finding a harddrive rack from an old case or from Ebay or whatnot and drilling some holes.
 
johnny5dm said:
Wow... lots of sweet info. It's interesting how it's easy to find PC-building info, and recording info, but not always both together, so thanks, guys!

A couple questions... creamyapples, how is that case for noise/heat dissipation? I was looking at the Antec version (take 3 or take 4), but it's like 3 times as expensive. I definitely like the idea of a rackmount case, though.

Also, in looking at the Core 2 Duo-compatible motherboards, it looks like several of them support RAID arrays... is this worth it? I want something capable of recording 24 48khz, 24 bit tracks simultaneously... but in doing the calculations, it looks like that's only about 23 mbs, which is well under the SATA 3.0 standard. Am I going to gain anything by using a RAID 0 array? And is it worth the trouble to get a backup with a RAID 1 array?

i can answer that
1) case/noise. RIGHT now the best case for recording purpose is the P180, it's 90 bucks so it's not expensive in cases standard, just about right, it uses all 120mm fans, so you do get little noise, plus it has dampering material built in and the panels are made out of 3 different layers to absorb noise, you can't get better than that (well you can but it's gonna cost you your liver to get a better case than that)

2) Rack mount case is not very convient at home, stays with ATX plz

3) Raids at home are normally in 3 different types, raid 0, 1 and 5...
raid 0 is something like this: 200GB + 200GB = 400GB... it improve sustain transfer, but it'll not be as good as a single drive when it comes to random seek time, since it'll be seeking in both drives. further more if 1 died, you loose 400gb of data.
raid 1 is just the oposite: 200GB + 200GB = 200GB... it cut your storage in 1/2 and it records your data twice in case 1 drive kick the bucket, you still have your data on the other drive
raid 5 is just the steriod version of raid 1.

do read my post, it's got enough info to built a computer. right above yours, it took me along time to write it lol.
 
Thanks, guys. Yeah, warlock, I definitely read your post, and I appreciate the time you put into it. I'm the kind of guy who likes to know everything about what I'm doing, though, so that's where the questions come in. :)

Yeah, the P180 looks really really nice, but I want this rig to be able to be transported easily, so that's why I'm interested in a rackmount. I do a decent amount of on-location recording. I've lugged around a standard atx case for awhile, and it's just a pain... so that's why the rackmount thing. I'll have to see what my budget looks like when the time comes... if I can afford this , that's what I'd really like to get. Although, looking at it, it doesn't seem all that different from the Norco case Creamy mentioned... we'll see.

But yeah, man, I definitely read your thing. Thanks :)
 
The new Intel southbridge on the likes of the Asus P5B motherboards provides a nifty Raid setup if you want to go down that road. In the old days,if you wanted Raid 0+1 (striping +mirroring) you had to install 4 drives. Intel now lets you partition 2 drives so you can stripe one pair of partitions for performance, and mirror the other pair for redundancy
 
johnny5dm said:
Thanks, guys. Yeah, warlock, I definitely read your post, and I appreciate the time you put into it. I'm the kind of guy who likes to know everything about what I'm doing, though, so that's where the questions come in. :)

Yeah, the P180 looks really really nice, but I want this rig to be able to be transported easily, so that's why I'm interested in a rackmount. I do a decent amount of on-location recording. I've lugged around a standard atx case for awhile, and it's just a pain... so that's why the rackmount thing. I'll have to see what my budget looks like when the time comes... if I can afford this , that's what I'd really like to get. Although, looking at it, it doesn't seem all that different from the Norco case Creamy mentioned... we'll see.

But yeah, man, I definitely read your thing. Thanks :)


if you carry the computer around alot. the aluminum cases are your friend, the thing is that they don't block noise as good as steel case, but they're light. the best part is you put 2 strap to it and carry on your back like a backpack (what LAN people do lol)... so let's say that they're VERY easy to carry around, and if you set the computer right for silent operation i think it'll be fine, as long as you have silent fans, and place the box on the floor and not on the table, it's very heard to hear the fan..
 
Bulls Hit said:
The new Intel southbridge on the likes of the Asus P5B motherboards provides a nifty Raid setup if you want to go down that road. In the old days,if you wanted Raid 0+1 (striping +mirroring) you had to install 4 drives. Intel now lets you partition 2 drives so you can stripe one pair of partitions for performance, and mirror the other pair for redundancy

"Matrix" raid is probably the last thing you want to use for any audio application since you have one controller working 2 volumes so the mirror volume could interrupt the stripe volume whenever the os sees fit. Your better off with a dedicated drive on its own SATA channel. Plus Matrix raid is not both 0+1 its 0 and 1, so you have a mirrored volume and a striped volume, not a mirrored stripe volume.

If you want a real RAID, you need to go with RAID 5
 
altitude909 said:
"Matrix" raid is probably the last thing you want to use for any audio application since you have one controller working 2 volumes so the mirror volume could interrupt the stripe volume whenever the os sees fit. Your better off with a dedicated drive on its own SATA channel. Plus Matrix raid is not both 0+1 its 0 and 1, so you have a mirrored volume and a striped volume, not a mirrored stripe volume.

If you want a real RAID, you need to go with RAID 5

Ok, a disclaimer - everything I know about RAID I learned in the last few days from Wikipedia. :)

I definitely can see how Matrix RAID would not be optimal for audio, at least not as much as having independent drives. What I'm hoping to figure out is, 1.) whether I should use RAID and 2.) which level to use.

Like I mentioned earlier, I'm primarily concerned about transfer speed - but it may not be an issue. I'm hoping for 24 48khz 24 bit tracks simultaneously. I do also wonder about redundancy - never had problems with a drive failing, but I don't want to, either. On the other hand, I don't really want to have more than 3 or 4 physical hard drives, including the program drive. So, really, 2 or 3 HDDs for audio data.

So, those things in mind, please correct me if I'm wrong:
- I don't need a RAID array for disk transfer speed with what I want to do.
- If I want redundancy, I want RAID 1 or 5 (10 would work, too, but requires 4 physical drives, so it's out).

This is what I THINK I've learned, so correct my inaccuracies:
RAID 5 sounds interesting, but it also sounds like it's a little slower and a bit more of a pain to set up. It also seems like it requires more physical drives. However, you get to use more of the available space on the drives, since it's not an actual backup - it's a calculated one. It's not QUITE as reliable as RAID 1, though.

RAID 1 is simple, requires 2 drives, and gives full backup. Disadvantage is you don't get as much space from your drives. Simple, reliable, but not as efficient as RAID 5.

So... questions are: how many drives do you need for RAID 5? And how much of a pain is it to set up? And do you lose any/much performance from RAID 1? It looks like, all else equal, RAID 5 is better than RAID 1, but like I said, I don't want a mountain of HDDs in my computer. And I still want to accomplish my transfer rate performance goals.

I'm ok with having two 300GB (or whatever size) drives in a RAID 1 array and only getting 300GB combined from them, if that's the best way.

Oh... and is it better to have slightly different drives for the RAID array to prevent any possibility of simultaneous failure, or is that really not that big of an issue?

You guys rock... I'm learning tons :)
 
I don't like RAID. I never have.

The way I see it, you have your main drive for O/S and program installations and a secondary hard drive for all your data and documents. This works just fine for 99% of the people.

If you want to be ultra redundant, get a third hard drive and copy the contents of your second drive to it on a regular basis. And get a copy of Symantec Ghost and make images of your main drive in case it goes down to speed up recovery. Ghost will also make a dupe of your second drive to your third drive.

So in this situation, main drive goes down, you wipe or replace it and restore an image from your backup drive. Data drive goes down, you have your backup. Backup drive goes down, you have your data drive.

Hard drive failures are pretty rare in my experience (only had one or two failures over about a dozen drives in the last ten years). But occasionally I'll back stuff up onto DVD as I don't have that third drive.

In a few years, we'll have blu-ray or HD-DVD which can hold 30 gigs of stuff which should be more than adequate for short-term backup. Especially if you can file your stuff into folders based on date.
 
So... questions are: how many drives do you need for RAID 5? And how much of a pain is it to set up? And do you lose any/much performance from RAID 1? It looks like, all else equal, RAID 5 is better than RAID 1, but like I said, I don't want a mountain of HDDs in my computer. And I still want to accomplish my transfer rate performance goals.

RAID 5 you can do with as few as 3 disks and has a 1 disk fault tolerance
Here is a good site for all things RAID:

http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/perf/raid/levels/index.htm

That being said, the usefulness of a RAID array in a home recording rig is dubious at best since an efficient good/safe array is going to have a bunch of disks and require a dedicated, good controller. The ones you find stock are not all that and if you just run stripe, you risk loosing everything on the disk is something goes south on the controller (I have had this happen more than once) and during 4 disks for 0+1 is cumbersome. With a modern hard drive, you will have much better results with less head ache
 
altitude909 said:
That being said, the usefulness of a RAID array in a home recording rig is dubious at best since an efficient good/safe array is going to have a bunch of disks and require a dedicated, good controller. The ones you find stock are not all that and if you just run stripe, you risk loosing everything on the disk is something goes south on the controller (I have had this happen more than once) and during 4 disks for 0+1 is cumbersome. With a modern hard drive, you will have much better results with less head ache

Exactly why I don't like RAID. It's not terribly efficient and I've encountered too many problems with striping.
 
warlock110 said:
if you carry the computer around alot. the aluminum cases are your friend, the thing is that they don't block noise as good as steel case, but they're light. the best part is you put 2 strap to it and carry on your back like a backpack (what LAN people do lol)... so let's say that they're VERY easy to carry around, and if you set the computer right for silent operation i think it'll be fine, as long as you have silent fans, and place the box on the floor and not on the table, it's very heard to hear the fan..


For the record Mr. Anti-Rack case, the rack case/s linked are built like tanks, and machined perfectly. As for inconvenient at home, if you have rack space available, or plan on having rack space available (aka me) it's MORE convenient than any size atx tower. The rack cases are still ATX compatible.
 
Creamyapples1 said:
For the record Mr. Anti-Rack case, the rack case/s linked are built like tanks, and machined perfectly. As for inconvenient at home, if you have rack space available, or plan on having rack space available (aka me) it's MORE convenient than any size atx tower. The rack cases are still ATX compatible.

actually, rack are ok... it's just that cases have advance so much over the year, right now i think it's better to have a case than a rack... especially for 1 computer.. racks are better if you're operating multiple computers and run out of room.
 
I used to have a rack case, now I have a P180 and will never get a rack case for studio use again.
P180 is way, way quieter and easier to work on.
 
tarnationsauce2 said:
I used to have a rack case, now I have a P180 and will never get a rack case for studio use again.
P180 is way, way quieter and easier to work on.

Which rack case did you have? And aside from the noise, why is it "easier to work on"?
 
I love my rack case and I dont ever see going back to a tower. I mounted mine on slide rails so I can access it easily and with a it free's up all sorts of floor space
 
altitude909 said:
I love my rack case and I dont ever see going back to a tower. I mounted mine on slide rails so I can access it easily and with a it free's up all sorts of floor space

have you even seen the P180? like i said, rack back then was probably better than regular case. but lately they've been poping out with rediculous designs for case and it's REALLY good... just a thought, go check out the P180 or the stacker. those are very favorable among high end computers.
 
Intel Core2 (E6600 is best value for $$)
975 chipset board capable of quadcore upgrade (ASUS P5W64 or intel)
2G DDR2 Ram
system drive- 80G is plenty
audio drive -320GB SATA
sample drive -320GB SATA (if you use sample based vst's)
Quiet fans by Zalman
Chenbro 422 rack case
Antec or Thermaltake quiet power

This is what I do for a living.

H2H
 
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