what kind of computer

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bhlewis

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help im a newbie im going to have a new puter built next week can someone give some advice please examples:anthlon?pentium?celeron?what kind of hard drives?im going to get two? what kind of motherboard? etc. ive got and buget of 2500 im planning getting 16 tracks of audio in the future. i will be putting a delta 66 sound card in it to start. thanks
 
-Intel PIII 800MHz, FC-PGA

-Motherboard: Something based on the BX chipset. ASUS P3BF or the ABIT BF6. You will need a slocket convertor card if you go with either of these boards. If BX is not an option, check out the ASUS CUSL2. It's based on the Intel I815 chipset - has built in video. Built in Audio is optional. Either way it can be disabled via BIOS. Finding BX based boards is becoming more difficult, but the I815 doesn't look half-bad.

-Hard Drives: 2 X 20GB Quantum LM 7200RPM. One for your operating system, the other for audio data only.

-Memory: Cheap right now, 256MB should be plenty.

-Video Card: don't need one if you go I815, otherwise it doesn't matter much. Whatever suits your needs, research any known compatabilies with the other hardware before final purchase though.

-CD-RW: Yamaha, Panasonic, Mitsumi, Plextor all seem pretty decent.

I do suggest you check out maudio's site and see if there are any known problems with any of the hardware you decide to purchase.

With a monitor and the other odd's and ends not listed, this should fall way below $2500 USD.
 
anthlon not faster

thanks for you advice i will check out that site i just wondering about anthlon also everybody tells me its faster and also should i do 10,000rpm drives instead of 7,200rpm thanks excuse my stupidity.
 
AMD's Athlon is a good chip, no question. The main problem is with compatability between the Athlon motherboards (VIA chipsets) and soundcards (and other hardware). If you go Athlon, make sure that your sound card and other hardware choices will work together. Do this by going to your soundcard manufacturers webpage, or better yet call them. Mainboards based on Intel chipsets tend to be much more flexable when it comes to hardware choices, I would go intel for that reason, especially building a DAW. Many people have built DAW's using the Athlon and have had success. - Just be aware of the compatability issues.

If you go with 10K drives your into SCSI land. 10K IDE drives are supposed be on there way but I haven't seen any yet. If it fits within your budget, I guess you could go SCSI, but 7200RPM IDE is plenty sufficient for recording audio.
 
I agree with Emeric, i dunno if i agree with you on all those specs you gave about the computer, but of course im that same idiot that for some reason can get 128tracks playback using 90% cpu and 30% harddrive on a Pentium II 333,196M RAM, 15G 7200 RPM harddrive, haha. maybe im just imagining things or its Windows ME and all the tweaking i did to it. But i do agree with your answer about the Athlon and the Intel chips. even though athlon seems to be faster, in a way its not with some things because of compatibility, one good example ive seen is with adobe photoshop, photoshop definately runs better with an intel then with an amd. 10K though is not in SCSI land, im a PC dealer and im sure tehre are plenty of those in IDE.

bhlewis, you probably dont need 10000RPM drive, but it wont hurt if you have the money. i have heard however that SCSI isnt the best when it comes to audio recording, that in some ways UDMA IDE is better. I dunno, i havnt tested, its just what ive heard. im planning on upgrading to a pentium III 700 or so on mine, just because of the fact i use alot of plugins for effects. but i have no problem running 16 tracks on mine. I really do think that windows ME makes a big difference. why, i recorded a band a while ago before i had windows ME, i had all the same tweaks as i do now. Then, i could BARELY run 16 tracks without CPU or hard disk Drop out. welll, when i upgraded to Windows ME, after tweaking it i noticed i could run 128tracks pretty smoothly without drop out. since that is cakewalks maximum, i tried to load one more track of audio through and it dropped out immediately. i dunno.
 
"10K though is not in SCSI land, im a PC dealer and im sure tehre are plenty of those in IDE."

Me to. Show me one company that's selling a 10K RPM IDE drive. I know Quantum is working on a 10K and 15K drive, but none are available at this time.
 
well i did it

thanks darnold and emeric I upgraded this morning. This what I got . Intel p3 733mhz,intel 810c chip set,128meg, 15gig ultra ata 66 7200 rpm hard drive. Will be using Delta 66 soundcard. Everything is upgradable. How that sounds thanks guys....
 
No Problem bhlewis, we are all here to help.

Emeric, Ive seen plenty of 10K IDE harddrive. here is one of the models right here.

IBM 36.9GB UL-160 WS 10000RPM

Ive also seen some that are around 60GB's from other brands.
 
Whoops. Forgot to mention before to bhlewis to make sure to get TRS 1/4 cables to get full performance of the the delta 66. i bought my 8 channel TRS snake from Musicians Friend for $25 (same price as a non TRS).
 
Just to state what might be obvious, it's probably not a great idea (unless you are adventurous) to go for a Pentium IV now that they are out, tempting though it might be. For one, the motherboards with chipsets that can support these puppies will be hard to come by for a time. With new chipsets often come all sorts of new complications to worry about. Not to mention price -- these puppies will cost a lot for a while yet, as the bleeding edge stuff always does (with the nice side effect of causing downward price pressure on the older mature CPU chips). If you want a system that will work today, I would wait until all the pros have had a chance to test out these new systems, trip over whatever roots there might be, and learn the landscape before taking a chance on having an expensive but dysfunctional DAW. How long? I don't know, 6 months- a year maybe?
 
Yeah that's a SCSI drive dude! Almost gave me a heart attack! I can't wait for the 10,000RPM IDE drives. I mean, the new controllers appear to be ready, and the only notable difference in SCSI vs IDE is in the logic (technically), so let's have it!

My guess is they're not able to mass produce well enough yet, and they know that the be competitive in the IDE realm they'll have to hit the market with a good price. But then you'd think at least one company would have the gumption to throw some expensive drives out there...hmm. There's probably some really good explanation but I don't want to hear it :)

Slackmaster 2000
 
Whoops! Im very sorry for the faulse info. I thought the 15G i just bough was a UL-160, but infact its a UL-100 (which is not SCSI). Sorry everyone.
Darnold
 
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