Ultimate DAW PC. Cheap, quiet, stable, robust.

[exit2studios]

BTW, it appears the deal on the 400SC is back once again.

http://configure.us.dell.com/dellstore/ ... mail&s=bsd

Anyone have any pointers on Matrox video cards? There are so many variations, I'm not quite sure where to start.

e2

[Reminor]

Anyone have any pointers on Matrox video cards? There are so many variations, I'm not quite sure where to start.

e2

Matrox video cards come in both AGP and PCI flavors. If you read my previous posts you know that AGP is the way to go (look at Intel chipset scheme earlier in the discussion). Do not use PCI video cards, ever! BTW, so far I don't buy into PCI-X (PCI-Express) for DAW -- too new, too expensive, not that much of performance boost so far.

I like Matrox AGP cards. Generally speaking, any AGP card will do, but if you look for dual-monitor setup -- search for Matrox AGP G400/450 on eBay (~$15 or so). I personally have one in my DAW and I couldn't be happier. No fan, no noise, stable, great 2D performance, convenient Matrox Dual-monitor utility.

As for two other major video card manufacturers (ATi and nVidia), I now prefer ATi. After using nVidia Ti4200 for a while (in a different PC) I stay away from nVidia. Mostly because of driver and dual-monitor quirks. They are OK, don't get me wrong, and I was an nVidia guy for years, but I am glad I discovered ATi as a better and chaper alternative.

ATi Radeons are a bit faster and more stable (just IMHO) than nVidia (but things change daily). I am also a fan of 3D games, so ATi 9800SE 256Mb (driver-hacked into full 9800) for 3D gaming and an old cheap Matrox G400 16Mb for DAW are my cards of choice so far. So if you use one PC for both making music and 'other things' an ATi card will be a good choice.


Reminor
P.S. I just got my fourth DELL 400sc ($300AR, with 512Mb RAM) . Those babies never put me down, so I keep buying them. Couldn't resist the deal which swang a couple of days ago. Now I am going to dedicate a machine to all my soft synth needs. Nirvana? Getting there...

P.P.S. Doesn't it make sence to put this thread as 'sticky'. I am still seeing people ask 'what's the best and quietest PC out there', or 'how can I build a quiet and robust DAW'....

[exit2studios]

Reminor, as always thanks for the info. I just got my 400SC and am waiting on RAM. In the meantime, I need to find another HD. Are the SATA drives really THAT much better? I mean, with HD prices where they are is it really worth the difference? The Raptors are anything but cheap.

I ended up getting a Matrox G450 from one of the QA guys at work for free, so I'm pretty stoked about that. Once I get the new RAM I will fire it up and get to work reloading all my apps.

On another note, I'm going to be switching from Win98SE to XP now that drivers are available for the Gadget Labs card I'm still running. Should be interesting. Would love to hear from anyone using those cards still.

e2

[Reminor]

By looking at the Intel chipset layout

you can easily answer your own question if SATA is worth the premium. 150Mb/sec INDEPENDENT buses (each drive gets full bandwidth) versus 100Mb/sec for 2 PATA devices to share... No contest I guess. Though the main restricting factors and the bigest bottlenecks are internal drive's performance, seek times, accuracy on the "physical level", I still feel SATA operations are taxing the mainboard, chipset and CPU a bit less, than PATA.

From the practical point of view it means like 40 tracks vs. 50 tracks at a time. I personally never max out even PATA, anyways. But I still choose SATA standard. Not necessary WD Raptor though (I personally love it, but I understand that cost can be a deciding factor for many). Most other manufacturers (Seagate, Hitachi, etc) have SATA versions of their drives, it's like $10-$20 more than PATA version (shop on-line, as stores always try to capitalize on SATA vs. PATA battle, and charge much more for SATA drives, ahrrrr). I think it is not such expensive.

Dell 400sc has 2 SATA controllers on-board it will be stupid not to use them.

Reminor
P.S. We are gear and music fanatics, aren't we? So c'mon, you can afford it. You can talk youself into not feeling guilty about that. Most people can't understand spending $1.5k on a microphone anyways. Same I can't understand somebody spending $850 on shiny rims for his truck. I am a freak in his eyes, he's the same in mine. So what?

Life is passing you by while you are busy making other plans (or waiting for better times). [/rant mode off]

[exit2studios]

Thanks for the info. You make some good points. I found the diagram very helpful. What other SATA HD would people suggest? Obviously the Raptors have a great reputation. I would like something quiet and reliable...and cheap if possible. I can justify the expense of a $158 74GB HD, but it's a little hard to swallow when you can get 200GB drives these days for $50.

So does the SATA really only come into play during tracking? What about plugs? If I'm running my apps on a PATA and my tracks on SATA and I getting the full benefit? I would obviously like to go to doubel SATA at some point, but I must take baby steps.

e2

[Reminor]

FX's and plugins mainly depend on the CPU (main processor). They are in memory, so disk performance is not important for them to function. Data they work with is another story. The digitized sound requires a lot of storage. The constant, reliable and fast flow of 1's and 0's (which make up a digital sound file) is of essence. Multiply that load to the number of simultaneous tracks and you'll see that all the systems iside DAW are pretty busy.

Recommendation regarding hard disk utilization. Set your apps (and system volume) to be on a PATA disk. Your projects/tracks/audio-files streamed from SATA. That makes most sence. That's how I use it, too. Your system drive can be that huge and inexpensive 200-250Gb PATA drive. It is indeed slower, but it does not matter much. We need speed elsewhere (to stream WAVs) -- we got speed with SATA.

Backup your projects to that system voilume, too. You'll be safe that way, and you'll justify having a large drive like that (otherwise a 40Gb PATA drive will be perfectly sufficient for apps/system).

Ages-old advice. Never partition disks into logical volumes. One whole physical drive for one partition only. Example, my WHOLE Seagate 40Gb is C:\, my WHOLE Hitachi 120Gb is D:\, etc.

Reminor
P.S. Don't forget that all hard drives get slower when they are 80%+ full (due to physical limitations). So you'd better keep your SATA drive pretty lean. That is why it is mostly useless to utilize those large 120Gb+ drive for streaming audio (at least you don't get the max speed). Full drives become slower and slower storing more data.

Speed or capacity. Can't have both.

P.P.S. Regarding quiet, cheap and reliable drives I personally like and trust Seagate (don't start the war on that, guys, I know every argument). All drives nowadays are very capable, so it mostly boils down to personal brand preference. You generally should buy a fluid dynamic bearing drives (FDB) with 8Mb+ buffer. Those make absolutely minimum noise and large enough buffer to better offset physical limitations of disk mechanics. Much more info as usual at www.storagereview.com

[exit2studios]

What's the word on the Samsung Spinpoint Quiet Hard Drives, supposedly more quiet than the Seagates. Seemed to be priced right if reliable.

[b3groover]

Just re-read this thread. I would seriously consider NOT getting a Western Digital drive. I've had too many of those things go belly up on me for no reason. I've never had a Maxtor or Seagate go bad and the new Seagates are below whisper quiet.

Those Dells are mighty cheap. I might get one as a server. My brother just built an AMD 64bit machine though. Holy shit is that thing fast!

Now I know what my next music machine will be.

[linus]

Dell seems to have replaced the 400sc with the 420sc. I'm not sophisticated enough to tell the difference. Is this the same machine? I need to buy a PC to run Nuendo.

[high tek]

my setup consists of a AMD athlon2000xp on a cheap ECS k7s5a mobo.
system drive: WD 40g 7200
audio drive: maxtor 80g 7200
2 optical drives (dvd player, cd burner)
pci firewire card installed (for motu 828)
agp video

some questions:

1. is it true that for the system drive you want to keep it small (ive heard recomendations to keeping it under 36g) so as to have the fastest "seek time"?

2. what is the best way to connect the PATA drives?
have both HDs on the same IDE channel
or put them as masters on each IDE
ive heard varying recommendations regarding both options (remember i have two optical drives)

thnx

[Reminor]

The Original Poster is back again Good to see the thread lives on.

I am getting messages from people who went with 400sc and couldn't be happier. Good stuff! I am glad.
Indeed as somebody mentioned, PowerEdge 400sc is no more. Sad. Our trusted friend is replaced with 420sc model. I cannot comment on features or performance of that new model, as most likely won't buy it. I am very well settled for at least 3 years to come with my five (!) 400sc. LOL

All other pieces of general computer advice (on AGP, hard drives, etc.) are still holding their value, and there's a lot of them here. Should we eventually sticky this tread for "future generations"?

Regarding questions.

1. is it true that for the system drive you want to keep it small (ive heard recomendations to keeping it under 36g) so as to have the fastest "seek time"?

Not the size but free-space/taken-space ratio is the key. You can have 120Gb drive with 30Gb of data on it, and it should be faster than 36Gb drive with the same 30Gb of data (assuming drives have same physical characteristics/performance). Closer you get to consuming full capacity of the disk, slower it gets.

2. what is the best way to connect the PATA drives?
have both HDs on the same IDE channel
or put them as masters on each IDE

The latter. Masters of the bus, no doubt.

Happy recording!
Reminor

[high tek]

2. what is the best way to connect the PATA drives?
have both HDs on the same IDE channel
or put them as masters on each IDE

The latter. Masters of the bus, no doubt.

Happy recording!
Reminor

thanx for the replies/sugestions, i appreciate it.

the main issue with putting both pata HDs as masters on each IDE channel is that the opticals (as slaves) will apparently slow down my transfer speed to the HDs.
so if my HDs are normally transfering up to @ 133Mb/s....(max)
placing a optical drive as a slave on the same channel will bring it down to 33/66Mb/s

would this nbot be an issue?

cheers

[linus]

I did some searching on the comparisons between the 400sc and the new dell 420sc (the 400sc' replacement).

Please take this with a grain of salt because I am damn near computer illiterate. I just want a fast machine that will be rock stable.

Aparently the 420sc cannot accomodate an AGP video card. It has to have a PCI video card. From reading this thread that does NOT sound like an improvement for the purpose of a DAW.

So it looks like I'll be buying a 400sc off of EBAY.

[Mr. Dipity]

I did some searching on the comparisons between the 400sc and the new dell 420sc (the 400sc' replacement).

Please take this with a grain of salt because I am damn near computer illiterate. I just want a fast machine that will be rock stable.

Aparently the 420sc cannot accomodate an AGP video card. It has to have a PCI video card. From reading this thread that does NOT sound like an improvement for the purpose of a DAW.

So it looks like I'll be buying a 400sc off of EBAY.

It has a pci-x slot instead of an AGP card. Perhaps Reminor can enlighten us to the difference.

[parlormusic]

I was recently mixing an album that had many track and tons of plugins running. My PC DAW was being crushed with all of that running. I had to disable a few processor intensive plugins while making edits just so it would play back without crapping out on me. I read this entire thread and took your advice. You are right on with this setup! I bought a 400sc and a pair of 512Mb ECC DDR SDRAM sticks. I already had a Matrox G450 that I popped in. My Raptor is on it's way, but in the meantime I set up my OS and settings on the 40GB WD drive that came with the Dell. I plugged in my Seagate 120GB drive with all of my recorded tracks. Damn, this thing smokes! And quiet! I tried to get Win 2003 Server to work, but none of the Delta Audiophile 2496 drivers recognized the OS. So I settled for XP and stripped it down. Seems pretty damn solid so far.

I've built many PC's for recording...some worked okay but most were never quite right. Until now, I have never bought a new PC because I thought I could get the performance I wanted by building my own. This combo that you suggested is RIGHT ON! THANK YOU!

BTW...
I used to do all of those crazy techniques that some have posted in this thread. Some of your tips I had to learn the hard way. Some tips you offered I had never though of, but make total sense. So for those of you out there who are skeptical or unsure, don't be! Save yourself headaches and just do as suggested. Like myself, you'll be glad you did.