time for a new PC...help me out

[Smitty]

there's a pretty good chance that your machine will support 4 gigs max, and i would think that's definitely enough. i've been mixing 20-some tracks with lots of plugs on 2 gigs (been meaning to upgrade) without so much as a hiccup.

the trick is to edit the startup settings in XP so that all that crap doesn't even load up when the computer does. it can be kind of hard to figure out what is essential and what isn't, but once you get it skinnied down, it stays the same every time you start up.

remind me to PM you later, i've got some helpful links for that on my home computer.

[Mradyfist]

Start with this: http://www.theorica.net/safexp.htm

It's nice because it's hard to break anything with it. Turning off services is fun, but if you don't know what you're doing you can ruin an XP install. I learned that the hard way long ago... in general, XP is actually a lot less piggy about running tons of stuff than people seem to think. The problem is that OEMs like HP and Dell like to preinstall software, either for additional "feature" bullet points or because they get paid to do it. Installing from a system builder CD usually starts you off fairly clean.

Standard Windows XP won't address more than 4gb of RAM, so that's all you need.

[Smitty]

man, i wish i'd known about that before.

i turned off all the graphics options, too. so now it looks like Windows 98 but runs like Windows Whoa.

[MoreSpaceEcho]

awesome. thanks guys. when i got my last computer i had them only install service pack 1, as i'd heard (read) that sp2 was 'no good for audio' i.e. it was a bunch of unnecessary junk, still true?

[Mradyfist]

awesome. thanks guys. when i got my last computer i had them only install service pack 1, as i'd heard (read) that sp2 was 'no good for audio' i.e. it was a bunch of unnecessary junk, still true?

God no, running XP without SP2 gives me the shivers just thinking about it. Service packs are generally not additional features, mainly bugfixes and security issues. The only benefit you'd get from sticking to SP1 is the chance to start from scratch on a number of mixes when your system crashes. Usually you want to wait a bit before jumping on a brand-new service pack because compatibility issues can arise, especially with less mainstream hardware, so I don't know if I'd recommend grabbing SP3 yet (especially since I haven't actually tried it myself), but SP2 is good.

[kronosonic]

yeah i was thinking 4 gigs of RAM, you think i should get more still?

and yeah it'll be XP Pro, and i'll spend half a day turning all the stupid shit off...

XP can't make use of any more ram than that

I find 2gb to be more than satisfactory

[rwc]

I know it's lame, but I'm going to quote my post from the other thread.

I've been building computers for about 13 years. In this time I've made many stupid mistakes, or bought things I regretted buying, and did a lot of research each time I bought something that didn't fit me well, and bought new stuff later based on that research. I wasn't well equipt financially when I was six years old either so I used stuff that people were throwing out for my projects until I was 16, so I did get to use hardware from 20 years ago.

If I were building a PC for audio now, it'd be something like this. I left out the interface because you had already picked one but if not I'd definitely dump the firewire shit and get something from RME.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6819115017

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6820227195

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6817151030

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6811125468

http://www.jab-tech.com/Nexus-80mm-Real ... -3859.html

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6822148231 <-- get two

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 822148298R <-- get two

http://www.cooldrives.com/saii3gra4p64.html

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6813131225

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814121093

http://jab-tech.com/Enzotech-Extreme-X-pr-3722.html

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6827118002

Now I'll explain why I chose the parts I did.

The q6600 is a great processor. As time goes on(even now) more programs, ESPECIALLY MULTIMEDIA RELATED ONES are becoming multithreaded. The video encoding world jumped on this, I'm sure audio isn't too far behind. Intel always had a heads up for multimedia until AMD totally creamed them, but AMD dropped the ball once the conroe/allendale based CPUs came out, and it's been downhill for them ever since.

Intel used to push their hardware until it ran hot and was just at the limit of the architecture, where AMD would make a new architecture, but now it's the other way around. AMD doesn't really have anything too impressive at the moment.

XP runs fine with a quad core CPU. I rape mine daily.

OCZ makes great memory. It's DDR800, slightly faster than the DDR667 apple uses and most manufacturers ship as default, and it's cheap for 4 gigs. Also two sticks which is better for performance than 4, and the latency is more than acceptable for 2 gig sticks at ddr800.

The best PSU company is PC Power & Cooling. They are durable, they have the best voltage regulation, and they measure with 0 ripple which few if any others do. Seasonic is their OEM for a good amount of their products, as well as the OEM for other companies that produce quality products. But above all
they are the QUIETEST!

The Chenming case is truly a great design, and here is why. Most cases have one, or zero intake fans near the HD, which is bad. And it's usually covered by so many stupid grilles and decorations it's useless unless it's 2700 RPM which is useless. This one has 2 small exhaust fans where required, and 3 in the front. One for regular intake, and two for the HD bays, and if you're not using the second HD bay, you could have extra ventilation as the HDs wouldn't be blocking it.

I use chenming cases all the time. Fuck the Antec/thermaltake BLING BLANG stuff - this is simple, works, and is easy to fit stuff into. I like ROOM!

Those fans are quiet. See here

Seagate makes, IMO, the most reliable drives. They were the first to come up with a quiet cool running drive. It's the only drive brand I've ever dealt with where I haven't had a failure, even on used drives.

We're getting 2 smaller ones for the OS, because I intend on using RAID 1.
RAID 1 is mirroring. that means whatever goes on one drive is copied to the other instantaneously. Say your OS drive dies in the middle of a session. You could either

a) give up that session and say "sorry, no more recording" - totally unacceptable.

b) Hope you saved and take out another drive with the EXACT same image on it of the one that died. this means opening the computer while the client is there.. oy. Eff that! You may be back up and running in 20 minutes, but do you really want your client to wait, or deal with it? Also, if you changed anything on your install since making the image, you're fucked!

c) Have RAID 1, see that a drive died when something blinks on your taskbar, continue the session unscathed and without issue, and after the client has left happily switch out the dead drive for a new one.

C is the most appealing.

750 gigs is, to my knowledge, the best dollar/gig out there right now. Same reasoning as above. Get two so you don't have to worry about shit like drives dying during a session. Yes, you can back up to another drive while the session is happening, but if a drive dies and you have to stop the session, it's compromised and there's no fixing that.

The RAID card uses a well known well supported chipset, and is reasonably priced.

The motherboard is great. I used to be a big overclocker and as much as people got down on ASUS, their products are amazing. They took a lot of abuse and still worked. they could always perform better than gigabyte or abit on the same hardware, and never had stability issues where the other two wouldn't be able to boot.

Also the board cooling is great. They did what I always recommend buying extra heatsinks for, they heatsink the mosfets on the board as well as the northbridge and southbridge. P35 performs better than 975 and 965, is slightly behind x38 but costs a lot less, so I recommend that board, which is the best model before you get into a bunch of unnecessary built in wifi/remote shit.

You don't need a star video card I imagine. Just chose something recent, nvidia(for some reason they are much better at supporting weird resolutions and weird monitors), passive, from a good company.

That CPU heatsink performs better than the Tuniq Tower which is known to be the best. However it also points down on the board, which is important since it cools every component on the board. The board is passively cooled with heatsinks so this compliments it well. The fan can run at a low speed, I'm sure in the ASUS BIOS you have good fan speed control.

Sony NEC was the OEM for some of the high end plextor models. I think they may still be. They're cheap, fast, error free and reliable.

I guess the only thing I didn't do was verify you could do two separate RAID1 arrays with that card. I've used a similar silicon image chipset with a syba pci-x card and it worked well, but not for the OS, and it was raid 0. I have set up raid 1 with different chipsets for other PCs though.

I'm sure I left something out. Again I'm not an expert, I don't do IT for a living nor am I qualified to do even basic computer stuff to a professional standard, this is just from my experience dicking around with hardware as a hobbyist for a long time. so if any IT people chime in on this thread feel free to shitcan what I've said above.

[LeedyGuy]

^ I'm so loving that post.

*checks bank account*

I noticed that that case is discontinued. Other suggestions?

The 750 HD is also discontinued, but here's another.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6822148298

AND this is over a grand. i know its bad ass, but a grand is a hefty chunk of dough. I sort of expected that building it myself would be a little cheaper than that, but I guess not?

[Mradyfist]

I know it's lame, but I'm going to quote my post from the other thread.

Generally agree on all these points, and I don't think you recommended anything that isn't a good choice. (sorry about the double negative, I'm saying your recommendations are good).

The Chenming case looks decent, but I'm not sure why you'd call Antec cases "BLING BLANG".. their low end stuff is overpriced, but when you drop some serious cash on the nice ones, like the P150 or P180/182, it's worth it. We've got the P180 at our studio, and every time I'm there it makes me want to buy one for my home rig. That thing is dead silent with halfway decent components in it; to this day, every other time I turn our system on I think that I missed the power button on the computer because it doesn't sound like it's doing anything. Case construction is rock solid, all the panels are damped (that thing is HEAVY), there's built-in elastic suspension for all the 3.5" drive bays, and a silent 120mm fan built in to the top. Oh, and the power supply goes in a separate chamber at the bottom which keeps it from adding heat to the rest of the components.

Just keep in mind that it's NOT a fun case to move, because it weighs more than a small child.

Totally agree on the Seagate drives, they've been nothing but good to me. And RAID 1 is definitely a good choice, although if you're willing to find a decent hardware controller and deal with some additional thought in setting it up, RAID 5 has major advantages.

I also want to second the Nvidia recommendation, mainly because ATI has shit for drivers.

As far as the HSF combo, I haven't actually heard anything about that brand but the design looks valid. It's a little pricey though, and I'm guessing that it's more for if you need to overclock. I usually grab a basic Zalman, they start at about $30 and if you're leaving your CPU at stock speeds they generally run silent.