Re: Advice to newbee
- From: "Mike T." <hello@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 9 Mar 2006 09:45:58 -0500
<coleman.bill@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1141891988.572260.210390@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Hi - hope you guys can point me in the right direction for some good
advice - or offer it youselves :)
I'm about to put together my own pc. It will be used for recording,
mixing and editing music - i figure i'm better off building my own so I
can tailor it towards that. I dont have a fortune to spend, but I want
to get as best performance as I can.
I need advice on what motherboards, chips, sound cards etc would be
best suited to this project.
Thanks in advance for any help
OK, you'll want to go high-end on the sound card, probably nothing that
you'd get at a typical computer vendor.
But when you find the right sound card, build a mid-range PC around that
sound card, with an AMD processor, 1Gig of RAM (1 stick, don't go for
dual-channel) and probably two hard drives. Optionally, you might want to
go for 2Gig (2 X 1Gig) of RAM, so you'll be set for Vista. You'll want a
small 10K hard drive (IDE or SATA, either one, 20Gig or larger) with an 8M
or larger cache to boot from, and a CHEAP 250Gig hard drive (or larger) for
storage space. The reason is, you will need a fast hard drive to run your
OS and music recording software from, but a fast hard drive that has lots of
storage space will be wicked expensive. So you buy a cheap hard drive with
lots of storage space to store your music files, which will be quite large.
Optionally, you might buy TWO cheap hard drives with lots of storage space,
for backups (and possibly raid them for real-time backup, instead of extra
speed). But that depends on how important these music recordings are. :)
Any decent mid-tower case with 5 or more 3.5" bays should work (so you don't
have all the hard drives crammed together, can leave space between them).
You'll have to pick your sound card first, to make sure that it will support
all components OUTSIDE of the PC. You might even go for some kind of
EXTERNAL sound card, as the external sound cards will be more likely to have
all the connectors you will need. But after you've picked the sound card,
look at mainboards that will support that sound card, with an nvidia chipset
and preferably a newer socket 939 board. For brand, I'd suggest DFI, Epox
or AOpen.
If you get the right sound card, you won't need gobs of processor power (any
AMD of about 3200 or so should do). I suggest AMD as it will be better for
multimedia work. It will probably be cheaper for a mid-level system, also,
though I haven't checked processor prices lately.
If you're mainly using the system for recording music, then you won't need
much in terms of graphics power. So it might be best to go with a cheaper
video card (geforce 6600 maybe?, something with a DVI connector) and use the
money saved to buy a better sound card.
The only mainstream sound cards that -might- work (that I know of) are the
Creative audigy pro or x-fi cards, both with the box of connectors that
fills a 5.25" drive bay. That way, all your connections will be made on the
FRONT of the PC. But you'll have to evaluate any sound card to make sure
that it has all the right connections for whatever you are going to be using
to input your source audio. Good luck, -Dave
.
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