Building a computer strictly for recording
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Posted on Oct 03, 2007 06:11 pm
GRiFFiN8946
entrepreneur?
Member Since: Oct 18, 2005
I've searched around HRC for some articles and posts on this but i couldn't find anything terribly recent but the posts i found gave me a good general idea.
i think i'm going to get this board:
www.newegg.com/Product/Pr...82E16813135028R
it has enough pci cards for me and plenty of room for upgrade, but is that motherboard designed for a specific graphics card? i don't need anything fancy as it seems to be designed for gaming and what kind of processor would you recommend?
from what i understand m-audio is well into 64bit by now after seeing some posts that they were working on beta drivers last year, so the delta 66 should work well. i'm set on getting xp pro 64 bit since it seems to be the most stable if i'm not mistaken and i can manage picking out hard drives,cases, etc
am i on the right track? as computer savvy as i'd like to think i am a lot of these terms are going over my head and i don't want to buy a board that lacks what i need.
i'm currently running on a 7 year old celeron processor that barely clears the 1.0ghz mark with 256mb of ram, i need a quantum leap to get the results i want
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pjkPrince CZAR-mingMember
Since: Apr 08, 2004
Oct 03, 2007 07:39 pm Hey Grif, I'm running an AMD rig now, the 3500+ AMD64, i think. It's been great for me, but I haven't thrown a ton of CPU hungry stuff at it.
Looking through newegg, you can get amd64 3000 for 40$, the X2 start around 150 or so, so that may factor into your equation. Basically, more $$$ means better performance.
I'm guessing that the AM2 is the step up from the 939 that I have in my board (see profile). I think it is, but I can't remember offhand.
You should be able to put any video card in there. I put a dualhead Gforce 6200 in mine, that I think is PCIx16, though I can't quite remember. Anyway, I only spent like 60 $ on it, and it's been working great.
Definately shoot for dual head (2 monitors). The extra real estate is super helpful. I couldn't imagine working on a single now.
I played with xp64 when I built my system, but it couldn't find my soundcard (ESI). even with the onboard sound I couldn't get several things to work. the drivers weren't jiving, though that was 1.5 years ago, so it's probably better now.
I know that I'm happy with my regular old win xp pro setup. It's been a tank, though I built it solely for audio, and have kept it that way.
The motherboard you listed only supports 1.5 sata. I would be looking for 3.0 if I were you. I read (when building) that there's around a 15-20% difference between the two, so I went with sata II.
If you're not pushing the track counts, then it probably won't matter much. I was planning for bands, so I went with the SATA II.
I have nvidia chipset on my board, and it's been working fine here. The VIA fiasco was fresh in everyone's mind, so I went NVIDIA.
Get separate HD for system drive and audio drive. I have 2 HD, split to 3 partitions. 1 system, 1 storage, 1 tracking. I went with seagate SATA2 drives, and they've been good.
Personally, I wouldn't be too stoked to go the winxp64. Unless you had a real need for high memory. Oodles of people are getting killer performance from winxp. Plus, it's compatible with everything now, so there's no worries about something working or not.
( my .02$us )
Noize2uCzar of MidiAdministrator
Since: Apr 04, 2002
Oct 03, 2007 07:52 pm That is a pretty decent MoBo for sure. The northbridge chipset is N-Videa Nforce 4 x4 which has not had any compatibility issues that I have seen so far. And yes, plenty of room for PCI cards.
The video card will simiply need to be a PCI-E type card and those have come down in price lately. I would recommend sticking with the N-Videa video cards. They have a great deal on their 256m card which will run the graphics of most DAWs without any trouble.
Kaos62Kaos is only a form of insanityMember
Since: Feb 03, 2005
Oct 04, 2007 12:19 am Sorry to hijack the thread, but I have a question regarding what PJK has mentioned.
" 1 system, 1 storage, 1 tracking" How do you set that up???? I have 1xsystem and 1xstorage, but how do you track on another drive???? (is it just by putting the daw program on the third HD???
Oct 04, 2007 03:31 am in Sonar you can set the default project folder anywhere...i've got cakewalk installed in the C drive, but every project i create (and track) goes to my D drive.
pjkPrince CZAR-mingMember
Since: Apr 08, 2004
Oct 04, 2007 06:55 am I have a 80g drive and a 160g drive.
I was going to just put the 80g as system, and use 160 as audio, but I really wanted to have a separate tracking drive, and storage drive.
And I didn't want to have anything on the same platter as the tracking drive.
So I partitioned the 160 into 40g and 120g. I left the 80g full partition. I then set up:
C drive - 40g - windows, other programs, swap file
S drive - 120g - audio apps, sample libraries, storage of older projects
T drive - 80g - landing spot for tracking only. projects get moved to S drive when getting larger.
This has worked very well, the swap file and programs (windows, reaper, FL, etc) all live on the same platter, but separate from each other. This isn't critical if the swap file grabs cycles for a second. The audio tracking gets it's own free platter to land on.
I renamed the drives 'S' for storage, and 'T' for tracking ;)
Oct 04, 2007 06:59 am I have 1 drive for OS/applications, 1 drive for tracking and storage, and one for storage backups.
backup, backup, backup.
Noize2uCzar of MidiAdministrator
Since: Apr 04, 2002
Oct 04, 2007 07:16 pm pjk, only problem with that set up is your still having the system on the same physical drive as the samples and audio applications. Applications are OK on the system drive but it will now not only be running your OS and recording application but it will be searching for the sample content for playback as well all on the same physical platter.
I do what you are trying to do but as with dB I run multiple HD's. An 80 gig system drive which also contains all applications. A tracking/project folder drive which is usually 80 or 160 gig depending on the project and are in swap bays for easy removal. Then some sample and loop content as well as backups of current projects are on a 350 gig SATA. While the majority of sample content and synth and sampler files are stored on another 350 gig SATA which is soon to be converted to a 500 gig SATA. Then the entire system will back up to a TerrraStation. The synths and samplers I use have huge sound libraries, some of which are up to about 150 gigs or so. So you may not need anything near as drastic as that.
SrissoMember
Since: Sep 30, 2007
Oct 05, 2007 03:57 pm Here is my little bit of computer knowledge.
AM2 is the latest generation, and is replacing the 939 socket. A higher level 939 will run as well as lower AM2.
The basically equivalent AM2's will be cheaper than the Intel Core 2 Duo's. A little OC'ing and you'll get equal performance for less money.
The caveat I think comes into play especially with your mixing studio. If you will be running Pro Tools, I have heard pretty consistently that it runs best on the Intel/Pentium architecture. If you are going with Sonar, AMD should be fine.
Keep your media on a seperate drive from your apps to prevent bottlenecking and theoretical file corruption. Even more ideal is to keep your OS on a separate drive from the rest of your apps and your media on a different drive from those.
Any 939 x2, AM2 x2, or Core 2 Duo chip will be a quantum leap from your Celeron. :) Also, for just running a DAW, music only, even an onboard Nvidia 6100 or better is fine. Whether you go with onboard graphics or PCI-E depends on exactly how performance oriented you are and what your budget is.
I would choose a PS of at least 500 Watts for two or more hard drives plus a vid card.
EDIT: I just built an AM2 box for my room mate, it works fine. But previously I had gotten an AMD x2 939 chip, and the mobo I got for it came DOA. Then I RMA'd it, and the replacement was DOA also. The mobo was made by Foxxcon, and I don't recommend them.
Noize2uCzar of MidiAdministrator
Since: Apr 04, 2002
Oct 05, 2007 10:36 pm The recording application whether it is Sonar, PT, Audacity or what ever does not know the difference or run any better on a said CPU. It is the system set up itself that determines how well the application runs.
So that is a big no trying to tell someone that PT runs better on an Intel chip then an AMD chip.
And running the applications on a separate drive will not save you much if anything. They run just fine on the same drive as the OS.
pjkPrince CZAR-mingMember
Since: Apr 08, 2004
Oct 05, 2007 11:00 pm I see what you're getting at Noize, about the HD, and I agree, I would have liked to get 3 HD, 1 for each function, but I had already bought the 2 for my rig, and was at the end of my audio PC spending =/.
I don't do a ton of sample work, only recently getting GPO and lightly playing around with it. And with reaper, I'm pretty sure everything gets loaded into memory.
So I don't think I have much to worry about for now, but I will probably work in another drive before long. Actually, I have another 160g sata1 drive that I'm not using yet. my power supply only have 2 sata connections, and I just recently got a converter, so I may introduce it soon.
As for the programs running better on Intel VS AMD, I think it can make a difference. Some programs will use some instructions more than others, and it may play better on one processor vs another. For instance, Saw is written in assembler, which may make better for integer math, whereas Reaper is written in C++ which may take better advantage of floating point math. In this sense, one program may perform better on one processor over another.
(disclaimer: I don't know which is or would be faster, I'm just theorizing)
That said, PT may take better advantage of how Intel makes chips, vs AMD.
Oct 06, 2007 02:03 pm For windows to recognize over 4gb of ram, you'll need a 64 bit OS. I'd go up to an AMD x2 4600 processor, because it competes with the core 2 e4300 and is $30 cheaper.
The sata-150 really won't make a difference, except in burst transfer rates. Figure less than 1 or 2% difference between SATAI and SATAII.
I have a core2 duo E4400 overclocked to 2.75ghz and couldn't be happier with it.
As to your graphics card, just get a pci-express x16 card of some sort, if you want a quiet one:
www.newegg.com/Product/Pr...N82E16814121007
www.newegg.com/Product/Pr...N82E16814130029
Also, spend some time on www.anandtech.com and www.tomshardware.com. They've got a lot of good info on computer building there.
