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| quote: |
| Originally posted by muli Also on the HD issue, i would get a 120gig 10200rpm (somethign like that  ) 8mb Cache, dont worry about SCSI, way to expensive. |
yea i actually only have 7200 but thought 10k would be nice especially if he is keen on Produtcion
Ok i wasn't going to reply to this but since i was a partner (and head technician) in a IT tech support company I'll tell you what you could do with some choices
for CPU's i'd recommend the following in order:
Athlon 64
Pentium 4 (Northwood not Prescott)
Athlon XP
Duron
Celeron
Athlon 64 is an x86 64 bit capable chip capable of accessing 4 terabytes of memory instead of 4 gb max as was previously able. It's fantastic for games and audio apps. It's got an on-die memory controller for very low latency access to Ram. Which is good!
here's some benchmarks showing what this thing can do
if you do decide to get a Athlon 64 then i'd recommend the new Nvidia Nforce3 250 Motherboard with 10/100/1000 Ethernet. Full Hypertransport support and goodies coming out the yin yang and the most stable board there is full stop lol.
Audio:
The Sound card is possibly one of the biggest choices you can make and is very important for what you want to do and i'll give you some choices and thoughts on sound
M Audio Revolution 7.1
Audigy 2
Other Envy24 based cards like Hurcules etc
The M-Audio cards have always been aimed at pro used with many of their cards aimed at recording and mastering studios with multitrack systems etc and their quality is very high with good quality DACs (Digital Audio Converters)
The Sound Blaster Audigy2 is actually quite a decent card. It's the only card capable of accelerating 3D audio for games (64 3D voices). It's capable of recording 24 bit audio at 192 khz. I've recorded a three hour set with that setup using it and it's got a reasonably low signal to noise ration which is quite good. Also in it's favour you can download and use Kx project drivers which are aimed at recording pros and offer low latencies with ASIO (I have mine running with 2 ms at the moment)
Hard Drives:
Unless you want to do some research to find whats faster etc the new Serial ATA drives are giving SCSI HDD's a run for their money and are much cheaper. Hitachi are releasing a 400 Gb model very soon and these are good capable drives that have more then enough speed for wave editing and so on. SCSI only comes into it's own with video editing where gbs of data are flowing in seconds and thats where SCSI is most useful.
Ram:
Pretty much any sort of DDR400 should do or get "brand" for your state of mind or if overclocking
Dual Channel is a bit better then single but not by that much but hey.....
Video:
this is important if you like a bit of gaming or a lot (like me lol)
at the moment ATI has a better product with their 9600 pro vs Nvidia's 5700 in the value segment and Ati's 9800 pro or Xt is a bit better then Nvidia's 5950 in the high end sector. If you wait about a month though Nvidia is releasing it's NV40 or thats it's codename anyways and it will be twice as fast as it's current high end thus dropping prices on it's current high end etc and forcing ATI to as well (just a tip). Get at least a 128 mg card with dualview capabilities if possible to setup two displays.
Displays: Don't bother with TFT displays as A: they're two small and B: two expensive and C: they have a slow refresh rate so they're bad for games anyways. If you afford a 21 inch go for it but 19 is pretty good two. If you can afford a Sony or Illyama etc then do so. Your eyes will thank you but it's not the end of the world.
Whoa cheers Trazmit, plenty of helpful info there... and you got diagrams too lol , cool!!
This info is really helping now, would never had this idea of which is best and which isn't.
thanx everyone
[edit]
thanks, keep these opinions to yourself in future
get a mac dude, they look cool.
| quote: |
| Originally posted by gumble get a mac dude, they look cool. |
i think its time to introduce you to www.msy.com.au
the cheapest damn shop in sydney
What they dont spend on english classes, they take off the price of their components so dont expect much help. Just go in and say, "here, this is what i want, do it"
| quote: |
| Originally posted by Matt P What they dont spend on english classes, they take off the price of their components so dont expect much help. Just go in and say, "here, this is what i want, do it" |
| quote: |
| Originally posted by Matt P i think its time to introduce you to www.msy.com.au the cheapest damn shop in sydney What they dont spend on english classes, they take off the price of their components so dont expect much help. Just go in and say, "here, this is what i want, do it" |
| quote: |
| 17� LG 787LE LCD Monitor $575 �HOT� |
DON'T GET AMD or CELERON!!!
I know there are a million and 1 posts in this thread with recommendations but I although my AMD has served me very well over the last year or more they have been left for dead recently by Intel.
AMD have put too much of their focus on their new 64 bit processors and for standard desktops the Athlon XPs just can't compete
Buy a middle of the range Pentium 4 with HyperThreading & 800FSB
The 2.8 Ghz is one of the entry level CPUs in the HT range but will be about the same price as a standard 3000+ AMD which can't compete with it in performance.
Buy as much Memory as you can afford. Corsair is the best available.
ASUS motherboards are best, get one with an Intel chipset, they used to have bugs in them but they are by far the best now with the new processors. Avoid VIA chipsets like the plague, especially if you're working with audio.
Only things which are worth getting integrated in the motherboard are USB, FireWire, Modem & Ethernet as their performance isn't usually critical like audio & video is. Hard to find a motherboard that doesn't have built in sound these days though.
SCSI Hard-drives are only really needed on servers. SATA is the what you should be looking for. Its included on most decent motherboards these days.
Audio & Video cards a seperate thread all together. It depends on what you plan on doing with it.
If you plan to use it for any type of production at all...
DO NOT BUY A SOUND BLASTER
Oh and ignore anything to do with 64 bit technology unless you're buying a Mac G5
Theres no point until there is a major operating system and software written to take advantage of the achitecture.
Save your money, Windows & Cubase have no 64 bit optimised instructions
I think its getting a tad carried away hehehe
We seem to be all Dr's in Computer Science =) Or nurses if theres any girls who participated =)
Remeber he has a $2000 budget not a $3000 or more.
ASUS P4C800-E Deluxe - $275
Intel Pentium 4 2800C 800FSB HT - $250
1024MB Corsair TwinX 184-pin DDR SDRAM 2x512MB sticks - $363
Seagate SATA 160G - $186
128M ASUS ATI 9600XT VIVO DVI W/TV Video Card - $295
Pioneer OEM 107D 8x DVD Writer - $189
= $1558
That leaves $442 for a case, power supply, keyboard, mouse, monitor and soundcard of choice... plenty
The motherboard includes 3Com 10/100/1000 Ethernet, Firewire, 6 Channel Audio, Dual RAID Chip, 8 USB Ports
That system would officially CWANK
All prices taken from MSY except the Corsair Memory from Aus PC Market
just did this for a production comp
not finished yet :P
CPU - Intel Pentium 4 3.40G-C (800Mhz FSB) $615.00
MBOARD - Asus P4C800-E-DLX $286.00
HDRIVE - Seagate 80G 7200RPM SATA-150 8M Cache $120.00
HDRIVE2 - Western Digital 120G 7200RPM SATA-150 (8MB buffer) $157.00
RAM - 2 x 512M DDR PC3200 400Mhz $326.00
VIDEO - Gigabyte AGP 128MB FX5200 nVIDIA TV/Twinview $108.00
SOUND - M-Audio Audiophile 2496 $499.00
MONITOR - 2 x 17" LCD $1,200.00
TOTAL $3,311.00
cant give a shit about the video cards just need twin view. but its looking ok but too pricey will try get it down a bit 
sacrifices will need to be made
If you pay $500 for an M-Audio Audophile you are officially a tit
www.doctoraudio.com
You can get the Audiophile 2496 for US$139
I know many people who have ordered from them and received it in less that 2 weeks for around AUD$200
| quote: |
| Originally posted by Stu If you pay $500 for an M-Audio Audophile you are officially a tit www.doctoraudio.com You can get the Audiophile 2496 for US$139 I know many people who have ordered from them and received it in less that 2 weeks for around AUD$200 |
So ASUS really create the best motherboards? My previous motherboard was a ASUS but the power supply on my comp blew up taking the motherboard out so i couldn't actually see how well it was doing, but it did last me ALONGGGG time.
Yeh to be honest i was thinking of Pentium in the first place, didn't actually hear much about the processors so wasn't literelly going to take a risk.
Stu, whats wrong with Sound Blasters? i'll go in now to check the Audiophile but what makes the Sound Blaster bad?
Cheers Cam and Stu for the list, gotta look into those... some of those were already on my suggestions from before so will consider them 
The past few days my comp is starting to really give, wouldn't load windows and so on... so i think i gotta pick fast.
just keep in mind
- SATA hard drives
- good ram PC3200 400mhz
yeah
| quote: |
| Originally posted by waXology just keep in mind - SATA hard drives - good ram PC3200 400mhz yeah |
| quote: |
| Originally posted by Stu If you pay $500 for an M-Audio Audophile you are officially a tit |
Serial ATA vs SCSI
read the second and third page it explains it well!
| quote: |
| Originally posted by JayKuE i was going to say. its amazing how inflated things down under are. i managed to pick up 1 of these o'seas last week for $180 aus. have yet to test it out though due to lack of some cables. hey psygnosis, u want my sb audigy? cheapy! cheapy! laf. p.s. spectrasonics tis the shit! |
GUYS
can you tell me where you got you Audipphile's from?
sites?
and how much in Toatal
cheers
Psygnosis - Creative Labs design sound cards for games and watching DVDs, not audio production.
The main reason for their poor performance is that they don't have ASIO drivers which means that you will get severly bad latency.
You can find ASIO drivers that I think were programmed by a 3rd party but its a much better idea to buy a sound card that was built for production purposes.
The Audiophile isn't your only option but for an entry level card its received quite good feedback from those who use it.
Another option you may consider is to get a Firewire unit which you can plug into any PC or Mac for additional sound processing, they are more expensive though.
If you are going to use your PC for general use and games then having a sound card integrated onto your motherboard can be handy for some surround sound but unless you're a hardcore gamer you probably won't care.
If you do have a creative card get the KX audio drivers 
I have no probs with my LIVE platinum
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