I agree that integrated is bad and you shouldnt really go near it. But the majority of the other posts in here i disagree with.

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Originally posted by -=M=- basically, the Ghz shows how fast the processor can actually do commands... however the type of processor eg pentium, celeron, amd, etc defines how much load that the processor can handle it pretty much runs like cars do Celeron = Ford Laser (cheap and ecenomic) AMD = rx-7 non-turbo (affordable and still has ok grunt) Pentium 4 = Porsche (more expensive, but worth the money) i wont get into all the other factors inside computers, but basically thats what you really need to know about differentiating processors

please do get into all the other factors inside computers, please.

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Originally posted by lethal For video card i cant recommend strongly enough going Nvidia!! They are the technics of the video card world!!!

Two or three years ago yes. But if you want to play the next generation games nicely, then you will need an ATI 9800pro at least, a 9800 XT if you can afford it. If those are out of your budget then try and pick up and 9600 XT. Ati's naming conventions are a big funny, XT = best, Pro = Next best, SE = budget Model. Stay away from SE's, and stay away from nvidia cards.

Disclaimer: Im not an ati fanboy, in one computer ive got a 9800pro and in the other geforce. Check out toms hardware/hard ocp/anandtech/whatever for benchmarks if you disagree.

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Originally posted by PulseFusion really dont buy more than you need, dont buy any less. it really depends on what you use it for.

This advice is good if you plan to upgrade at least once every year, but if you cant afford buying new computers, or computer parts every year then buy the 2nd best of everything right now, and you should be good for a while to come, probably 2 years or so. I say 2nd best because you will pay through the nose if you want the best.

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Originally posted by Master_Yoda Don't get too carried away with all this, u can spend a lot of money very quickly. Probably the only thing u'd really want to spend a bit of money on is a good case and a really good motherboard, this will ensure u can accommodate a substantial upgrade if needed in the future.

As i said above, buy good now, then dont upgrade for a while. However, with cases and motherboards, i wouldnt recommend buying the greatest now. Soon video cards will be using PCI-express, a faster pci port. So chances are if you want to upgrade to a good graphics card in the future, itll be a pci express one, not agp. Another problem with motherboards at the moment, is that 64bit processors have just arrived and support for them isnt that crash hot. But it will get better in time, and in time everything will have support for 64 bit processors.

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Originally posted by waXology hard drives.... if your hardcore producing your gonna want a scsi hard drive, as non-scsi hard drives no matter what the rpm always bottle neck when working with large wav files..... monitors .....dual 17" LCD is the way to go as you need it with cubase etc...

I dont know much about producing, but unless you will be working on wav's that are 10's of gigs big, getting scsi is just not worth it. To really benefit from scsi that much you need to set them up in a raid 0 array, which means buying more than one. Which means more money.

As for the monitors, having 2 would be good, but i really doubt its a necessity.

I run a pentium 2.4c with 1gb of ram and a 9800pro like i said, i bought it about 9 months ago, and i dont see my self upgrading until next next generation games. One more thing, if you can afford it buy name brand ram, and i would recommend at least 512mb.

Last edited by escee on Mar-14-2004 at 15:48

Psygnosis-

If you are buying a PC to produce music ( which is what I do) I would stay away from the Celeron and buy a top of the range Pentium or AMD processor.

I would also seriously consider buying decent sound card that will take the load off your CPU... Dont go to a computer shop to buy your sound card... go to a place that sells music hardware.

Also if you are using all soft synths ( VSTiS ), its also a good idea to buy some decent ram... about 1 gig of it... If you can, buy a matched pair and run the ram in dual channel mode. Your motherboard has to support this feature however.


Hope this helped.

listen to escee, he knows what he's talking about

oh and i wish i could afford another 17" LCD

ATi all the way!
As I got the radeon 9800 Pro [256mg]
kicks butt, no complaints here.
Dont get the XT, its like 5% improvement + a 150-200 buks more. If you still want a high end card that not the top but still up there go with the 9800 pro, if you can afford it though =).

on the monitor thing.

i have 19" monitor and i use cubase.. i get so frustrated becasue i need more room.. personally dual monitors for producing is worth it... most producers have it as do most studios as per standard.

Oh damn this is gonna take longer than i thought lol, thanx ppl

well my budget is 2000 for the PC, i'm not really looking to get a very advanced Computer but something that will run many of the applications like Music Production programs and games and so on without actually resulting a error.

I think the main reason getting this computer is for Music production (wax knows eheh), so definetly am looking for the best Sound card and very powerful CPU. Definetly looking at the Pentium 4 or anything that can run faster. So wax is the M-Audio Audiophile the best? will check go check this out cause currently i got a Sound Blaster Live which is pretty mediocre now, and it's lost plenty of sound quality so need a new one.

NiNo LoCo, is that for ALL Dell packages? damn that sux then , so which is best.. getting the AMD with the fan or just the pentium?

lethal, which Nvidia is currently the top? really looking at a decent card... don't really want graphix looking too realistic or anything but something that can hold pixels well and actually look nice, currently have a Nvidia Riva TNT2, and with the new games it just can't actually visualise many parts.

Matt_P, i don't really have any experience in actually building a PC

Master_Yoda, the RAM of my current PC is 384MB and still is slow, i've looked at the catalogues and stuff for memory chips and they seem quite cheap. They had a offer for 1024MB ram chip for like 150-200 bucks.. seems like two 512MB chips.

The harddrives, i heard that some of the HDDs that have big spaces actually stuff up faster, is this true? The current HDD is only 20gigs but its like 7 years old lol so the bad sectors are starting to show now... so bigger ones don't stuff up?

Pulse, thanx for the link, will look through there now, yeh trying to build one from scracth, heard too many probs with packages.


Cheers escees, thats gonna make me think for a while

Onion, yeh this PC would be for music production and other kinda entertainment so really need the best sound card, good CPU and so more..

Agree with the CPU being powerful, when i was using Reason (now using Cubase and Reason) it kept saying out of CPU power every time it was reading too much information so definetly wanting more CPU, i will also need nice computer speakers, i have these Cambridge Soundworks speakers now, but they have stuffed up, the cord actually cut into two, so i tried fixing it by soldiering the parts back together BUT this removed sooo much of the quality. These speakers were nice but until the cord broke, the quality dropped so need a speaker that can have physical power too.

Now the monitors, I'm still using my 15 inch but i guess a bigger screen would be nice but sometimes i just connect my PC to my TV or projector and make it big but yeh need a good monitor.

whats the best brands?? for a 17" +

Thanx everyone, will go searching with these info tomorrow but will take a while to understand

Cheers,

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For your type of work your doing stick with a pentium. Bit more extra buks but you wont have to worry about if its fast enough or is it going to blow up hehe.

Well with big harddrives they have warrantys, now i have 150 gigs [120 WD 8mg cache & 30] and its still running all good. Im getting a 200 SATA WD one which should do well. (all these Dj sets downloaded have used up all my space =) .
Stick with Western Digital and more buffer the better, oh and higher RPMs but most current packages will sell you 7200rpms for what you are paying for. If your budget was higher you would go for SCSI (what Wax mentioned) or the 10k rpm but theses are still new to the consumer market so yeh...

Monitors, hmmm if your going with LCD get Philips 170b4.
CRT hmmmm Hitachi or Sony (if there is any around these days) else Diamand View

If you need speakers for like get the logitech z-680
http://www.pcau.com.au/l3/LOG3334.php
I got this system and its nuts, dont know why i got it for my Computer room to flippin loud hehe. For the price I recommend this to anyone

Thought of a case?? Aluminium all the way hehe well these are extras. I might be getting a tad carried away.
I'm a bit overboard with my computer, last year spent all my money on my dream PC.

Last edited by NiNo LoCo on Mar-15-2004 at 12:37

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well my budget is 2000 for the PC, i'm not really looking to get a very advanced Computer but something that will run many of the applications like Music Production programs and games and so on without actually resulting a error.

Youre planning on running windows arent u? youre gonna have to deal with the occasional fault, blame microsoft... everyone else does.

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The harddrives, i heard that some of the HDDs that have big spaces actually stuff up faster, is this true? The current HDD is only 20gigs but its like 7 years old lol so the bad sectors are starting to show now... so bigger ones don't stuff up?

Ive never heard or experienced anything like this i wouldnt believe it its more dependant on the quality of the hdd.

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Now the monitors, I'm still using my 15 inch but i guess a bigger screen would be nice but sometimes i just connect my PC to my TV or projector and make it big but yeh need a good monitor. whats the best brands?? for a 17" +

Remember youre gonna get a worthless resoluton on a tv (and probably projector unless you have a really really expensive one). The best brands are different for CRT and LCD, so it depends which one you want.

Bigger hard drives dont stuff up more than smaller ones. However hard drives of today do seem to fail more than older ones. Id guess this is because of temperature inside the case. Its a lot higher than it used to be.

This is just a guess though.

seriously, i wouldn't worry about hard drives failing, i've got five in this computer ranging from 4G to 120G and they are all running fine without fail. companies wouldn't be allowed to market a HDD that would be prone to failure... also i agree with ninoloco, Western Digital /w cache... no complaints


also, just a thought, instead of buying new speakers, why not have the whole setup in one room, computer decks, amp, speakers etc. so that you can have the decks and the computer running through the same speakers? i assume you already have some decent speakers hooked to your dex? that would make it easier to record your promos to computer as well he he... just a thought.

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Originally posted by PulseFusion seriously, i wouldn't worry about hard drives failing, i've got five in this computer ranging from 4G to 120G and they are all running fine without fail. companies wouldn't be allowed to market a HDD that would be prone to failure... also i agree with ninoloco, Western Digital /w cache... no complaints

um what about IBM with their Deathstar (sorry Deskstar) lol.

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Visit the secret Ninja site!! here
https://www.facebook.com/jon.hellyer

true, i spose, well most companies at least anyway... WD are good.

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