I posted this in chillout, but i would appreciate people who actually KNOW about what an audio workstation computer should have seeing the thread and providing comments as well.

http://www.tranceaddict.com/forums/...threadid=134597

Please let me know your thoughts, especially on the soundcard.

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damn I just read through that thread and I'm not even going to begin to point the many points of bad info you were given... a lot of it was good info, and I didn't plan to answer all of your questions myself.. but it fucking annoys me so much seeing people dishing out bad information because they think looking intelligent is more important than actually helping someone out.

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"I played 12.30 til close at 3am at the club (Antro), following on from an Australian dj,
which seemed unusual in deepest Texas." - Judge Jules

Why dont you give him some good advice then?...

John. i am going to build myself one aswell in the next few weeks so I have the same questions as u do. PM me or drop me an email when u make ur decision.

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Trance music all night long baby!!!

I'm a computer freak, give me a budget. Are you experienced enough to build it yourself?

EDIT: I guess I should have read the link post, I'll get back to you!

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When you dance, the DJ takes you on a journey, but he or she is usually not the focus of your experience at a club or festival or wherever you hear the music. Dancing is. Music is.

operating system is good. the only thing with oem and retail is that oem you just get the cd and manual in a plastic envelope while retail you get a box and all that junk. but basically if you buy a dell or something they'll just give you the oem package os.

you have 2 different processors mentioned. 2500 and the 3200, which correlate to a 1.8 and 2.2GHz clock speed. the question is do you want to pay $400 more for the faster processor? i think i would because it'll be current a little while longer. cooling is always a must. take a look at amd's site they may have some fans listed that they recommend. and don't forget the thermal grease for a bit better heat transfer for cooling.

motherboard, most people like asus and abit these days. so i'd recommend one of those. i haven't read too much on soltek but i've heard of it. the thing with asus and abit is that they're easy to overclock. just a couple settings in the bios and you got a faster system (all though other things do come into play)

1 gig of ram is fine, but more is better since your gonna be editing. as far as going 2 stick 512 or 1 stick 1 gig. i think it depends on if you want to upgrade. for instance if your mobo has only 2 memory slots and can handle 2gigs and you'd like to upgrade later on then the only way to go would be a 1 gig stick.

i believe dvd+-rw drives a becoming relatively cheap, the only thing they may become an issue is brand name and with having +- capability will be good.

i think ati and nvidia are the top video card company's right now. personally i'd go ati. bout $100 for the radeon 9000 128mb card.

sound card i'd definitely NOT go with soundblaster, while it's ok for the everyday joe i don't think it'll even come close to sufficing for you audio needs. i haven't had much experience with maudio or any other higher end audio card so i can't really comment, but with the posts i've read on here about maudio cards, it sounds as though it wouldn't be a bad idea to go that way.

i'd go with a bigger harddrive as they too have become less expensive. i wouldn't go with serial ata because i think it's too new and some of the tests i've heard just make it not plausible for the price (i think).

the rest looks fine. power supply is good since it only says it's p4 ready which would lead me to assume it's ok for the athlon too since they're direct competitors, but i'd go with a 400watt power supply just for peace of mind. other then that just make sure everything is compatible with the motherboard you buy.

hth

quote:

Originally posted by Rememberence_ damn I just read through that thread and I'm not even going to begin to point the many points of bad info you were given... a lot of it was good info, and I didn't plan to answer all of your questions myself.. but it fucking annoys me so much seeing people dishing out bad information because they think looking intelligent is more important than actually helping someone out.

To the contrare, he was offered many points of good advice. The only really bad one that I saw after quickly reviewing it was to choose cpusolutions.com for a computer.

Anyway, here is what I would get:

Abit KD7-Raid motherboard click here for the specs Use the raid 0+1 mode for redundancy and striping (backup and speed)

The mobo and an Athalon 2600XP+ combo will run you USD$200 at www.bzboyz.com including shipping. (though I don't know about to canada). I wouldn't get the 2700 because it's not as good as the 2600. I won't get into the reasons because it would take me way to long to explain.

Next I would get Kingston PC2700 DDR333 512Mb times 2 at about $80 a piece. One GB of ram is more than enough

Then go for two 120GB western digital 8MB buffer special drives. They will run about $100 a piece. Only get WD drives because they are the only ones that have proven themselves to have the highest SUSTAINED data transfer rates. Plus with the 8MB buffer, you can't beat these drives to use on your raid array.

For your video card I would get a GeForce 8xAGP FX5200 with 256MB of ram. This way you can take off as much graphics load on your processor as possible and only spend about $100.

I would get the soundblaster extigy as well. It isn't the best sound card out there, but honestly, why do you need to record in 24-bit/96kHz anyway? The music that you will be playing won't be that good of quality, and when you record it onto cd you will have to bump down the quality anyway... Think about this one.

We are about up to $850USD now, so you still have enough to get your burner. I don't have to time to research this one right now.

I know that this post doesn't go into a lot of detail, but I'll defend all of my choices and go into more detail if you want (I'm in a rush atm). The best things that you can do is go with an ABIT or ASUS board, Western Digital drives (8MB buffer) and a good brand name of ram (Kingston, Corsair, Micron or Samsung (is okay)).

Anyway, I have to go! Hope this helped

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When you dance, the DJ takes you on a journey, but he or she is usually not the focus of your experience at a club or festival or wherever you hear the music. Dancing is. Music is.

quote:

Originally posted by Dj Flesch I would get the soundblaster extigy as well. It isn't the best sound card out there, but honestly, why do you need to record in 24-bit/96kHz anyway? The music that you will be playing won't be that good of quality, and when you record it onto cd you will have to bump down the quality anyway... Think about this one.

ok the one thing i know is that you will definitly hear and appreciate the increase in quality with an m-audio beucase we are much alike.... and it makes a world of difference to me. if you wanna save money get the audiophile 2496. it got mine for like 160 dollars at the midi-store. i dont think you should use this as a sound card though, jsut use it for recording and playback but use the integrated sound for your computer speakers or whatever.

its true that you will haev to resample and bump down the quality but recording at high quality and bumping down still sounds better than recording it at a bumped down quality. soundblasters are really expencive too and they come with software and gaming crap that you dont need. plus the mini jacks on the back of the cards will need rca adaptors and they wear out if you put heavy wires on them.

i concur with dj flesch on everything except the sound card

Last edited by MERLIN on Oct-14-2003 at 02:17

oh and make sure you get oen with a window... liquid nitrogen cooling, black lights, neon lights, led fans ...


chrome..




26inch rims



: D

quote:

Originally posted by MERLIN i concur with dj flesch on everything except the sound card

And the video card.

If you aren't doing any gaming whatsoever, get a matrox g400 or integrated something. Plus, FX's suck ass.

es

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Don't take me too seriously.

ok first let me say that i have been into computers and IT for a long time. I have been running my own business building computers and networks for small companies in my area for about 4 years now. You have alot of good stuff there. I didnt read any of the replies on your original post, so i dont know what those guys told you. Im just gonna give you my opinion (and this is only my personal opinion). Athalons are great, no matter what processor you buy, it is gonna need a fan and a heatsink comp. Get the 400 FSB.

fans: bigger the better. the cooler your comp is the happier it will be. Also very small detail but very important: Heatsink compound, this is a gel that goes betweek your processor and your heatsink (the thing that the processor fan is mounted to). it is very cheap like $2-3 a tube and a tube is enough to do like 10 computers. just a drop is all you need, dont hose it down.

motherboards: ok, i would recomend abit motherboards. Flesch, pointed out the kt-7 raid. same board i am currently using on my studio computer. Awesome!!! take advantage of the onboard raid controller. it requires 2 HDs, but it is nice to have a backup incase one fails on you. use RAID 1 not RAID 0.

Harddrives: Seagate nuff said (kinda redundant but make sure it is at least 7200 RPM).

Audio: Soundblaster=bad, M-audio=Great.

Video: FX5200 is a good card, if you arent gonna be gaming, it will be fine for you. I'm sure this doesnt need to be said but make sure its AGP not PCI.

RAM: ram prices fall every day, by the time you are gonna need to upgrade, having to replace your 2 512s with 2 1 gig chips wont kill your wallet, save the cash now. get the fastest RAM your mobo will take. DDR2100, 2700, 3500, 4000 DO NOT buy kingston memory. get crucial.

Drives: getting a dual format DVD burner is key. Like you said, one of them is gonna go, which one? hard to say. it looks like - is gonna be the standard because it is what more home video DVD players recognize. Get a plextor or a lite-on. I use only plextor drives, nice and quiet, last forever. one last thing, a DVD movie that you buy is a 9.4 gig, dual density disk. retail DVDs are only 4.7 gigs, if you are plannin on hitting up blockbuster all the time and copying their movies, jsut know that you are gonna need 2 blank DVDs for every movie DVD, and the software to get around the copyright protection and make "back-up copys" of your DVDs.

finally OS: just get the OEM version, unless you really really want a box, the retail is a waste of money. dont ever pay for Linux, allmost every version can be DLed for free. Red Hat linux is a good one.

i hope this helped a little, again these are just my opinions and the way i would go if i was building a comp for your needs. im not trying to start a fight over what video card is cooler (ATI 9800 pro by the way )anyways good luck with it!!!

quote:

Originally posted by Rememberence_ damn I just read through that thread and I'm not even going to begin to point the many points of bad info you were given... a lot of it was good info, and I didn't plan to answer all of your questions myself.. but it fucking annoys me so much seeing people dishing out bad information because they think looking intelligent is more important than actually helping someone out.

yeah.. so, why not come on over and give me some good advice then?

anyway, thanks for the help guys. can you please respond in the main thread though, i have just posted there again, it would be nice to hear from you on my changes.

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