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Conroe music machine
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View this Thread in Original format
| Zombie0915 |
I spent almost 2K yesterday. Video card from newegg. CPU, mobo, thermal goo from buy.com, and everything else(monitor,kb,mouse,case, etc) from zzf. I guess the e6600's have since showed up on newegg but I was getting impatient so I got into that queue at buy.com before they showed up on newegg, I would have rather done zipzoomfly all the way(free shipping!) but they were out of stock on some stuff. I can't be camping these sites to try and grab things as soon as they appear, so I am doing the backorder thing with buy.com for the cpu and mobo. I am pretty happy with the amount I paid for the stuff I ended up picking, I hope it all gets here before Aug 23rd so I can use it for school.
I ordered:
Intel E6600
Asus p5w DH Deluxe
Corsair DDR2-675 XMS2-5400
2 x Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 320GB
Asus en7600gt fanless
M-Audio Delta 44 Audio Card
Antec P150 Mid Tower Case
Liteon 16X DVD±RW
Logitech MX518 Mouse
Logitech Ultra X Keyboard
Viewsonic VA902B 19in LCD
I will prolly end up replacing the cpu cooler and buying a 500 dollar pair of speakers too(KRK PR8's most likely, maybe event tr8[xl]'s), but I gotta pace myself, I am running low on money now. It should be pretty nice, no gpu or chipset fans, suspended hard drives, yay! Later on I wanna get another LCD, maybe a nicer gfx card too once we get dx10, hopefully there will be some decent ones without noisy fans.
I am a bit concerned though, about this neoHe 430 power supply that comes with this case, and about whether the heatsink 7600gt card will fit inside, and if there will be room left over for a less noisy aftermarket cpu cooler. I am not trying to overclock, I just want the machine to be quiet so I can make fun noises better. Not really big issues though, I half expect to change the power supply just because it came with the case, and I can use onboard video while I return the 7600 if the thing is too big to fit, cuz I am running mostly music programs that strain the cpu much moreso than the video.
I figure this is the nicest music production station I could have gotten for $1800 us(includes shipping), assuming it works of course. I had to compromise a bit, I would love to have an RME sound card in there, an expensive lian li case, thousand dollar speakers, nicer ram, an x6800, a 7900gt top silent, dual LCD's, but that is all out of my reach, this is a good compromise for me I think.
The parts should start showing up in a couple weeks, I guess the only questions I have are will it work, and how soon might it get here?
Anyone else have a conroe DAW or have ordered one? |
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| fr0st |
| quote: | Originally posted by Zombie0915
I spent almost 2K yesterday. Video card from newegg. CPU, mobo, thermal goo from buy.com, and everything else(monitor,kb,mouse,case, etc) from zzf. I guess the e6600's have since showed up on newegg but I was getting impatient so I got into that queue at buy.com before they showed up on newegg, I would have rather done zipzoomfly all the way(free shipping!) but they were out of stock on some stuff. I can't be camping these sites to try and grab things as soon as they appear, so I am doing the backorder thing with buy.com for the cpu and mobo. I am pretty happy with the amount I paid for the stuff I ended up picking, I hope it all gets here before Aug 23rd so I can use it for school.
I ordered:
Intel E6600
Asus p5w DH Deluxe
Corsair DDR2-675 XMS2-5400
2 x Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 320GB
Asus en7600gt fanless
M-Audio Delta 44 Audio Card
Antec P150 Mid Tower Case
Liteon 16X DVD±RW
Logitech MX518 Mouse
Logitech Ultra X Keyboard
Viewsonic VA902B 19in LCD
I will prolly end up replacing the cpu cooler and buying a 500 dollar pair of speakers too(KRK PR8's most likely), but I gotta pace myself, I am running low on money now. It should be pretty nice, no gpu or chipset fans, suspended hard drives, yay! Later on I wanna get another LCD, maybe a nicer gfx card too once we get dx10, hopefully there will be some decent ones without noisy fans.
I am a bit concerned though, about this neoHe 430 power supply that comes with this case, and about whether the heatsink 7600gt card will fit inside, and if there will be room left over for a less noisy aftermarket cpu cooler. I am not trying to overclock, I just want the machine to be quiet so I can make fun noises better. Not really big issues though, I half expect to change the power supply just because it came with the case, and I can use onboard video while I return the 7600 if the thing is too big to fit, cuz I am running mostly music programs that strain the cpu much moreso than the video.
I figure this is the nicest music production station I could have gotten for $1800 us(includes shipping), assuming it works of course. I had to compromise a bit, I would love to have an RME sound card in there, an expensive lian li case, thousand dollar speakers, nicer ram, an x6800, a 7900gt top silent, dual LCD's, but that is all out of my reach, this is a good compromise for me I think.
The parts should start showing up in a couple weeks, I guess the only questions I have are will it work, and how soon might it get here?
Anyone else have a conroe DAW or have ordered one? |
I built a very similar COnroe system except im using ddr2 800 and a x1900xtx(this isnt my audio pc just for games and mucking arround). SOme early versions of the Asus DH dont support retail conroes and you may have to flash the bios but chances are you should be in the clear. Also my experience with liteon drivers is that they make a lot of noise and dont last as long as a plextor etc. Other than that very nice build. As for fans and a cpu cooler i would recomend a Thermalright si-128 and a panflow fan to go with should keep your cpu nice and cool at high overclocks with minimal noise. Also the 320gb hard drives are not very cost effective. THe western Digital Cavalier SE16 is what i use along with a raptop soo i have something like 575gb storage and the raptor allows a higher track count.
BTW where did you order from? |
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| fr0st |
| Also something else thats very important specially for music PC's is a good power supply companies i would recomend PC power and cooling, OCZ, and Seasonic. All of which havesilent models. |
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| Zombie0915 |
Most of the heavy parts were from zipzoomfly.com so I could get free shipping, the silent video card came from newegg.com, and the mobo and cpu are on preorder from buy.com.
The power supply that comes with the p150 scored nicely on silentpcreview so I think if it works it will be a good deal. I have some older p4's I can use to flash the bios if need be. I don't really burn many discs and I definately wont be using the drive while I am recording sound so I am not all that concerned about the lite-on drive, I have 3 of them at work and they are good enough for me.
I dunno what you mean about the hard drives though, they are the new "perpendicular recording" types and I kinda trust seagate after seeing that 5year warranty. They are $100 a piece and the 250's are in the upper 80's, seems to me that $100 is the sweet spot for hard drives right now. I am going to use one for windows and the other for linux. After the drama I had with samsung and toshiba drives I am really willing to pay more for one that doesnt destory all my work when I need it the most. I hesitate to buy raptors because I am not sure I need that kind of speed, while I am sure I need the extra disk space, cuz I always fill it up.
I appreciate your suggestions for a cooler, I'll hav eto wait and see how much room is left in my case before I get one though. |
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| simonbostock |
| quote: | Originally posted by fr0st
Also something else thats very important specially for music PC's is a good power supply companies i would recomend PC power and cooling, OCZ, and Seasonic. All of which havesilent models. |
I reckon Zalman make the best CPU coolers around - they're probably the quietest. They are well worth the tiny bit of extra cash on. |
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| Low Profile |
I just did the same thing last night, Conroe E6600, Geforce 7600GT, 2gig 667mhz DDR2, Asus P5B mainboard, low noise 400w PSU and I even have a Delta 44, almost identical systems :D
I can't wait till I get mine (hopefully sometime next week (fingers crossed! :D))
Stock cooler is supposed to be good, I don't know about noise, but it's apparently enough for some serious overclocking (Conroes run very cool), so maybe you can tweak it to run slower and save yourself some money (although I bought a Zalman cooler as well :D)
Don't worry about power supplies, as long as it's over 350watts you're good. Conroes are very power conservative and the 7600GT doesn't require a whole lot of energy either.
...It's going to be one hell of an upgrade from my 2.4Ghz Pentium 4 Northwood :p |
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| David Adams |
| Admit it, these are gaming rigs too, aren't they?!?! :D |
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| RivalMan |
| quote: | Originally posted by Zombie0915
I spent almost 2K yesterday. Video card from newegg. CPU, mobo, thermal goo from buy.com, and everything else(monitor,kb,mouse,case, etc) from zzf.
I figure this is the nicest music production station I could have gotten for $1800 us(includes shipping), assuming it works of course. I had to compromise a bit, I would love to have an RME sound card in there, an expensive lian li case, thousand dollar speakers, nicer ram, an x6800, a 7900gt top silent, dual LCD's, but that is all out of my reach, this is a good compromise for me I think.
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Congrats on your new setup! Your choice on most of the parts, I think, are spot on, i.e. you won't find better memory modules than Corsair og more quite (and reliable) hard drives than the Seagate Barracuda (in my opinion). I have one advice though: Get one more hard drive on, say, 60 GB or so. It's not much extra and it will give you a tremendous performance boost if you configure your system with the operating system on the extra hard drive (60 GB would be sufficient) and then put the two Barracuda 320 in a raid 0-configuration for double read and write speeds (using the onboard raid controller). A setup like that works perfect for me. Just remember to backup your data often, as the raid 0 configuration does not mirror any data (and is more vulnerable due to the fact that data has been split on two disks instead of just one).
| quote: | Originally posted by simonbostock
I reckon Zalman make the best CPU coolers around - they're probably the quietest. They are well worth the tiny bit of extra cash on.
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Not really. You wanna get a SCNJ-1000P from the company "Scythe" instead. This is a passive cooler - NO FAN - that indeed will cool your Conroe. A passive cooler will beat any fan-based cooler (also the ones from Zalman) when it comes to noise at any time. And believe me: Even the most quiet fan-based CPU-coolers who are said to only produce noise levels below the ambient noise floor and all that marketing b s, can still be heard very much by the human ear - and that's so annoying, especially for using the computer with music production, where the sound and listening environment are so much important. I own the passive CPU cooler and it works perfect. You'll be amazed at how effectively it cools. And the computer is not "low-noise" (or whatever all these so-called quiet CPU-coolers call it), no it's not low-noise, it's actually quiet! Nothing more, nothing less. If it wasn't for the led on the front, you wouldn't know if the computer was turned on or off.
Finally, I will recommend to try and install the hard drives as far as possible from each other as they tend to get very hot, if you're running a system with no fans at all. I have (just to be on the safe side) a low-noise 12 V fan sitting behind the hard drives, that will start if the temperature rise to a certain level (allthough it has never happened, I think it's nice to be safe). This can blow air all the way through from the front to the back, if need be.
Anyway, congratulations once more on your new purchase. And please let us know, what your experiences with the system are when it arrives and get installed.
And finally: Don't get dissapointed, when you realize that you can't have 3 instances of Z3ta, 4 instances of Sytrus, 2 convolution reverbs, 35+ VST-effects, 40 tracks of audio etc. running at the same time at 24 bit, 96000 hz. The Conroe beats the hell out of any processor on the market (except for quadro-conroe conf on the planned Mac, I guess), but it does have its limitations too, unfortunately... And I'll suspect you still have to use your effects, VSTi's etc. conservatively and wise to avoid CPU or memory issues.
Regards |
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| Zombie0915 |
Certainly not oblivion worthy game rigs, but I guess 7600gt is kinda gamey, that 1900xt would be what I'd get if I were building a game rig, then I'd go cheaper on the cpu. Same mobo though, this thing seems to have both the lowest latency and the most gamer appeal of the conroe mobo's so far.
(I might switch out for a noisy gfx card later if this music stuff stops getting fun, but I dont forsee that happening) |
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| fr0st |
| quote: | Originally posted by RivalMan
Congrats on your new setup! Your choice on most of the parts, I think, are spot on, i.e. you won't find better memory modules than Corsair og more quite (and reliable) hard drives than the Seagate Barracuda (in my opinion). I have one advice though: Get one more hard drive on, say, 60 GB or so. It's not much extra and it will give you a tremendous performance boost if you configure your system with the operating system on the extra hard drive (60 GB would be sufficient) and then put the two Barracuda 320 in a raid 0-configuration for double read and write speeds (using the onboard raid controller). A setup like that works perfect for me. Just remember to backup your data often, as the raid 0 configuration does not mirror any data (and is more vulnerable due to the fact that data has been split on two disks instead of just one).
Not really. You wanna get a SCNJ-1000P from the company "Scythe" instead. This is a passive cooler - NO FAN - that indeed will cool your Conroe. A passive cooler will beat any fan-based cooler (also the ones from Zalman) when it comes to noise at any time. And believe me: Even the most quiet fan-based CPU-coolers who are said to only produce noise levels below the ambient noise floor and all that marketing b s, can still be heard very much by the human ear - and that's so annoying, especially for using the computer with music production, where the sound and listening environment are so much important. I own the passive CPU cooler and it works perfect. You'll be amazed at how effectively it cools. And the computer is not "low-noise" (or whatever all these so-called quiet CPU-coolers call it), no it's not low-noise, it's actually quiet! Nothing more, nothing less. If it wasn't for the led on the front, you wouldn't know if the computer was turned on or off.
Finally, I will recommend to try and install the hard drives as far as possible from each other as they tend to get very hot, if you're running a system with no fans at all. I have (just to be on the safe side) a low-noise 12 V fan sitting behind the hard drives, that will start if the temperature rise to a certain level (allthough it has never happened, I think it's nice to be safe). This can blow air all the way through from the front to the back, if need be.
Anyway, congratulations once more on your new purchase. And please let us know, what your experiences with the system are when it arrives and get installed.
And finally: Don't get dissapointed, when you realize that you can't have 3 instances of Z3ta, 4 instances of Sytrus, 2 convolution reverbs, 35+ VST-effects, 40 tracks of audio etc. running at the same time at 24 bit, 96000 hz. The Conroe beats the hell out of any processor on the market (except for quadro-conroe conf on the planned Mac, I guess), but it does have its limitations too, unfortunately... And I'll suspect you still have to use your effects, VSTi's etc. conservatively and wise to avoid CPU or memory issues.
Regards |
I dont think the ninja will fit in his case, brilliant CPU cooler though. I just prefer thermalright not to mention scythe ninja doesnt fit my case either. |
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| >>FK |
| quote: | Originally posted by David Adams
Admit it, these are gaming rigs too, aren't they?!?! :D |
but I bought a 7900GTX to have good FPS on my UV meter when I am mastering my tracks!! :nervous: |
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