Putting together a DAW to record music need help w/ system

[Royce]

ok... I am working on putting together a PC to record music. I have picked out a bunch of parts... had questions and looking for opinions.

Here's what I'm looking at

Asus A8N32-SLI Deluxe Socket 939 NVIDIA nForce SPP 100 ATX AMD Mobo
AMD Athlon 64 X2 4400+ Toledo 1GHz HT Socket 939 Dual Core
Corsair TWINX2048-3500LLPRO RAM 2 gig
WD Raptor WD360GD 36.7 GB 10000 RPM HDD (for OS)
Seagate Barracuda 7200.8 300GB SATA Hard Drive (for everything else)

These are Probables... from here it gets more fuzzy.

Power Supply?
Cooling fan -- mmm maybe some kind of Zalman?
Case -- Thinking of one of the Lian-Li V COOL PC-V1000BPLUS but $$
DVD ROM
CD burner (maybe a DVD burner, but dont really need that.
oh
EVGA 128-P2-N372-TX Geforce 6600GT 128MB video card (picked this because relatively cheap and has dual DVI outs)

Since I'm not going to be running dual video cards (not a gaming sys) I was wondering if I really needed a mobo that had the SLI option or if I could save a few bucks by getting one just as good, but w/o SLI

Also needed suggestions in PS etc. and overall comments on the system I'm putting together would be helpful...

Thanks

 

[shadowduck]

ok... I am working on putting together a PC to record music. I have picked out a bunch of parts... had questions and looking for opinions.

Here's what I'm looking at

Asus A8N32-SLI Deluxe Socket 939 NVIDIA nForce SPP 100 ATX AMD Mobo
AMD Athlon 64 X2 4400+ Toledo 1GHz HT Socket 939 Dual Core
Corsair TWINX2048-3500LLPRO RAM 2 gig
WD Raptor WD360GD 36.7 GB 10000 RPM HDD (for OS)
Seagate Barracuda 7200.8 300GB SATA Hard Drive (for everything else)

These are Probables... from here it gets more fuzzy.

Power Supply?
Cooling fan -- mmm maybe some kind of Zalman?
Case -- Thinking of one of the Lian-Li V COOL PC-V1000BPLUS but $$
DVD ROM
CD burner (maybe a DVD burner, but dont really need that.
oh
EVGA 128-P2-N372-TX Geforce 6600GT 128MB video card (picked this because relatively cheap and has dual DVI outs)

Since I'm not going to be running dual video cards (not a gaming sys) I was wondering if I really needed a mobo that had the SLI option or if I could save a few bucks by getting one just as good, but w/o SLI

Also needed suggestions in PS etc. and overall comments on the system I'm putting together would be helpful...

Thanks

1) You don't need an SLI motherboard unless you are doing SLI. Since you are not get the Asus A8N-E instead for $92. Savings : $50ish

2) For a power supply get the Antec Truepower II 550W for around $95.

3) Get a NEC DVD burner- $38, burns CDs too.

4) Stock cooler is fine, no need for 3rd party solutions.

5) Instead of a 4400+, get an Opteron 165 and O/C it or get a 170. Server grade chip, can overclock more easily, and made to be run 24/7/365. Same 1MB cache per core as 4400+.

6) Made sure the 300GB hard drive has 16MB cache, it wont cost you much more and will improve performance. Performance will be important consider ing your desired use. If you are going to write lots of music/video data to the drive consider a RAID 0 solution. This will improve write speed by a considerable margin.

7) Case is up to you. I have an Antec P160 and love it. Its around $100.

 

[Royce]

Well, I thougth the 4400 because it is Dual core which I thought might be good for multitasking (running MIDI, recording, other stuff etc.)
but the other sounds good... never set up a RAID option, but it is something to consider.
Raid 0.... isn't that just mirroring? (been a while since I studied that)

Also was thinking of Dual LCD monitors.. maybe 19" viewsonic?

 

[RichPLS]

The Opteron 165, 170, 175, 180, (185) are dual core 939 pin Athlon64's
with 2x 1MB cache

 

[Royce]

5) Instead of a 4400+, get an Opteron 165 and O/C it or get a 170. Server grade chip, can overclock more easily, and made to be run 24/7/365. Same 1MB cache per core as 4400+.

so what is the advantage of the Opeteron over the 4400? I wasn't really planning on overclocking to keep things stable and cool.

 

[RichPLS]

The opty is a workstation chip, the x2 a desktop...
The Opteron 175 is essentially identical to the X2-4400, but is manufatured to tighter specs and can overclock a bit higher than an x2

 

[DDay629]

And its cheaper than the X2 by about 20 bucks. And yeah, with the cooler on this thing, there is no problem OCing it to higher. Of course, if you don't want to OC, it will run like the dickens without it at all.

DDay


Lucky you and your budget.

 

[Royce]

The opty is a workstation chip, the x2 a desktop...
The Opteron 175 is essentially identical to the X2-4400, but is manufatured to tighter specs and can overclock a bit higher than an x2

Hmmm, well newegg has

AMD Opteron 175 Denmark 1GHz HT Socket 939 Dual Core Processor Model OSA175CDBOX - Retail

$506

AMD Athlon 64 X2 4400+ Toledo 1GHz HT Socket 939 Dual Core Processor Model ADA4400CDBOX - Retail

$460

Since I don't plan on overclocking much ... if at all... what benefit is ther in the opty over the X2 for the $26?

I never really understood the whole Desktop vs Wks thing.

 

[DDay629]

Thats because newegg, isn't necessarily the best place to always get your stuff. If fact, I'm building a computer soon, like I said earlier, and not a single part is coming from newegg. I use a thing called price grabber, specifically Tom's Price Grabber to look for lowest prices. All I know, is that originally I was planning on getting the X2 4200+ and it is $20 more than the Opteron 165 that I have found. I don't remember where each one was from, I think the 4200 was from zipzoomfly or something, but it is easy to find out both on stores.tomshardware.com so take a look.

DDay

 

[shadowduck]

The opty is a workstation chip, the x2 a desktop...
The Opteron 175 is essentially identical to the X2-4400, but is manufatured to tighter specs and can overclock a bit higher than an x2

Hmmm, well newegg has

AMD Opteron 175 Denmark 1GHz HT Socket 939 Dual Core Processor Model OSA175CDBOX - Retail

$506

AMD Athlon 64 X2 4400+ Toledo 1GHz HT Socket 939 Dual Core Processor Model ADA4400CDBOX - Retail

$460

Since I don't plan on overclocking much ... if at all... what benefit is ther in the opty over the X2 for the $26?

I never really understood the whole Desktop vs Wks thing.

$26 gets you a higher quality CPU that is made to be put in a system assumed to run 24/7/365. A "workstation" chip is manufactored to a higher standard than a desktop chip. This translates into a chip that runs cooler, overclocks better, and will last longer when run 24/7.

To answer your eariler question about RAID. RAID 1 is mirroring. RAID 0 is striping which is basically treating 2 or more hard drives as one.

 

[Arucard]

RAID 0 is striping, so it accesses both drives in parallel -> much faster

RAID 1 is mirroring -> one drive fails, no biggie, nothing lost, go on working.

 

[Royce]

So, to sum up the chip questions... you guys think the

AMD Opteron 175 Denmark 1GHz HT Socket 939 Dual Core Processor Model OSA175CDBOX - Retail

.. is probably the best Dual Core chip I can get for the $$??

 

[shadowduck]

So, to sum up the chip questions... you guys think the

AMD Opteron 175 Denmark 1GHz HT Socket 939 Dual Core Processor Model OSA175CDBOX - Retail

.. is probably the best Dual Core chip I can get for the $$??

Certinally It is a good deal, and you can overclock it if you wish to get FX-60 speeds easily for half the price.