BEST Motherboards-Processor-RAM recommendations

Archived from groups: rec.audio.pro (More info?)

"Duotone" <duotonestudios@aol.com> wrote in message
news:1110210378.312225.169850@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
> I am new to this group and will be putting together a DAW.
> I need know what the latest, most powerful and stable
> motherboard/processor/ram/etc. configurations are out there and which
> ones are working great. I will need a system that can record a minimum
> of 16 simultaneous 96k, 24bit audio tracks with the very least
> processor latency possible. I am currently using Nuendo 2.2 with 2
> MOTU 896's. I want a dual head video card as well.
> Thanks for your suggestions.
> D.
>

Take a look at the systems offered by Dell. Decide what you need, and let
them put it together. Their systems tend to be more stable than some
homebuilt systems, as they have figured out what works best with what.
Their prices are not a lot higher than what it would cost if you put it
together yourself, and they have pretty good tech support. This is what I
did, and then I added a cheap 128 meg PCI dual VGA graphics card from ebay.
YMMV of course.

Ron Wiebe

Archived from groups: rec.audio.pro (More info?)

"Duotone" <duotonestudios@aol.com> wrote in message
news:1110210378.312225.169850@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
> I am new to this group and will be putting together a DAW.
> I need know what the latest, most powerful and stable
> motherboard/processor/ram/etc. configurations are out there and which
> ones are working great. I will need a system that can record a minimum
> of 16 simultaneous 96k, 24bit audio tracks with the very least
> processor latency possible. I am currently using Nuendo 2.2 with 2
> MOTU 896's. I want a dual head video card as well.
> Thanks for your suggestions.
> D.
>
You can get any motherboard made by Tyan or Supermicro -- these companies
are known for stability.

For DAW, you need no fancier a graphics card than a Matrox G550, which is
known for sharpness. I run two CRTs at 1600x1200.

The problem with Dell systems is that the power supplies are proprietary. If
you build yourself, you will have standard, easily obtainable spares.

If noise is important to you, consider a Silenx supply:
http://www.silenx.com.

Archived from groups: rec.audio.pro (More info?)

Ron Wiebe (at) wrote:
> Take a look at the systems offered by Dell. Decide what you need,
and let
> them put it together.

I'll second this, with a qualification. At my day job (VP/CIO at an
Engineering consulting firm), I buy Dell PCs. The trick is that you
shouldn't buy their "leading edge." Always select a system that's one
step behind it. On a couple occasions in my past 9 years here, we
bought the latest model and had some problems right out of the box.

I have also built PCs (for home use). One thing that helped me out
there was to read the CPU manufacturers recommendations. The last
system I built was around an AMD Athlon, and I chose a motherboard from
AMD's tested & approved list. I would guess Intel has the same thing
for their CPUs.

I also use Windows 2000, but you can't get that anymore. Pay the extra
$79 to get Windows XP Pro (rather than Home).

Don't get any less than 1GB RAM.

Archived from groups: rec.audio.pro (More info?)

On Tue, 08 Mar 2005 17:18:31 GMT, "Locsmándi Bence"
<locsmandi.bence@chello.hu> wrote:

>> Also using a G550 card but you have to disable bus-mastering.
>
>I have a Matrox G550, too. How to disable bus-mastering? Is it something
>switchable via BIOS, or in Windows?
>Thanks
>
>b.
>
-- Why should you disable busmastering at Matrox G550? I mean I had it
for quite a long time and I haven't found any problem with
busmastering or something else. But i did have a problem with a Soltek
m/b having an early Nforce2 chipset; together with my Adaptec 29160N
SCSI controller: there were soft glitches in audio and nothing could
be done to remedy that. They could be both heard, and also seen in a
time/frequency plot. A BIOS upgrade, sent by Soltek, just reduced
somewhat these glitches but they have been still present. A change to
VIA-based m/b solved the problem (I have an AMD Athlon XP-based
system).

Should you want to disable busmastering, this is done from within
Matrox Powerdesk software (the driver software), "Properties",
"Settings", "Advanced" etc.

Edi Zubovic, Crikvenica, Croatia

Archived from groups: rec.audio.pro (More info?)

Multi-monitor sans gaming use either a Matrox G750 (with fan), or Matrox
G650 (sans fan). Both allow up to three analog or two digital monitors (or
one digital, one analog and one composite video TV monitor). I use a G450
in my Athlon 1600+ system and a G750 in the Athlon64 3200+ system for
video/audio work. Three monitors plus TV monitor spread between the two
systems with Trendnet KVM switches.

Monitor number 4 is coming back home (went to my oldest granddaughter for
her birthday until her 17" widescreen LCD TV/monitor came in) then I'll be
back to two monitors for the 1600+ and 2 for the 3200+ video/audio system
with a TV monitor. Gotta clean up some desk space, and that's with two of
the four monitors being LCD.

EQ had a Anderton blurb on the G650 this month. It's uninformative although
it looks pretty they way it's set up. I find virtually no problems with the
G750 except that somehow I have a blackburst sync problem from my video
editor to the Sony PVM1350 NTSC monitor. That's more than likely a stupid
user problem. 25 year old video knowledge and computers aren't necessarily
the most compatible of knowledge systems! <g>

--


Roger W. Norman
SirMusic Studio
http://blogs.salon.com/0004478/

"Duotone" <duotonestudios@aol.com> wrote in message
news:1110210378.312225.169850@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
> I am new to this group and will be putting together a DAW.
> I need know what the latest, most powerful and stable
> motherboard/processor/ram/etc. configurations are out there and which
> ones are working great. I will need a system that can record a minimum
> of 16 simultaneous 96k, 24bit audio tracks with the very least
> processor latency possible. I am currently using Nuendo 2.2 with 2
> MOTU 896's. I want a dual head video card as well.
> Thanks for your suggestions.
> D.
>

Archived from groups: rec.audio.pro (More info?)

It is in Windows under your display properties. Right click on desktop
- properties - settings - advanced


On Tue, 08 Mar 2005 17:18:31 GMT, "Locsmándi Bence"
<locsmandi.bence@chello.hu> wrote:

>> Also using a G550 card but you have to disable bus-mastering.
>
>I have a Matrox G550, too. How to disable bus-mastering? Is it something
>switchable via BIOS, or in Windows?
>Thanks
>
>b.
>