New System for Creameware

manny6 · Post by **manny6** » Sun Sep 19, 2004 11:09 pm

I am currently in the midst of buildind a new PC for a friend of mine using a
3 DSP SFP HOME Sound Card
I was wondering if anybody has any reccomendations or changes to the below System.
He mainly uses Cubase SX 2 with heaps of plugins,Reason,Fruity loops 4 and WaveLab 5

AMD64 3500+(939)
MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum nForce3(939)
1024MB 3200CL2 Corsair Twinx (2x512)
WD Raptor 74Gb(System)
Seagate 200GB (Storage)
PLEXTOR PX-712A
ASUS V9520 Video Suite Dual DVI*
Antec 4U22ATX 4U Rackmount Black
Zalman ZM400B-APS 400W
Zalman CNPS-7000B CU Copper Heatsink Fan
Logitech MX DUO*
2 DELL 19" CRT*

*Denotes Retained Items from previous system
He is also waitind for the Dell 2001FP(20" 1600x1200 native)
LCD's to drop in price for next upgrade

ScofieldKid · Post by **ScofieldKid** » Mon Sep 20, 2004 2:43 am

Uh, for such a nice set of components, I would rather have something like an MSI 5900XT in the graphics slot.

manny6 · Post by **manny6** » Mon Sep 20, 2004 9:34 am

The video card is from the old system, it has Dual DVI for the upgrade to the dell 2001FP,
The only other card I've been thinking about is the matrox P650 or P750, or an nVidia Quodro.
I think the Asus card is sufficient.

cannonball · Post by **cannonball** » Tue Dec 21, 2004 11:35 am

hi

how works this system?

manny6 · Post by **manny6** » Tue Dec 21, 2004 12:16 pm

He has been really busy lately so we decided to wait a while so he can build the system when he has time to work on it.
We have decided to go for the following system:

CPU: AMD64 3500+
MB: Asus A8N-SLI Deluxe (nForce4 SLI)
RAM: 1024MB 3200CL2 Corsair TwinX(2x512)
HD1: WD Raptor 74Gb 10,000RPM SATA
HD2: WD 250gb 7200rpm 8mb SATA
DVD/RW: Plextor PX-716A Dual layer
VIDEO: Gainward Ultra 6600GT Golden Sample
POWER: Zalman ZM400B-APS 400W
COOLER: Zalman CNPS-7000B CU
CASE: Antec 4U Rackmount Fits 12"x13"MB
MONITOR: 2x19" Dell CRTs(from old system)
KB/MOUSE:Logitech MX DUO(from old system)

Only changes i might consider are a faster CPU if they ever drop in price.

Not too fussed about video card but need dual DVI and SLI modes available.

Future upgrades would consist of more RAM(2x512), and another video card to run in SLI mode for when he buys two 20" 1600x1200 Native resolution LCD's (ie dell fp2001)

Considering in buying the system late january when he has some spare time and prices settle

Im open to any suggestions on how better the system or of any known compatibilty issues...

Spirit · Post by **Spirit** » Tue Dec 21, 2004 11:03 pm

Does the Raptor HD mean you will use SATA rather than plain IDE ? I have heard just a few things here and there about problems using SATA sometimes for audio - but nothing definite. Maybe someone has more on this ?

manny6 · Post by **manny6** » Wed Dec 22, 2004 11:47 am

Both the Harddrives are serial ATA (SATA)

Why would there be a problem using SATA with audio ???

Obviously SCSI drives are faster but they also cost more than double the price with an added headache with having another PCI card installed

Even Apple G5s have SATA drives as standard

If anybody is buying a harddrive i would only reccomend SATA if your motherboard supports it

MikeRaphone · Post by **MikeRaphone** » Thu Dec 23, 2004 8:54 am

Hmm, i think problems were not with audio but with unreliability in some RAID configurations. I imagine thats long gone past with today's HD s ?
Anyone?
10k Raptor sure looks sexy to me

darkrezin · Post by **darkrezin** » Sat Dec 25, 2004 9:18 am

You may conceivably have problems if you have a SATA controller chip sitting on the PCI bus - it's possible it could hog a lot of bandwidth. It all depends on your motherboard chipset and the quality of the SATA controller on the mobo.

I've also never had good results running RAID setups using onboard motherboard RAID chipsets - they almost always are cheap and nasty controllers which can pose a risk to data integrity.

maakbow · Post by **maakbow** » Sun Dec 26, 2004 6:49 am

Matrox video card of choice for audio system would probably be the p650...dual DVI or vga support with optional conecttor for third monitor and no fan.

As to sata contollers hogging PCI bus ... I dont know about AMD platform but most decent intel chips 875P and later have PATA, SATA & RAID controllers in ICH5R so they dont go thru the pci bus. AMD mobos may have similar setups.

Also a point about the raptor HDDs. They are as fast as many 10,000 rpm scsi setups...and faster than some, acording to tests by storageReview.com etc.

I use them at work and have just puchased two for .wav drives here[will try raid 0]on my new puter..I will publish track count here after testing [waiting for CPU to come from US]

Maak

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: maakbow on 2004-12-26 07:16 ]</font>

manny6 · Post by **manny6** » Sun Dec 26, 2004 9:42 am

Matrox P650 would be an excellent choice but its AGP

Matrox have not yet released there PCI-express video cards

Is there any pci-express card that does DUAL DVI 1600x1200 refresh rates which are passively cooled ???