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  4. What kinda of computer should I get?

  • What kinda of computer should I get?

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    Hi everyone,

    My current computer is starting to become too slow and I want to get a new computer.
    My current computer is a custom AMD Athlon 2500 with Asus AZN8X deluxe motherboard.
    With reverbs and other plugins, my cpu gets used up to 70% and the playback starts to get choppy. I am also a PC user and I use Nuendo as my main sequencer. I also use Gigastudio in rewire mode.

    Are there PCs out there optimized for music production, but at a low cost?
    And also, I was thinking of keeping my current computer and use it to run gigastudio alone. Is there a way to still use rewire throughout 2 different computers?

    thx
  • C
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    I checked out those websites you posted, all the systems offered seem to be overpriced. I am sure that they are optimized and everything, but I do not have the money. (I kinda wish I could buy my system from them though)

    I have researched and customized my future PC.

    Here are the specs:

    Motherboard:
    DFI NF4 Infinity nForce4 Audio/GB-LAN/IEEE-1394/PCI-E/SATA/DDR/ATX 64 939

    CPU:
    AMD Athlon 64 X2 4400+ Processor Socket 939
    (I remember the same CPU being about $200 more expensive on one of those websites)

    Ram:
    Kingston 1GB (2x512MB) PC3200 DDR DIMM Memory

    Video Card:
    Gigabyte GV-RX16P256D-RH Radeon X1600 Pro PCI Express 256MB DDR2 Video Card w TV-Out & DVI-I

    Hard Drive:
    Western Digital Caviar SE WD1600JS 160GB Serial ATA II 7200RPM Hard Drive w/8MB Buffer

    DVD burner:
    Pioneer Black IDE DVD Burner Model DVR-110DBK - OEM

    Case:
    Tuniq IC-SYMI-BK Black Aluminum ATX Mid Tower Computer Case

    Power Supply Unit:
    Fortron 460W ATX Power Supply

    OS:
    Windows XP 32bit Professional (not sure about 64bit, I don't know if Nuendo or my other audio applications will run on it)

    This computer is not going to be the gigastudio pc, which my current computer will become. (AMD Athlon XP +2500, ASUS A7N8X Deluxe, 2gig ram, total HD space: 240gigs)

    I will use my Motu 828 with my future computer. I will not need a soundcard for my current computer, as I will use it through Gigateleport. I just tested Gigateleport with my old HP computer (AMD Athlong 900Mhz haha), worked pretty well.

    Anyone think this future computer is good so far?
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    Make that 2GB and definately buy 1GB modules. Doesn't cost a fortune more, and you won't buy it twice in the future once you are running samplers on both PC (you will at a point I'm almost sure).

    About the money: Just for fun try to note how many hours you spent in researching what parts to take and what went into assembling and software installation. If you just multiply that by an average salary you might notive the preconfigured PCs aren't that expensive either. And you get premium support with some, plus you can't really weigh up the experience they have in building functional systems.

    PolarBear
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    Its not a bad idea to get a motherboard that DOES NOT have a built in sound card and extra un-necessary features that will only tax the CPU.
    This will allow you to use your system more efficiently.
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    @Chemicalseb said:

    Here are the specs:

    Motherboard:
    DFI NF4 Infinity nForce4 Audio/GB-LAN/IEEE-1394/PCI-E/SATA/DDR/ATX 64 939

    I don't know the current status for nForce4 motherboards, but when I bought my computer last autumn there was a recommendation not to go for NF4/PCI-E/SLI mobos for single processor systems (including dual cores) because of performance problems. Please see this test on RME's web page.

    I don't know if this would apply to your choice of mobo. I've not been following the development very closely since, so things might very well have changed and I don't mean to scare you. I would check out the sites that Tanuj linked to above and see what they suggest for a X2 4400+ processor (same as mine btw). I went for an NF3 board, but I'd rather have chosen an NF4 board if I knew some that were working without problems. Another thing to think about when it comes to motherboards seems to be MIDI timing, but I think checking "Use System Time" in the nuendo settings will fix any such problems.

    Best,
    Nils

    Edit: I found some slightly more up to date info about PCIe motherboards for DAWs.
  • C
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    i actually got my pc about 2 weeks ago...

    motherboard ended up being: ASUS A8N-E
    cpu: AMD 64 X2 4400
    ram: 2x1gig
    HD: 160gig Western Digital
    Graphic card: Asus ATI EAX1600
    I also got a PCI-E firewire adapter

    So far it has been working great.

    Only problems I ran into where my motu 828 soundcard being unusable when using the latest drivers, and Gigastudio only able to load up to 48% with the gigastudio memory optimizer. But it's ok since ill only load small files in gigastudio on this computer...Ill use my "ex-main" computer to load the legato samples.

    But yeah, its' been working great. The Nforce4 has been very stable.
    And also, after few years of working on PCs with audio; The more tweaking, the less stable. I started leaving my XP pro system completely untweaked and it has been completely stable.
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    Get a Mac ... A good one [:D]
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    @hetoreyn said:

    Get a Mac ... A good one [:D]

    Well Apple have to invent one first [8-)]

    DG
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    @hetoreyn said:

    Get a Mac ... A good one [:D]

    Well Apple have to invent one first [8-)]

    DG

    G5 Quad! And I won't hear a single bad thing against it.... so there [:P]
  • P
    P
    48% resulting in what load (check the taskmanager for the msg32.exe process)? Values between 950-1100MB are very reasonable and it's hard to push the PC beyond it with GigaStudio.

    One word on built-in soundcards on motherboards - usually BIOSes allow to disable those devices completely, so they won't interfere your soundcard. You should even do that if you don't seem to encounter problems if you don't need these. You may run into conflicts at a later point perhaps.

    All the best,
    PolarBear
  • C
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    48% being around 650megs.

    About the builtin soundcard. Ive always disabled it in the BIOS, however..i recently started using it again. I used to have problems when starting up XP as my Motu 828 drivers would fail to load 1 every 3 times. I had the windows sounds and everything else going through 828. Some people disable any sounds that go through the soundcard but it is a necesity for me.
    So i enabled my builtin soundcard again, i hooked up the output to my mixer. I now use that for everythign except music production. So far my 828 drivers have loaded successfuly on every boot.

    Seems like ..the more I tweak stuff, but less stable it becomes. I have all the default XP services at their default states, I only disabled Messenger. Other than that...I have no problems at all.

    Seems like XP, unlike the previous windows versions, needs very little or no tweaking at all to work properly.
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    I just had a conversation with Mark Nagata at VisionDAW about tweaking XP last week, and his response was that yeah, they do turn off a couple of obvious things (automatic updating, etc.), but it really doesn't make a lot of difference - it's really all about the hardware.
  • P
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    Hello:

    My two relatively new PCs are from VisionDAW and I also worked through Mark Nagata. One is optimized for Gigastudio 3 Orch. and the other is for my sequencer (Sonar 5 PE). I don't regret for one second the expense of getting custom DAWs. You have complete control of every bit of hardware that goes in there and, if you know all the software you plan to use, you can have the computer designed with that specific software as well as your usical goals in mind. So far, mine have worked beautifuly and the customer support has been outstanding. I understand that the expense is a big deal and if a DAW is out of the question then that's that. However if you can swing it at all, I think it's worth every penny. Just my $0.02.

    Be well,

    Poppa
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    It seems like, even though my newest PC was built by myself, my next DAW pc will be from VisionDAW. That's for sure [;)]