PC, RAID, Streaming, VIA266, Help! Polyphony

[KalamataKid]

Hello All wherever you are,

 

I am building a new PC centered around Logic Audio

and Cubase 5. I need some feedback to help me decide

on two issues. A and B below.

 

A. One is everyone likes the Asus CUSL2-C Mother board.

It has a limit of 512 MG RAM. The card I really want to

Get is the GA-6RX which is based on the VIA 266 chip.

Which I will fit with 1 GM of RAM.

 

DDR Motherboard (PC1600) Prefer DDR Motherboard as it is faster and has the latest setup.

 

Gigabyte GA-6RX (has 4 DIMM or 4 GB capacity)

Specifications: http://www1.giga-byte.com/products/6rx.htm

Reviews: http://www.makeitsimple.com/cgi-bin/dbman/technews/tview.cgi?db=tech&uid=default&sb=1&so=descend&view_records=1&keyword=ga-6rx&view_records=Go%21

 

 

B. I will us my PC mostly Sample playing through hard drive streaming

technology like GigaStudio, Halyon, Reality, and soon also

EXS24. I believer this sample streaming from the hard drive

Will give me greater polyphony over RAM based sample

Playback. Is this so?

 

If so I have found a very nice RAID controller to help.

The Escalade 6400 will work as

RAID or JBOD (without RAID)

 

I plan to use this in the RAID 0

To increase transfer speeds.

 

For info: www.3ware.com

 

Reviews:

www.storagereview.com

www.hardwarezone.com

www.hardware-one.com

 

Below is the PC I may build with the 6400.

 

Your comments will appreciated.

 

1 GHz FC-PGA Pentim lll

1 GB PC133 SDRAM (non-ECC) use two 256 Mushkin single sided modules (high performance) Cas 2

Midi Case Tower (Quite type) with good, adequate power supply (120V/130V, 50/60) and three ventilation fans.

 

Software. Install Windows 98 SE American Each boot to have its own Windows 98SE.

 

CUSL2-C Motherboard. (NO audio!) Overclock?

 

Dual boot Use boot manager: XOSL or Partition Magic? Use RAID?

 

3ware Escalade 6410 (6400 is the same but full length) PCI RAID card

 

HDD on the 6400 use IBM Deskstar 75GXP or the newer 60GXP? Convert to Fat 32

1. Programs, and non-audio data: 18GB, Drives 1&2 RAID 0

2. Audio: 18 GB

3. Sample Streaming: 45 GB, Drives 3 &4 RAID 0

4. Sample Streaming: 45 GB

 

Onboard ATA 100: Connect the CDRW and DVD ROM

 

CD burning: Plextor PlexWriter 16/10/40A (PX-W1610A)

 

DVD Drive. With volume and Headphone jack. With SPDIF digital audio out (to sound card)

1. Aopen 1640 has SPDIF

2. Pioneer DVD-115

 

Video Card / Graphics Card: Matrox G450, 32 MB DDR

 

 

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[mast]

big ed(can u lend me a fiver)

[Dylan]

Very little has been written that proves that DDR RAM will benefit DAW users at all. Unless you plan on maxing out the 36MB/second sustained transfer rate on your typical, fast 7200 RPM IDE drive, then you probably don't need RAID either. I'd use the money spent on this stuff and just build 2 PC's: One for the audio and one for the soft synth stuff. I don't care how fast the PC is, you'll still run into issues like sharing audio ports between applications, etc that having a 2nd PC would cure. I'd setup the soft synth PC running Windows 98SE or ME and the Cubase PC running Windows 2000 with an audio card from the likes of RME or M-Audio. I'm personally a fan of the slot A AMD processors coupled with an Asus A7V series motherboard.

 

-Dylan

[KalamataKid]

One reason for considering the DDR motherboards

is that they have capacity of 2 to 4 GB RAM.

 

I read recently though that Windows can only handle

512 maximum RAM. If theis is so I will use the Aus CUSL2-C

(withput the onboard audio option)

 

So the big question is: Is RAM above 512MB an option?

 

KalamataKid

[Dylan]

I think that Windows 9x OS's are limited to 512 MB of RAM. However, NT-based OS's (Win NT, 2k, XP) are able to recognize well over this amount.

 

-Dylan