Is this computer any good for DAW audio?

[D. Gauss]

[url=http://www.vprmatrix.com/products_desktop_FT9100.asp]specs here[/url] $1799 for a p4 3.0 GHhz plus a dvd burner seems not too shabby. any info appreciated. (saw review in fortune magazine) thanks in advance for any insight. -d. gauss

[Dylan]

Looks nice but I would nix the modem if you don't need it as well as the SoundBlaster and MS Works. However, it might be overkill unless your planning on doing some crazy ass shit. RAID is not needed if you use a newer 7200 RPM HD. You can build a Athlon-based DAW for around $600 that will do probably do everything you need. Add a DVD Burner and your still in for under $1000. How many tracks, plug-ins, etc do you plan on using?

[ViLo]

[quote]Originally posted by Pain in the Glaven: [b]Looks nice but I would nix the modem if you don't need it as well as the SoundBlaster and MS Works. However, it might be overkill unless your planning on doing some crazy ass shit. RAID is not needed if you use a newer 7200 RPM HD. You can build a Athlon-based DAW for around $600 that will do probably do everything you need. Add a DVD Burner and your still in for under $1000. How many tracks, plug-ins, etc do you plan on using?[/b][/quote]A computer for $600.00? I'm intrested, I want to buy a separte computer for recording. In my case I need to record/playback @ least 24 tracks if is possible @24/96, I will be using reverb, delays etc nothing fancy. Can you tell us waht parts to buy, if is not much trouble? Thanks!

[Joachim P. Dyndale]

If you can get that PC without the modem, the SoundBlaster card and the speakers. With two WD hard drives with 8MB cache (the ones that are included probably only have 2MB cache).... I'd say it looks like a rock solid incredibly powerfull DAW! And at a reasonable price. But you'll have to add about $700-$1000 for a good sounding audio card that'll handle all those 24/96 inputs and outputs. So it'll be around $2500 to $2800. That's a lot of money, but you get your money's worth... With a slightly more modest AMD setup I'm sure you can get really close to that performance for around $1500-$1700 INCLUDING the good audio card...

[Joachim P. Dyndale]

Oh, and yes. Drop MS Works. And get XP Proffesional instead of Home. Also, it might actually be a good idea NOT to install service pack 1!

[Dak Lander]

NAW! Ain't worth nuthin'. :D

[Alndln]

[quote]Originally posted by Pain in the Glaven: [b]You can build a Athlon-based DAW for around $600 that will do probably do everything you need. [/b][/quote]Yup,give or take a hundred here or there.Plus plan on an extra $600.00 for a UAD card,because if you plan on using it for a native heavy setup you will run into the denormalization CPU spiking problem inherent with the P4,see here http://phonophunk.phreakin.com/p4denormal.html And here's a thread at Audioforums concerning the subject [url=http://www.audioforums.com/forums/Forum1/HTML/003494.html]www.audioforums.com/forums/Forum1/HTML/003494.html[/url] So just be aware.If you do spend that much for a pre congigured P4 setup,at least get one from Carillion and get that nice quiet rack mount case out of the deal.

[ViLo]

[quote]Originally posted by Joachim P. Dyndale: [b]If you can get that PC without the modem, the SoundBlaster card and the speakers. With two WD hard drives with 8MB cache (the ones that are included probably only have 2MB cache).... I'd say it looks like a rock solid incredibly powerfull DAW! And at a reasonable price. But you'll have to add about $700-$1000 for a good sounding audio card that'll handle all those 24/96 inputs and outputs. So it'll be around $2500 to $2800. That's a lot of money, but you get your money's worth... With a slightly more modest AMD setup I'm sure you can get really close to that performance for around $1500-$1700 INCLUDING the good audio card...[/b][/quote]I'm thinking about the Q10 from Aardvark!

[gtrmac]

It looks like a good deal. It seems to have an Intel motherboard which is good with a Pentium. You can probably reconfigure the drives so that one has the OS and apps and the other is for audio data. The price sin't bad you'd have to build it yourself to match it. It might have a noisy power supply but an Enermax Whisper fixes that for under $100. The P4 denormal problem only appears with certain plugins. Soft samplers can cause it when there is silence in the samples. There is a freeware plugin which fixes it. Meanwhile a lot of plugins have already corrected the problem. The 3.06 P4 with Hyperthreading will probably crush anything in it's path. I've only built systems with the 2.8 P4 and even this was seriously powerful. I'm planiing on doing 3.06 P4 systems when the price comes down more on the CPU. What software are you using? I agree about yanking the Soundblaster. It'll just get in the way of a real audiocard. The onboard Firewire is handy though for external drives and such. Yank the Modem too. WindowsXP Home isn't that bad. The Remote Desktop and network features of XP Pro aren't really necessary. XP Pro also supports dual CPU's which you won't need. You can always get an upgrade but I think Home is OK. MS Works is pretty useless. Best to get it, reconfigure the drives and then reformat and reinstall Windows to start clean.

[Salyphus]

I would heed the advice of Alndln Hammer and build an AMD-based system. If you buy the parts and assemble the system yourself you will: 1. Save lots of dough that you can spend on other useful things. 2. Ensure you have the best, most-compatible components, such as the most reliable, quietest & fastest hard disk; better, quiter PSU; compatible chipset etc. This is key, otherwise you are setting yourself up for all sorts of problems. 3. Better understand your system and how it all fits together. Seriously, if you want to buy a prebuilt machine get one from Apple, otherwise you are throwing away the one true advantage of the PC platform IMO.

[Joachim P. Dyndale]

A very good place to start when building your own AMD computer is [url=http://www.amd.com/us-en/Processors/TechnicalResources/0,,30_182_869_4348,00.html]here[/url] . That should make sure that you have a solid and stable system.

[Timmy2000]

I built an AMD system recently, following Alndlns recommendations on parts and it's gone without a hitch. In terms of building PC's I was an absolute novice but by following the step by step guides at places like Tom's Hardware and asking a few questions around these boards, it turned out to be dead straightforward. The parts I used were ECSK7S5A Mobo AMD XP2000+ 512Mb Crucial RAM Antec Case with 400W Power Supply Matrox G400 Dual Head Graphics card M-Audio Delta 1010LT 80 Gig Western Digital HD with 8Mb Cache 40 Gig Western Digital HD with 8Mb Cache Windows XP Pro I don't know what prices for these parts are like in the US but for me it worked out that I got a bespoke audio PC with a quality soundcard and dual head graphics for the same price as a bog standard shop bought PC. Building it myself has also given me loads of confidence in sorting out problems if and when they should occur as well. Basically I can't recommend it enough.

[thisDude]

Timmy2000 said: [quote] ECSK7S5A Mobo AMD XP2000+ 512Mb Crucial RAM Antec Case with 400W Power Supply Matrox G400 Dual Head Graphics card M-Audio Delta 1010LT 80 Gig Western Digital HD with 8Mb Cache 40 Gig Western Digital HD with 8Mb Cache Windows XP Pro [/quote]Can I hijack this thread? I'm about to build an almost identical system (props to Alndln) with the exception of an Audiophile2496 card and radion7500 dual head video card. Just out of curiosity, what kind of track count are you getting? Have you tried to max it out with reverbs and softsynths? I realize there are many other factors that go into performance, but I just want a basic idea if I should wait a little longer or go ahead and take the plunge. I'll be running Cubase 5.1, Reason, softsynths, softsamplers on win98 (yeah, I know... I'm broke... it works) in addition to 24/96 audio tracks. I've squeezed all the performance out of my 800mhz Celeron and 300mhz Pentium2.

[Sylver]

I'm leaning towards this system(It's an upgrade): 2.4Ghz P4 Abit 845 MB Dual Maxtor 8Mb CacheHDs 1Gb Memory(I tend to run lot's of plugs) 19 Viewsonic .22 dpi monitor On board Video. I'm gonna get the 2 head video later when I can swing the second monitor. As stated earlier, I just don't trust the AMD. You can back it up with all the data you want, but it's about comfort level. For me, when you are talking about the MAIN part of you machine, always go with the what everything else is based on. Here's my reasoning: ALL software and hardware manufacturers strive for compatability with the INTEL standard. That includes AMD. Who knows when I'm gonna add some piece that was written for designed on Intel only, never checked on an other system. What a headache that could be. I want the CPU and supporting chipset to be THE STANDARD, not a CPU by somebody trying to be compatable to the standard. My DAW being up and funtional and compatable are the utmost importance. I would hate to put a system together, then find out that some cool small shop plug, or the new USB controller I just bought doesn't like the way the AMD handles interupts. Just not worth the risk to me.

[MattC]

Interesting thread, and right on track, too. I'm in the middle of researching my own construction project. Here's what I've got in mind so far (for the first one, anyway) Running windows 98 and Sonar 2.x 2.4 or 2.53 GHz P4 1024 MB ram Either a dual head video card or 2 singles one hard drive to start, 2 once I get the cash and whatever else I determine works with this. As far as soundcards, I'll probably install a Soundblaster PCI until I can buy the Terratec 8in/8out, and eventually a second. Then comes a socond computer with similar specs. Once I get this, the first PC will be strictly for recording, the second will have a few plugins and everything else I need (graphic art packages, word processing, DSL). Any comments?

[Sylver]

[quote]Originally posted by matt C: [b]Interesting thread, and right on track, too. I'm in the middle of researching my own construction project. Here's what I've got in mind so far (for the first one, anyway) Running windows 98 and Sonar 2.x 2.4 or 2.53 GHz P4 1024 MB ram Either a dual head video card or 2 singles one hard drive to start, 2 once I get the cash and whatever else I determine works with this. As far as soundcards, I'll probably install a Soundblaster PCI until I can buy the Terratec 8in/8out, and eventually a second. Then comes a socond computer with similar specs. Once I get this, the first PC will be strictly for recording, the second will have a few plugins and everything else I need (graphic art packages, word processing, DSL). Any comments?[/b][/quote]I highly recommend going to XPhome over 98, unless there is a specific reason for it. It's much more stable, and most vendors are offering less and less support for 98. Consider an Intel chipset for that P4.

[Alndln]

[quote]Originally posted by Sylver needs a new idiom: [b]As stated earlier, I just don't trust the AMD. You can back it up with all the data you want, but it's about comfort level. [/b][/quote]As long as your comfortable with Intels problems you should be ok.

[Alndln]

[quote]Originally posted by Hank The Cave Peanut: [b]It turned out that the particular version of Cubase I was running did NOT like the AMD chip I was using and preferred an Intel chip. [/b][/quote]Totally misinformed.If anything,since Steinberg has an allience with AMD it would be the opposite if anything,especially if you read user reports at Cubase.net.99% of all problems are audio/video card and chipset related,and sometimes a defective component which can happen to any hardware.On the AMD side,The latest NForce(415/NForce 2) and SiS(735/745/746) are pretty much compatible with anything,as long as you stick with quality memory and PSU(rated).