New build for music home studio

Punce

Punce

Punce

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Joined
9 Sep 2003
Posts
137
Looking to upgrade my Athlon 64 X2 4200+ setup.
I don't need a super duper graphics card, as I will not be gaming. Maybe some video editing at the very most.
I also have monitor, keyboard, mouse and Win7, so no need to add in those.

Will be using Pro Tools, Reaper, Reason etc with a bunch of plug-ins, so processor power is probably the emphasis.
Here's what some others have bought with good results in Pro Tools - http://duc.digidesign.com/showthread.php?t=238426 - but not sure how up to date that list is.

I'm thinking i7 is the most futureproof. What are the chances of having a box of tricks for around £500-£600?

Thanks
 
Anyone? :(

Ok, here is what I've sketched up sp far:

Intel Core i7 920 D0 Stepping (SLBEJ) 2.66GHz (Nehalem) (Socket LGA1366) - Retail £199
Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD3R Intel X58 (Socket 1366) DDR3 Motherboard £154.99
Kingston HyperX 6GB (3x2GB) DDR3-12800CL9 (1600MHz) Tri-Channel (KHX1600C9D3K3/6GX) £127.98
OCZ ModXStream Pro 700w Silent SLI Certified Modular Power Supply £72.99
Western Digital Caviar Black 640GB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (WD6402AAEX) £54.99

Total so far is £622.69

I also need a graphics card, but will not be using it for anything crazy, as long as it's silent and doesnt slow the rest of the system down I'm happy.
 
seems like a good setup to me for what you want to do (fellow music producer here). bare in mind the i7 930 has a slightly higher stock speed which may matte rif you are not overlclocking (but costs a few notes more)
 
I haven't yet owned an i7 chip, but, given that of the two more affordable chips are fairly closely matched @ stock speeds; 1 is @ 2.66GHz per core, and the other is 2.8GHz per core; it MIGHT make more sense to get the more expensive chip, (930). However having said that, it may be more economical to get the cheaper chip an overclock it simply to the level of its slightly more powerful brother, the 930 instead of actually BUYING the 930. Make sense?
Everything else looks reasonable. Have you researched to see if all your prospective hardware will comfortably fit inside your existing case? As for graphics, I'm perhaps not the guy to ask, the last card I had was an XFX 8800GTS XXX 320Mb. Great for UT3, BF2 & watching HD TV, but that was 2years ago or so. I'm not up-to-date with the latest graphics tech'.
 
I'd dunk in a quieter cooler too if you're doing music processing. You don't really need THAT much computing power - my older Core 2 Duo E6550 system worked great with Pro Tools with lots of simultaneous tracks & processing. Best to keep it clean and quiet really! Spend more money on the music hardware. (or if you've already got it, get something cheaper and buy a new Strat or something :p)
 
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cheers for the info. I missed the tax boat, so I'm off the boil at the moment. I'm thinking of now waiting for the AMD 6 core before my next build
 
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