Spec Me a Rig. £3k

Vinney

Vinney

Vinney

Associate
Joined
16 Jan 2008
Posts
13
Hiya everyone,

Am looking to purchase some components for a new system i intend to use as a Digital Audio Workstation (Music Production). I usually have no problems picking out the right components and building my own system, however after reading tons of reviews on quad core intels, motherboard and ram - it literally has got my head spinning.

I was wondering, if i give you a budget of £3,000 +/- £300, would you recommend the best spec i could get for that price. I only need a bare bones machine, no monitor or soundcard is needed.

As this system is for a DAW, i need noise to be at a minimum. So the quieter the better.

I'll start the spec off :

* Intel Quad QX9650
* mobo ?
* 4 Gig Ram of ?
* ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT
* Seagate Barracuda 1 x 1TB
* Seagate Barracuda 3 x 750 or 500GB

Whats the difference between the ES.2 and the 7200 ?

What power supply / case do you recommend ? - quieter the better

Thanks for your time ....

Vinney.
 
That could be considered slight overkill. Come up with a spec of how you think you might spend £3k and we'll see why you don't :)
 
gumbald said:
That could be considered slight overkill. Come up with a spec of how you think you might spend £3k and we'll see why you don't :)
Click to expand...

Why i dont what ?

Nothing todo with overkill, if you had any idea how intensive music production and synthesis on a pc is, then you'd understand the more power the better. Am having to update my pc every 9 months due to software becoming more hungry. So id rather fork out now and not having to upgrade for a good 3 - 4 years ....

I was going down the Mac Pro route ... it was exactly what i needed, however with the lack of PCI slots only PICE, would have rendered 2ks worth of DSP cards useless.....

So am bk to building my own ... hence i want to help - not comments about it being overkill.

But thanks for your input ...

Vinney.
 
surely due to the ever changing hardware market, it's more economical to get something thats very good now for average price, rather than cutting edge for huge money

you'll have to upgrade in say 2 years instead of 3, but it'll save you 50% or more of the cost
 
trescodrucey said:
surely due to the ever changing hardware market, it's more economical to get something thats very good now for average price, rather than cutting edge for huge money

you'll have to upgrade in say 2 years instead of 3, but it'll save you 50% or more of the cost
Click to expand...

doesn't always work like that ... and the time when u need to upgrades, comes when your skint .... sods law :)
 
you dont appear to be short of money, lol. Why not go all the way!: QX9650, 4GB DDR3 Ram, ASUS Maximus Extreme, some fast raptor HD's and a storage HD (like the ones you mentioned :P . Might need a hefty PSU like 1000W.

But then I dont know a lot at the moment, still learning lol

im sure someone more knowledgable will come online and help you out :p
 
Asus Maximus Extreme Intel X38 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR3 Motherboard Asus Maximus Extreme Intel X38 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR3 Motherboard £169.99
(£199.74) £169.99
(£199.74)
LG GGC-H20L Blu-Ray Reader & HD-DVD ROM Serial ATA Drive - Retail LG GGC-H20L Blu-Ray Reader & HD-DVD ROM Serial ATA Drive - Retail £117.99
(£138.64) £117.99
(£138.64)
Samsung SpinPoint F1 1TB SATA-II 32MB Cache - OEM (HD103UJ) Samsung SpinPoint F1 1TB SATA-II 32MB Cache - OEM (HD103UJ) £161.99
(£190.34) £323.98
(£380.68)
Intel Core 2 Quad Extreme Edition QX9650 "LGA775 Yorkfield" 3.00GHz (1333FSB) Intel Core 2 Quad Extreme Edition QX9650 "LGA775 Yorkfield" 3.00GHz (1333FSB) £584.99
(£687.36) £584.99
(£687.36)
OCZ 4GB DDR3 PC3-10666C6 1333MHz ReaperX (2x2GB) Dual Channel DDR3 (OCZ3RPX1333EB4GK) OCZ 4GB DDR3 PC3-10666C6 1333MHz ReaperX (2x2GB) Dual Channel DDR3 (OCZ3RPX1333EB4GK) £329.99
(£387.74) £329.99
(£387.74)
BFG GeForce 8800 GTS OC 512MB GDDR3 HDTV/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail BFG GeForce 8800 GTS OC 512MB GDDR3 HDTV/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail £169.99
(£199.74) £169.99
(£199.74)
Western Digital Raptor X 150GB 10000RPM SATA 16MB Cache - OEM (WD1500AHFD) Western Digital Raptor X 150GB 10000RPM SATA 16MB Cache - OEM (WD1500AHFD) £104.99
(£123.36) £209.98
(£246.72)
Enermax Galaxy 1000W EGX1000EWL ATX2.2 Modular PSU Enermax Galaxy 1000W EGX1000EWL ATX2.2 Modular PSU £146.99
(£172.71) £146.99
(£172.71)
Lian-Li PC V2100 PLUS Silver Aluminium Full-Tower (No PSU) Lian-Li PC V2100 PLUS Silver Aluminium Full-Tower (No PSU) £179.99
(£211.49) £179.99
(£211.49)
Sub Total : £2,233.89
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
City Link Parcel Next Day (Delivered Mon-Fri)
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £14.95
VAT is being charged at 17.5% VAT : £393.55
Total : £2,642.39

That's overkill TBH.

RAID 0 the Raptors, RAID 1 the F1's.

1.3 GB storage, 0.3 for OS and apps.
 
If you want RAW cpu power you are better off with a dual quad-core xeon setup tbh, like you were looking at with the Mac Pro. I don't know which motherboards are best though.
 
RichL said:
If you want RAW cpu power you are better off with a dual quad-core xeon setup tbh, like you were looking at with the Mac Pro. I don't know which motherboards are best though.
Click to expand...

Ditto on that

a dual cpu, 8gb ddr2 ram setup would be more appropriate for you :)

graphics wise, do you play any games?
 
caithomas44 said:
Ditto on that

a dual cpu, 8gb ddr2 ram setup would be more appropriate for you :)

graphics wise, do you play any games?
Click to expand...

nope no games.

Ive looked at xeon's .... but the new Harpertown chips which are those in the Mac Pro are not out yet .... the Clovertown xeons are just not as good...
 
I know what you mean about requirements for audio etc.

The CPU is a definate yes, but with 3k to spend I would seriously consider water cooling, mainly so you can have near enough silence as well as overclocking the CPU from 3gigs up to about 4+ gigs and gaining the extra cpu power.

I would be looking for 4 raptors in a RAID 0 configuration, each one housed in a GUP Japan Smart Drive 2002C Hard Drive Silencer to keep things cool and quiet.

You will need also one large capacity HD in a Vantec EZ-SWAP2 Removeable HD caddy, onto which you would regularly do an image of your RAID array for backup purposes, also required would be Network attached storage for you work and Data.

I'm sure you already have a soundcard in mind, so no need for me to spec this, and PSU, I will leave for someone else to recommend.

The case for this, dur to the watercooling requirements etc, I would recommend a Lian-Li PC V2000.
 
Four 1Gb F1's in RAID 10 would be better, and safer, then four raptors. Depends on how much storage he needs and how fast he needs the discs to be.
 
£3k is definatly overkill for a DAW.

Just go for a Q6600 and overclock it with 8GB of RAM (4x2gb) if you want the best performance. You ideally need 2xSATA drives (one for System, one for Data) of about 250GB each. Get a video card that supports multiple monitors if you have them.

The machines in our underground studio's haven't even got that spec and manage to run everything smoothly. As long as you have a good soundcard, and good equipment then don't worry too much about CPU power. You'll be limited by your soundcards performance anway. :)
 
I assume you meant 1TB not 1GB.

I still recommend something smaller as trying to backup over 1 TB of HD is not what I call reasonable.

Also depends on what other use you have for the PC. If mainly music, then there won't be hundreds of programs installed so 4 x 36GB (144GB) will be more than enough for OS, apps and working files, failing that 4 x 75GB (300GB).
A resonable enough size for work and backing up as an image, lets face it, an image is the only way to go as re-installing etc is just too much bother.

If you really want the crem de la crem, then 4 64GB Solid state drives in a RAID 0 config will outperform everything else, but I see you only have about 3k to spend ;)

For work saving completed work etc and libraries, then either another internal HD (Big) or even better external, so if it all goes pear shaped, you haven't lost all your hard work.
 
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