What mobo/cpu/ram/psu for £550? (computer to be used for music production)

Humate

Humate

Humate

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Hi,

Im wanting to build a new pc that will be used for music production. I need mobo/cpu/ram and PSU. I wont be overclocking, im hoping i wont need to, but it would be nice to have components that i can overclock when i find in the future the performance is starting to strain (i tend to keep my computers for quite a long time).

Im after a large wattage PSU that can run 20 hard drives (i dont actually have this many, i have 13, but i want a bit of headroom and options for expansion in the future for more drives), the chosen mobo/cpu/ram and an old nvidea 7900gtx graphics card (which i would like to upgrade at a later point to a new single card solution... im not sure how much power the current cards need). In general im not sure how much power all of those components would need.

As for the mobo/cpu/ram combination... the fastest i can afford. Im not sure how much ram i will need for music production. So it would be good to go for a lot more than your average desktop, but in a configuration that i can add more to if i find i dont have enough.

can anyone help me? thanks so much, ive lived in a cave for 2-3 years, i know nothing about new pc parts :(
 
Product Name Qty Price Line Total
Intel Core i7 860 2.80Ghz (Nehalem) (Socket LGA1156) - Retail + Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising Game £226.99
(£197.38) £226.99
(£197.38)
Asus P7P55D LE Intel P55 (Socket 1156) DDR3 Motherboard £99.99
(£86.95) £99.99
(£86.95)
Gainward GeForce GTS 250 Green Edition 512MB GDDR3 PCI-Express Graphics Card £88.99
(£77.38) £88.99
(£77.38)
Patriot Sector 5 Viper II 4GB (2x2GB) PC3-10666 1333MHz Dual Channel (PVV34G1333LLK) £70.99
(£61.73) £70.99
(£61.73)
Be Quiet! Straight Power 650W ATX2.2 SLi Compliant Power Supply £66.99
(£58.25) £66.99
(£58.25)
Sub Total : £481.69
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
DPD Next Day Parcel
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £10.00
VAT is being charged at 15% VAT : £73.75
Total : £565.44
 
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If you link your shop and forum accounts you'll also get free shipping there.

I figure if it's primarily for music production, you'll benefit more from a better sound card than a better GPU. You could however go for a cheaper sound card and get a better i7 CPU, though I don't know which will benefit you more. I also don't know anything about the sound cards dedicated to sound production, but you could always drop the Essence and go for one.
 
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I thought it was that Sound cards only controlled audio output, and so for editing it would primarily be the CPU that decided on the speed at which it was done. Revision:

buildx.png


GPU you could change to a 9600 or something like that if you really wanted to. What's your current build by the way?

PS: Comparison kinda makes my 1440x900 resolution look puny :(
 
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Superewza said:
I thought it was that Sound cards only controlled audio output, and so for editing it would primarily be the CPU that decided on the speed at which it was done.
Click to expand...

CPU's would obviously improve speeds, but I think using a sound card as the initial ADC would lead to better quality. But then, I don't know a damn thing about sound recording :p

Edit: Assuming he is recording. If it's only editing, a sound card won't help in the slightest apart from playing it back, in which case you'd need to make sure you had high end headphones/speakers first before shelling out for an expensive sound card.

You can't go wrong with any spec here to be honest. However if you're not going to be recording sound, I'd give the Xonar Essence a miss
 
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thanks very much for your suggestions guys.

I have a sound card already... an m-audio delta1010lt.

So i was just after mobo, cpu, ram, and a power supply with enough watts to power all the stuff mentioned in the first post really, budget was £550. However, I guess if i could get a cheap graphics card that was considerably better and a big upgrade from my 7900gtx it would be good to include that in the £550 budget.

On this basis maybe Superewza's first suggestion fits the bill... just with the G.Skill Ripjaw 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (F3-12800CL9D-4GBRL) RAM instead... is the Gainward GeForce GTS 250 a BIG improvement on my 7900gtx?

Thanks !!!!!!!!! :)


Superewza said:
What's your current build by the way?
Click to expand...

My current computer is an athlon 64 4000+ san diego, asus a8n sli premium, 4GB of some corsair ddr stuff, 3ware 9650-12ml raid controller, m-audio delta1010lt sound card, dell 2407 and a 7900gtx. I have 2 psu's in my case, but i wanted to replace them with one powerful one :)
 
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I guess the real issue of the graphics card is whether it gives me value for money.

The computer will primarily be bought with music production in mind. This is what is most important. However i do play the odd game now and then, mainly racing simulators though which dont tend to need anything cutting edge to run.

Really it boils down to... I have £550, if i can get a big improvement on the graphics card with only a very minor loss on cpu speed then i would go for that. if i had to take a big hit on cpu speed to get a graphics card i might just settle to keep this old 7900gtx.

sorry for confusing matters. I dont make it easy.
 
Tbh you will see a big performance boost by upgrading from that 7900gtx to either a 4850/4870 or a nvidia 260. The value is in the ati cards atm because of the new 58xx cards.
Depending on your monitor resolutions I would personally go for a 4870 1gb that you can pick up for a little over £100. I find on my 20inch monitor I can max settings on nearly all games and get decent fps.
 
Intel Core i5 750 2.66Ghz (Lynnfield) (Socket LGA1156) - OEM + Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising Game £144.99 (£126.08)
MSI P55-CD53 Intel P55 (Socket 1156) DDR3 Motherboard £99.99 (£86.95)
Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 4770 512MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £77.99 (£67.82)
OCZ ModXStream Pro 700w Silent SLI Ready Modular Power Supply £74.99 (£65.21)
G.Skill Ripjaw 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (F3-12800CL9D-4GBRL) £66.99
(£58.25) £133.98
(£116.50)
Sub Total : £462.56
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
DPD Next Day Parcel
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £10.00
VAT is being charged at 15% VAT : £70.88
Total : £543.44
Forgot to add cooler, the coolermaster hyper tx3 is decent budget 1156 cooler
Either the 4770 above or the 250, theyre both nice low powered efficient but capable gfx cards
 
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