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Forums - Computer music & technology
Subject: Please enlighten me about...
Original Message 1/13 08-Jun-03 @ 05:00 PM Edit: 08-Jun-03 | 08:31 PM - Please enlighten me about...
...the current crop of motherboards and the like. My last desktop was a P1, my current computer is a P3 laptop, and my next computer is one I want to be able to use as long as I have been using my laptop - three years and going.
I think I'm looking for a MoBo for a fast P4 with the fastest FSB and a huge cashe, able to handle 2gig of fast memory (what are the diferent flavors these days: DIMM, DRAM, SRAM, SDRAM?), SCSI for my current HD, CDrom, CDR/W, 3xUSB for my US428 and Midiman interfaces, RAID to experiement with, firewire, as many slots as possible but no onboard sound or video and probably a few other things I'm not aware of as yet. I do know It wants to be fast fast fast fast fast!!! Oooohwheeeeheeheehee!! I want to be able to use plug-ins like Waves & GRM Tools, and Kantos, which seem to take up a lot of CPU resources.
I would like to keep it under a grand (US) for the MoBo, power supply, CPU, heat sink, memory and case. I'll use my old monitors hard drives, keyboards, mouse, etc., for now. Later I'll be interested in removable HDs, I don't know if that makes a difference regarding the case's form factor.
I'm asking a lot?
Thanks as always, I'll be checking back in between surfing 'round for ideas.
Yours in unenlightened confusion,
Mick
PS: Any thoughts on these recommendations?
http://members.rogers.com/mlomas/2PCDAW.html
http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,3973,997602,00.asp - "Core plumbing", "display", "storage", "house and power plant" only.
I think I'm looking for a MoBo for a fast P4 with the fastest FSB and a huge cashe, able to handle 2gig of fast memory (what are the diferent flavors these days: DIMM, DRAM, SRAM, SDRAM?), SCSI for my current HD, CDrom, CDR/W, 3xUSB for my US428 and Midiman interfaces, RAID to experiement with, firewire, as many slots as possible but no onboard sound or video and probably a few other things I'm not aware of as yet. I do know It wants to be fast fast fast fast fast!!! Oooohwheeeeheeheehee!! I want to be able to use plug-ins like Waves & GRM Tools, and Kantos, which seem to take up a lot of CPU resources.
I would like to keep it under a grand (US) for the MoBo, power supply, CPU, heat sink, memory and case. I'll use my old monitors hard drives, keyboards, mouse, etc., for now. Later I'll be interested in removable HDs, I don't know if that makes a difference regarding the case's form factor.
I'm asking a lot?
Thanks as always, I'll be checking back in between surfing 'round for ideas.
Yours in unenlightened confusion,
Mick
PS: Any thoughts on these recommendations?
http://members.rogers.com/mlomas/2PCDAW.html
http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,3973,997602,00.asp - "Core plumbing", "display", "storage", "house and power plant" only.
Message 2/13 08-Jun-03 @ 06:48 PM - RE: Please enlighten me about...
hehe... i wish i knew that myself. look, i'll just ride piggyback and add on to your question, and you can use the aditional info anyway.
I want to know whats the deal with P4 CPU's 800mhz FSB specs? what does it mean when you stick it on your MoBo? does that simply mean it supports mobo's with 800mhz FSB or ... ?
also, has the denormalisation problem been sorted out with new P4's (2ghz+)? are they safe?
thanks
I want to know whats the deal with P4 CPU's 800mhz FSB specs? what does it mean when you stick it on your MoBo? does that simply mean it supports mobo's with 800mhz FSB or ... ?
also, has the denormalisation problem been sorted out with new P4's (2ghz+)? are they safe?
thanks
Message 3/13 08-Jun-03 @ 07:38 PM - RE: Please enlighten me about...
I think that your memory has to be able to take advantage of the FSB speed. Is there any memory out there now that can utilize such a fast FSB?
Message 4/13 08-Jun-03 @ 08:15 PM Edit: 08-Jun-03 | 08:29 PM - RE: Please enlighten me about...
The RAID thing may be a bit much I wonder. It does add on to the cost af the MoBo. I'm considering the following as a better, more reliable solution than a RAID 0 array and less expensive than a Raid 1/0 array: a 36gig 15,000rpm SCSI drive for online multi-tracking (@ 120 minutes of 48 track recording at 16/44.1), a 10gig 7200rpm UDMA drive for online mastering, and the biggest 7200 UDMA drive I can find at a reasonable price for offline storage of multi-track and mastered projects.
I've heard good things about the speed of RAID 0 and RAID 1/0 regarding speed that it seems like something I would want to look into. I guess theres no need for anything faster than 15,000rpms nor larger than 36gig unless one is working with long orchestral arrangements and/or high bit and sampling rates, though. I don't see any reason to go with anything other than 24/44.1 or 24/98 (at the most) although Cubase does do 32 bit which may be a consideration.
One of the reasons I've put off upgrading is I hate the research side of it all. So many fecking options. I kinda understand the Mac mentality at time like this.
I've heard good things about the speed of RAID 0 and RAID 1/0 regarding speed that it seems like something I would want to look into. I guess theres no need for anything faster than 15,000rpms nor larger than 36gig unless one is working with long orchestral arrangements and/or high bit and sampling rates, though. I don't see any reason to go with anything other than 24/44.1 or 24/98 (at the most) although Cubase does do 32 bit which may be a consideration.
One of the reasons I've put off upgrading is I hate the research side of it all. So many fecking options. I kinda understand the Mac mentality at time like this.
Message 5/13 08-Jun-03 @ 09:30 PM Edit: 08-Jun-03 | 09:54 PM - RE: Please enlighten me about...
Steve Roughley
Posts: 1178
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Well, I have fallen behind on the Pentium CPU improvements recently myself (it's all going OTT and is basically just getting silly now... don't worry about the CPU THAT much, any reasonable P4 or recent XP chip will provide more than enough power). One thing I can tell you about the chip is that Pentium are still losing out on FPU calcs, to the AMD XP chips. The FPU's are the real biggy when it comes to audio processing and the XPs are cheaper, so I highly recomend them.
But I can help with various other bits and pieces. The on-board RAID is definitely worth the money. It is cheaper than SCSI, and now with Serial ATA, it it looks like SCSI may soon become obsolete anyways (it has certainly shifted out of the limelight recently). But what you need to know is that Serial ATA will cane your audio data at rates far exceding the requirements of a modern DAW (the introduction of the technology brought 150mbps transfer rates, and we all know that this will improve a GREAT deal within the near future, such is the nature of technology). When using the onboard RAID channels, it is probably best just to use the on-board RAID as extra IDE channels and leave the RAID settings for Servers as continuous backing up of data is not necessary on a DAW and you won't see any major performance gain.
As for RAM, DDR is till the choice of champions. Your 2gb requirement may be a little OTT. 1gb of PC3000 DDR RAM should be more than enough.
So, for example, you could go for a setup based around the Abit NF7-S(v2) (nForce2 chipset [reliable, fast, low-temp], 2xSATA, 2xATA133, Firewire, Dual DDR RAM Controllers, 2xUSB2 [with an extra 2xUSB2 extension]) with the XP2600+ (2ghz) Chip, 2x SATA 80gb drives (Maxtor and Seagate are good here) and 1gb (a bit OTT) PC3000 DDR RAM. This would cost around £380 (UK). I'm not sure about the US pricing.
This would be more than fast enough and reliable. Add some SATA drives and your track count (using a sequencer such as Logic) will easily get into the 30s + enough effects to well-and-truly scare your audience to death.
The rest of the technology, such as CDR Drives and video cards, is much the same as it was a few years ago. With the obvous exception of DVD. For video, just go for a 2d low spec AGP with enough colours and reliability to do the job (the more powerfull the graphics card, the more load on the CPU); the Matrox G550 is great! Its reliable, low-temp, cheap and features dual head. I'll leave the dillemas regarding Audio cards up to you as that is more of a personal choice.
I know it doesn't cover your entire query, but I hope this at least helps.
Regards.
Steve.
But I can help with various other bits and pieces. The on-board RAID is definitely worth the money. It is cheaper than SCSI, and now with Serial ATA, it it looks like SCSI may soon become obsolete anyways (it has certainly shifted out of the limelight recently). But what you need to know is that Serial ATA will cane your audio data at rates far exceding the requirements of a modern DAW (the introduction of the technology brought 150mbps transfer rates, and we all know that this will improve a GREAT deal within the near future, such is the nature of technology). When using the onboard RAID channels, it is probably best just to use the on-board RAID as extra IDE channels and leave the RAID settings for Servers as continuous backing up of data is not necessary on a DAW and you won't see any major performance gain.
As for RAM, DDR is till the choice of champions. Your 2gb requirement may be a little OTT. 1gb of PC3000 DDR RAM should be more than enough.
So, for example, you could go for a setup based around the Abit NF7-S(v2) (nForce2 chipset [reliable, fast, low-temp], 2xSATA, 2xATA133, Firewire, Dual DDR RAM Controllers, 2xUSB2 [with an extra 2xUSB2 extension]) with the XP2600+ (2ghz) Chip, 2x SATA 80gb drives (Maxtor and Seagate are good here) and 1gb (a bit OTT) PC3000 DDR RAM. This would cost around £380 (UK). I'm not sure about the US pricing.
This would be more than fast enough and reliable. Add some SATA drives and your track count (using a sequencer such as Logic) will easily get into the 30s + enough effects to well-and-truly scare your audience to death.
The rest of the technology, such as CDR Drives and video cards, is much the same as it was a few years ago. With the obvous exception of DVD. For video, just go for a 2d low spec AGP with enough colours and reliability to do the job (the more powerfull the graphics card, the more load on the CPU); the Matrox G550 is great! Its reliable, low-temp, cheap and features dual head. I'll leave the dillemas regarding Audio cards up to you as that is more of a personal choice.
I know it doesn't cover your entire query, but I hope this at least helps.
Regards.
Steve.
Message 6/13 09-Jun-03 @ 03:00 AM - RE: Please enlighten me about...
I have to admit I want to go with an Intel CPU. SATA sounds interesting, I'll be looking into that more thanks to you, Steve.
I'll be back...
I'll be back...
Message 7/13 09-Jun-03 @ 02:46 PM - RE: Please enlighten me about...
Cache is usually on the CPU now, not on the motherboard.
RAID... You just don't need it, unless you want the redundancy to back up your data. My Maxtor UATA-133 drive will stream 90 tracks at once, according to ProRec's little diskbench utility. I used to mix more than 30 on my Athlon 700 with an ATA-33 hard disk.
-Craig
RAID... You just don't need it, unless you want the redundancy to back up your data. My Maxtor UATA-133 drive will stream 90 tracks at once, according to ProRec's little diskbench utility. I used to mix more than 30 on my Athlon 700 with an ATA-33 hard disk.
-Craig
Message 8/13 10-Jun-03 @ 09:37 AM - RE: Please enlighten me about...
I'd go athlon, really... there now seems to be less probs with them although that sounds ironic as AMD used to be the problem years ago. Anyways they have gobs of power, and this business of trying to build an echte-zuper box is to me pointless as they all devalue so fast.
Message 9/13 10-Jun-03 @ 10:23 AM - RE: Please enlighten me about...
agreed!
Bang for buck NOW is my mantra...
Bang for buck NOW is my mantra...
Message 10/13 10-Jun-03 @ 01:15 PM - RE: Please enlighten me about...
so you dont know if the new P4's exibit denormalising like the old ones?
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