New puter, choosing the components help pleas - Computer music & technology forums

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Subject: New puter, choosing the components help pleas

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Original Message 1/22 05-Mar-01 @ 12:21 AM - New puter, choosing the components help pleas

Shpongledboy

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Here are some components I just quickly cut and pasted from Finish computer store's web page. If there are some tech heads in this forum I would like to have some opinions from below components. K, do you have any time to answer, please?

Pentium III 1000 MHz 256 kB FC-PGA (133 MHz FSB) BOXED [I heard that in Pentium 4 has some problems and it's not so fast as they fist sa�d it to be. What about some other prosessors than Pentium? Are they stable and will they work software I have(Cubase VST 32/5.0, Giga Sampler 1.60, Reaktor, Reality, Sound Forge, VST instrumets, Direct X plug-ins etc. etc..)]

ASUS A7M266, AMD 761, 2xDDR DIMM mother board. (are there any better for music making? I know nothing about this subject)

256MT SDRAM DIMM 133MHz 168PINN. Orig... or
256MT DDR DIMM 266MHz PC2100 Orig(what is the difference between SDRAM DIMM and DDR DIMM?)(or should I get even more ram. I think I'll be using windows 98 and read from some thread in here that it can't use more than 256MT of RAM)

IBM ULTRASTAR 36LZX 18.3GT U3W-SCSI LVD 10000RPM/4MT 2787(is IBM good and are there any better companies which for some reason would be better for musicans?)

ASUS AGP-V7700 GEFORCE2 GTS DDR 32MT... or
MATROX MILLENIUM G450 32MT DDR DUAL-HEAD(is it good idea to buy same graphic card and mother board to avoid any conflicts between them. or any other suggestions for graphic card? I want to be able to connect two monitors to my setup so I can keep toolbars, mixers, etc, in other monitor and arrange window in other)

19" HYUNDAI P910+ 1600X1200 85HZ monitor(is this good. It was cheapest with 85HZ refresh rate. Again any suggestions?)

Audiophile, delta44, or that hoontech card which has been mentioned here few times(I want good/stable audio and midi sync, midi I/O, at least one audio I/O, no drifting audio in Cubase, Giga Sampler suport, low latency Asio drivers (less than 12ms) so that I can play VST instruments in realtime.

If there are some other combinations of components whitch would result better/faster performance and stability then feel free to suggest.

Some good components which have been noticed to work well together in music making???

Uuh... was this too long? But please can somebody try to help at least in some of the questions?

Thanks in advance.

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Message 2/22 05-Mar-01 @ 04:27 AM - RE: New puter, choosing the components help pleas

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if you are looking like that level, i'd go athalon which everyone agrees is the best/fastest for the cash, with ddr ram as you suggest, but that limits you to just two chipsets the amd & ali right now and ddr is currently expensive - if you built this box in 6 months it'd be WAY cheaper...

The screen ?.. no idea, I always use ADI screens, cos they are cheap, good image, and you get a full 3 year warranty....the 450 is sposed to be good so why not, but i cant comment in use cos I have no use for that much graphic's power as despite I play UT i'm no 'UT-fetishist'

-

ddr is 'double-data-rate' - similar in concept to Uw2/160 scsi, it places data on the up and down cycle of the electrical wave cycle, in fact it is also sorta related in a way technique-wise to 'balanced' cables we use in studio's .... but you need a new type athalon C chip for that.. as I say, i'd wait if possible for a few more months mebbe ?? - cos we are just at one of those dreaded 'changover' points with PC's, where a new style/technique/upgrade takes over... NOT a good time to buy.. P3's will be phased out this year apparently, so alot will happen.

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Message 3/22 06-Mar-01 @ 10:53 AM - RE: New puter, choosing the components help pleas

dropadrop

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I would go for an athlon. They're cheaper, and faster. Ibm make good hard drives, but you should try to get 2. One for all the programs, and another one for audio. I think the ddr-memory is better. As for the other components, alot of the athlon motherboards use via-chipsets, which cause problems with soundcards. Once you've selected the soundcard, go to there homepage, and see if they recomend / don't recomend certain mobo's. I've allways used asus, and think they are the best, but maby thats just 'cause I have'nt tried anything else... I have a matrox g-400 dualhead and it kicks ass, but if your planning on playing games go for the asus.

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Message 4/22 06-Mar-01 @ 11:14 AM - RE: New puter, choosing the components help pleas

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via chipsets are fine. thats an old problem from way back.

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Message 5/22 06-Mar-01 @ 11:42 AM - RE: New puter, choosing the components help pleas

Jasper

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tell you what mate, if you play games as well (I do) you can't go wrong with the asus7700 Geforce2 GTS - I have that one and I never realised games could look so gorgeous, Giants has really used this cards features. Absolutely pisses on my voodoo3 2000 from a very great height.

With the Asus A7v you'll also be working at 4x AGP - and it does work, which is the main thing.. no dropping back the AGP spec to make it all work.

Don't bother with intel stuff at the minute, not unless you particularly want throw good money away on low spec rubbish.. the AMD stuff flies like shit of a shovel.

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Message 6/22 06-Mar-01 @ 05:12 PM - RE: New puter, choosing the components help pleas

shpongledboy

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Ok... you people have turned me totally to the Athlon.

But what about soundcard? Audiophile, Delta44 or SoundTrack Audio DSP24? Or? sorry I cut n' paste from my original post:

I want GOOD/stable audio and midi sync, midi I/O, at least one audio I/O, no drifting audio in Cubase, low latency Asio drivers (which actually REALLY works... my terratec's asio drivers don't work as they should!!!) so that I can play VST instruments in realtime.

Which one of the above mentioned soundcards is the most professinal? Which one you would get if money is not problem?

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Message 7/22 06-Mar-01 @ 10:11 PM - RE: New puter, choosing the components help pleas

Pewe

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I don�t agree on AMD. My opinion is go with Intel P3. Check out the support areas on various hardware manufacturers (soundcards etc.) and you�ll se that there are a lot of problems with AMD systems. All hardware is tested with Intel and but not all with AMD. Don�t stare blind on prformance/price alone. Compability is important to.

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Message 8/22 07-Mar-01 @ 11:35 AM - RE: New puter, choosing the components help pleas

Jasper

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who says all hardware is only tested with intel? christ thats like saying 'we don't particularly want to sell this product' - if that is true then you shouldn't bother buying stuff of that company, support a company that DO give a shit about whether their stuff works or not on systems other than intel.

you do have to pay a bit extra for a stable athlon based system, but we're talking like 60 quid or so.. not hundreds.

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Message 9/22 07-Mar-01 @ 12:55 PM - RE: New puter, choosing the components help pleas

shpongledboy

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Jasper, you wrote:

you do have to pay a bit extra for a stable athlon based system, but we're talking like 60 quid or so.. not hundreds.

So.. can you explain what things should I take notice on when I want to build STABLE athlon based system?

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Message 10/22 07-Mar-01 @ 07:44 PM - RE: New puter, choosing the components help pleas

Manik

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Shpongled - you should choose your soundcard first, and then build your system around that. It just makes sense this way because you could get a lovely Athlon system, and a lovely soundcard, but your buggered if they don't play well in the sandbox together. Pick your soundcard, then go to the tech support section of your chosen soundcard, and find out what kind of setup they recommend you have in order to get the best performance out of your system. You have to go backwards like that. You also want to look at the software companies tech support pages to make certain that the system and soundcard will behave together with the software.

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Message 11/22 08-Mar-01 @ 08:11 AM - RE: New puter, choosing the components help pleas

lqdsnddist

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I think there could be truth to to P3 being better than the AMD stuff. If you look at the new reaktor info, it says optomized for p3/g4 so i guess they make use of SSE and the velocity engine respectively. So even though AMD might have been FPU etc, and is a little cheaper, it seems as if reaktor would run better on the P3. Depends if you want to use reaktor etc too. I love the program and thats why i am building p3 instead of the 1.2g tbird, even though its slower and cost more.

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Message 12/22 08-Mar-01 @ 12:51 PM - RE: New puter, choosing the components help pleas

Jasper

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strange - a software company that limits it's user base by not implementing optimised software for a platform other than intel. that has got to be the wierdest business model ,I certainly wouldn't use it if I wanted my company to be a success.

I'd like to see some benchmarks too cos I'd bet there still aint that mutch in it when comparing like processors (amd athlon 900 / p3 1gig).

If I wanted stable, I'd go for Asus A7v / or Abit KT7 motherboards, both these are around 130 quid, buy quality brand name memory, and most of all make sure the soundcard has up to date drivers, if the company aint releasing up to date drivers then maybe that should tell you something about their commitment to their customers.

do what Manik says though, work back with a card and find out what m.board/processor it likes. check the web pages for details on issues (although you'll probably find they'll forget to add this info).

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Message 13/22 08-Mar-01 @ 07:31 PM - RE: New puter, choosing the components help pleas

shpongledboy

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K... Stupid question... does CHIP C mean same as SOCKET C. If not how do I know what processor has chip c?

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Message 14/22 08-Mar-01 @ 09:18 PM - RE: New puter, choosing the components help pleas

bokonon

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Intel chips are ridiculously slow in comparison to the AMD Tbird. Even with the SSE optimizations for the p3, the AMD chip will still run you faster and better. When you start to get up into the higher speed chips, the optimizations dont matter as much as the floating point performance between the 2. and the floating point on the AMD chips kicks intel's arse.

I'd be suprised if there was any soundcard that didnt work on an Abit KT7-A motherboard. all of this talk of compatability is in the past with the new chipsets and boards coming out. and this talk of a 'stable' amd system costing more is rubbish =) you'll still save money and get more performance out of a 1ghz AMD tbird with a 133mhz front side bus and an Abit KT7A than you would a p3 of the same speed with their top end motherboard. the new Rev2 KT7A's are coming out with even BETTER memory performance than the previously kickass KT7A's.

The only media you see giving intel chips a better review than AMD's are just scare tactics with payoffs involved. AMD is taking over and no amount of intels money is going to make their inferior product better. the tbird even outperforms the pentium *4* is most aspects, and at slower speed!

make sure you get good PC133 CAS2 ram. from www.mushkin.com or www.crucial.com (i prefer crucial)

and yes IBM makes good hardrives for our audio purposes. you'll want 2. 1 for audio tracks and 1 for your OS and programs. the Deskstar 75gxp is great.

oh and all your games like AMD more too

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Message 15/22 08-Mar-01 @ 09:31 PM - RE: New puter, choosing the components help pleas

Jasper

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"and this talk of a 'stable' amd system costing more is rubbish =) "

bah!
so why do you recommend expensive ram then, instead of cheap crap.. and also you could buy a cheap Jetway board instead of a quality Abit / Gigabyte or Asus board...
btw - for games.. get a Geforce 2 GTS - drool...

eh?eh? :P

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Message 16/22 08-Mar-01 @ 10:23 PM - RE: New puter, choosing the components help pleas

shpongledboy

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I don't play games I just want a graphickcard where I can plug in two screens. I was thinking MATROX MILLENIUM G450 32MT DDR DUAL-HEAD... but can I plug two screens to ASUS AGP-V7700 GEFORCE2 GTS DDR 32MT?

And once again... does CHIP C mean same as SOCKET C? or was it A? If not how do I know what processors has C CHIP so that I can take advantage of DDR RAM?

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Message 17/22 09-Mar-01 @ 08:52 AM - RE: New puter, choosing the components help pleas

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no.. if you look on the a slot athalon chips the new one that can do ddr ram have a 'C' at the end of the number the normal Tbirds have a 'B'

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Message 18/22 09-Mar-01 @ 11:04 AM - RE: New puter, choosing the components help pleas

shpongled

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Ok.

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Message 19/22 09-Mar-01 @ 11:57 AM - RE: New puter, choosing the components help pleas

Jasper

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don't bother with the geforce2 gts if your not into gaming, total overkill (but mines ace anyway).

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Message 20/22 10-Mar-01 @ 07:40 AM - RE: New puter, choosing the components help pleas

loFreq

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Take it from a person who has built hundreds of PCs(I'm not kidding). Athlons blow Intels stanky ass out of the water. As far as a STABLE athlon system, QUALITY parts are #1. I have an ASUS A7V and a Delta66. NO compatibility problems, at all! Also Midiman's tech support is so incredible. Stick with Asus motherboards and you should be fine. And yes, IBM makes killer hard drives. I own a IBM 8GB UW-SCSI and love it.

shawn

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Message 21/22 10-Mar-01 @ 03:05 PM - RE: New puter, choosing the components help pleas

shpongledboy

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Thanks loFreq. That's exactly what I wanted to hear.

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Message 22/22 31-Mar-01 @ 02:16 AM - RE: New puter, choosing the components help pleas

bl_nd

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hmmm ... i'm interested in this new pc thing too...i've got $2000 to inject into a custom built, but my objective is to make the ideal "reaktor box" so i may have to stick with pentium 3 ... really, I will have to hold my pennies until the new Reaktor is released and take action from there.

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