DAW farm build specs for under 1k$

[neoTypic]

After doing a couple of months worth of research I've come up with the following shopping list for computer parts. It's intended to be a "cheap" farm computer for VST sample streaming to a main DAW that will be built down the line while still being capable as functioning as a main DAW for those of us (me ;)) who can't afford to build a four PC farm with a main DAW without a lost rich uncle passing on and leaving us lots of money :D.

I've listed the parts along with item numbers for those that want to track down the parts on NewEgg and do something similar. Quite a few of these parts have rebates and can be found cheaper, but I wanted to assume that EVERYONE could find these parts at the price listed and not cheat to make the price lower. If you do some searching you can probably build this for a couple hundred less.

The goal was to build a quality farm DAW for under 1000$ that was portable (I do a lot of moving around and could use a spare PC to tote around as carry-on ;)), and had the capacity for upgrades down the line when the new AMD dual cores become cheaper.

PC specs come up quite often, so hopefully this little spec list will be helpful to a few of you. I'm not an expert by any means, but I've tried to explain concisely and clearly why I've chosen each part.

[neoTypic]

Shuttle SN25P Socket 939 AMD Athlon 64 FX/Athlon 64/Sempron nVIDIA nForce4 2x 184Pin Barebone - Retail
Model #: SN25P
Item #: N82E16856101468
$380.00
I chose the SN25P as it's well built, SFF (stands for Small Form Factor - smaller and more portable than a tower), comes with a 350W quiet power supply, and is upgradeable: you can put in quieter fans, or put in the new AMD dual core chips when they become cheaper down the line. It also has USB2 ports, and a Firewire400 port on the back. On-board 10/100/1000 will make networking with a router cheap and easy with the fastest bandwidth available today. Also a plus: no on board FX chip so the only thing to disable in the BIOS is the onboard sound if you really want to.

Since it's only meant to be a farm PC you don't need more than one PCI slot for expansion, and all audio will be routed to the main DAW so a separate audio card won't be needed. Even though it's based on the nVidia4 chipset no problems should be encountered because this plan assumes you'll be using an audio card on the main DAW or a Firewire/USB2 based APU. For those that don't know why this would have been a concern: there have been issues reported with PCIe based FX cards stealing bandwidth from PCI cards - i.e. your audio card.

AMD Athlon 64 3000+ Venice Integrated into Chip FSB 512KB L2 Cache Socket 939 Processor - Retail
Model #: ADA3000BPBOX
Item #: N82E16819103537
$146.00
Best bang for your buck right now. Venice/SanDiego is the newest core for AMD 64s with quite a few upgrades over the older cores. At 146$ it won't break your heart if you need to upgrade in a year.

SAPPHIRE 100591L Radeon X300 128MB 128-bit DDR PCI Express x16 Video Card - Retail
Model #: 100591L
Item #: N82E16814102416
$65.00
The xLine of Radeons are the PCIe versions with some updated tech specs. You won't be playing DOOM3 on this card, but it has a DVI out and will do everything you need on a farm PC and let you play some games if you're being bad and avoiding work. Shame on you for thinking about using your DAW for games! ;)

pqi TURBO 2GB (2 x 1GB) 184-Pin DDR SDRAM Unbuffered DDR 400 (PC 3200) Dual Channel Kit System Memory - Retail
Model #: PQI3200-2048DP
Item #: N82E16820141182
$187.00
Best RAM for your buck. It's dual channel and gives you the 2GB total you can stick in the motherboard.

Maxtor DiamondMax 10 6B250S0 250GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache Serial ATA150 Hard Drive - OEM
Model #: 6B250S0
Item #: N82E16822144358
$134.00
The only drive that has higher speeds is the Raptor, but you'll pay more, they're louder, the heat is nutso, and probably too much for a SFF PC without stickin' in some big fans. For me this drive is more apropos since it's almost as fast, offers more storage, and is QUIET. Throw in a second if you have an extra $134 so you can keep your OS and your samples separate.

PLEXTOR Black 12X DVD+R 4X DVD+RW 8X DVD-R 4X DVD-RW 16X DVD-ROM 48X CD-R 24X CD-RW 48X CD-ROM 8M Cache SATA DVD Burner - Retail
Model #: PX-712SA/SW-BL
Item #: N82E16827131329
$82.99
A bit of a splurge - you can probably find a cheaper drive, but this one has a SATA connection (faster than the older ATA), and is cleaner than trying to string older cables in a SFF PC. Also the fact that it can do everything under the sun doesn't hurt.


TOTAL: $994.99 / $924.99 after current NewEgg rebates
Similar Vision DAW: (http://www.visiondaw.com/ewql_v2.asp") $2,295.00 (Of course you get tech support, and the DAW configured for you. Well worth the money for different reasons.)

[neoTypic]

Well, I hope that helps give some of the less techy people among us a good starting point for building a new DAW for running those shiny new samples we've splurged on recently. :D

If I've made a bone headed mistake be sure to let me know, like I said, I'm definitely not an expert on these things. I just wanted to share the man-hours I've put into researching this stuff. If you guys have any questions I'll be more than happy to try to answer them.

[AndyFinkenstadt]

I think an operating system was left off by accident: $133 (street) or $90 (educational) price for Windows XP Update.

[neoTypic]

I think an operating system was left off by accident: $133 (street) or $90 (educational) price for Windows XP Update.


No, didn't forget, I just figured most people would supply their OS, monitor, keyboard, and mouse of choice. ;) Mebbe a bad assumption on my part. Whoops. Sowwy. :o