Building a new machine, need advice

[tix]

I used to work with MIDI in Cubase SX1 with my trusty Colossus. Unfortunately, I heard my share of snaps, crackles and pops while working. My current machine has a 3.2 GHz processor (Single core), with about 1.5 GB DDR3 RAM, SATA hard drive (400 GB), and an Audigy 2 ZS soundcard. I've decided the time has come to make the jump from 32 to 64-bit, and I want to make sure I get the right kind of every component so that I can get back into composing without all the "side effects" I ran into on this machine. This is also the first time I've built one on my own, so I'm going to need a little help. I did read that sticky and thought it was very informative, although available technology has changed since then.

The kind of music I write isn't loaded with tons of voices, but it is enough to sometimes give me trouble with what I have right now. So keep that in mind when I ask for suggestions--and I have a limited budget of <=$1,000, so no SSD's.

PROCESSOR:
I'm trying to decide between an intel i5-750 (Quad core, but no hyperthreading), and an i7-860. There's about an $85 price difference between the two. I've read that the i5 gives you the most bang for your buck, but the i7 has hyperthreading and has slightly faster cores. Does the hyperthreading make a significant difference (I may want to thave the option to run a lot of programs at once--that requires hyperthreading for best performance, right?)

RAM:
I'm going to start out with 4GB of DDR3, with the intention of expanding to 8 GB (When I have more money). I guess for this I'm more interested in who the best provider would be.

HARD DRIVE:
I'm going with a SATA drive, unless there is something out there that's similarly priced and better for storing lots of samples. I've seen people who use multiple harddrives for storing different sample sets, but right now I'm edging away from that.

MOTHERBOARD:
Haven't looked into these yet. My current board doesn't even have a PCIE slot (I got the machine from DELL just months before the PCIE thing started). I'll probably need a few PCIE ports, but I'm not sure how many to go with. Also I hear PCIE 3.0 is on the horizon...should I be concerned about this? I don't want to be cut off again.

SOUND CARD:
This is the important one. I'm not concerned with recording. All of my work is MIDI, so ASIO is my only requirement. However, my Audigy has had its fair share of quirks. In my time on the Cubase forums, I saw that people tended to look down on that particular card, and so I'd like to know what my best options are. My main goal is to be able to play on my keyboard with as little latency as possible, without the project turning into Rice Krispies (Although I got the impression the RAM had a lot to do with that from the sticky). Most sites I've checked still seem to say "Go with the Audigy," but I'd like to get the input from people who actually work with the big software.

GRAPHICS CARD:
Geforce GTX-460. This one doesn't factor into the budget.

CASING:
I'm not there yet.

POWER SUPPLY:
I'm not there yet.

OPERATING SYSTEM:
64-bit Windows 7.

Right now I don't have any PLAY VSTi's, but I do intend to get some down the road. That's probably one of the biggest reasons for the 64-bit jump. I know I'm also going to either have to update Cubase (Ugh, $$$) or find another sequencer that can support PLAY. Since all I do is MIDI, I'm wondering if there's a better alternative to Cubase (In hindsight, getting Cubase SX back in 2003 seems like it was a bit unnecessary =\).

Any help on this would be greatly appreciated.

[Veneteaou]

I know I'm also going to either have to update Cubase (Ugh, $$$) or find another sequencer that can support PLAY. Since all I do is MIDI, I'm wondering if there's a better alternative to Cubase (In hindsight, getting Cubase SX back in 2003 seems like it was a bit unnecessary =\).

Reaper... It isn't Cubase 5 MIDI management, but it is current, kept current, and $40.

[jarkkoh]

I wonder what sites you have been looking at where Audigy is recommended as a card to produce music with... One last time, audigy is a gaming/home theater card. And to get the lowest possible latency, it's mainly dependant on the sound card, not ram.

There are decent threads here on sound cards. If you're on a budget, check these:

http://www.thomann.de/gb/cat.html?gf...erfaces&oa=pra

[jarkkoh]

Agh, didn't realize the link is against rules, check online audio stores for musicians, they have cards for sale that are meant for audio production.

[jarkkoh]

I too recently build a machine.

I personally went for the i7 930 as the LGA 1366 socket is supposed to be the best choise for future upgrades in mind, also overclocking wise. Don't know much about that then, but that's what I was said. Also got one of the best coolers for it overcloking in mind, the Noctua nh-d14. It's a beast.

Got a fairly expensive motherboard, the Asus P6X58D-E, around 230 euros to get the most out of the i7 930 prosessor I chose. Also the overclocking was supposed to be good with it and it had USB 3.0 and SATA III support out of the box. I has multiple PCI-E and a few PCI slots. Also has one firewire port.

For ram I got 6gb of DDR3 1333mhz kingston value ram, in triple-channel.

For case I got the Sonata III as my second PC has the same case, looks good side by side. Also the case comes with a 500W power supply so the deal was good, just under 100e. Some might recommend a bigger PSU but so far I've managed just fine with 500W, even with four internal hard drives in the older PC.

For video I got two low-end ATI graphics cards designed for HD video material playback but not for gameplay performance so they do just fine. The other has my two displays connected via DVI and the other has the 32" TV connected as a third display via HDMI.

For hard drive I got a fairly basic 1TB 7200rpm drive. Another for backup.

Sound card is my old trusty E-MU 1212m, providing very decent A/D D/A.

OS being Win7 64-bit

DAW Cubase 5.5 64-bit with jBridge (crashes at times with 32-bit vst, hopefully Steinberg gives us better a vst-bridge by Christmas or provides us with 64-bit versions of their plugins.)

[todmcleod]

Hi Jarkkoh, i'm currently building a very similar machine.. but curious what ATI cards did you buy, and have they worked out well for you? i'm looking just for video scoring playback etc.. not gaming... thx!

[jarkkoh]

Hey Tod!
I got two heatsink cooled silent (no fans) ATI (or AMD nowadays) cards:
XFX Radeon HD 4550 512MB DDR2 PCI-E Silent and
Asus EAH4350 SILENT/DI/512MD2(LP)

Both were basically among the cheapest silent display cards I could find. The first one was the Asus, which took two spaces when installed, so I probably wouldn't pick that one if I could choose again.

When I realized I had to have another card for my third display, it had to be a silent card that took only once space inside the computer. It was a pretty damn tight fit too, the pci sound card and two pci-e display cards are now belly to belly on the motherboard, but I got sufficient cooling going on to prevent overheating and covering my overclocking of the cpu. Altough I doubt the cards get too hot since the toughest job for them is to indeed just playback of basic video.

And yes they've worked just fine. I got 24" and 22" screens hooked to the Asus card and a 32" LCD TV and a 19" screen hooked to the XFX card. No problems.

Also the whole "installing two display cards in windows 7" was one of the easiest things. I initially had only the Asus installed. Well I just powered off the computer, put the new XFX card in and booted up. Windows installed everything, including the drivers by itself. I virtually didn't need to do anything software setup-wise. Just booted up windows. Then I checked the ATI control panel and it showed two cards and a picture had already popped on the third screen which is the TV. I still chuckle when I recall the discussion about this whole installing two cards in windows deal with the local "computer specialist". He had never heard of such a thing being succesful or even possible. Hah.

[interpolate]

In my experience, don't skimp on the PSU and pay attention to the power ratings of the +12V and combined +3.3V and +5V output. There's plenty "silent" options although do a bit of research before committing too one. Case, well depends on your budget. Silvestone, Corsair or Lian-Li are worth pursuing along with Antec or Coolermaster.

Big and silent cooling options are preferable than smaller noisier HSF's. Also I have a passive cooling on my GPU.


There is no such thing as a honest sales person.

[aptmusic9]

A little over your budget, especially if you opt for adding an ASIO sound card ($100), but the PC I bought was built by this company, and I thought it was a great deal.


http://www.costco.com/Browse/Product...ang=en-US&Sp=C


The only downside I can think of is that the PSU was 540 watts and the X58m motherboard it came with wouldn't run memory at higher than 1066mhz (unless overclocked). Currently I'm using 1333 RAM downclocked to 1066. 1066 is perfectly adequate though.