Building a quad core pc for techno - help required

[The Divide]

Alright

Going to have a custom pc built. I already have the hard drives, standard bits and bobs so going to be focusing on getting this as hardcore as poss (in a budget of around £500). Ill be working from this website to the time being...

http://www.computerplanet.co.uk/custom/phenomx4/step1.html

Im not sure how an AMD quad stands when its up against Intel chips but looking at the price difference an AMD is going to have to be the choice. I have a friend whose built one using AMD and I was blown away the amount stuff going on

Now, having a 2.4 old boy cpu that sounds a bit like a refrigerator when I switch it on I am going to try and build something a bit quiet, not silent because that would cost me a bomb. I do like to do some sound recording and it helps when doing mixdowns not to have a constant hum and whirr in the background. So lets look at cases...

Like the look of this...

http://www.computerplanet.co.uk/pages/popup.php?type=prodinfo&v1=18530

http://www.eclipsecomputers.com/product.aspx?code=CAN-HUSHBK&af=50

[quote]Introducing the NZXT HUSH, a chassis designed from grounds up to be quiet while having ample cooling. Game and work without all the noise, thanks to the sound dampening foam that is used on the top, side, and bottom panels of the case. Worried about cooling? Not to worry, the HUSH is equipped with two 120mm fans running at low speeds while still achieving high levels of air flow. High end gaming requires faster hard drives and power supplies, so we've installed rubber padding near fans and hard drives to further reduce the sound level. The HUSH also ships with USB 2.0, Firewire, and HD audio support. Bring more silence to your gaming experience with HUSH.[/ quote]

Im liking the rubber padding and low noise fans, going back to this like it also it has a nice layout, a bit like mine and looks easy to get into and move things around.

Heres a few CPU choices im looking at...

AMD Phenom X4 9850 (4 x 2.5GHz) 2MB Black Edition

or

AMD Phenom II X4 920 (4 x 2.8 GHz) 8MB

and

4GB PC-6400 800 MHZ (2 x 2 GB) (DDR2)

Graphics card = going for the cheapest on the list as thats not what this pc is going to be about...

NVIDIA GeForce 8400GS - 256 MB - VGA/DVI/HDMI (Palit)

Motherboard...

in terms of budget it would have to be one of these 3 choices...

Asus M3N78-AM 5200MT/s (NVIDIA 8200) + £ 12.00
Asus M3A-H/HDMI 5200MT/s (AMD 780G) + £ 26.50
Asus M3N72-D 5200MT/s (NVIDIA 750a) + £ 35.50

add a low noise power supply, I dont know anything about PSU's but im guessing a 600w would be needed...

450W PSU + £ 8.50
600W PSU + £ 19.50
OCZ 500W Stealth XStream - Low Noise + £ 39.50
OCZ 600W Stealth XStream - Low Noise + £ 50.50
OCZ 700W Game XStream - Low Noise + £ 64.75

I already have a soundcard, ill stick with my echo gina 24/96 for the time being however would probably replace it at a later date. Ill go for 10 usb ports as I have a lot of usb gizmo's

Final rough spec...

PC Specification

AMD Phenom X4

Computer Case NZXT Hush Black
CPU AMD Phenom X4 9850 (4 x 2.5GHz) 2MB Black Edition
Motherboard Asus M3N72-D 5200MT/s (NVIDIA 750a)
Memory 4GB PC-6400 800 MHZ (2 x 2 GB) (DDR2)
Graphics Card Motherboard Integrated Graphics
Power Supply OCZ 600W Stealth XStream - Low Noise
Hard Drive 1 500 GB SATA-II HDD UDMA 300 7200 16MB
Optical Drive 1 Samsung (S222A) DVD PLUS/-RW 22x Dual Layer - Black (IDE)
Sound Card Motherboard Integrated 5.1 Sound
Networking Motherboard Integrated Ethernet Lan (Broadband Ready)
USB Ports 10 X USB 2.0 Ports
CPU Heatsink AMD Heatsink & Fan - Low Noise
Backup Solution Standard Operating System Backup
Printers No Printer Included

Price..

£ 491.86

So do you think it would be any good, any advice on the motherboard cpu or anything would be superb as I really want to get this right. Input, advice would be killah

dan

[BloodStar]

few personal tips:

- i would deffinitelly choose Intel instead of AMD. Intel performance is simply better as they have better technology in multiprocesing.

- if you decide for AMD cpu, then choose ATI graphics and not Nvidia. ATI is now AMD family, NVIDIA=Intel. Ofcourse, it doesnt need to cause any problems, if you buy nvidia grpahics and amd cpu..

- i would deffinitelly go for 2x 750 and not 1x1500Gb HDD

- regarding PSU I think 500w should be ok, as you not buying hi spec graphic card, which is the worst regarding power consumption.

[The_Laughing_Man]

I run a quad phenom x4 and it`s stupidly powerful
you`ll do alright with that

[The Divide]

few personal tips:

- i would deffinitelly choose Intel instead of AMD. Intel performance is simply better as they have better technology in multiprocesing.

- if you decide for AMD cpu, then choose ATI graphics and not Nvidia. ATI is now AMD family, NVIDIA=Intel. Ofcourse, it doesnt need to cause any problems, if you buy nvidia grpahics and amd cpu..

- i would deffinitelly go for 2x 750 and not 1x1500Gb HDD

- regarding PSU I think 500w should be ok, as you not buying hi spec graphic card, which is the worst regarding power consumption.

Hey thanks for that. The cost of an intel cpu quad is much more in price but ill do a bit more reading on this. I already have 2 x 600 gig hard drives. Re graqphics brilliant advice I didn't know. Ill look into a smallers PSU too

[The Divide]

I run a quad phenom x4 and it`s stupidly powerful
you`ll do alright with that

Oooo sounds nice, care to elaborate? My old pc started to poop its pants when using 3 or more plugins, NI massive used to take up about 30-40% CPU. It drove me up the wall as I prefer keeping things in realtime than recording them to wav

[The Divide]

Um yea should drop down the hard drive size, they only break after a few years

[The_Laughing_Man]

Oooo sounds nice, care to elaborate? My old pc started to poop its pants when using 3 or more plugins, NI massive used to take up about 30-40% CPU. It drove me up the wall as I prefer keeping things in realtime than recording them to wav

I haven`t yet made my machine stutter, and I use a crazy amount of plugs.
NI Massive registers 3-4% I think, if that.

Also I would suggest running a RAID system for the operating system, and then a separate audio drive.

My op system is a dual 250gig raid system, with a separate 300Gig audio drive

[rhythmtech]

you dont mention what DAW you're running but just to let you know that if you ever decide to go protools then an intel is your best bet as PT is very iffy with AMD.

also PT wont run with a RAID array.

if you've no future plans for PT then ignore me :lol:

[tonyc2002]

Bear in mind that if you don't use a 64 bit OS then you will only see 3.25Gb of your Ram.

[The Divide]

I didn't know that about 64 bit OS. Also I won't be using pro tools, cubase mostly but all good info anyways thanks

[Jay Pace]

you can get modded versions of XP which recognise up to 4 gig.

Supposedly. Just going on what the torrent file claimed....

[RDR]

Save up.. get a mac.

(joke dan... a joke...)

That setup sounds about right, you'll probably have to run vista if you want more RAM. Also remember that Windows 7 is on its way and promises to be better than vista.