Can anyone suggest the vitals of a good music production PC?

**Dave Elyzium** · 26-01-2005, 06:26 PM

I can't take this piecashit PC much longer...I'm gonna have to fork out for a new machine.... But to be honest Ive always bought "off the shelf" jobs rather than a dedicated production machine. Can anyone suggest what hardware I should be looking for in the way of hard drive, processor, soundcard etc?? Moneys tight so I don't want to know about all the amazing hardware that costs a shit load but something that offers a good money to performance ratio.

Thanks :)

**Barely Human** · 26-01-2005, 06:50 PM

ATX Case
Asus board that supports AMD Athlon below
AMD Athlon xp3000+ 333mhz FSB (without heatsink & fan)
Beefy Heatsink and Fan (Volcano/Antec - Get some decent paste!)
2X 512 DDR Corsair Ram (Match to FSB of CPU)
2 x IDE HDD - 160 Gig each
500 watt PSU
Plextor DVD writer
GFX Card of your choise
Soundcard of your choice
Loads of leads
Case Fans
Any networking cards you need

I picked that Cpu because it is a blinding good proccesor, and its cheap as hell.

**Dave Elyzium** · 26-01-2005, 06:52 PM

thanks mate do you know anywhere online that i can custom choose a package like this??

**Barely Human** · 26-01-2005, 07:24 PM

www.ebuyer.com

**dan the acid man** · 26-01-2005, 08:12 PM

to be honest for the money, i would go for an amd xp3200, then you can get pc3200 ddr memory and it will all be running at 400 fsb speed.

Also, for quietness, get seagate barracuda hard drives, and a good quality psu, such as an enermax (these are very quiet), or even a tagan.

try http://www.overclockers.co.uk/

http://www.tekheads.co.uk/s/index

**xfive** · 26-01-2005, 08:15 PM

The specs IQ listed are pretty on point.
Only mods I would make would be Seagate hard drives (very quiet) and Antec power supplies (again, very quiet).
You also want a case that stays very cool but does not let a lot of noise out.
Here's a super, super quiet CPU fan: http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProduc...115&depa=1
If you're going with Corsair ram (which I personally love) go with the XMS series, CAS2. It's verrry fast, and not much more than the regular.
Personally at this stage in the game though, go with whatever Athlon64 chip you can afford. You don't need to go for the socket 939 ones, but definetly the 754 ones will kick ass over the XP series, and do not cost much more at all. WELL worth it. Even if there isn't much 64bit support yet, they run 32bit stuff faster than the native 32bit processors do.

Just remember.. the less noise in your case and in your environment the more accurate your sound will be. ;)

**FIK** · 26-01-2005, 10:31 PM

Get a graphics card capable of using two screens. Saves you the trouble from having to buy a second card

**Milesy** · 26-01-2005, 10:40 PM

i built this machine for my mate last week. heres a kinda
spec you might want

AMD Athlon 64bit 3.5Ghz

160GB 7200 RPM 8MB Buffer Hard Drive
512MB DDR333 PC2700 RAM
CDROM/DVDROM/CD Writer combo
17" TFT Flatscreen Monitor
Audiophile 192 soundcard.
Radeon 9200SE 128mb AGP graphics card
M-Audio Radium49 MIDI keyboard/interface
Roland DM20 24bit active monitors

some features:

S-video Out
2x Balanced audio input/ouput
Midi In/Out
DVI Input (digital video cameras)
S/PDIF Input/Output
8 usb ports
2 IEEE 3984 ports (firewire)

some pics

**rounser** · 26-01-2005, 11:36 PM

My experience suggests sticking with an off-the-shelf machine, and perhaps enhance it in some way (with silencing stuff for instance). At least you're guaranteed those components will cooperate from the start.

I had a mate (who knew his stuff, it was his job) build me a PC from components, shop around for the best deal on each etc. It worked, and was tailor made for my priorities, but it was unstable (bluescreening too much) and after attempts to fix it, eventually we gave up on it.

So I bought an off-the-shelf to replace it, added the memory and PCI cards from the other machine, and haven't looked back.

**Dave Elyzium** · 26-01-2005, 11:42 PM

Originally Posted by rounser

My experience suggests sticking with an off-the-shelf machine, and perhaps enhance it in some way (with silencing stuff for instance). At least you're guaranteed those components will cooperate from the start.

I had a mate (who knew his stuff, it was his job) build me a PC from components, shop around for the best deal on each etc. It worked, and was tailor made for my priorities, but it was unstable (bluescreening too much) and after attempts to fix it, eventually we gave up on it.

So I bought an off-the-shelf to replace it, added the memory and PCI cards from the other machine, and haven't looked back.

im thinking of sticking on this road myself actually...just looking to get as much knowledge as I can so i can hunt out the right deals :) interesting reading so far if a little overwhelming! :)

thanks

**Milesy** · 26-01-2005, 11:50 PM

it probably bluescreened because of cheap components
and/or dodgy software...

off the shelf = rip off city...

**dan the acid man** · 27-01-2005, 02:11 AM

ive built loads of pcs for people without any problems so far, you will get a much better quality pc for less money this way

**Agility** · 27-01-2005, 02:13 AM

Originally Posted by Milesy

off the shelf = rip off city...

Agreed. Decent comps from shops are like over a 1000 but you can build the best for around 500.. Something I should have done.

**Barely Human** · 27-01-2005, 02:22 AM

Dont buy from shops, every pc bought from a shop is -

1. A rip off
2. Made from cheap bits
3. Not as stable (imo)

Every computer i have built has always been stable as hell. The computer i am typing this on now has been running none stop for over 2 months now. I only switch it off when i have to to put new bits in. Another pc that me and my brother built is a webserver, which has an uptime of over 400 days until the ups blew up, (sods law). If you get decent components then you shouldnt have a problem.

**Barely Human** · 27-01-2005, 07:27 AM

Heres a few things i dug up from ebuyer. The codes at the end are the quick find codes...

I-Cute 0408XL-BS Black ATX Case - £35.24 inc VAT - 63724
Ebuyer 500w Power Supply Black With Dual Fans - £14.09 inc VAT - 61307
AMD (Winchester) Athlon 64bit 3200+ 939pin 512kb L2 Cache 90nm OEM Processor - £131.68 inc VAT - 83377
Abit AV8-3RD Eye Skt 939 K8t800pro Motherboard - £82.14 inc VAT - 66708
2 x Corsair (VS512MB400C3) 512MB, DDR400 - £99.84 inc vat - 66402
2 x Maxtor 6B200P0 Diamondmax 10 200Gb 7200rpm ATA133 8mb Cache - OEM - £143.82 inc Vat - 78241
Coolermaster KHC-L91-U1 heatsink and fan - £33.67 inc VAT - 83771
Plextor 16x DVD R/RW Dual Layer Internal IDE Retail - £81.33 inc VAT - 76829

The total comes to just over 600 quid. You will be getting 2x 200 gig SATA drives, 3200 64bit athon, and 1024meg Corsair ram. This would destroy most pc's ive worked with. You could rip a few things out of your old box for it aswell, such as the floppy drive,(you can pick them up for a fiver anyway)...

**dan the acid man** · 27-01-2005, 11:31 AM

the only thing i would probably change on that list is the psu, for quietness reliabilty and true power stability, i would go for an enermax or antec psu

**Barely Human** · 27-01-2005, 12:48 PM

I was going to go for the an antec, nut the reviews for that one says its about on par for it by people who have bought em. And the price difference is huge..

**dan the acid man** · 27-01-2005, 12:57 PM

it does look one of the best budget psu's iv'e seen, but i would rather spend more money on a psu i know is going to be stable and quiet.

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