Build me a DAW PC.

[harrystainer]

Its one big fuck off heatsink.

[Drammy]

I would have to recommend the case I got - they are both the same on this page but I got the bottom one.

The website linked above is fantastic for sourcing parts - it gives good descriptions and everything is well organised and very visual - also quite cheep.

It is incredibly cool and quiet - the master drive is intended to be mounted in an aluminium sleeve which is suspended in the air by strong Rubber bands, preventing any vibrations from the HD reverberating through the case and beyond. 1 thing to bare in mind the case will not fit long PCI cards - when I say long I mean very long, like the old Powercore card. UAD's fit fine though, the only card I had trouble with is the Powercore - bit of a school boy error on my part!

I also bought an arctic cooliing fan which is silent and comes with some arctic cooling coolant to apply between the CPU and the heatsink/fan.

If you want to get the latest specs for DAWs then I suggest checking out the PC music forum at Soundonsound.com. Martin Walker and the guys there are pretty clued up!

Congratulations on moving from Mac - my studio partner has nothing but Macs but after he saw the performance of my PC he has decided to get a PC for Video editing, and my PC is not even high spec, I just researched and bought the right components - the correct memory is just as important as the CPU in my opinion.


Good luck,

Drammy

[harrystainer]

I used OCUK to get the parts for my system too - for those of you in the UK this store is highly recommended. Also, check out some of their full system ranges, very expensive but I'm told its worth the money.

[Merlot]

Much appreciated guys. Will check into all of these options!

[F5D]

The computer noise level depends alot on what country you live in. Here in Finland my G5 runs very silently in the winter but in the summer the noise level rises to observable level, sometimes very noisy too if the room temperature is over +27 celsius. Usually in the winter the room temperature here is about 18 - 20, so the computer runs very silently. The noise level changes because the fans are temperature controlled. Earlier with my PC I didn't think about the noise levels and the fans were always running at the same speed. The G5 cooling is not optimal (because the noise level may rise very much if the fans kick in when doing something cpu intensive job and the room temperature is high) but the noise levels are very low in the winter. However now I understand those people who live in Spain or in some other warm country and say that the G5 is a loud machine. That's true if your room temperature is always over 25 or something like that.

To build a quiet PC, you need:

-As big processor heatsinks as possible with large fans which can be set to lower speeds
-A power supply with big 12cm temperature controlled fan, Fortron for example.
-8-12cm extra fans connected to 5V voltage.
-low noise harddisks
-a heavy duty case for the computer. Avoid the cheap sheet metal cases. If you can find a heavier case, it won't resonate like the cheap ones. For example the powermac G5 case is made of so thick aluminum, that the harddisks cannot make it to resonate at all.

[Timo]

Ten, aren't there serious issues with NForce4 motherboards with regards to audio latency and CPU usage? In fact I'm pretty sure of it, other than the so-called "Tyan" board.

Otherwise DO NOT get an NForce4 motherboard, else your latency values will be CRAP and your CPU useage will go through the roof.

The older NForce3, however, is fine.

There are also PCI-Express issues that have arisen with the new wave of motherboards, but the Intel ones can be made good by using low-end graphics cards such as the ATI X300 or similar, as opposed to the high-end X700 (or above) or nVidia 6800 graphics cards

RME NForce4/PCI-E stress test report - Although this, published in March, is now out of date, but serves as a prelude. Read the next two for more info:-

Warning - NForce4/PCI-E - SOS thread

NForce 4 user tests - Nuendo forum

This whole thing has done my head in, as I was set up to buy a laptop this spring, but for all this PCI-E crap. No-one knows wtf is the exact problem.

[F5D]

I know that this may not be useful information if somebody has already decided to build a PC anyway but the reason why I didn't experiment building a new dual cpu PC (I was almost going to) just that you have to put lots of money to the parts and still not be sure if it will work or not. So I went the mac way. Interesting to see that Merlot is moving away from mac. Of course a PC can be very powerful and joy to use too if you know the parts which work together and have good experience in keeping windows xp clean.

But if you're gonna build a new PC, maybe an X2 dualcore Athlon64 might be a good processor choice. I don't know about the new motherboards so I cannot recommend any at this time.

[ten]

Timo,

More recent tests have found this to be only with certain setups and certain sequencers, cubase sx and nuendo mainly.

I know of a few people (if only a handful) now running nf4 single cpu boards and not having these problems.

One thing to point out these initial nf4 problems did and do NOT affect any current dual cpu nf4 boards. I have tested two extensively myself (Tyan K8WE and SuperMicro H8DCE) and they perform amazingly.

I agree though, If you want total hassle free setup and can find a decent nf3 board that will support a dualcore X2 it just might be the way to go....or go for a nice dualie like me second hand opterons go CHEAP on ebay.

ten

[Merlot]

Originally Posted by F5D

I know that this may not be useful information if somebody has already decided to build a PC anyway but the reason why I didn't experiment building a new dual cpu PC (I was almost going to) just that you have to put lots of money to the parts and still not be sure if it will work or not. So I went the mac way. Interesting to see that Merlot is moving away from mac. Of course a PC can be very powerful and joy to use too if you know the parts which work together and have good experience in keeping windows xp clean.

But if you're gonna build a new PC, maybe an X2 dualcore Athlon64 might be a good processor choice. I don't know about the new motherboards so I cannot recommend any at this time.

May not be moving sooo soon after seeing all the config problems. Who knows? I am up in the air everyday!

[ten]

Probably best to list exactly what you will be using it for, what you want to use it for (music, internet, games etc) and the top amount your prepared to spend...

Should be able to draw up a short list from that.

ten