Help choosing components for new PC

[leedolman]

Right, I've decided to get rid of my current machine (AMD 2000+ 1.66ghz, 512DDR, GeForce 128DDR MX440, Soundblaster 5.1, 40GB etc.) and build a new one.

Not sure where to start though - my budget's £1,000-£3,000 and I want to use the new machine for music production primarily although I want to use it for everything - watching TV/Cable playing my music etc. I won't be playing games, but I want a decent graphics card for good TV playback. I also want a card that offers dual monitor support and i'll need a fast hd too.

Here's what I've got down so far:

Graphics - HIS Radeon 9800XT 256MB Platinum

Sound - Soundblaster Audigy 2 ZS Platinum Pro

M/Board - ASUS K8V Deluxe

Processor - AMD Athlon 64 3200+ 2Ghz

Storage - 2 x 120GB SATA

Memory - 1GB DDR

would this setup be ok and does any1 have suggestions about specific storage / memory makes/types and better processor / board types etc?

Thanks in advance

[Jono]

why not get a athlon 64 then you have saved a upgrade to 64bit when the 64bit apps come out i dont know which board to go for which support 64bit as i had no experience with them sorry

i would recommend placing the HD's in a RAID 0 Array then you get a lot better performance but if one HD fails then all your data is lost so you may want to invest in a backup device such as a DVD Writer.

[Chaosratt]

I would have to say the 9800XT is a bad idea. yes, it is one of the best video cards available, but you said yourself your not going to be gaming, there are cars that do video playback just as good if not better than the 9800, and are considerably cheaper, they just are not as good at gaming.

Nice rig otherwise :drool:

[leedolman]

Thanks for the advice

I'm deffo goin for the ASUS K8V and AMD Athlon 64 3200+

what card would you recommend then for TV playback? (needs to be dual monitor capable)

[Chaosratt]

I do not know any specific cards for video playback, but my 9500non pro has svideo out, duel monitor support, and only cost around $130, is that about all you need?

[Chaosratt]

If you want full VIVO (video in, video out) controll, I would reccomend an All-In-Wonder version of any ATI card.

[leedolman]

If you want full VIVO (video in, video out) controll, I would reccomend an All-In-Wonder version of any ATI card.

thanks for the advice - checking it out now

[CDog]

Your desired specification seems very low for someone with a budget of up to £3000.

I use my computer for music and graphics. On the music side of things, I use...

• Yamaha DS2416 which is a 32bit 96,000Hz 16 channel digital mixing board based on the Yamaha O2R
• Yamaha SW1000XG which is a mother of a Audio/MIDI card - internally cable linked to the DS2416
  
• Yamaha AX-44 which is an I/O unit which is internally cable linked to the DS2416
  

...which when I bought them five years ago, totalled £1200. Needless to say, they're very good, even if Yamaha aren't so hot with driver support at times. You could still pop the Audigy in there as well.

As for HDD space - if you're getting two SATA disks then make them 200GB because you can never have too much space. I have a SATA Maxtor 200GB /w 8MB cache on which everything runs, with a same spec PATA Mactor 200GB /w 8MB cache disk for storage. It may seem huge to start with but really it isn't.

[Bâshrat the Sneaky]

I would not recommend using RAID 0, but instead I'd recommend to buy a WD raptor 36 or 74 GB (74 if you've got too many money ) and use that one as OS/PROGRAMS disk and buy cheaper (perhaps PATA, for the lower price?) disk, meant for storage. That's waaaay faster!

[CDog]

That's exactly what I do, only with 200GB Maxtors...

[mutahir]

Hello leedolman,

If your budget is quite good, then why not go for a MAC, you can get a mac even on the finance option now, secondly mac's are famous for music production and movie stuff, you can easily get a super spec mac for the budget you have it might go over 1000 GBP, but would be great.

If you still wanna stick to the PC, then i would recommend go for a Intel Motherboard and processor, put as much memory in it and a Matrox graphics card

www.matrox.com

get a external USB2 or firewire hard drive which would even allow you to boot through the USB2

www.storagedepot.co.uk

go on www.apple.com and have a look, if you are frm UK you can select the UK store and look up prices and stuff..

regards and take care

Mutahir

[Chaosratt]

Macs as far as I know are no longer "king" of anything. Had a nice argument with my schools graphic design teacher over that. He was knee-deep in the yearbook with his macs and HATING it. He said he'd never "used such a POS system before" (mainly becasue he didnt know what he was doing, I knew about as much as he did, and ive never used them before). He said the only reason he even got Macs was becasue somone in the schoolboard didnt know what they were doing and forced him to buy them. He was going to get some basic IMBs like the rest of the school uses and just stuff them full of HDDs and memory, and get all the proper programs for them, at half the cost of the Macs.

[mrhappatai21]

Check these places out:

United Micro

Tiger Direct

[Wanmor]

It's probably too late by now, but...

For video playback, you really can't beat the Matrox line, especially for TV output. ATI and nVidia, even the expensive ones are just not in the same league. Matrox video cards deserve their reputation as the best 2D graphics around. You do not want one, however, if you want to play games.

The P650 is under £100 and is a true dual-head card (two DVI outputs supplied with adapters for analog, TV adapter cable available separately.)

For audio, go for a professional solution. M-Audio and TerraTec offer cards in the same price range as Audigy, but don't bend the truth about their specifications. You will need to be clear about what kind of interfaces you need, as you will find that 2 or 3 models of the same basic card will be available for around the same price, but will have different inputs and outputs. This is a Good Thing, because you don't pay for circuits you won't need and that means that their is more room on the card for better circuits for the interfaces you do need.

For home theatre, I'd probably go for the TerraTec DMX 6-Fire. For listening to music, though, I'm in love with StereoLink... it's a USB device, the digital-to-audio conversion is done outside the computer and the USB connector is optically isolated from the DAC, so there is absolutely no connection to the PC's circuitry at the point where the analog audio signal is produced. The difference between this and any soundcard I've ever had are remarkable. There is no input, only stereo analog output and a headphone jack with no volume control, the housing is plastic... all the cost of building it goes into the DAC and the gold-plated connections... and the oxygen-free copper lead they give you for connecting it your hi-fi.

You can have BOTH, you know...

[leedolman]

Thanks for all the advice!

I lowered my budget to a more realistic price for me and i bought some components over the last week.

So far my setup looks like this:

Antec P160 Case

Jeantec 450W PSU

ASUS K8V SE Deluxe M/board

AMD Athlon 64 3200+

1GB of Corsair PC32000 Memory

Sapphire Atlantis Radeon 9800XT Pro (Decided I wanted to play games !!)

Soundblaster Audigy 2 Platinum Pro ZS (I'm a sucker for all the fancy connections)

I'm still using my old Samsung DVD/CdR Combo and my old 40GB Hard Drive, which I'll be upgrading next pay day!