Best Desktops for Pro Tools LE

[recordingguy]

I anyone using or had any luck with this board...ASUS M2N4-SLI Socket AM2 NVIDIA nForce4 SLI ATX AMD Motherboard. Is their any disadvantage to socket AM2 vs. socket 939?

[Allen Hallada]

I anyone using or had any luck with this board...ASUS M2N4-SLI Socket AM2 NVIDIA nForce4 SLI ATX AMD Motherboard. Is their any disadvantage to socket AM2 vs. socket 939?

That chipset has worked on PTLE, and I'm not aware of any problems on PTLE 7 or higher. Have not heard of any advantages or disadvantages of one over the other. There are many 939s in use with PTLE is all.
I'd stick with the Opteron Quads though myself at this point or get a MacIntel with at least Core 2 Duo 2Ghz.

Allen

[recordingguy]

I already own XP Home, with a Quad I would have to buy XP Pro. For all of the price differences would the Quad still be worth the extra cash?

[lyricalist19]

hey...i have a digi 001 and im running pt le 6.4. i just bought a dell dimension E520 desktop and everytime i load protools i keep getting the error -6004 harware not communicating with pc..can anybody help me with this problem..is it a compatibility issue or what? here are the specs:

Pentium d desktop 2.8 ghz
p965 chipset
250GB Serial ATA Hard Drive
1gb of ddr memory
Win Xp professional sp2
dvd rom, dvd rw dbl drive
256MB PCI ExpressTM NVIDIA® GeForce® 7300LE TurboCache

[Allen Hallada]

I already own XP Home, with a Quad I would have to buy XP Pro. For all of the price differences would the Quad still be worth the extra cash?

Yes, see www.newegg.com for better prices on XP Pro.

Allen

[Allen Hallada]

hey...i have a digi 001 and im running pt le 6.4. i just bought a dell dimension E520 desktop and everytime i load protools i keep getting the error -6004 harware not communicating with pc..can anybody help me with this problem..is it a compatibility issue or what? here are the specs:

Pentium d desktop 2.8 ghz
p965 chipset
250GB Serial ATA Hard Drive
1gb of ddr memory
Win Xp professional sp2
dvd rom, dvd rw dbl drive
256MB PCI ExpressTM NVIDIA® GeForce® 7300LE TurboCache

I'm not sure that computer is going to work with anything less than PTLE 7. It may not even work with PTLE 7 or higher.
Wish I had better news for you.

Allen

[stereocp]

Hi Allen,

I've really learned alot from your hard work and posting here. Thank you very much for all you do.

I'm a music teacher in the public schools, new york. I have an M-box WinXP system at home, works great, bought it through United Micro, and used your recommendations to design it.

I'm designing a music lab for our school, based around ProTools LE. I'm starting to build six workstations. I have limited funds, and can't afford any mistakes.

Will this system work with the new M-Box 2 PRo/ ProTools 7+:


Case X-Dreamer Mid-Tower 420 Watt Front USB (BLue) w/ See-Through Window ATX

Motherboard Abit KN9 Ultra Socket AM2 / MCP55-Ultra/ DDR2/ IEEE1394/ A&2GbE/ ATX Motherboard

CPU AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual-Core Processor 3800+* (2.0GHz) AM2, RETAIL

Cooling Fan Thermaltake A1770 VENUS 7+ Heat Sink & Cooling Fan AMD Recommended for Athlon 64 and Opteron

Memory 1GB DDR2 533MHz + 1GB DDR2 533MHz

Hard Drive Maxtor 80GB Serial ATA 7200rpm 8MB Hard Drive

Video Card Asus nVidia GeForce 6200 256MB TurboCache Upto 512MB TV-out/DVI PCI-Express

CDRW Lite-On CDRW 52X32X52 IDE INT BLACK

DVD-RW AOpen 16X DVD+RW/-RW DUAL LAYER DUW1616 3 COLOR BEZELS BEIGE/BLACK/SILVER BEZEL RETAIL BOX

Floppy Drive 1,44 3.5 Floppy INT Black

Keyboard Multimedia Keyboard & Internet PS/2 Scroll Optical Mouse Blue

Accessories Enermax System Monitor IEEE1394,USB 2.0,Fan/Temp. Control Black



If you have any ideas/recommendations, I'd be very grateful.

Sincerely,

stereocp

[Allen Hallada]

Hi Allen,

I've really learned alot from your hard work and posting here. Thank you very much for all you do.

I'm a music teacher in the public schools, new york. I have an M-box WinXP system at home, works great, bought it through United Micro, and used your recommendations to design it.

I'm designing a music lab for our school, based around ProTools LE. I'm starting to build six workstations. I have limited funds, and can't afford any mistakes.

Will this system work with the new M-Box 2 PRo/ ProTools 7+:


Case X-Dreamer Mid-Tower 420 Watt Front USB (BLue) w/ See-Through Window ATX

Motherboard Abit KN9 Ultra Socket AM2 / MCP55-Ultra/ DDR2/ IEEE1394/ A&2GbE/ ATX Motherboard

CPU AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual-Core Processor 3800+* (2.0GHz) AM2, RETAIL

Cooling Fan Thermaltake A1770 VENUS 7+ Heat Sink & Cooling Fan AMD Recommended for Athlon 64 and Opteron

Memory 1GB DDR2 533MHz + 1GB DDR2 533MHz

Hard Drive Maxtor 80GB Serial ATA 7200rpm 8MB Hard Drive

Video Card Asus nVidia GeForce 6200 256MB TurboCache Upto 512MB TV-out/DVI PCI-Express

CDRW Lite-On CDRW 52X32X52 IDE INT BLACK

DVD-RW AOpen 16X DVD+RW/-RW DUAL LAYER DUW1616 3 COLOR BEZELS BEIGE/BLACK/SILVER BEZEL RETAIL BOX

Floppy Drive 1,44 3.5 Floppy INT Black

Keyboard Multimedia Keyboard & Internet PS/2 Scroll Optical Mouse Blue

Accessories Enermax System Monitor IEEE1394,USB 2.0,Fan/Temp. Control Black



If you have any ideas/recommendations, I'd be very grateful.

Sincerely,

stereocp

I'd stick with proven motherboards and that Abit is an unknown. Check the first post of this thread for latest suggestions on two different systems. The top one is the Quad and the next one is an AMD x2. The A8N and A8V motherboards have both worked well in the AMD x2 systems.
What is your budget? Check out the new iMac 24" and you should be able to get a school discount. These use the new Intel Core 2 Duo processor.

Allen

[stereocp]

Thanks Allen,

I am on a very limited budget, something like $800 per PC. I'd love an iMac 24", but that's going to get me above $1600 even with a educational discount.

I've had such good experiences with United Micro in Ohio, that I'm trying to use them again to build the six PCs. I'd love to build them myself, just order everything from NewEgg or something, but the schools don't want to pay me to build them. They would rather spend more to have an outside vendor supply them. That's education administration for you!!!!

Having said that, I've searched United Micro's site for motherboards, and they don't seem to even carry the A8N or A8V like we want.

For the dual core AMD 64 options, most of the ASUS motherboards have the "M2N" prefix on the model number, such as "Asus M2N.........."

I found these as options, but not for dual core:


Asus A8R-MVP Socket939/ATI RD480/2PCI-E/SATA2 Motherboard

Asus M2R32-MVP(GREEN) Socket AM2/ CrossFire Xpress 3200/ RAID/ IEEE1394/ A&GbE/ ATX Motherboard



Any ideas on these? Of course I'd love to build a quad, but can't afford it. I really want to try a dual core AMD, but the board issue is confusing me.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

stereocp

[stereocp]

How about this motherboard for a dual core AMD 64 processor?


Asus VIA K8M890,AM2, DualCore,DDR2,PCIex16,sRAID,w/Sound,w/LAN,w/Video



I found another PC builder who carries this motherboard. Will it work. Anyone out there have ideas????

Thanks a ton!

stereoc