Best Core 2 Series Desktops-Results and Specs

[mykhal c]

Originally Posted by PTSWE

Maybe a dumb question
can I put an seagate Barracuda 7200.10 SATA 3.0Gb/s 750-GB 16-MB cache Hard Drive in as my system drive or should only use 320 gb
as mention on the first page

no dumb questions exist IMHO 750gb would be overkill unless you are gonna do a multi-partition setup. with 750gb you could setup 3 partitions, easy!!! a PTLE partition, an ONLINE partition, and a VISTA partition. but if you are only plannin' one partition then you could EASILY go smaller and cheaper. my 2cents

[PTSWE]

so its only a matter of price ? the performance would be the same ?
heard some where that big disks are slower then small disks

Thanks mykhal c

[sunburst79]

Originally Posted by PTSWE

Maybe a dumb question
can I put an seagate Barracuda 7200.10 SATA 3.0Gb/s 750-GB 16-MB cache Hard Drive in as my system drive or should only use 320 gb
as mention on the first page

The reason the 320 GB is listed is that old school Pro Tools thought was to use the fastest (and largest) single platter drive as possible. The reason being that single disk drives tend to run a bit cooler than multi platter drives and should last a little longer. Generally from a performance stand point the larger drives tend to have larger buffers which helps the performance out quite a bit.

Anymore you should run what's going to give the best performance and bang for the buck. I definitely would recommend the larger drives for back up and storage.

For the "mission critical" stuff like your audio or OS drive I might er on the side of durability.

It's up to you.

[mykhal c]

Originally Posted by PTSWE

so its only a matter of price ? the performance would be the same ?
heard some where that big disks are slower then small disks

Thanks mykhal c

a lot of things determine performance, ultimately. but with the SEAGATE 7200.10 hdds, your performance will be 'mostly' the same, in regards to thru-put regardless of size chosen. but you will get a performance 'gain' with the 7200.11 hdds because they have a larger cache, 32mb vs 16mb on the 7200.10. i have a 500gb 7200.11 for my audio drive and like the performance very much. it allows me to run LEVEL 0 and LEVEL 1 in disk performance options in PTLE whereas i ran the default LEVEL 2 with my 7200.10 be sure to look at the reviews on the 7200.11 if you decide to go with that. i think the 320gb hdd actually had quite a few negative hits when they first arrived. the 500gbs have had less hits.

[PTSWE]

Thanks sunburst and mykhal for explaning this for me
thanks

PTSWE

[Teolin]

Originally Posted by mykhal c

yeah i think you are right. sounds like AI SUITE or somethin' is playin' with your bios settings. just the fact that it's changed back to 'AUTO' without your doing says, to me, AI SUITE might be the culprit. i would look at removin' that from the equation. cannot advise other than to remove usin' ADD/REMOVE PROGRAMS under CONTROL PANEL.

You were right (as usual ). The first setting in Bios-> Advanced -> Jumper is AI, and it was set to AUTO. Got it shut down and indeed the settings stayed at 4 4 4 12... but my machine wouldn't boot.

Found articles on clunk.org.uk about OCing a P5k with Q6600. http://www.clunk.org.uk/forums/overclocking/2-c2d-overclocking-guide-beginners-p5k-add.html

[mykhal c]

Originally Posted by Teolin

You were right (as usual ). The first setting in Bios-> Advanced -> Jumper is AI, and it was set to AUTO. Got it shut down and indeed the settings stayed at 4 4 4 12... but my machine wouldn't boot.

Found articles on clunk.org.uk about OCing a P5k with Q6600. http://www.clunk.org.uk/forums/overclocking/2-c2d-overclocking-guide-beginners-p5k-add.html

excellent!! try changin' your timings to 4-4-4-15. then if that doesn't work try changin' the 4 to 5 BUT do it one at a time until it boots. with you havin' 4gb, your timings might not be able to run as tight as 4-4-4-12 even if that is what they are spec'd out to run at. give it a try and post back

[mlange]

Hey all-

Thanks to Mykhal & Sunburst's advice, plus all the other kind posts on this thread, I've gotten my latest PT rig up and running. Very, very solid, quiet, cool, and faster than I could have imagined.

Here's the breakdown:
Intel Core 2 Extreme QX9650 Yorkfield 3.0GHz Quad-Core
ASUS P5K SE/EPU P35 1333 MHz FSB
CORSAIR DOMINATOR TWIN2X4096-8500C5DF 4GB DDR2-1066
WESTERN DIGITAL WD3200AAKS 320GB SATA 7200 x2
Adaptec PCI Firewire Card
HP Black 48X CD-ROM IDE 20X DVD Burner with LightScribe
Corsair HX Series CMPSU-520HX 520W Power Supply
ASUS EN8400GS SILENT/HTP/256M GeForce 8400 GS
iStarUSA D-406-ND Black 1.2mm SECC Zinc-Coated Steel 4U Rackmount
Noctua NF-R8 Ultra Silent 80mm Fan
Windows XP Home SP2
M-Powered ProTools v7.4cs5

Completely stock with only "auto" settings, I'm getting 317 dverbs - as I tweak and play with the config, I'll post any significant advances.

The pair of Noctua case fans are literally silent, while the power supply's is amazingly quiet, as well. The Artic Pro isn't, though, and I'm going to mod mine with another Noctua fan for a completely silent PC. The WD hard drives are almost inaudible. My goal is a silent system for the control room and I'm almost there.

The graphics card is 256MB, but Windows is reporting it as 512MB... I'm getting 3.25GB system RAM as identified by Windows' System Properties. Thermally, everything is cool to the touch, except the graphics card's heatsink, which is warm, but not unbearable.

Again ya'll, I can't say thanks enough :)

Cheers,

Mark

[mykhal c]

Originally Posted by mlange

Hey all-

Thanks to Mykhal & Sunburst's advice, plus all the other kind posts on this thread, I've gotten my latest PT rig up and running. Very, very solid, quiet, cool, and faster than I could have imagined.

Here's the breakdown:
Intel Core 2 Extreme QX9650 Yorkfield 3.0GHz Quad-Core
ASUS P5K SE/EPU P35 1333 MHz FSB
CORSAIR DOMINATOR TWIN2X4096-8500C5DF 4GB DDR2-1066
WESTERN DIGITAL WD3200AAKS 320GB SATA 7200 x2
Adaptec PCI Firewire Card
HP Black 48X CD-ROM IDE 20X DVD Burner with LightScribe
Corsair HX Series CMPSU-520HX 520W Power Supply
ASUS EN8400GS SILENT/HTP/256M GeForce 8400 GS
iStarUSA D-406-ND Black 1.2mm SECC Zinc-Coated Steel 4U Rackmount
Noctua NF-R8 Ultra Silent 80mm Fan
Windows XP Home SP2
M-Powered ProTools v7.4cs5

Completely stock with only "auto" settings, I'm getting 317 dverbs - as I tweak and play with the config, I'll post any significant advances.

The pair of Noctua case fans are literally silent, while the power supply's is amazingly quiet, as well. The Artic Pro isn't, though, and I'm going to mod mine with another Noctua fan for a completely silent PC. The WD hard drives are almost inaudible. My goal is a silent system for the control room and I'm almost there.

The graphics card is 256MB, but Windows is reporting it as 512MB... I'm getting 3.25GB system RAM as identified by Windows' System Properties. Thermally, everything is cool to the touch, except the graphics card's heatsink, which is warm, but not unbearable.

Again ya'll, I can't say thanks enough :)

Cheers,

Mark

SMOKIN'!!! CONGRATS!!! also since you're in a control room with controlled temps change the cpu fan speed to 'optimal' or 'silent' and watch that fan noise quiet down big time. keep me posted on what fan you choose to replace the one on the AC7 Pro.

[korkman]

PT LE 7.3 on my low budget portable laptop (cube)
chip 945GC with CORE 2 DUO E7200 2,53 GHz, DDRII 3GB 667MHz
WESTERN DIGITAL 250GB SATAII 16MB, Graphics card: ASUS EN8400GS SILENT/HTP/256M, XP HOME, D-Verb 108 and quite proud of it, thank you very much.

Petter