Building a Compatable Windows Machine For Pro Tools 10 & 11

[jwrobopro]

Hello Every One

I have a few things I would Like to express to the Community..
All of my life I have always built my own machines..
I Know this is a broad spectrum.. From cars to dirt bikes , lawn mowers Guitars , amps , and Computers.. from day one as a young lad i refused to just go buy a computer.. Because one of the main thing that drives us as humans is just curiosity even though it killed the cat...Plus you need to know how to fix it when it breaks and or modify it when it doesn't perform as expected..

That being said ? what I would truly love to see is a section in this forum for both PC and Mac although macs only change hardware when they redesign their machine platforms.and usually limited to a few models...That are capable of running pro tools... But this is not so much the case with a Pc..

There are thousands of different mother boards and component diglore...

But i believe if we started a section that described the hardware components of different build for PC that this not only would help all of us using windows but would definitely help avid with testing...

Right now there is not but 2 windows machine manufacturers listed ..
Hp which is a monster machine and about 12 grand...Dual Processor and the Dell counter part....and Mac has a about for or 5...

1) Mother Board and Socket Set
2) Processors and chip sets
3) Video Cards
4) Fire wire cards and Chip sets

These things should be organized into Builds that are known to work..
and also why they work?

we need to help out with this approved list..and instead of it being spread out across thousands of post in this forum.. these systems need to be under categories...

This can do a lot for not only the end user. But also for Avid which based on how support is here.. It would definitely help those of us who are building machines around this awesome software..

I know there are thousands upon thousands different configurations out there that could be built..

But if we just stick to the core requirements of a successful pro tools Build
this could be a super resource...Avid doesn't have to stick their name on it .

The Community can approve or disprove a build , and then all members could have a chance on criticizing or approving or advancing the knowledge behind the components.. and giving sound advice...

The reason why I am saying these things is because I have personally done just this. had to scratch and crawl through thousands of sites to just get a machine to run it correctly...


So here is my contribution...

This is not complete but it is a good core base

System Details Edit Value
Operating System
Windows 7 Professional 64-bit
CPU
AMD FX-8120 21 °C
Zambezi 32nm Technology
RAM
32.0GB Dual-Channel DDR3 @ 836MHz (9-9-9-24)
Motherboard
ASUSTeK COMPUTER INC. M5A97 (Socket 942) 37 °C
Graphics
SANYO LCD (1280x720@60Hz)
1024MB NVIDIA GeForce GT 520 (NVIDIA) 44 °C
Storage
465GB Western Digital WDC WD50 00AAKX-001CA0 SATA Disk Device (SATA) 46 °C
465GB Western Digital WDC WD50 00ABYS-01TNA0 SATA Disk Device (SATA) 42 °C
298GB Seagate ST332062 0AS SATA Disk Device (SATA) 45 °C
465GB Seagate ST350063 0AS SATA Disk Device (SATA) 39 °C
465GB StoreJet Transcend USB Device (USB (SATA)) 31 °C
Optical Drives
SONY DVD
Fire Wire needs to have Texas Instrument Chip set Or Via..

This is a build still being modified
Jeff

[YYR123]

Originally Posted by jwrobopro

So here is my contribution


Operating System

Windows 7 Professional 64-bit


CPU

AMD FX-8120

If your going with Amd (which most people wouldn't recommend) that's fine but go with the highest end CPU's. I got a FX-8320 awhile back for a office computer. It's nice quick, but the idea is u wanna get the best CPU you can afford.... Then borrow some money and get the next higher priced one.

Originally Posted by jwrobopro

RAM

32.0GB Dual-Channel DDR3 @ 836MHz (9-9-9-24)

what is this year 2001? Real ram these days should be 1866MgHz ddr5 | why b/c it handles the audio data faster

Originally Posted by jwrobopro

1024MB NVIDIA GeForce GT 520 (NVIDIA)

I would get a nicer card, with more mem onboard, there have been comments in threads about graphics stuttering with lower priced cards.

Originally Posted by jwrobopro

Storage

465GB Western Digital WDC WD50 SATA Disk Device (SATA) 4

Make sure all your drives are Sata 3 (or 4, basically the fastest available) / 6gb xfer rate. All as high a cache as you can find. 64mb cache. Why b/c it's recommended

Originally Posted by jwrobopro

Fire Wire needs to have Texas Instrument Chip set Or Via..

I personally have had great luck with via chipsets, but it's more of a north bridge and south bridge chipset problem (if it doesn't work) but like I said since PT7 I've used via w/o issues.

[feliponk]

CPU Intel, i7 or Xeon
MB Gigabyte

Start form there.

[Shan]

Originally Posted by jwrobopro

But i believe if we started a section that described the hardware components of different build for PC that this not only would help all of us using windows but would definitely help avid with testing...

...But if we just stick to the core requirements of a successful pro tools Build
this could be a super resource...Avid doesn't have to stick their name on it .

The Community can approve or disprove a build , and then all members could have a chance on criticizing or approving or advancing the knowledge behind the components.. and giving sound advice...

What you're looking for is right here and already exists. It's the most viewed thread in the forum, and even a sticky.

Shane

[aborgraffiti]

Originally Posted by YYR123

If your going with Amd (which most people wouldn't recommend) that's fine but go with the highest end CPU's. I got a FX-8320 awhile back for a office computer. It's nice quick, but the idea is u wanna get the best CPU you can afford.... Then borrow some money and get the next higher priced one.

what is this year 2001? Real ram these days should be 1866MgHz ddr5 | why b/c it handles the audio data faster



I would get a nicer card, with more mem onboard, there have been comments in threads about graphics stuttering with lower priced cards.

I agree with most of what you said, this guy's entire list sounds like its from the early 2000s but you should probably know that there's no such thing as ddr5 lol.

and "SANYO LCD (1280x720@60Hz)" lmao come on man everyone should be using at least a 1080p monitor

[YYR123]

Originally Posted by aborgraffiti

I agree with most of what you said, this guy's entire list sounds like its from the early 2000s but you should probably know that there's no such thing as ddr5 lol.

Wierd could have swore there was, maybe I was confused about the mem in the video cards? Don't the nicer video cards say DDR5?

Oh well - yeah that monitor used to be a TV for sure

[aborgraffiti]

Originally Posted by YYR123

Wierd could have swore there was, maybe I was confused about the mem in the video cards? Don't the nicer video cards say DDR5?

Oh well - yeah that monitor used to be a TV for sure

It's gddr5 in graphics cards, I was confused about the same thing too a while back.