what's the best PC for Pro Tools 7.3.1

[sircharles2]

I'm going to buy an new PC soon. What's worked best for you? core 2 duo, quad??? Dell, HP, etc. all comments welcome. I know I want at least 2gs of ram as I'll be running lots of virtual instruments.

Thanks for you help!

[Obsidian Dragon]

Rather than type in all the specs again, I'll just point you to the following sticky threads at the top of this forum

Best Desktops for PTLE
Allenstein OctaPC(8-core) and Quadzilla(4-core)

These are excellent sources for the best hardware and configurations that have been tested by real users.

[6969]

At this time I would say this thread is an important study.

http://duc.digidesign.com/showflat.p...mber=1172215&p

[sircharles2]

I was hoping to get responses about some of the mainstream brands such as dell and HP. At this point I don't know that I want to build my own machine, I just want to buy it and have it work.

[Obsidian Dragon]

You best bet, it you don't want to build a system yourself, is to get something like the Sweetwater Creation Station series of computers. These cost more but have been designed for music DAW's from the ground up using specific tested components. I must warn you that not everyone has had great experiences with Protools on these and occasionally we get people here with issues even with these machines. At least you get first class customer service with Sweetwater. Guitar Center also has their Spectral or Spectrum line that is supposed to be designed for DAW's as does the Music PC brand. One other option is to print the specs listed in the aforementioned posts and take it to a quality PC builder to assemble for you. You probably know a PC guru (doesn't everybody?) that can do this for you too. The components are usually available on newegg.com.

[nto]

recently upgraded to this system


http://www.dolphinmusic.co.uk/page/s...oduct_id/30437



running PTLE 7.3.1 on mbox mini


have had no problems thus far no hw buffer errors

[sircharles2]

does any one here have any PCs in a rack mount case? You guys have got me seriously considering building one of these quadzillas, I'm thinking it would be cool to have the PC in a rack case and eventually put a DIGI 003 in the same case.

Any thoughts, suggestions? Also what are people doing for cooling? I need quiet.

Thanks for your responses

[auxsend1]

Both the AMD Quad and the Intel Quad systems can be put into rack mount cases. I know there are some w/ the AMD Quad in a rack. Not sure if anyone has put the Intel Quad system in a rack, but it would be the same. Quiet shouldn't be a problem w/ the right component choices, e.g. Corsair HX520W power supply and Nexus case fans.

[sunburst79]

does any one here have any PCs in a rack mount case? You guys have got me seriously considering building one of these quadzillas, I'm thinking it would be cool to have the PC in a rack case and eventually put a DIGI 003 in the same case.

Any thoughts, suggestions? Also what are people doing for cooling? I need quiet.

Thanks for your responses

I have a Intel Quad in a rack case, I like the I-Star brand of cases that Newegg carries, The biggest thing to look for in a rack case is that the PSU can be replaced with a quiet standard ATX PSU. The same holds true on the case fans. This dictates that you will be looking at a 3 or 4 space rackmount case to mount a standard ATX PSU.

Rackmount cases are invariably server cases and as such air flow is paramount and quiet is of zero concern.

Budget for and count on swapping out both the PSU and ALL of the case fans.

I'm real happy with my 4 Space ISTAR case, Corsair 520w PSU and Nexus fans, I'm currently running a monster Zalman CPNS9700 CPU cooler and may change that after some other folks in the "Intel Core 2 Duo, Whose got one working?" thread finish their CPU cooler testing.

The loudest noise in my case is a pair of WD RAPTORS, You DONT want to run those if you want quiet