Recommend new comp setup?

[mattytron]

As I am quickly finding out, trying to run protools effectively on my current comp is now not an option due to it being my every day use computer, which sucks.

Now I don't have a huge budget, but I'd like to be able to work relatively fluidly with at least 16-24 tracks, I also run plugins like Waves Mercury Bundle, Toontrack Superior Drummer 2.0, Amplitube2 (metal, xgear, and the ampeg emulation as well), iZotope Ozone, etc...

So what should I be looking for to put together a tower? I can use the same monitor, so that's not an issue. And what should I be looking to spend?

My current setup is AMD64 6000+ 2.6ghz with 2gb of DDR Ram.

Thanks in advance for any/all help!

[albee1952]

That should be a 3gig cpu(it is in my setup). It should run plenty strong so maybe the cheap solution would be to use a drive cage like this:
http://www.datoptic.com/cgi-bin/web....115&detail=yes
and use a pair of SATA drives. One for everyday use and the other setup just for audio(I know you can dual boot on a single drive but Think this is more elegant). They also make a 3 slot unit that fits into 2 full size drive bays so you can swap out 2nd and 3rd drives for audio, samples or whatever. I have been thrilled with the performance of my system(see below) but I also have another PC for everyday use. If you really want to build another machine, I think newegg has the 6000+ on sale this week.

[mattytron]

Thanks for the advice! I managed to find a pc with 3gs of ram, amd64 5000+, and a 160gb HD (I'll upgrade to a 500gig later prolly, does anyone recommend an external USB drive?), for a very fair price.

[albee1952]

USB drives are not supported or recommended. If this is a desktop machine, why not just add more internal drives? newegg.com and tigerdirect.com both have great prices on raw drives(and great slaes if you get lucky). As for external, the OWC firewire drives look to be a really good deal. I have also found some great deals on used LaCie D2 drives on *bay. Your new system should make a great everyday machine while your old machine does audio.