Need Help on getting a new System!

[yotam]

I am about to buy a new system and i need some help over:
1.AMD Tbird or a P4?
2.Motherboard?
3.HD manufacture

Any help is appreciated!!!!

[yavuzj]

I would say you have 2 options:

1. Either go with a tried system with AMD like mine....

Ga7DX
XP1800+
512MB DDR RAM
Matrox G450 Dual Head
IBM Drives X 2
Promise ATA 100 Controller
Digi001
SBLive

Digi in Slot 5 forced to IRQ 10
SBLive in Slot 3 forced to IRQ 3(Shares with USB)
Promise ATA Cont. in Slot 2 forced to IRQ 5

My system still has the best results at Davec test.

2. Wait until tomorrow to see what kind of new MACs are coming out. If the cheapest MAC has a faster processor than a G4 1.5GHZ than go with a MAC. Since the cheapest one is going to be around $1600 dollars it is well worth the extra bucks because, you will be able to run soft synths and open movies, Choose your synth sounds with patch names etc...

[mattm]

AMD seems to be the way to go at the moment but that picture may change when XP support arrives so i'll avoid offering suggestions on the CPU front but in hard drive world i reckon you're hard pressed to beat IBM 60GXP. They're a little more expensive than Seagate (my other favorite) but they are marginally faster, quieter and cooler.

I'd say wait and see what the new Mac's are all about too. More plugins available, direct connect, quicktime support, keyboard shortcuts are less of a stretch and, of course, better looking GUI [img]images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

~matt

[yavuzj]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:<HR>Originally posted by mattm:
i reckon you're hard pressed to beat IBM 60GXP. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Yes, get 60GXP or even older 65GXP. Do not make the mistake that i made and get a 75GXP. 75GXPs will crash on you. There is lawsuit going on against IBM for those drives. so be careful!!!

[MikeD]

Yavuz, how many fans are you running in your system and how big is your power supply. I am going to be building my own system here soon so I was just curious.

Also, who is the manufacturer of your motherboard and is there any other motherboards that might be better?

Thanks in advance,
Mike

[Mark_Knecht]

Yotam,
A number of us are using the Asus motherboard with Athlons and a very happy. Mine is an A7V133, but someone like Allen who has kept up with the latest and greatest can tell you which one to get these days. I think Yavuz's motherboard is made by Gigabyte, but you can find that in the dave_c thread somewhere, I'm sure.

I'm a big fan of 1394 hard drives. You can build your own, using an IBM drive if you want, by getting a 1394 hard drive kit, which run about $100 here in the US. The big attractions to me are:

1) They are external, so no messing with cables or additional ATA adapter cards. Put in a 1394 OHCI adapter and have connectivity to disks, CD-RW drives, video cameras, conferencing cameras, scanners all off the same port.

2) They are easy to switch in and out. Just pull a cable, or attach a second, third or fourth drive.

Cheers,
Mark

[yavuzj]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:<HR>Originally posted by Mark_Knecht:
I'm a big fan of 1394 hard drives. You can build your own, using an IBM drive if you want, by getting a 1394 hard drive kit, which run about $100 here in the US. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Mark,

Which one of these Drive Kits do you recommend?

1. Granite
2. Pyro
3. Avermedia

??

[Mark_Knecht]

Yavuz,
I recommend anything that uses and Oxford 911 chip. I decided to build my own, so I went online and got a drive kit from this place:
http://www.apdrives.com
http://www.apdrives.com/apdrives/ap-...-firewire.html

They shipped that day, out of Florida, and I had the kit built with a WD drive a couple of days later.

Overall, I think most anything that uses the 911 chip from Oxford will work fine. The link above shows the kit I bought, which was really too expensive. I think you can find one for less. Also, the assembly instructions left a lot to be desired. (There were none!) But, it came up and worked fine. You might do just as well to buy the kit from them with a drive in it already. I don't think I saved any money by putting it together myself.

Cheers,
Mark

[yavuzj]

Thanks Marc.
I also saw the portable firewire interface for notebooks on that site. I wonder if it uses a NEC chip or Texas Instruments. NEC chip have some problems with Audio.

[yotam]

Thanks guys
The system i am building is for an Audio school , I could not afford the "TRY" with Athlon as for DigiSpecs mentioned i will need IntelChipset. I have ordered the latest Asus P4B266 (i845D+DDR) Series with P4 1.7.

Thanks for all the help.