DUC suggested PC setup

[pipelineaudio73]

I tried to compile the stuff you guys were suggesting so here goes!

How does this look for a PC PTHD system?

Motherboard: Asus P4C800-E Deluxe
CPU: Prescott P4 3.2gHz
Ram: 2GB Kingston Hyper-X PC3200
Video:Nvidia Quadro4 980GXL
CD/DVD: Micro Advantage Dual Layer DVD/RW
System Drive: WD2000JB
Guest IDE: Inclose PMD-96i
Working Drives: 2 X WD360GD 36.7GB 10,000 RPM SATA
Power Supply & Case: Antec 4U22ATX550EPS
Storage: Acom Data 160GB Firewire

Any suggestions? Any changes? Might the working drives be too small? I see some 74 GB ones as well

[MDog]

How does this look for a PC PTHD system?

CD/DVD: Micro Advantage Dual Layer DVD/RW

Storage: Acom Data 160GB Firewire

That Micro Advantage DVD-RW was just a cheapo drive I got on sale at Office Max. I think it was $59. Anything late model with a decent write speed will probably be fine. I'm not neccessarily recommending this drive, although it works fine, it's just what I currently have.

Ditto for the Acom Data firewire drive. It works great, so if you can find one easily it's a good choice. But I wouldn't search too hard for that specific firewire drive.

[pipelineaudio73]

thank you very much for all your help MDog! Am I right in assuming that these:

http://www.wdc.com/en/products/Produ...65&Language=en

are the 10k WD SATA drives you guys are talking about? They seem small, but hey, if they work, fine

[MDog]

Yep. Although I find the 7200k SATA drives work fine too, at least at normal sample rates of 44.1k and 48k.

[BkkJohn]

Is there an significant advantage to using a 3.2GHz Xeon over a 3.2 GHz P4? Or does the advantage show up only when going to dual-CPU's?

[nikki-k]

I tried to compile the stuff you guys were suggesting so here goes!

How does this look for a PC PTHD system?

Motherboard: Asus P4C800-E Deluxe
CPU: Prescott P4 3.2gHz
Ram: 2GB Kingston Hyper-X PC3200
Video:Nvidia Quadro4 980GXL
CD/DVD: Micro Advantage Dual Layer DVD/RW
System Drive: WD2000JB
Guest IDE: Inclose PMD-96i
Working Drives: 2 X WD360GD 36.7GB 10,000 RPM SATA
Power Supply & Case: Antec 4U22ATX550EPS
Storage: Acom Data 160GB Firewire

Any suggestions? Any changes? Might the working drives be too small? I see some 74 GB ones as well

Just built new HD system host
Motherboard, of course, is great.

RAM: I would try to find CL2, if possible. Hyper-X is proven winner for me (and others), and I have seen it in both CL2 and CL2.5 flavors. PC3500 would work as well, albeit at a very slight increase in price...very slight...

CPU: hmm. Rough call. I did the Prescott, and no probs. But, they are hot little bastards. 3.2 and up are the bad ones (I did a 3.2). However, I threw a Zalman 7700 AL/Cu (yes, it actually fits!) on there, and am awaiting an Enermax fan controller (controls 4 fans, forget model) to monitor and set fan speeds during use for quietest op possible.
In addition, I used Nexus fans for case- which is the Enermax 4U server case with aluminum doors, from NewEgg. Less than 20" deep, and I have all 4 of my HD cards in there easily and comfortably So- Prescott is fine.

Hard Drives: Sorry, I switched to Seagate...sort of...
For audio drives, WD Raptor 74G 10K rpm drives. B ut for OS/Apps: Seagate 250G 7200 SATA. Touted as the quietest drives, they aint kidding. These are sweet drives, and with a 5 year warranty, cannot go wrong. In fact, for my overhauled Gigastudio system, I went with Seagate 80G 7200 rpm SATA for OS/Apps, and two 250G Seagate 7200rpm SATA for samples. Same specs elsewise for rest of system for it, and they both look sweet in the rack, and are dead quiet.

Power Supply: For HD, I always suggest 480W minimum. Antec is my choice, which you have selected, so...bingo there

Video card: Nvidia FX5200. No brainer. No fan, DVI and D-sub, plus S-vid if ya want. I choose MSI most times. The 5200 is slightly lower gaming/3d performance, but for HD- who cares? The only caveat is the heatsink will render PCI slot #1 unusable, but I refrain from using that slot anyway, due to my own superstitions about it. P4C800-E has 5 PCI slots, and with SATA, who needs to waste a slot on SCSI? So, 4 nice shiny slots just aching for HD cards

Hope that helps!

[Stukface]

Hi there nikki-k, I am thinking about upgrading my system and going with that setup. The system I am using right now has an older video card (matrox g400 with 32 mb), Will I notice a big difference if I use the old card in the new system? I guess what im getting at is, how important is the video card for protools computers?

[nikki-k]

Hi!

Hmmm...not really sure. I have not tried a PT system with a vid card with less than 128m vid ram. Oh- except for the 64M card in an old G4 mac I used til XP was goin, and now use my Gateway laptop for LE with it's 64m card.

Usually I try to match components somewhat, so there is no potential for bottlenecking, either in the vid area, PCI busses, drives, etc. I actually am trying a new vid card in my Giga system- fanless MSI RX9550 128M. Want to see how ATI behaves

[Stukface]

Right on nikki

I have been using it for the last year and a half with my hd system. It seams to run fine, but maybe the screen redraw would respond even faster with a better video card. Thanks

By the way I found the ram on sale:

http://shop2.outpost.com/product/3746176#detailed

[drewsonix]

I may be about to make myself look really dumb... but here goes!!!

I just got my MixPlus system upgraded to HD2 Accel...

I have an Asus board with 32 bit PCI slots.. my cards don't fit (being 64 bit)..

I came here to find a recommendation and the P4C800-E Deluxe is almost identical to mine (I think mine is the P4P800) and, if I'm not mistaken, also does not have 64 bit slots.. how are you guys fitting these cards in?!!

Nobody had ever told me before or during the upgrade process that the physical connection was any different to my old Core & Farm cards (almost everywhere you look it just refers to them as "PCI Cards") so I'm in a bit of a pickle now!

Any advice much appreciated

drew


PS. hello Pipeline (fancy seeing you here) - my Vegas loyalty ran out when v6 refused to address routing issues or make significant improvements, so here I am investing in my digi gear again!