Animal Posted November 27, 2006 Share Posted November 27, 2006 My PC is due an upgrade and I'm after some recommendations from the more knowledgeable folks around here. My band rehearse in my flat and I've managed to volunteer my PC to be set-up as a recording studio (currently downloading Cubase) so I'd like some advice on what sort of upgrades I should consider. I'm currently running: AD77 Infinity motherboard AMD 2800 Athlon 2Gb DDR RAM Nvidia GeForce 5600 (youngest thing in my PC at 2-3 years old - everything else being over 4 years) Unknown cheap & nasty soundcard (which died last month and refuses to accept any drivers) So far I've seen a 3400+ Athlon 64 x2 with a Creative X-Fi soundcard. No idea about motherboards. I'm expecting to spend maybe 300-500 quid. What would people recommend (and can anyone get any good deals?) Cheers Animal Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daston Posted November 27, 2006 Share Posted November 27, 2006 Ok first of it depends on what you want to use your PC for. I would recomend Dual core, AMD are better and running grunty single aplications (ie games etc) where as Intel core duo seems better at running a number of applications. 1gb of RAM is the min you want on a system and the X-Fi card would be good if your planing on band stuff. Motherboards are not so important these days unless your planning on overclocking your cpu or gfx card. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ric Posted November 27, 2006 Share Posted November 27, 2006 if your looking to use the pc for lots of music work i would recommend a soundcard which is designed for the cause, creative are a bit mainstream and not so specialised, i cant think of the brand atm, but i will ask my mate later who does his own music production. As for spec's i would recommend some sort of duel core for a nice setup in a music studio. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thorin Posted November 27, 2006 Share Posted November 27, 2006 Core 2 Duo, 2GB memory, graphics card I'm guessing not too important unless you want to be running the latest games in highest detail. I recently got a NVidia 7600GT and while I couldn't run stuff in highest detail at 1920x1200, my monitor doesn't go up that high anyway I've always stuck with NVidia cards as they tend to have better drivers/performance with Linux. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daston Posted November 27, 2006 Share Posted November 27, 2006 It all depends on how many aplications he wants to run at once in benchmarking AMD chips were around 10-15% quicker running a single application. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thorin Posted November 27, 2006 Share Posted November 27, 2006 if your looking to use the pc for lots of music work i would recommend a soundcard which is designed for the cause, creative are a bit mainstream and not so specialised, i cant think of the brand atm, but i will ask my mate later who does his own music production. Probably E-MU or M-Audio? Both do some good audiophile stuff, M-Audio probably at the cheaper end. http://www.emu.com/products/welcome.asp?category=505 http://www.m-audio.com/index.php?do=products.list&ID=pciinterfaces Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Animal Posted November 27, 2006 Author Share Posted November 27, 2006 My 2 main requirements will be music production & AutoCAD draughting. I was already thinking dual core, AMD chip as I've used these for a long time with no problems. That's about as far as my knowledge goes I'm afraid. Back to you guys. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pete Posted November 27, 2006 Share Posted November 27, 2006 I've just gone Core 2 from a long line of AMD processors. It's very overclockable, 2.13 to 3Ghz reliably I've got an Abit AB9 Pro board, decent RAM. Even got OS-X working on it yesterday (which was a hard slog, but worth it). AMD will be releasing something interesting in the new year - there's never a right time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daston Posted November 27, 2006 Share Posted November 27, 2006 Ok my rig currently is AMD X2 4400 (OC to 3.2ghz) 2gb Geil Ram 2x 7900GT's Are you looking at a whole PC or just buying the componants and installing your self? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tim_palmer Posted November 27, 2006 Share Posted November 27, 2006 Anything from here: AlienWare Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Animal Posted November 27, 2006 Author Share Posted November 27, 2006 Just after the components. I'll get someone to bung 'em in my case for me. I'm refusing to look at the Alienware page, it'd cost me too much money... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daston Posted November 27, 2006 Share Posted November 27, 2006 haha think Alienware is a bit out of his budget and way overpriced. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daston Posted November 27, 2006 Share Posted November 27, 2006 Ok I will give you a list hold on Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ric Posted November 27, 2006 Share Posted November 27, 2006 alienware is just normal items put into a fancy case. as mentioned, wayoverpriced Not sure of the brand of SC he uses, but it has tonnes of phono connections on the rear of it etc. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daston Posted November 27, 2006 Share Posted November 27, 2006 Ok here we go rough idea of what you are looking at for £500 bucks First off if you go for the latest tech (ie the AM2 chip set) Asus M2N4-SLI motherboard £68 AMD AM2 X2 4200+ £133 Geil 1gb PC6400 DDR2 800mhz RAM £99 Leadtek 7600GS Silent Running Gfx Card £75 Leaving £125 for a sound studio sound card If you went for the older 939 socket board Asus A8N-SLI £54 AMD X2 4600 £163 OCUK 1Gb 3200 400mhz RAM £76 Leadtek 7600GS Silent Running Gfx Card £75 Leaving £132 for the sound card. Personally I would go for an AM2 board as the RAM will run much faster and so will do more, plus the upgrading is much better as you wont need a new motherboard etc. I have chosen SLI boards as again if you need more graphics power then you can always add another card. I went for the Asus boards as A) They tend to be very very good and well built B) their after customer care is awesome and C) They tend to get very good reviews, infact I do believe that Custom PC still says that the A8N is still the best Skt 939 board on the market. If you need any help let me know, I would offer to set it up for you but no doubt your probably miles away from us country bumpkins Oh I am board at work ok. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Animal Posted November 27, 2006 Author Share Posted November 27, 2006 Cheers dude, your first option sounds good, maybe 2Gb RAM and could I keep my existing GFX card? The M-Aidio Delta 44 is tempting as it looks to have separate inputs for each instrument. My guitarist it the audio tech of the band and was looking at taking the outputs from each channel of the mixing desk into my PC a 4 separate tracks for editing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daston Posted November 27, 2006 Share Posted November 27, 2006 the AM2 board will be PCi-E so your existing Gfx card may not fit, however there are 7300's that are cheaper and still more powerful than your old one so 2gb of ram wont be out of the question Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alex Posted November 27, 2006 Share Posted November 27, 2006 People saying C2D haven't looked at the budget! I think Daston's suggestions are good- though I have no idea why you'd need an SLI mobo! Go for Geil or Corsair Ram Visit http://www.dabs.co.uk Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daston Posted November 27, 2006 Share Posted November 27, 2006 Well if he needs another PCI-E socket (sound cards may be using these in the future he has one spare) I was using http://www.Overclockers.co.uk http://www.microdirect.co.uk and http://www.scan.co.uk Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alex Posted November 27, 2006 Share Posted November 27, 2006 OCUK scare me...to many bad reports... I got my gear from dabs and ebuyer this month and it all rocks/works I spent about 1k though C2D 4 the win ....it benchmarked 3x faster than my old P4 2.5ghz rig No OC'ing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daston Posted November 27, 2006 Share Posted November 27, 2006 Ok other vid cards BFG 7300 £37 Leadtek 6200 Turbo £28 should get another gb of ram with the savings. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daston Posted November 27, 2006 Share Posted November 27, 2006 OCUK scare me...toom any bad reports... I got my gear from dabs and ebuyer this month and it all rocks/works I spent about 1k though C2D 4 the win ....it benchmarked 3x faster than my old P4 2.5ghz rig No OC'ing. Find intel overpriced and not very good at running the programs I use my PC for. My pc benchmarks at 8000 at the mo on 3Dmark06 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thorin Posted November 27, 2006 Share Posted November 27, 2006 Find intel overpriced and not very good at running the programs I use my PC for. My pc benchmarks at 8000 at the mo on 3Dmark06 Well that used to be the case... but IMO C2D beats the pants off AMD's dual core line up... Of course that will no doubt swing back the other way next year. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alex Posted November 27, 2006 Share Posted November 27, 2006 Find intel overpriced and not very good at running the programs I use my PC for. My pc benchmarks at 8000 at the mo on 3Dmark06 I found PCmark and 3d mark woudn't run so used PETST.EXE which I found on the web. GPU is a 7900GTO Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daston Posted November 27, 2006 Share Posted November 27, 2006 Intel is fantastic at runing multi apps but so far the tests show AMD works better for single apps ie games and as my pc is a games rig I like to stick to AMD if I were to make an office rig the C2D would be used Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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