Advice for building a computer

"Bad Disciple" <inner.phiz DeleteThis @tiscali.be> wrote in message
news:a7CdneP5XoaToDjZRVnysg@scarlet.biz...
> Hi everybody,
>
> I am about to build my next computer for my Music Recording Home Studio.
> I'm quite 'handy' for doing this (I've already built two computers in the
> past)
> but I need help with the newest cry of the tech.
>
> -1st question, is it still valid to believe that Intel Pentium are the
> best processors?

No, not valid to think that anymore - AMD vs Intel is an ongoing argument
and right now, its basically personal preference

> -Next, is it still true that putting 2 HDs in a RAID (for OS and programs)
> is
> better than the normal ?

Depends what you mean by better? There are different RAID options, so a RAID
can be faster, or more reliable, or more expensive, or noisier!

> -Next, is ASUS still the leading name for mother boards?

pass

> -Next, are Hard Discs with 8 or 16 MB cache the fastest; and ATA or S-ATA
> and 7200rpm or 10000rpm is to prefer ? Best label, WD, Maxtor etc. ?

More cache doesn't guarantee the drive will be faster. Neither does a faster
spin speed, but typically this is the case. The faster the drive, the hotter
it gets, the noisier it is and the more power it uses.

HD Brand is personal experience. Samsung spinpoint drives are virtually
silent. I personally like Western Digital as I have owned 4 and never had
any trouble - my 10 year old 850MB drive is no longer used, but still works.
My 80GB Maxtor was replaced twice under warranty and now relegated to a
'living room pc' because I don't trust it. I have had trouble with IBM
drives, but many people love them etc. Read reviews online, compare prices
and most of all - decide what you want before you do any of this!


> Or is there anything new?
> -And finally the eternal question, is a Mac still more reliable than a PC
> ?

Personal prefernce again

The PC is for a recording studio, so does it need to be quiet? Because if
you get a fast, power hungry PC + a 10,000rpm hard disk or two, then it is
going to sound like an annoying whiney hair dryer! Something else to think
about before you start speccing anything. You can get silent coolers etc,
but the faster the processors get, the more expensive the 'fancy' coolers
get.

How fast do you need it to be? Do you want 3D power for games? Or just
windows power for multimedia processing? What will be new computer be
replacing - how fast is you current system?
 >> Stay informed about: Advice for building a computer 

Bad Disciple <inner.phiz.RemoveThis@tiscali.be> wrote:

> I am about to build my next computer for my Music Recording Home
> Studio. I'm quite 'handy' for doing this (I've already built two computers in the past)
> but I need help with the newest cry of the tech.

Is that last the same as tears before bedtime ?

> -1st question, is it still valid to believe that Intel Pentium are the best processors?

I still prefer them myself.

> -Next, is it still true that putting 2 HDs in a RAID (for OS and programs) is better
> than the normal ?

It can be faster, but is more hassle and not warranted
with modern hard drives except in special situations.

> -Next, is ASUS still the leading name for mother boards?

Thats arguable, but I still prefer them myself.

> -Next, are Hard Discs with 8 or 16 MB cache the fastest;

You wouldnt be able to pick the cache size in a proper double blind trial.

> and ATA or S-ATA

SATA does give you more future, we are already starting
to see motherboards with just one ATA port, two drives,
and one of those is usually needed for the optical drive.

> and 7200rpm or 10000rpm is to prefer ?

I stick with the 7200 myself.

> Best label, WD, Maxtor etc. ? Or is there anything new?

I prefer Samsungs myself, very quiet. They are slower to
release the bigger drives tho, currently only 400G max.

> -And finally the eternal question, is a Mac still more reliable than a PC ?

Nope. Tho you may find that in that specialised area the Mac is better covered.
 >> Stay informed about: Advice for building a computer 

On Fri, 30 Jun 2006 18:30:01 -0400, "Alan Kakareka"
<i.dont DeleteThis @want.any.spam> wrote:

>> SMART will warn you of the possibility for a crash so you will have
>> time to prepare for it. RAID is for servers - not personal computers.

>Bad news is SMART will not warn you when integrated circuit chhip is about
>to burn.

Won't you be able to tell from the temperature reported by SMART that
something is wrong?


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On 1 Jul 2006 13:30:46 -0700, saddam DeleteThis @cutey.com wrote:

>More redundancy is better than less redundancy when it comes to data
>storage, and RAID 1 (mirroring) is so cheap that' it's the least I'd
>use. But don't believe for a moment that RAID eliminates the need for
>backups, and backups are far cheaper than any data recovery service.

Enermax used to make a nifty unit but discontinued it for a while.
It's called the DynaBacker. It is a combination RAID 1 mirroring plus
backup unit. You put two disks in and let it build the mirror. Then
when it's time to do the backup, you just remove the mirror disk and
put a new disk in to make a new mirror. The old mirror becomes your
backup.

I was unable to get the company to send me a third tray that would
work so I had to swap the disks manually. That's a bummer. When I
found out that they planned to discontinue the unit I returned mine
and now rely on removable bays (I never used the DynaBacker for RAID
anyway, only backups).

If they have fixed the problems I would recommend getting the SATA
unit because there are no connector issues with SATA and it has a much
smaller footprint. Who knows - they may even have an extra tray that
works so you can make backups more easily.

Call Maxpoint (aka "EnermaxUSA") at 1-888-363-7629 and ask for Tom.


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 >> Stay informed about: Advice for building a computer 

Computer speed is everything with recording. A recording computer needs
a very fast A/D converter and the ability to write the data fast to a
hard drive.

Processor performance will depend on the application you're using. To
get an idea of relative performance, Tom's Hardware has a CPU comparison
chart that includes some encoding appplications. See

http://www23.tomshardware.com/cpu.html

for more details.

Using two WD 250g SATA II drives with 16mb cache in RAID0 with a fast
processor makes for a wickedly fast system. But for recording /
encoding, two gb of system memory will provide good system cache for
write buffering (if the app is configured to use it).

At the current price of WD 320gb drives, that might be a consderation
for the "data" drive. Doesn't matter if the data drive is SATA or PATA
since the read or write time for either is still much slower than the
bandwidth of PATA.

MLPW


Bad Disciple wrote:

> You guys are marvelous! Thank you all for your cool feedback.
>
> Just to point out that, in music recording and processing, the speed is
> vitally
> important. So, whatever I can do for speed, I'll do it and it still will
> never
> be enough! That's why people in my branch use to say that Mac is more
> reliable, which I very often hear to be contradicted. Budget is not a
> problem
> but want to keep it at reasonable level.
>
> My current system is:
> ASUS P4B 533(-E) - Intel P4 2,4Ghz 533 FSB - 1.5GB RAM - 4 MAXTOR
> HDs, 7200rpm, 8 MB cache (2 on RAID 0, +1 to data storage, +1 backup).
> All with 500W power supply.
>
> So I can get an ASUS (or good equivalent) motherboard, Intel or ADM CPU,
> the maximum possible RAM memory, Samsung HDs for silence, 10000rpm,
> 16 MB cache, 2 HDs on RAID 0 for my OS and programs (+ another HD to
> store data + another one to backup). I must decide if RAID 0 with two HDs,
> or RAID 5 with more HDs, as I don't know if the difference in speed will
> justify
> the price for several HDs (and the box). And I guess backing up my system
> should prevent failures, I only don't know what's best for system backup.
>
> I ask myself is it worth replacing my current system and how much better
> I'll get ?
 >> Stay informed about: Advice for building a computer 

On Tue, 11 Jul 2006 16:12:59 +0200, "Bad Disciple"
<inner.phiz.DeleteThis@tiscali.be> wrote:


>Just to point out that, in music recording and processing, the speed is
>vitally important. So, whatever I can do for speed, I'll do it and it still will
>never be enough!

Depends on the job. A Pentium 2 can record music fine. It
takes a lower-speed Pentium 3 (or equivalent) to record MP3
realtime. Multi-track recording may depend on the
compression level (or lack thereof) but more important, the
hard drive (presuming it is the destination for the files)
write speed which has nothing to do with rest of system
(given anywhere near a remotely modern system, above ATA33
or ATA66 for the more demanding work).

Processing it later is another story, it will depend a lot
on the particular jobs. Again the HDD speed tends to matter
a lot no matter what else you're doing, unless it were a
rare case of importing or outputting highly compressed
format like MP3, but that is seldom considered, nobody doing
serious work would be touching such formats in general
except for some kind of download service or to play on a
portable player.

>That's why people in my branch use to say that Mac is more
>reliable, which I very often hear to be contradicted. Budget is not a
>problem

Reliability is pretty much a nonsense concept, either
hardware platform will be fine, you merely choose a well
written application, and audio is not a new frontier, either
platform can do it fine so it comes down to your personal
preference or needs.


>My current system is:
>
>ASUS P4B 533(-E) - Intel P4 2,4Ghz 533 FSB - 1.5GB RAM - 4 MAXTOR
>
>HDs, 7200rpm, 8 MB cache (2 on RAID 0, +1 to data storage, +1 backup).
>
>All with 500W power supply.

So where is the bottleneck? Without knowing this, there's
little we can do to suggest an upgrade. The described
system should record audio and edit it fine, in general.

>So I can get an ASUS (or good equivalent) motherboard, Intel or ADM CPU,
>
>the maximum possible RAM memory, Samsung HDs for silence, 10000rpm,
>
>16 MB cache, 2 HDs on RAID 0 for my OS and programs (+ another HD to
>
>store data + another one to backup). I must decide if RAID 0 with two HDs,
>
>or RAID 5 with more HDs, as I don't know if the difference in speed will
>justify
>
>the price for several HDs (and the box). And I guess backing up my system
>
>should prevent failures, I only don't know what's best for system backup.
>
>
>
>I ask myself is it worth replacing my current system and how much better I'll
>get ?

No, it's not worth replacing your system until you can
pinpoint an area that needs improvement. That does not mean
there could not be one, but randomly replacing a system
without a clear need makes little sense.
 >> Stay informed about: Advice for building a computer 

Bad Disciple wrote:
> Hi everybody,
>
> I am about to build my next computer for my Music Recording Home Studio.
> I'm quite 'handy' for doing this (I've already built two computers in the
> past)
> but I need help with the newest cry of the tech.
>
> -1st question, is it still valid to believe that Intel Pentium are the best
> processors?
> -Next, is it still true that putting 2 HDs in a RAID (for OS and programs)
> is
> better than the normal ?
> -Next, is ASUS still the leading name for mother boards?
> -Next, are Hard Discs with 8 or 16 MB cache the fastest; and ATA or S-ATA
> and 7200rpm or 10000rpm is to prefer ? Best label, WD, Maxtor etc. ?
> Or is there anything new?
> -And finally the eternal question, is a Mac still more reliable than a PC ?
>
> Thanks for feedback
 >> Stay informed about: Advice for building a computer 

Bad Disciple wrote:
> Hi everybody,
>
> I am about to build my next computer for my Music Recording Home Studio.
> I'm quite 'handy' for doing this (I've already built two computers in the
> past)
> but I need help with the newest cry of the tech.
>
> -1st question, is it still valid to believe that Intel Pentium are the best
> processors?

Intel haven't been "the best" for at least 6 years

> -Next, is it still true that putting 2 HDs in a RAID (for OS and programs)
> is
> better than the normal ?

In the proper configuration it can be faster or more reliable or a
little of both. You decide which is better.

> -Next, is ASUS still the leading name for mother boards?

I't one of a number of good boards. Some better, some not it
depends on the particular model and what you are looking for. There are
quite a lot of review sites out there. Read some reviews to determine
what is best for you particular use.

> -Next, are Hard Discs with 8 or 16 MB cache the fastest; and ATA or S-ATA
> and 7200rpm or 10000rpm is to prefer ? Best label, WD, Maxtor etc. ?

10,000RPM SCSI is prob still the fastest, 10,000RPM anything will be
fasterbut pricey. When I built my new NASA killer in April all the
rsearch I did pointed to SATA2 not being any faster than the comparable
IDE drive. THe ones with the higher speed and bigger cache are faster
and usually have the longer warranty.

> Or is there anything new?
> -And finally the eternal question, is a Mac still more reliable than a PC ?
>

I never saw a Mac as more reliable. Better in some ways for some
tasks, maybe, easier for some people to use but not particularly more
reliable.
 >> Stay informed about: Advice for building a computer 

Bad Disciple wrote:
> You guys are marvelous! Thank you all for your cool feedback.
>
> Just to point out that, in music recording and processing, the speed is
> vitally
> important. So, whatever I can do for speed, I'll do it and it still will
> never
> be enough! That's why people in my branch use to say that Mac is more
> reliable, which I very often hear to be contradicted. Budget is not a
> problem
> but want to keep it at reasonable level.
>
> My current system is:
> ASUS P4B 533(-E) - Intel P4 2,4Ghz 533 FSB - 1.5GB RAM - 4 MAXTOR
> HDs, 7200rpm, 8 MB cache (2 on RAID 0, +1 to data storage, +1 backup).
> All with 500W power supply.
>
> So I can get an ASUS (or good equivalent) motherboard, Intel or ADM CPU,
> the maximum possible RAM memory, Samsung HDs for silence, 10000rpm,
> 16 MB cache, 2 HDs on RAID 0 for my OS and programs (+ another HD to
> store data + another one to backup). I must decide if RAID 0 with two HDs,
> or RAID 5 with more HDs, as I don't know if the difference in speed will
> justify
> the price for several HDs (and the box). And I guess backing up my system
> should prevent failures, I only don't know what's best for system backup.
>
> I ask myself is it worth replacing my current system and how much better
> I'll get ?

I replaced mine more because I wanted to, but also it would not do what
I wanted to do. What you listed *should* do what you want, if you have
some type of problem you should figure out what it is, as the new system
may do it too. In my case I wanted to play Elder Scrolls - Oblivion at
full detail, so I upgraded.
 >> Stay informed about: Advice for building a computer 

Intel new coreduo2 dual core processors are the best for now but from what
was said in other newsgroups, the motherboards don't have a lot of
expandbility(2 pci slots only). If you can wait till Feb March 2007 as price
of cpus should drop again. Amd has the most expandability if thats what you
also need and will be cheaper than Intel. I actually believed that but found
there were some stability issues. Could just be Gigabyte. It does help with
large file transfers though. Other wise just stick to non-raid. When using
SATA drives( as you should be because they are faster, cheaper, than the
soon to be obsolete IDE/PATA drives) you still want to load your raid
drivers as I have found it makes for a rock stable computer. Asus has had
severals complaints about their motherboards and you might want to look at
MSI if they have a motherboard that suits your purposes.If you can get the
16mb cache drives as VISTA will run better in case you decide to upgrade to
that OS. The 10000 drives are expensive but if you got the cash, go for it.
They are Western Digital Raptors. Otherwise Stick to the Western Digital
Raid Edition drives that have had the best reviews. Stay away from MAC. Guy
from work bought one and I'm sure the OS X works great but when running XP,
it did nothing but crash. OS X is also slower at tasks than XP and for
games, the MAC doesn't do well either.

--
Love and Teach, Not Yell and Beat
Stop Violence and Child Abuse

A64 3500+, Gigabyte GA-K8NSC-939 motherboard
All-in-Wonder 9800Pro 128mb AGP
X-Fi Extreme Music,Antec 550 watt,Thermaltake Lanfire
2 Gb Dual Channel PC3200 OCZ Platinum 2-3-2-5 CL2.5
2XSATA WD 320gb Raid Edition, PATA WD 120Gb HD
Pioneer 110D, 111D, Liteon 1693 Dual Layer burners
XP Media Centre Edition 2005
Sidewinder Precision Pro 2 Joystick
Logitech optical mouse
19 in Viewsonic A91f+
BenchMark 2001 SE- 19074
Games I'm Playing- Falcon 4, SP:WAW



"Bad Disciple" <inner.phiz.DeleteThis@tiscali.be> wrote in message
news:a7CdneP5XoaToDjZRVnysg@scarlet.biz...
> Hi everybody,
>
> I am about to build my next computer for my Music Recording Home Studio.
> I'm quite 'handy' for doing this (I've already built two computers in the
> past)
> but I need help with the newest cry of the tech.
>
> -1st question, is it still valid to believe that Intel Pentium are the
> best processors?
> -Next, is it still true that putting 2 HDs in a RAID (for OS and programs)
> is
> better than the normal ?
> -Next, is ASUS still the leading name for mother boards?
> -Next, are Hard Discs with 8 or 16 MB cache the fastest; and ATA or S-ATA
> and 7200rpm or 10000rpm is to prefer ? Best label, WD, Maxtor etc. ?
> Or is there anything new?
> -And finally the eternal question, is a Mac still more reliable than a PC
> ?
>
> Thanks for feedback
>
 >> Stay informed about: Advice for building a computer 

1. yes, intel is still stronger than amd about incording
2. raid mode is fast than normal mode
but have no accesstime profit.
3. yes, ASUS and GIGABYTE are good until now
but, not good in amd system.
4. wd raptor is fastest hard in ata mode but It has nose. I recomand you to
buy wd aaks series or seagate 10 series.
5. I dont know well about it. however mac is looks good than pc.

"Bad Disciple" <inner.phiz RemoveThis @tiscali.be> wrote in message
news:a7CdneP5XoaToDjZRVnysg@scarlet.biz...
> Hi everybody,
>
> I am about to build my next computer for my Music Recording Home Studio.
> I'm quite 'handy' for doing this (I've already built two computers in the
> past)
> but I need help with the newest cry of the tech.
>
> -1st question, is it still valid to believe that Intel Pentium are the
> best processors?
> -Next, is it still true that putting 2 HDs in a RAID (for OS and programs)
> is
> better than the normal ?
> -Next, is ASUS still the leading name for mother boards?
> -Next, are Hard Discs with 8 or 16 MB cache the fastest; and ATA or S-ATA
> and 7200rpm or 10000rpm is to prefer ? Best label, WD, Maxtor etc. ?
> Or is there anything new?
> -And finally the eternal question, is a Mac still more reliable than a PC
> ?
>
> Thanks for feedback
>
 >> Stay informed about: Advice for building a computer