Recommendations?

[Steve Byers]

I have a protools LE 7.4 rack factory with a focusrite 428 preamp. I am
trying to scrounge some money to purchase a new PC. I am having troubles
locating one because of cost and secondly, meeting the requirements as
specified on Digidesign's site under approved hardware for computers. The
easiest but more costly solution is to buy a computer that is designed and
tweaked for protools operation like the XPC, but at 3 times the cost of
building my own. I have narrowed down my search to Future shop and a
private dealer in Ottawa, however I am open to any other recommended
suppliers or other suggestions?

I will be using the standard pluggins that come with protools LE factory 7.4
S/W. I have a nice set of KRK V8's waiting to be used. My biggest slowdown
in getting my system working is cost.

Before this my system was very low end, Cubase SX 3.0 and a delta audio card
(http://www.m-audio.com/products/en_us/Audiophile2496-main.html) and
behringer 8 ch mixing brd. I've basically given up on this system and am
focusing on fixing up my room in my basement. It's all a costly and time
consuming venture.

Kind regards,
S. Byers

[Beauchampy[_2_]]

Steve Byers wrote:
> I have a protools LE 7.4 rack factory with a focusrite 428 preamp. I am
> trying to scrounge some money to purchase a new PC. I am having troubles
> locating one because of cost and secondly, meeting the requirements as
> specified on Digidesign's site under approved hardware for computers. The
> easiest but more costly solution is to buy a computer that is designed and
> tweaked for protools operation like the XPC, but at 3 times the cost of
> building my own. I have narrowed down my search to Future shop and a
> private dealer in Ottawa, however I am open to any other recommended
> suppliers or other suggestions?

Build one!

I did a lot of research before building my new computer (have a look on
the DUC forums) and ended up buying these parts.

Asus P5K Motherboard
Intel Q6600 Processor
2GB of OCz ram (although there is little known compatibility problems
with any RAM and Pro Tools - get whatever is branded and cheap).
An SIIG firewire controller.
OCz 600w Silent Power Supply Unit.

Thats pretty much the base for a compatible system. The only thing left
to add would be a PCI-E graphics card and a SATA hard drive. Any make
of either of these should be fine. Oh yeah, and a case.. and leave room
in your budget for any extras like cooling fans. Probably best to price
everything up and see if you can afford it. If you are unfamiliar with
building a computer there are plenty of guides on the internet.

If you are going to buy a new system, check what chipset the motherboard
contains. I hear there's a lot of nightmare stories about people trying
to run PT on a 680i chip set. Any P35 chip set should be fine.

>
> I will be using the standard pluggins that come with protools LE factory 7.4
> S/W. I have a nice set of KRK V8's waiting to be used. My biggest slowdown
> in getting my system working is cost.
>
> Before this my system was very low end, Cubase SX 3.0 and a delta audio card
> (http://www.m-audio.com/products/en_us/Audiophile2496-main.html) and
> behringer 8 ch mixing brd. I've basically given up on this system and am
> focusing on fixing up my room in my basement. It's all a costly and time
> consuming venture.
>
> Kind regards,
> S. Byers
>
>

[Philipp Wachtel[_4_]]

Beauchampy:

> Thats pretty much the base for a compatible system. The only thing
> left to add would be a PCI-E graphics card and a SATA hard drive.
> Any make of either of these should be fine.

For graphics cards, I would not say "any make should be fine". There are
many cards on the market, that use a part of the main RAM, when the card´s
own RAM is not enough - you don´t want that on a DAW machine. So, avoid
"Turbocache" or "VGA shared". Besides that, it has become a trend to build
graphics cards with a "small" pcb, so the second output connector is only
attached to the metal piece for the slot and connected via a small ribbon
cable.
PCI-E Graphic cards with "good" design cost about 50 EUR/$ - everything
cheaper has usually some kind of drawback.

Phil

[Mike Rivers]

On Dec 7, 7:35 am, "Philipp Wachtel" > wrote:

> For graphics cards, I would not say "any make should be fine". There are
> many cards on the market, that use a part of the main RAM, when the card´s
> own RAM is not enough - you don´t want that on a DAW machine. So, avoid
> "Turbocache" or "VGA shared".

This may have made a difference when there was 256 MB of RAM and the
graphics card stole 64 MB of it, but with systems being built with 2
MB or more of RAM, does it really matter? Does the graphics card
actively attack the system RAM once things get partitioned at boot-
up?

[Beauchampy[_2_]]

Philipp Wachtel wrote:
> Beauchampy:
>
>> Thats pretty much the base for a compatible system. The only thing
>> left to add would be a PCI-E graphics card and a SATA hard drive.
>> Any make of either of these should be fine.
>
> For graphics cards, I would not say "any make should be fine". There are
> many cards on the market, that use a part of the main RAM, when the card´s
> own RAM is not enough - you don´t want that on a DAW machine. So, avoid
> "Turbocache" or "VGA shared". Besides that, it has become a trend to build
> graphics cards with a "small" pcb, so the second output connector is only
> attached to the metal piece for the slot and connected via a small ribbon
> cable.
> PCI-E Graphic cards with "good" design cost about 50 EUR/$ - everything
> cheaper has usually some kind of drawback.
>
> Phil
>

Good points made. Get a 6600GT, they go for peanuts on eBay these days
and they're nice and fast with a shed load of RAM.

>

[Beauchampy[_2_]]

Boris Lau wrote:
> Beauchampy wrote:
>> Good points made. Get a 6600GT, they go for peanuts on eBay these days
>> and they're nice and fast with a shed load of RAM.
> or a 6800GT, if you like to have 2 DVI outputs.

My 6600GT has two DVI outputs.

>
> Boris

[Boris Lau]

Beauchampy wrote:
> Good points made. Get a 6600GT, they go for peanuts on eBay these days
> and they're nice and fast with a shed load of RAM.
or a 6800GT, if you like to have 2 DVI outputs.

Boris

[Boris Lau]

Beauchampy wrote:
> Boris Lau wrote:
>> Beauchampy wrote:
>>> Good points made. Get a 6600GT, they go for peanuts on eBay these days
>>> and they're nice and fast with a shed load of RAM.
>> or a 6800GT, if you like to have 2 DVI outputs.
>
> My 6600GT has two DVI outputs.

oh sorry, I was totally mixing up the numbers, just forget it :)

Boris