Building a Home Studio Part IV (My Computer)
I'm building my DAW computer. Here's a look at my choices. I'm fairly comfortable with computers, so if building your own computer intimidates you, you may want to skip this article.
All right, I've been configuring my computer and tweaking my options. This is going to be a fairly technical discussion and definitely PC based, so if you're just buying a Powerbook or a G4 or a Compaq or a Dell, then tune in for future chapters, this one may bore you.
ProTools runs best on Windows 98 or ME. Figuring that 98 will have less overhead than ME, I'm going to go with 98. My girlfriend also has Windows 98 and if this computer replaces that one, I won't have to buy a new license for it. I may go dual boot 98 and 2000 or XP if some programs I want run better under 2000 or XP, though switching between two OS's seems silly. If enough programs run better under ME, then I'll probably just go ME.
For a processor, I'm thinking the Athalon 2100 is a good choice. It's one of the fastest out today. I know the 2600 and 2800 have been announced. I'll have to wait until I'm ready to buy when I get back from vacation to see what I think works best for me. I'm going to use the fan that comes with it, but may upgrade at a later date if it becomes an issue.
I've been a fan of AMD ever since Intel started putting serial numbers on their chips that can be read over the Internet. Besides, it's fun to root for the underdog, and AMD does give you the most bang for the buck. Even when Intel edges them out in terms of performance, dollar for dollar AMD is the better deal. Besides, AMD always bounces right back with a faster chip.
Windows 98 doesn't support dual processors, so I went with a single board. TomsHardware.com has some good reviews of the MSI 6380 series of boards. It's performance is slightly better than another that was recommended to me, whose brand I forget at the moment. I chose the fastest - 333mhz Front Side Bus (FSB), and the fastest DDR RAM to go with it.
For RAM, Electronic Musician had an article that recommended Samsung. I've also heard good things about Kingston and a couple of other brands as well. I've decided to go with Samsung because out of the brands I've heard that were good, they were the least expensive. Windows 98 is limited, again, this time in the amount of RAM it can take - 512, so that kept my costs down. (2) 256MB chips are significantly cheaper than (2) 512 chips, which is what I originally thought I was going to get.
The Maxtor 7200rpm drives are universally recommended, so they were a no-brainer. My only choice was the size. Keeping my costs down, I decided to go with 40gb. 24 tracks of uncompressed audio for 5 minutes would yield... 50mb per track x 24 tracks = 1.2gb per song, which would let me keep 25 songs on the drive. More if I don't use all 24 tracks for audio, less if I do a lot of overdubs I want to keep. I'll back my sessions up to CD-ROM.
I'm told you shouldn't mix hard drives - keep the brand, size and model consistent. Also, you should have at least 2 hard drives, one for programs and one for your audio tracks. If you're running a software sampler, especially GigaSampler, then a 3rd hard drive should be used for the sampler.
The case is relatively unimportant to me, but there are two major considerations. One is what kind of power supply it has - 400 watts should do it. The other is how quiet it is. A third might be how many drive bays, or USB/Firewire ports and where, and this should certainly match your Motherboard. I went with a cool looking generic case. I'm not a freak about quiet, but if you are, you may want to look into quieter cases. Originally I was looking at the small Shuttle case, but since I decided on the Digi001 over the M-Box, I need more PCI slots (the Digi001 takes up 1 slot leaving very little room for future expansion) and the Shuttle only has slots.
I need to buy a new monitor as mine is on the way out and only 800x600 - I know, the it's from the dark ages of computing. I wanted a flat screen LCD, but one of those would break my budget, so I'm going to buy a CRT. They're relatively cheap and the resolution goes pretty high. I don't need great quality, just high resolution. I also want to buy a good video card that has dual monitor to both PC screen and TV, but the only one I could find was well over $100, so I may go for a cheap $30 AGP card. I wonder if two video cards - one AGP, one PCI, one with television out would work as a dual monitor setup. I'd really like to be able to use my TV for effects and the monitor for tracking, or v. v.
Speaking of video cards, I heard that motherboards with built in audio and video tax your resources, so you're better off getting a separate video card. The Electronic Musician article recommended you use the AGP slot on your Motherboard, freeing up PCI resources and that your card use the NVidia chipset, whatever that is.
Lastly, the CD-RW. I'm not sure how important this is, I mean, bits are bits right?? Actually, every time I think that, it turns out that for some reason I'm wrong. Especially when it comes to Audio CD's. The Plextors are supposed to be good, but I hear they have to match your Motherboard, and the Electronic Musician article recommended the less-expensive Lite-On series as an alternative, so I went with them.
DVD-R/DVD+R was an option too, but the world hasn't settled on a format yet. DVD disc's can be had really cheap now, like $1 each, but you have to know what you're buying because B and C grade disc's can die after just a few plays. I decided to keep my initial costs down and go with good ole CD-RW. Hopefully my session files won't run over 700mb.
Below is my price list, straight out of my text file.
format:
Item NY Price / Order Price * if order price is NY price
description
CPU $135 NY / $109 Order
AMD Athlon XP 2100+ 1.73GHz Palomino 3D CPU Retail - with Heatsink and Fan
MoBo $85 / $57
MSI KT3 Ultra2 MS-6380E KT333 SocketA 3DDR ATA133 w/Audio ATX MB
(2) Memory = $136 / $147 *
Samsung 256MB 184pin DDR PC2700 333MHz
(2) HD = $146 / $143
Maxtor D740X 40GB #6L040J2 INT IDE Ultra ATA133 7200rpm
Case $34 / $37 *
P17 Case for P4,AthlonXP 400watt
CD-RW $53 / 57 *
Lite On 40x12x48x LTR-40125s INT IDE ATAPI CDRW Drive
Video Card $45 / $35
New York: Abit Siluro GeForce2 T200 32MB With TV-Out
delivery: nVidia GeForce AGP 32MB DDR Video Card w/ TV Out
Monitor $125 / $135 *
Impression 7Plus 17 inch .27mm 16.2V 1280x1024 SVGA Monitor
floppy $12 / $13
Samsung 1.44Mb 3.5 Floppy Drive
OS $99 / $87
Microsoft Windows 98 SE Second Edition
NY hardware only: $771 + tax = $835
Order Hardware only: $733
includes delivery
Difference: $102
* Order price is NY price plus tax. In other words, the NY deal
was good enough to merit just buying it in NY, or in the case
of the Monitor, it's easier to pick it up than have it delivered.
As you can see, I can save $100 if I order a few things, but I lose the ability to return them. This is a little different from my earlier estimate, but not radically so, and that's mostly because of the difference in the amount of RAM that I'm buying, though the addition of the video card evens it out a bit. Then again, the lowest price-watch price may be lower than it would be if I started evaluating the shops that carried these items based on satisfaction reviews.
To find local dealers, I went on Pricewatch and searched for some items, like Memory, and noted down the websites of local dealers that allowed for pickup. I pay tax by buying locally and I don't get to shop around for the absolute best price, but I do get to return things with much more ease if they don't work. Also, delivery is a pain for me and I'd have to work out with a neighbor or friend to accept deliveries for me.
Yeah, I hate having to package things and bring them to the post office. I have a book I bought from Amazon that I didn't like and wanted to return but never did. It's a hassle, and shipping costs money, and I'd rather not deail with it at all.
If any of the details are wrong, and if any of you know that this will not make a good DAW for any reason, please let me know. I plan on buying this stuff in mid to late September, and while I have a few people who have been down this road advising me, you never know when one stupid detail will cost money and screw you up for time. Once I've built the system, I'll be posting more about how it went and how it works, and maybe even where I bought some things.
Equivelant Macintosh Setup
For those of you who are thinking of going Mac, I made a system on apple.com just now to compare. It has some advantages over my system, such as 72mb drives, built in ethernet ($20 for a card) and DVD. I could upgrade my computer with these items for probably $100-200. The Mac lacks a monitor, but at $125 they're cheap enough. Pro-Tools, and lots of other applications, don't support dual CPUs, but in terms of horse power, I'm guessing dual 867 is equivalent to what I've chosen.
The best deal for anyone thinking of going Mac is probably a discontinued single CPU G4, which are less expensive now (around $1300 for a basic system). Since most audio applications only support a single CPU, this would be the best you can do. Check with your software manufacturer. I know that MOTU, for example, supports dual CPU, and I hear it does very well with them, so you may want to go for the dual CPU if you want to run MOTU software.
Summary
- Power Mac G4 Dual 867MHz w/133MHz system bus
- 512MB PC2100 DDR SDRAM - 1 DIMM
- 2x72GB Ultra160 SCSI - Dual card
- Optical 1 - Combo Drive (DVD/CD-RW)
- Optical 2 - None
- NVIDIA GeForce4 MX dual-display w/32MB DDR
- Apple Pro Keyboard - U.S. English
- Mac OS - U.S. English
Subtotal $3,620.00
page first created on Monday, September 02, 2002
© Mark Wieczorek