Has anyone built a new computer recently?

[Old Vantaa Man]

What was the spec, please?

Looking for ideas and thinking of putting a 64-bit system together running Sonar 7.

Comments most welcome.

[Doc Jones]

64 bit eh? which os were you thinking of using?

[Old Vantaa Man]

I dunno. XP, probably.

Is Cubase 64 bit yet?

[Timo]

Am in the same boat as you, OVM. Going to have to build my own system, as there are currently no affordable 17" laptops with TI firewire chipset (my former laptop died miserably). Thinking of core 2 quad-core, or maybe the next-gen quads ("Yorkfield": new fabrication at 45nm, SSE v4, 1.3GHz FSB, DDR3 support, 6 or 12Mb L2 cache) which will be released in around mid November.

Will likely install both XP 32-bit and Vista 64-bit for dual booting in parallel for the best of both worlds, and to further test compatibilities to see what software I stand to lose by moving over to V64 for good (my eventual goal).

It's a pretty exciting time for computing, but we're still at that awkward 32/64-bit, XP/Vista, DX9/10 crossover stage.

[Khazul]

Thinking of doing it.

I cant rememeber which mobo I was going to use - it wasnt an Asus this time around because they are using VIA firewire chips which are crap.

I think it was a gigabyte mobo, intel P35 chipset, TI firewire chip, intel quad core @ 2.4Ghz to keep it cheap unless the quad 3Ghz chip comes down in price. Also choosing the newer process G0 stepping CPU - lower power, lower heat etc which is good for keeping the whole machine more reliable and quieter. On memory - probably DDR2 as at any given speed DDR2 will be faster than DDR3, so DDR3 is only worthwhile when it gets alot faster. DDR2 goes upto about 1066Mhz I think and 1333 DDR3 is (I think) not quite at break even point relative to DDR2 at 1066.

As for gfx card - I guess just whatever is current with decent performance from nvidia. Again something with overkill quiet cooling on it.

Dont use stock intel coolers - my experience is they are way under spec'd once in a real machine with loads of harddrives etc, so am using a huge zalman cooler - also stuck one on the graphic card.

Case - antec P180 currently, though might look at one of their rack case next time around.

Hard drives - couple of WD 10000 RPM raptors and a couple of high capacity 7200 rpm of some random make. The raptors are for the OS and project drives, the others for relaiable main storage in a raid config.

Main thing on the case - find something with soft rubber mounting for the hard drives to cut down noise (have a look at that antec case to see what kind of thing they do) and very good airflow that allows for 120mm fans - they are much quieter and shift more air. Good dust filtering is advisable as well - as eventually the cooling fins will clog up with dust otherwise and become near useless.

[Doc Jones]

are you guys finding that all of your apps and drivers are fairly stable running in a 64 bit environment now? (I know that the devs for Ableton still recommend running their app in a 32 bit setup)

[Guzzy]

Originally Posted by Old Vantaa Man

I dunno. XP, probably.

Is Cubase 64 bit yet?

Cubase/Nuendo 64-bit Preview version for Windows Vista 64-bit editions
http://knowledgebase.steinberg.de/260_1.html

[Guzzy]

Vista, so far:
1. The Yamaha USB-midi driver that never worked on my previous PC now works, great!
2. Virus TI, only audio driver works.
3. Steinberg Midex-8, driver don't work.
4. Roland Fantom XR driver don't work.
5. Korg microKONTROL driver don't work.
6. Cubase studio 4.0 works.

Next:
Installing all drivers on XP partition(not 64-bit version).

[GROW]

I just built a beast:
Core i7 3.2
Asus p6t
6 gigs of ddr3
two velociraptor in a raid 0 for os
two tb drives in a raid 1 for backup
still using my old emu 1616m soundcard though works great

Started with Vista 32 bit...thought it was great but after a friend (hes a musician and a software developer) talked me into rolling back I did...I'm back to xp 32 and Im running WAY BETTER. Vista was a failure imo stick to xp.

I was wondering how you are planning on running your TI OS3 with Vista 64 though...do you guys know something I don't yet. I am new to this forum but I haven't seen anything about a 64 bit vst interface. Please enlighten me as my Virus is the last piece of gear I have that isn't supported and I would love to switch to Windows 7 beta and start using all this ram

[nutrinoland]

Intel i7 920 Processor
Gigabyte ex 58 ud3r mobo
kingston DDR3 1333MHz 1.5V 6 GB
Nvidia 512 mb Gforce display card
MAudio Delta 4x4 Interface
Samsung 20 inch 2033 SW monitor
7200 RPM IDE Hard Drive (old)
Glacial Power 650 Watt PSU
Cooler MAster Cabinet


I still have to assemble this computer....just got it...

I wanna use a 64 bit OS cause i wanna utilize all 6 GB of RAM.
I am also running Protools. As of now Protools only supports Vista 64 which sucks...so i'm gonna have to get used to using vista for a while....till windows 7 works with Protools..
Also my audio interface drivers are only compatible with vista 64...

i really do not wanna sacrifice 2 GB of RAM by going with a 32 bit OS..

so VISTA IT IS !!