Sonikmatter: Building a PC from scratch - good idea? - Sonikmatter

Okay, I'm doing some work at this office and I ask the IT guy how much to build a nice PC and he says $500.00 and it's easy, is this true? Any resources to read on how to do it? Tips?

Thanks,

Robert

Well, wearing my best flamesuit, i dare to say that this is the usual response you can expect from an IT guy. They usually have *no* idea what it takes to build a serious machine for audio, video or anything else more real-time demanding than an office network.

Christian

show reel home page studio pics gear list

Then you have built a serious audio machine? Maybe you could share your experience with me so I don't embark on a project that I can't handle.

Thanks,

Robert

First piece of advice would be to find a BIG case for your new machine. Small maybe space saving but big will require less cooling.

Fastest Motherboard you can find that will also support SATA interfaced drives (taking away the need for external drives)

Do a lot of research before you consider doing this.

Sound on Sound PC Notes section

Good luck.

C

If it's harder than going down to Fry's and picking up some parts then screwin it together I'll probably pass - lifes short.

Last time I did this, I had a lot of good help from the Windows Hardware Section here on the board. I'll move this topic over there. I ended up with a very solid system - my only regret is that it is a bit on the noisy side, though this is solvable.

The easy part of this is to buy the parts and assemble them. The hard part is to know which parts to buy. Hopefully someone with recent experience on this can chime in; unfortunately PC users are a rapidly diminishing species on a logic board like this one. You may be better helped on other fora. Good luck.

>Then you have built a serious audio machine?

Me ? Hell, no. I'm on a Mac.

Christian

show reel home page studio pics gear list

$500 seems a bit low... sure you can build "a nice pc" for that, but nothing at all special or up to current standards for audio. that was true six years ago when i built the best system i could (for $1100), and it's true now.

If that's all you feel you can or should spend, then consider a slightly used system for less than that (if you have computer stores near you with used equipment), and then add on to it. or, you can just upgrade your current PC. $500 worth of new mobo/processor/ram can take you somewhere you're happy with, and likely well beyond a new system scrapped together for that amount.

as to what to add... well, it's been a while since i was even remotely current on computer hardware. i'm happy to just have something that gets me on line, and can withstand my mad scientist experiments in hardware hacking!

This is the system I just had built for me. It was about US$1300. I already had a lunchbox case (with built-in monitor). So i was just upgrading the guts. MAybe this will give you an idea of price. With this machine I'm good for probably 3 years. It's a bitchin' soft sound module right now.
Prices are in new taiwan dollars...about 33 to the US dollar.


1. (mobo) GA-K8NS ULTRA-939 / Socket 939
NT$ 4,000



2.(CPU) AMD Athlon64 3500+ 939P CPU / 939Pin / 512K
NT$ 9,100


3. (HD)WD 120GB / 8MB / SATA150 / 7200 RPM (WD1200JD)
NT$ 2,980 x 2
NT$ 2,850 *2 = NT$ 5,700


4. KINGSTON DDR 400 512MB NT$ 2,680 x 4
NT$ 2,390 *4 = NT$9,560


5. Seasonic Super Tornado 400w Active PFC Silent Power Supply
with 120mm Cyclone Cooling Fan
NT$ 2,800
6. Windows Pro XP
NT$ 5,100

7. liquid cooler system NT$2,500


Total: NT$38,760


Oh, and it's very quiet with the liquid cooling system. Definitely recommend that.

This post has been edited by SteveH: 22 April 2005 - 07:53 PM

Nice! That's cool to know the price that I can expect to pay - thanks everyone for taking the time to respond.

Robert

Another reason to go socket 939, is that the upcoming Athlon Dual Core CPU's are designed for that socket. As for the RAM I would put a gig ( two 512mb sticks for dual channel operation) and as low latency as you can afford. I just replaced my 2 512's with an OCZ dual channel kit (OCZ4001024ELDCPE-K) with 2-3-2-5 latency and the system's general responsiveness and Logic's ability to add softsynths has increased dramatically compared to the generic ram I was running...

The SATA drives make sense as well, because the CPU overhead required is much lower than ATA. Nice system SteveH!

Thanks. the machine rocks. It's very, very stable! Networks nicely with my Powerbook (running Logic) + Forte + Midi Over LAN CP.

I opted for this XP machine rather than pay $4000+ for a G5 machine.


If I might add, I had a friend assemble it for me. Which was an extra $150 (US$).

Totally up to you. I just happen to know someone who loves doing that. The price was for free but I couldn't NOT pay him. (Gotta keep the good karma flowin'...and the economy, of course)

So that's something else to look into. There are just so many cats out there that can build these machines (That are not part of music computer companies).

They keep themselves up to date as to the parts and XP tweaks.

I can't stand that stuff personally.

Good luck.