Advice Needed - Building Ultimate PC

xpl2003 · Post by **xpl2003** » Sun Mar 13, 2005 10:01 pm

Hi all

Can you all give me advice on building my next dream PC.

Had enough of my current PC which is:

Athloon 2600 XP
Asus Mobo
1.25 gig ram (333mhz)
120 gig ATA133 Seagate HD
AudioPhile USB

Heres what i have in mind:

Athlon 64 3500
Gigabit Mobo
1gig Matched 400mhz Dual Channel DDR
160gig SATA 150 HD
Same soundcard

I have a Monitor/Monitors/Mixer/Controllers

I will be running Windows XP Sp2/Ableton/Various VST etc as i am now.

What do you think the performanced difference will be?

Should i get a Pentium 4 3.4 instead?

Any advice would be much appreciated.

Cheers

XPL

sqook · Post by **sqook** » Mon Mar 14, 2005 12:43 am

Given the choice between an opteron and a pentium, go with the amd64 all the way. Also, get a serial ATA hard drive instead of standard ATA; they're not that much more expensive and run very well in windows.

MrYellow · Post by **MrYellow** » Mon Mar 14, 2005 2:24 am

Gigabit Mobo

Haven't liked them since I had one which was below standard and
crashed. Love the high-end ASUS boards... and Shuttle is good.

160gig SATA 150 HD

Maybe to make it truely "Ultimate" you could get like a small ATA drive
for OS+programs and keep the SATA 100% just for audio. I know no one
seems to be too concerned about this now-a-days with software getting
better.... call me old-fashioned.

Should i get a Pentium 4 3.4 instead?

AMD kick their ass, price, quality, cache, fsb, every-which-way.

-Ben

gaspode · Post by **gaspode** » Mon Mar 14, 2005 2:31 am

I'd stick 2GB of RAM in there if I were you... also, if you've got the room I'd throw in 2 Drives, so that if you possibly have a RAID card you can get a bit better drive performance...

AdamJay · Post by **AdamJay** » Mon Mar 14, 2005 2:54 am

well, athlon 64 3500 scored 20% on the Performance test
(lower scores are better btw)

the average Athlon XP 2600 score was 26%.

so *OVERALL* the Athlon 64 3500 is 30% MORE effecient.
its not a huge jump.

if i were you i would NOT build the new system, its just not enough of a speed increase for all the $$ you will be spending on new parts. Instead, what i would do is this: Assuming your Athlon XP 2600 has a 333mhz FSB, and it looks that way because of your ram, you can go up to an Athlon XP 3000 333mhz for $109 USD HERE. the Athlon XP 3000 scored a 22% on the Live 4 Performance. Thats not very far off the Athlon 64 3500, but still better than the XP 2600.

Get the XP 3000 for now and wait a year or two while new technology is developed and cpu prices come down. Chances are by then for the same price you'll get an Athlon 64 4000, HD prices will be less, and you will see a much larger performance Gain from XP 3000 to 64-4000 than you would today beteween XP-2600 to 64-3500.

aklisiewicz · Post by **aklisiewicz** » Mon Mar 14, 2005 5:44 am

Get either MICROSTAR (eventually ABIT or GIGABYTE) mother board, Athlon-64/3000, ATI-9800Pro video card, 2 SATA/256Meg-cache Hard Drives connected to RAID controler (set as RAID-0 /striping), min 1024Meg of DDR RAM, sound card of your choice (I would go for EMU Emulator), and PLEXTOR CDRW. These my choices. I have machine like this (except for the Emulator) and I'm really happy.
Also I would reccomend power supply of at least 350 Watts, to stay out of problems. This should get you started. If you hunting for good deals check prices at: www.pricewatch.com This would give you an idea how much would it all cost.

Hope this helps...
Arthur

iskandar · Post by **iskandar** » Mon Mar 14, 2005 10:13 am

i will be upgrading soonish as well, but i would wait as Dual cores will be out mid year , they are currently being tested in real world so it wont be long, then single processors will come down in price , ive been watching the price of the Athlon 64 FX55 2.6 this cpu and others are coming down in a big way,so i gather shops are trying to get rid of bulk stocks before the new wave of dual cores hit the shelf...

I would go for two HDs SATA
Depending on how much resources your currently using either get 1 gig or 2 gig of ram if your using a lot of vsts then go the 2 gig but usually your cpu will clap out before your ram when using vsts.. with vsts you need a power cpu to run many..

with your current setup im sure you could wait a bit longer...

i would..

xpl2003 · Post by **xpl2003** » Mon Mar 14, 2005 8:50 pm

Thanks Guys.

I am still deciding at the moment.

I need to replace my mobo anyway because i suffer blue screen crashes and when i reboot the pc it doesnt find my hard drive.

Think ill go for a replacement motherboard - I think the ASUS A78NX-X it has Nforce Chipset etc.

3 x 512mb Gail Memory - SATA-150 120gig 7200 Seagate HD - New DVD Writer (Pioneer 109) - Keep my ATHLON 2600 (MAYBE i should replace the chip and mobo with a ATHLON 64 3000 939 with a ASUS Mobo). I already have a RADEON 9800pro with dual display.

I have a Asus Mobo at the moment buts it only 333mhz and VIA CHIPSET - seeems alot of people have trouble with VIA Chipsets?

Ugh its puzzling to what buy

AdamJay · Post by **AdamJay** » Mon Mar 14, 2005 9:22 pm

xpl2003 wrote: (MAYBE i should replace the chip and mobo with a ATHLON 64 3000 939 with a ASUS Mobo).

that sounds like a great idea.

supster · Post by **supster** » Mon Mar 14, 2005 9:41 pm

xpl2003 wrote:VIA CHIPSET - seeems alot of people have trouble with VIA Chipsets?

may the fleas of a thousands camels curse VIA for 7 generations.

I am now convinced this is what is making Live interface performance "sticky" and non-reponsive ... sometimes its like wading thru mud getting anything done at even 40% cpu ...

Wondering:

I have no doubt (well not much) that Ableton is working to add dual CPU support for MAC and PC for vs 5. I mean, given that thier product is becoming 'the thing' to have now, and performance is always an issue, it should be near the top of thier priority list ...

Are there dual Athlon 64 mobos available? If not are they coming soon?

dpel · Post by **dpel** » Mon Mar 14, 2005 10:03 pm

AdamJay wrote:well, athlon 64 3500 scored 20% on the Performance test
(lower scores are better btw)

the average Athlon XP 2600 score was 26%.

so *OVERALL* the Athlon 64 3500 is 30% MORE effecient.
its not a huge jump.

if i were you i would NOT build the new system, its just not enough of a speed increase for all the $$ you will be spending on new parts. Instead, what i would do is this: Assuming your Athlon XP 2600 has a 333mhz FSB, and it looks that way because of your ram, you can go up to an Athlon XP 3000 333mhz for $109 USD HERE. the Athlon XP 3000 scored a 22% on the Live 4 Performance. Thats not very far off the Athlon 64 3500, but still better than the XP 2600.

Get the XP 3000 for now and wait a year or two while new technology is developed and cpu prices come down. Chances are by then for the same price you'll get an Athlon 64 4000, HD prices will be less, and you will see a much larger performance Gain from XP 3000 to 64-4000 than you would today beteween XP-2600 to 64-3500.

adam is right.
the system of which he is talking about is mine.
and it's quite solid. move up to the 3000 and maybe
upgrade the drives as well.

xpl2003 · Post by **xpl2003** » Tue Mar 15, 2005 10:04 am

Thanks for all the advice.

Here was my final decision.

New Asus A78NX Deluxe Mobo - £60
New Pioneer 109 DL 16x DVD Writer - £50
New SATA 120gig Seagate Hard Drive - £55
Cables - Thermal Compound etc.

My reasons for the above are:

I only have a 4x dvd writer at the moment, the SATA will give me 2 hard drives to work with now, the motherboard has better features and is a nforce 2 chipset intead of VIA!! Its also more modern.

I didnt want to spend like £450 on something that wouldnt be that much faster!

Total : £175

I will integrate my current parts into the new parts.

I will maybe sell my current chip/mobo/memory on ebay in the future and purchase the Athlon 64 then when prices come down.

Thanks for all the advice guys.

Advice Needed - Building Ultimate PC

Advice Needed - Building Ultimate PC

:P

Thanks for the Advice

Re: Thanks for the Advice

Re: Thanks for the Advice

Decision