Building my own PC - what should I keep in mind?

[davepermen]

that leaves out the 128 core machine. budget for my system was around 700$ or so back in january (the pc in a drawer system.. so, just like my server, it has no case).

but yeah, amd has some interesting offers of course. i just went 100% intel the last some times. had amd earlier.

[nebulae]

and btw, my huge passive cooler, i don't know it's name right now. you can see it here in this pic:

This looks awesome, except for a couple of concerns:

1. Cats & dogs
2. Babies
3. Food
4. Moving the setup to a DJ gig

[nebulae]

BTW, I'm a huge fan of the Antec Sonata cases. They are designed extremely well, have great quiet power supplies, rubber grommets that deaden the hard drive vibrations, and they look great from the outside. They are usually my first purchase in a new PC, and they usually last me for year, well into my next two or three PCs (swapping out parts as I go with upgrades and what not). Room for three DVD drives, 4 hard drives, etc etc. I have three hard drives in my PC now.

[McQ714]

who asked you???








kidding.. i have an Antec Take 4 rackmount case. not sure they offer it anymore though. has the rubber grommets on the 4 removable hard drive trays. only room for two external 5.25" slots and 2 external 3.5" slots. but because it's only 4U of space, it's kind of tight for some CPU coolers. not a big deal for me as i have an external liquid cooler unit. but next build i'll be going with a much larger full tower case i think. i want hidden cable runs and plenty of air flow.

[zooli]

About to order this set up as a dedicated audio desktop pc (budget is around $1,000)

Any though/advise would be welcome !


Intel Core i7-860 Lynnfield 2.8GHz LGA 1156 95W Quad-Core Processor

ASUS SABERTOOTH 55i LGA 1156 Intel P55 ATX Intel Motherboard

2 x Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 ST31500341AS 1.5TB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive

G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model

Antec P183 Black Aluminum / Steel / Plastic ATX Mid Tower Computer Case

Antec CP-850 850W Continuous Power CPX SLI Certified CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS Certified Modular Active PFC

Acousti Products AcoustiPack™ ULTIMATE PC Soundproofing Kit

[davepermen]

This looks awesome, except for a couple of concerns:

1. Cats & dogs
2. Babies
3. Food
4. Moving the setup to a DJ gig

1) alergic => no pets (but it wouldn't be a problem anyways, see next points)
2) and 3) you can close it. even with a key.
4) it's the server. i've shown it for the passive cooler, as the pc doesn't have one currently. for gigging, i have a laptop, obviously 12" tablet convertible, lovely thing. can't wait for the i5 version, but no money right now for that

[nebulae]

^very cool - will look into it for my next build

[McQ714]

About to order this set up as a dedicated audio desktop pc (budget is around $1,000)

Any though/advise would be welcome !


Intel Core i7-860 Lynnfield 2.8GHz LGA 1156 95W Quad-Core Processor

ASUS SABERTOOTH 55i LGA 1156 Intel P55 ATX Intel Motherboard

2 x Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 ST31500341AS 1.5TB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive

G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model

Antec P183 Black Aluminum / Steel / Plastic ATX Mid Tower Computer Case

Antec CP-850 850W Continuous Power CPX SLI Certified CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS Certified Modular Active PFC

Acousti Products AcoustiPack™ ULTIMATE PC Soundproofing Kit

i see you're going for the combo deal on newegg!!!

you need a video card! and you don't really need an 850W. 750W would be more than enough for that setup and you could go even lower depending on your choice of video card, audio interface, and what usb or firewire peripherals you'll be using. look for a PSU calculator to see what wattage you could get by with.

[#1thelark]

About to order this set up as a dedicated audio desktop pc (budget is around $1,000)

Any though/advise would be welcome !


Intel Core i7-860 Lynnfield 2.8GHz LGA 1156 95W Quad-Core Processor

ASUS SABERTOOTH 55i LGA 1156 Intel P55 ATX Intel Motherboard

2 x Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 ST31500341AS 1.5TB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive

G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model

Antec P183 Black Aluminum / Steel / Plastic ATX Mid Tower Computer Case

Antec CP-850 850W Continuous Power CPX SLI Certified CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS Certified Modular Active PFC

Acousti Products AcoustiPack™ ULTIMATE PC Soundproofing Kit

Does the Asus have a TI-firewire chipset? If not then better pick any board with TI-firewire-chipset from Gigabyte.
Be sure to pick a huge cooler for that i7 cpu or maybe consider one of the new AMD 6-core-cpus?

[McQ714]

it's a VIA firewire controller.. but if he's not using a firewire interface it doesn't really matter. and he does have a problem he could always get an TI-based firewire expansion card.

[#1thelark]

Check his signature.... firewire chipset is highly recommended imo.

[McQ714]

meh.. he needs to get a new interface anyway!!

good looking out though.

[channelite]

I'm looking to build a Live PC too. Being a mac person forever, there are so many choices for motherboards and processors for PCs. Here's a stupid question, how much difference in performance is there between a Intel Core 2 Duo and the I3's and I5's? I'm asking this because I noticed the imac and macbooks have these processors. I'm looking to try PC just for fun. I like the idea not having to buy a pricey mac. Spent $4000 in 2006, don't want to do that again.

[Punky921]

http://www.anandtech.com/show/2921/2

http://www.anandtech.com/show/2901/7

[davepermen]

I'm looking to build a Live PC too. Being a mac person forever, there are so many choices for motherboards and processors for PCs. Here's a stupid question, how much difference in performance is there between a Intel Core 2 Duo and the I3's and I5's? I'm asking this because I noticed the imac and macbooks have these processors. I'm looking to try PC just for fun. I like the idea not having to buy a pricey mac. Spent $4000 in 2006, don't want to do that again.

i got an i5 to replace a quadcore, and in general (ableton) live usage, it performs better than the quadcore, thanks to the overclocking when not all threads are in full usage.