Thread: New recommedation list for 2009 DAW?

might be a good link...

http://www.adkproaudio.com/benchmarks.cfm

A few suggestions up front:

15K rpm drives are loud. I wouldn't want those in a DAW. Perhaps a WD Raptor 10K rpm for samples would be nice.

If you want to spend big bucks, consider Intel's SSDs (in RAID0). That's a nice way to saturate a S-ATA port.

A cheaper alternative would be WDs newest 2TB 7200rpm drives with 500GB platters. With Cubase you can decide which tracks are recorded on which HDD, so two of those will definately get you there.

The Intel Core i7 965 you mention is expensive (about $1000). Do you really need that much power? Well if you do, go ahead. Consider the 940 that is alread very powerful at stock speed.

Do you have any DSP cards e.g. TC Powercore, UAD etc? They would get you a load of extra plugins without taxing the CPU. If they are PCI-e they will likely last you multiple upgrades.

FYI: the Core i7 on board memory controller is Tri-channel with massive bandwith. Be sure your motherboard supports the (large) amount and speed of the RAM (DDR3 in this case) you desire. Sometimes occupying all slots asks for a lower RAM speed.

edit: RAID1 is mirroring / RAID0 is striping. The latter will of course give you better sustained write/read numbers. This RAID0 will have to be hardwarecontrolled through the chipset, not software. Most modern chipsets feature RAID0.

If price is no object? Why are you playing with disk drives? You are only planning for obsolescence if you are including disk drives. Disk drives will be gone by tomorrow. That magazine in your bathroom is already too old. The only thing that will be green about your computer is you. Maybe it's just ED?

Not a factor for me
Ms. Remy Ann David

True. I forgot about the solid state drives.

Motherboard - gen something with at least 2 PCIe 2.0 full slots in case you want to run raid cards or PCIe FX cards like the UA. Lots of SATA ports is a good thing too.

Memory - get the proper speed memory for your CPU and MB. #GB for Win XP, skys the limit for Vista or Win 7.

Hard drives - SATA is what you want, SCSI and SAS are a waste in DAW applications and are very loud at 15k rpm. Get a few large drives for the OS, working files, and samples (or backup).

DVD - you can get a $30 DVD burner for now, BR is still $200+.

Sound card - you can go PCI/PCIe or FW. Choose wisely - no reason to have to trade in a cheap card in 6 months.

Power supply - go for something quiet with enough juice and connections for your stuff. You don't need 1000w.

CPU - many choices... I7, Phenom, Phenom 2, Core 2 Quad; all are good. I7 takes more expensive DDR3 memory, others typically use DDR2.

CPU fan - go Zalman for quiet and effective cooling.

Computer cases are important - get something already silent (like an Antec Sonata 3) or one that can be made so.

Video cards - you don't want a gamer card with a loud fan and outrageous power demands. Go for a fanless card with HDMI and DVI outputs for future proofing.

sorry Fred have to completely disagree.

while what you say would hold true for nearly any hobbiest definately not true for most pro level guys, Composers and high end hobbiest.

every fired up BFD, Omnishpere?
Vienna Symphonic?
East West?
ever tried to work @ 128 buffer or below on a serious project?

to the OP,
Fred is right about sticking with Sata.
they are wicked fast reading but still slower than stanard sata for read even the mighty Intel X25.

nice as an OS drive if you have more money than you need as it does make things snappier, but as a record to drive worthless.

Scott
ADK