Tore Nylund wrote: Well, I'm going to build a new DAW soon.
I've built a few "ANUS"-machines a few years ago.
Always going for the Asus mobo's with i845, i865 or i875 chipset with Northwood P4's CPU. ( Socket 478 )
Matrox G550 or Radeon9200SE (on the buget models) Videocards.
Seagate and Western Digital HD's with 8 Mb cache.

Now it's time to build on Intel S775 mobo's and don't know wich ones that are good for building a DAW.
And what about the chipset ? i915, i925, i945 ? Or isn't Intel chipset the way to go anymore?

And what about the PCI Express videocards? Or should I try to find a mobo with AGP ?

Anything else that I need to think about?

I'd be very grateful for input.
Is Opus still around? Still building great DAW's?
Or is it someone else that really knows about how to build great DAW's?

Tore,

build an AMD X2 4400+ on the ASUS A8V Deluxe board.

Better performance, thermal management and 5 PCI slots for UAD-1 and TC Powercore cards,

My best,

Guy Cefalu
Sonica Audio Labs

Lots of audio software seems to prefer all Intel boards with a Pentium processor at the heart of the board.

We recently built a new audio only computer and used an Intel mobo and have been very happy with the results. One thing I will tell you is to use the best case you can afford and one that is specially designed for Pentium 4 processors since they can run very hot and cooling them is essential. Also upgrade the standard fan and heatsink to something that will disapate the heat faster and better and you will have a long lasting processor. We also added additional fans and every penny we put into the additional cooling has paid off.

Lots of audio software seems to prefer all Intel boards with a Pentium processor at the heart of the board.

100% completely FALSE.

i dont know of any audio software this is true of

and the only Video software i know of is Adobe. Photoshop CS
some of the 3D stuff. as its optimized for SSE3 and the new AMDs have SSE3.

everything and i mean everything else runs better on an AMD.

and i have benchmarked numerous systems for both Audio and Video Editing

Scott
ADK

Thomas W. Bethel wrote: Lots of audio software seems to prefer all Intel boards with a Pentium processor at the heart of the board.

We recently built a new audio only computer and used an Intel mobo and have been very happy with the results. One thing I will tell you is to use the best case you can afford and one that is specially designed for Pentium 4 processors since they can run very hot and cooling them is essential. Also upgrade the standard fan and heatsink to something that will disapate the heat faster and better and you will have a long lasting processor. We also added additional fans and every penny we put into the additional cooling has paid off.

Hello,

may be 10 years ago!

Today;

1. All audio applications run better on the AMD platform.

2. Now all the UAD-1 issues are gone.

3. With an AMD procesor you don't have to worry about thermal management as they run at least 20 C cooler.

4. You can get system boards like the ASUS A8V Deluxe with 5 PCI slots so that you can use more than 2 UAD-1 or TC Powercore cards.

As you can see the benefits are many.

My best.

Guy Cefalu
Sonica Audio Labs

Tore, I thought this might be a little helpful in making your decision & in support of some of the previous posts. Check this link out: http://www.intel.com/personal/build/index.htm

Now whatever combination of components you choose, be sure you have enough juice (as in powersupply) to efficiently run everything. I was forced to replace the one I had in my DAW, so I upgraded to a 520-watt, tripple fan w/ adjustable RPM (when those quiet moments are needed) power unit. Anyhow, it was on sale, so it was too good to pass up. :D

SONICA-X

We use Wavelab and it runs the best on genuine Intel boards in fact we had an AMD board installed on a computer we were building and Wavelab refused to run without studdering. We went to an Intel processor and it worked fine. This was over this last summer not 10 years ago.

We run Photoshop CS on another of our computers and when we bought the computer we contacted Adobe and they told us that for the best performance we should use an all Intel computer.

We use Vegas 5.0 on yet another computer for video and we tried an AMD processor and the program went nutso. Put in a Pentium and it runs fine.

I agree with the heat problem but in a properly cooled case we have had no problems.

I was just in Best Buy and the clerk told me that they have had a lot of problems with returns on AMD computers that refused to run certain games and assorted software. When their customers called the gaming company they were told that the games run best with the least problems on Intel chipsets.

Maybe your programs work better but here we try and stay all Intel. Your mileage may vary...

Top MB's that I know of are: (not in any order)

Asus
Abit
Intel
MSI

If you choose an intel CPU make sure the MoBo has an intel chipset.

Over the years we have had a number of MOBOs. The ones that seem not to give us any problems are the Intel and the ASUS. Not saying that other boards are bad just that we have had GOOD luck with the two mentioned. ( we did have a run of bad Intel boards on the last computer we built and had to take two of them back before we got one that was good. One of the board was burned and all the traces melted off, I think it was a return to the computer store that got put back in stock without being checked)

I have a Power Spec computer for our office and it has an SIS chipset board in it. It has been in constant use for 5 years and (loud sound of knocking on wood) and has never given us a problem. I would not use an SIS MOBO for audio but for what it is it works EXTREMELY well.

MTCW

Thanks a lot for all your input. I'm a little bit confused here...
Some say that I should build on AMD... others Intel.
In some way Intel feels more "safe"... if you know what I mean.
Anyway... one thing that I really wonder is if the AGP socket (video) is a better choice than the new PCIe?
I want the video card to use as little "power" as possible.
The DAW is only for making music so I don't need any fast graphics. Playing CS is just for retards... :wink: :D

And what about the different Intel chipsets? is any of them more suitable for musicproduction?

HI,

PCIe and AMD is a no go!
PCIe and Intel is fine with 945/955 chipsets.

either way you want a dual core porcessor.

Scott
ADK

I think the reason a lot of people have problems with AMD systems is that they build them on motherboards based around chipsets that are cheap or not widely supported.

I know many people run DAW's built on AMD cpu's with NForce 2 or 3 chipsets, and they run great. We get a lot of calls from people who buy a no-name office or gaming computer and find out it has an obscure SiS chipset, or one of the lesser supported versions of a VIA chipset, and they have problems. But usually this is not a bad CPU problem...it's a "motherboard can't handle the resources needed for DAW software" problem. They run into similar stuff on Pro level content creation apps or demanding games.

Intel seems to have better luck with this segment of the market, because they make their own brand of chipsets. Even cheap Intel CPU machines often use Intel chipsets. The software and hardware vendors have had more exposure to these chipsets so the support is better, and Intel has usually made sure they're of decent quality.

AMD doesn't make their own brand of chipset, and leaves that to the third parties. I think a lot of customers just don't know which chipset is going to do a good job for their application and have a hard time choosing.

I'm not trying to knock SiS or VIA either. Both make some good chipsets that work fine, but both also cater toward the extreme budget motherboard manufacturers, and those budget chipsets usually perform at a level that reflects their price.