Asus P4P800 or Abit IS7 (Intel 865PE)
Intel P4 3.0G 800FSB (Northwood C not 533FSB Northwood B)
512Mb PC3200 DDR400 or more if u can afford it (Corsair, Geil, OCZ, Kingston)
PSU-SilenX, Antec or Thermaltake
Any floppy will do
Lite-On or Plextor burner- I'd go for a Pioneer 107D DVD-RW though!
WD 800JB 7,200rpm System
WD 360GD 10,000rpm SATA Audio

You'll also need an audio card of some description to get your signals in. Depending on what you want to record and how you want to go about it will determine which one you go for. There are so many to choose from, it would be impossible for me to list.

You'll need an Audio/MIDI sequencer software package as well. Some of these include:

Pro Tools LE 6.4 (Software/Hardware solution)
Steinberg Cubase SX 2.2
Steinberg Nuendo 2.2
Cakewalk Sonar PE 3.1.1

Compatibility...

Blade,

Any reasons that there would be any a) compatibility issues; issues of fit (e.g. motherboard to case) with the configuration you have listed, as opposed to the initial one?

Also, among the many, what are the best/most flexible audio cards among the many, that you would suggest?

Thank you for your help on this

Which of these do you regard as the most flexible and user friendly, and has the most/variety of plug ins available?

Thank you very much.
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You'll need an Audio/MIDI sequencer software package as well. Some of these include:

Pro Tools LE 6.4 (Software/Hardware solution)
Steinberg Cubase SX 2.2
Steinberg Nuendo 2.2
Cakewalk Sonar PE 3.1.1

Intel P4 3.0G 800FSB (Northwood C not 533FSB Northwood B)

Froogled this. Can't find this anywhere (noone seems to specify Nothwood C or Northwood B)

Compatability wise this will fit no worries at all. It's basically the same as what you had listed except updated.

You should be able to tell the difference with the CPU's by the following examples:

Intel Pentium 4 3.06Ghz 533FSB Hyperthread = Northwood 'B'
the 3.06G Northwood 'B' was the first to have Hyperthreading, but also came in at speeds of 2.26, 2.4, 2.53.2.66.2.8. These 'B' CPU's did not have HT only the 3.06. 512K L2 Cache

Intel Pentium 4 3.0Ghz 800FSB =Northwood 'C'
The P4 Northwood 'C' Cpu's all have Hyperthreading and come in speeds of 2.4,2.6,2.8,3.0,3.2,3.4. They'll also be marked as having 512K L2 Cache. The Extreme Edition 'C' has 2Mb L2 Cache.

Intel Pentium 4 3.0Ghz 800FSB 'E' = Prescott.
Prescott or 'E' Cpu's will be identified by having 1Mb L2 Cache. These are a little confusing 'cause at the moment the 'C' CPU's are faster and produce less heat than these Prescott's or 'E'.
These 'E' CPU's can easily be identified by either the 'E' or by the 1Mb L2 Cache. Speeds are the same as with Nothwood 'C' except the 2.4Ghz is a 533FSB CPU and I don't think there is a 2.6.

To use the features of the 'C' CPU, you must have a Mobo that supports 800FSB. These include the mobos I mentioned and have Intel 865PE chipsets. The Intel 875P chipset also features 800FSB. These also support Hyperthreading and Dual Channel Memory. SATA on board, ande AGP 8X.

For sound cards check out some of these:

M Audio Audiophile 24/96 and also the Delta range
Echo Mia
Emu 1820
digidesign MBox comes with Pro Tools LE 6.4
Terratec DMX6Fire
RME HDSP 9632
digidesign 002 and 002R comes with PT LE 6.4

For software it's a personal thing. IMHO Pro Tools LE is by far the easiest to use. But some people find that being limited to 32 tracks frustrating. PT LE also misses alot of the MIDI functions of other DAW software. Best thing is to go into a dealer and have a look at them all.

For me PT LE is very good value(Nuendo software alone is $AU2999). For $AU2000 you get a digidesign 002R that comes with PT LE 6.4. It also comes with free plugins, an ASIO driver (makes it work with Cubase SX, Nuendo, Logic, Sonar ect....) and a Wave driver (eliminates the need for another sound card for games or DVD). BTW Logic is no longer supported on PC which is sad 'cause it was nearly as easy as PT LE to use.

I forgot to mention also that in the next few weeks Intel are changing from the Socket 478 to the new 775

The 3.4G Northwood 'C' and Prescott 'E' will be the last of the socket 478 Cpu's.

Bear in mind though there are 3 new flavours of mobos.

1. Intel 865PE with the new 775. No change to PCI, AGP and DDR.
2. Intel 915 with the new 775, new DDRII and DDR. Also has new PCI Xpress. No AGP
3. Intel 925 with the new 775, new DDRII and PCI Xpress. No AGP.

You might want to hold off for a few weeks, but IMO the new DDRII and PCI Xpress graphic will be EXPENSIVE.

FWIW, The 865PE board with the new 775 socket would be the only one I would consider at this time.

I'd say an Enermax PSU 350w.

They are great.

To muddy the decision making process ...

For software, check the discussion at (Dead Link Removed)

(Dead Link Removed)

lOGIC AND dp

Thanks, Bill. I read the software forum link and they spoke quite a bit about "Logic" and "DP" , two programs I had not heard of before (I had only heard of PT, Nuendo, Sonar, Cubase) but seemed to be very popular. Any idea where I might find these?

Thanks again. very helpful!

Followup on Logic/DP question...

Found Logic and DP. Looks like they are both Mac only (I am PC). Hm. So it's basically a choice between PT, Cubase, Nuendo, and Sonar then, eh?

Sorry about the software confusion. You are right about Logic and DP being Mac applications. I had forgotten that Apple bought Logic and discontinued the PC support.

For another hardware and software possibility, I saw an ad for this in the May issued of Pro Audio Review: (Dead Link Removed).

Setting that aside, an other possibility is Adobe Audition ((Dead Link Removed)). That used to be Cool Edit Pro, until Adobe bought it. If you want to create a comlpete list of possibilities go to places like (Dead Link Removed), (Dead Link Removed) and (Dead Link Removed) to see what they sell.

I'm still in the investigative stage, so others with first hand experience can chime in here, but I think that software falls into two categories:

• Protools where you have to get their software and hardware, and that may be true for Merging, also,
• everyone else, where you pick the software you want and pick the hardware you want.

In case you hadn't found these, here are some other forums to visit:

(Dead Link Removed)
(Dead Link Removed)
forum.cubase.net/cgi-bin/cubase.net/Ultimate.cgi
(Dead Link Removed)
forum.nuendo.com/cgi-bin/nuendo.com/Ultimate.cgi

(the two URLs above, that begin with forum, aren't showing up as links, so you will have to copy and paste them rather than just click, or right click)

Thanks

Thanks, Bill

I just built a similar DAW machine recently..

Asus P4C-800E Deluxe motherboard
P4 3.2 (C model)
1G Crucial PC3200 Dual DDR memory (2x512)
Antec SLK3700BQE case
Seasonic Super Tornado 400W power supply
Seagate Barracuda 120G (IDE) system drive
Seagate Barracuda 160G (SATA) data drive
Lite-On DVD/CD burner
Zalman CNPS7000A-CU CPU Cooler

Something you may want to consider - is that most new machines are kind of loud. Now - I got a little freakish about this machine being SILENT.. so I went with the Seasonic PSU (VERY quiet.. get this or the SilenX or Zalman), the Zalman CPU cooler.. and a fan controller to manage 2x SilenX 120mm fans (isolation-mounted) and the CPU cooler. I also have an Arctic-Cooling VGA silencer on the video card. Add a little Dynamat to the case, and you have a QUIET machine.

So far, I haven't been able to get it over about 35% CPU usage during any music session... only during video encoding. It also stays VERY cool.

FYI - using an M-Audio Delta 1010/1010AI for audio I/O.
"-)