chnage the OS drive for a Western Digital 40GB 8MB cache drive. You won't regret it! Will improve performance greatly!

If you can't get a Maxtor try and get a video card that is only 32MB...the more memory the card has the more bandwidth it uses which can take away performance from your audio playback due to video drawback issues.

Kingston Hyper X is a great breand to go with..no problems there.

The problem with S-ATA is it may be not as expensive but it's not yet truly implimented correctly into the OS yet..it's best to wait until the next phase of the S-ATA protocol and to wait for teh next major release of the microsoft OS

Opus :D

Hi again! Back from vacation.
Well now it's time to build a new DAW ( this time for the guitar player in Park).. so I have a question: If I want to build a up-to-date ANUS is the ASUS ASUS P4800 mobo the way to go?
I see that there are different ones to buy... some with the Intel 865G chipset and some with the
865PE, 874P chipset... sigh... so wích one is the best one for DAW's?
And isn't SATA on the mobo just an option?

And one final qustion: Since my budget is limited, is better to go with a 800 MHz FSB system with a "slow" 2.4 GHz CPU than go for 533 MHz FSB and a fast 3.0 GHz CPU ?

So Opus, are you getting any "cold feet" yet?
Isn't it something like just a month in "freedom" left? :D

My apologies for hijacking this thread but Opus made a comment about the video card that caught my attention.

Opus, could you please elaborate on the 32meg video card memory 'limit'? I ask because I have a GainWard Geforce 4 Ti4600 128 meg AGP video card. I've noticed that under XP's Performance monitor, the 'pages/sec' will peak and stay there for extended periods. This would happen when simply minimizing say the 'Aarvark Q10 Monitor' panel. The 'pages/sec' would stay peaked for a while and then eventually settle down. Closing Cubase SX would always bring the 'pages/sec' back down. I've never been able to resolve this issue, hence my interest in your comment.

Another reason I bring this up is, I'm updating my current rig and moving the older comments to another case. I could very easily buy a 32 meg 'dual-head' video card for my DAW and move the GeForce video card to the other machine.

Any suggestions on a good dual-head video card for a DAW?

thanks,
Robert

Tore

They're all good for DAW systems...it's just a matter of which flavor you want to go with!

Also which one gives you a better bargain as far as options and configurability!

Robert

No problem. The higher the memory and the more 3D graphic oriented drivers there on a video card the more it's going to suffer your bandwidth which can cause these anomolies you are seeing!

Things to try..Reduce hardware acceleration one notch at a time to see if that helps! Always reduce bit depth to 16 bits in the display settings..the less bit depth the less bandwidth it hogs!

Matrox is the tried and true 32MB card as it is only a 2D card and not a 3D card! This helps audio applications by staying off of the PCI bus in the long run!

HTH

Opus

Opus,

I've tried various combinations of your suggestions but no joy. As you may have seen from the thread I just posted, I'm upgrading my DAW. I'll move that mobo and video card to my old machine. My wife got a laptop so I get my old computer AND monitor back. I will get the Matrox G550 (dual head) for the DAW machine. Gonna get a monitor/keyboard/mouse data switch so I can have 2, that's right two monitors for Cubase SX... oh joy.

thanks again,
Robert

Well, there are no dual monitor switch boxes that I know of so you can't share two monitors with two computers for both to have dual monitors...does that make sense or was that a run on sentence? :D

Thank you OPUS.
He's going to get a mean machine.... :D
just too bad that the 40 Gb WD 8 Mb cache HD's ( for OS)aren't available here in sweden... I'll go for the 80 Gb instead.
And Hypothesis, keep us updated when you've built your DAW... It' always interesting to see what advice you did follow and how they work out.
Good Luck!

Opus,

Yea your right, there is no dual monitor switch box but that's ok. I only need the dual monitor setup for Cubase. The DAW and App machine will share the primary monitor (21" ViewSonic) via the switch box with the secondary monitor (17" ViewSonic) on the 2nd video-out of the DAW machine. This should work ok with the secondary monitor for the Aardvark Q10 monitor panel, transport bar, etc. inside Cubase. Awaiting the switch box as we speak.

cheers to all,
Robert

Robert, as Opus said... you should go for a Belkin KVM-switch. I bought some other brand but the mouse scroll-wheel didn't work with that one,
and that's one thing you need working with Cubase SX.
So I switched to Belkin... and it's just great!
I use it for my DAW and my Internet/Office computer, but I bought a 4-port switch... you never know if you maybe get a third one for VST-stack!
As always... whatever OPUS says, that's the way to go.