Hello all. I just foudn this site while researching my options for building a new DAW.
Just a little background.
Started with music doing the ACID route 6 years ago.
Picked up Reason about two years ago.
Have been playing around with VST's etc for the past few months.
I have decided to get serious with my music so I am looking at where to goto next.
Recently I wiped clean my Dell 600SC server to act as my DAW
2.8 GHz P4 (533 bus)
512 Registered DDR
80 GB IDE
Yea the system has a little bit of age on it.
I recently purchased a E-MU 1820M and a M-Audio Keystation PRO 88 and this server is really feeling like a dated machine so I am looking at where to goto next.
I have been able to price up dual opteron or Xeon machines for about $1500. I have noticed that opterons seem show up more often when checking out professional DAWs. With the jump to 800 FSB and PCI-Express the Xeon also comes off nicely.
I might not need quite that much horsepower right now but it really wouldn't hurt.
Pretty much just looking for the next route to take.
Thanks in advance.
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I'm with Karl on this. A P4 2.8 ain't bad at all. Unless your do
I'm with Karl on this. A P4 2.8 ain't bad at all. Unless your doing a massive amount of tracks it should be just fine. I would also suggest at least doubling your RAM and moving to SATA HDD's if your MOBO supports it. If it doesn't perhaps a newer MOBO would be in order. 2 HDD's (1 for programs and 1 for audio) will speed up your system considerably and the extra RAM will allow more plugs and help system speed also.
Dual Processors are a waste of your money at this point. If you really feel you must upgrade the whole system start with a P4 800MHz FSB or Athlon 64 Socket 939 and a MOBO that will support Dual Channel RAM and SATA Drives. A smaller drive for programs is usually ideal (unless you store alot of samples) and get a large drive for storing your audio. 1GB of RAM is a good starting point for a new system (dual channel in this case) but look for a MOBO with 4 DIMM slots in case you want to add more RAM later.
This is all assuming you record mostly audio. If you run mostly samples and MIDI etc. your HDD sizes and RAM amounts may differ.
Hope this helps
Well thanks for the input. I really don't want to thorw any ext
Well thanks for the input.
I really don't want to thorw any extra cash into an old machine.
So I might just pick up a decent 2.8 800 P4 rig /w native SATA, probably get a 74 GB raptor for my system drive and a 200 or so gig for samples and what not.
As for my styles, right now I am working a bit of both /w midi and sample, I do see myslef using midi a good bit so i might go /w 2GB.
IMHO, you're dropping a lot of green for a fairly minor performa
IMHO, you're dropping a lot of green for a fairly minor performance boost. A P4 2.8 isn't a bad bit of power. Take that box, stuff it with RAM (another 512MB) and hard disks and start making music. Spend your money on music stuff, not a 15% (WAG) boost in computing power.