My toughts on my new computer, i need suggestions

[burt]

I\'m about to buy a new computer that i want to use for (among other things) sequencing and GS at the same time. Here\'s a few doubts i have. I really hope some of you have anything to say about any or all of these matters.

First of all, i\'m hearing stories that Giga Studio hates AMD Thunderbirds, and Matrox video cards. Is that true? Both seem like the most economical choices.

Is a dual head video card a better solution for 2 monitor screens than having two different video cards? (I know this is not a 100% GS-oriented question, so i\'ll forgive you if you omit this one ;-> )

I have a SB-live, i know it\'s not the best around, but most of the time i make mixdowns and burn the final product on CD, so i\'m not really dependent on the in- and outputs. Am i gonna be in trouble?

Right now, 266Mhz memory is almost twice as expensive as 133Mhz. Is it worth twice the money, or should i start of with only 128 MB of 266Mhz and upgrade if it\'s cheaper? Or won\'t i even notice the difference and better invest my money in a faster processor or something?

I\'ve learnt a great deal already from reading this forum, thanks for sharing your experiences!

[RavenAudio]

gs machine here is running a g450 dual head here, like a charm. no problems there.

-Markus

[killerbobjr]

I\'m running GStudio on an AMD Tbird with a Matrox G400 with nary a problem. One thing you need to be aware of with the SB Live! is that there are conflicts with the PCI bus in AMD chipset motherboards using the 686B southbridge chip (most of the latest 133 and 266DDR boards). You need to get the latest VIA drivers (ver. 4.31) and make sure the motherboard you get has the latest BIOS update. Most importantly tho, since the SB Live! doesn\'t have a GSIF driver, you can\'t use GS and a sequencer at the same time on a single pair of outputs. You\'d be better off skipping the SB and getting a soundcard with GISF drivers. Midiman makes a good, inexpensive card (Delta 44) that will give you one pair of outs for GS and another for your sequencer.

As far as the performance difference between DDR and SDR boards, you\'re looking at 4-6% improvement in performance for a little more money. RAM is cheap right now with PC2100 256M going for as low as $72 (www.pricewatch.com). So if you are buying a completely new system, it\'s worth it to spring for DDR.

Dual head on the G400 is really nice, but I can\'t really use it effectively since my desk is holding my 20\" video monitor and my two studio speaker monitors, so there\'s not much room for a second video monitor. But I don\'t find it really necessary to have GS visible all the time when I\'m sequencing.

[elle]

http://www.lenniemoore.com/blakrack.html (\"http://www.lenniemoore.com/blakrack.html\")