assembling your own PC ???

[vudoo]

I\'m planning to purchase a PC just for Giga...base on different recommandation...this will be my machine :
- AMD Thunderbird 1.2 Mhz/266
- Asus A7V133
- ATI Xpert 32 Mg video card
- Sony or Toshiba CD-rw
- 512 Mg PC133 ram
I own mostly Mac but have used/tweaked PC and Giga before but i have never assemble a PC myself...is it easy ?? should i go for it or get the store to do it. Thanks

[MikeM2001]

Just a thought...you might goto www.prorec.com (\"http://www.prorec.com\") and look for the new article: rolling your own thunderbird. It is quite informative regarding building your own system and even includes pictures, so it seems very easy!
Good Luck, Mike.

[SOD213]

*I\'m planning to purchase a PC just for Giga...base on different recommandation...this will be my machine :
- AMD Thunderbird 1.2 Mhz/266
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Good choice, the AMD chips are great performers and cost effective as well. You should see a 1.2 give the performance of a P4 1.5, at the price of a P3-800.

*- Asus A7V133
-----------------------------------------
Gotta disagree here. Asus boards, while rated highly on most sites in reviews (Anandtech, Tom\'s, etc), are quite atrocious when it comes to reliability and out of the box failures. One of my jobs at work is as a system builder, and we\'ve typically seen about a 25% failure rate on Asus boards, as opposed to about 5% on Tyan boards. Not to mention The Tyan S2390B, which has the 266/133 bus (KT133A chipset, giga-approved!), is about 25% cheaper than the Asus.

*- ATI Xpert 32 Mg video card
-----------------------------------------
If this is going to be a giga-only system, why have a higher-end video card? You should go for features that you may want in a card. I picked up a 32 meg ATI Radeon VE Dual-Display card for $100, and I have the option of running two monitors off this computer. Just imagine, GS on the left, and your sequencer or editor on the right. Forget gaming, this is a work computer! http://www.northernsounds.com/ubb/NonCGI/images/icons/smile.gif

*- Sony or Toshiba CD-rw
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Go for the Yamaha 20X. I\'ve seen problems with the Sony\'s, and trust me, you don\'t want to send anything to Sony for warranty repair. They take upwards of a month. :P

*- 512 Mg PC133 ram
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Definitely, with SDRAM prices as low as they are these days, pick up a pair of 256\'s or a single 512. I\'ve got 512 in my Win98 box, and 1gb in my Win2k system, and they both scream.

*I own mostly Mac but have used/tweaked PC and Giga before but i have never assemble a PC myself...is it easy ?? should i go for it or get the store to do it. Thanks
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It can be easy, and rewarding to do it yourself, but do yourself a favor. Pick up all the parts at a local vendor\'s shop. You may pay more than you would online, but if you have a DOA part, you can be up and running as soon as you exchange it, not 3 weeks later. I\'ve been building my own PC\'s for about 9 years now, and working on them professionally for 4, and I\'ll tell you what.. I still enjoy building a computer and seeing that very first POST. http://www.northernsounds.com/ubb/NonCGI/images/icons/smile.gif

[carlgt1]

I don\'t really think it pays to build your own. You can usually go to a computer show or private shop with a list of specs (e.g. motherboard, hard drive etc) and a vendor can put one together for you cheaper than if you bought everything separately and put it together yourself. Check the specs on the RME site for a DAW PC.

PS -- I had terrible luck with AMD and will never use them again so I stuck with a Pentium 1GHZ box with an ASUS CUSL2-C MB, 512MB which has been running great! It seems AMD designed a chip that operated at 150 deg F but nominally runs at 160 and burns out at 155! ;-)

[Gav]

If you\'re a Mac person, don\'t make the mistake of thinking that building your own machine will be in any way similar to configuring a Mac. There are all kinds of things (configuring BIOS etc...) that Mac users don\'t have to think about and if you sit down and plug your own parts together, you\'re still a long way from even reaching for the Windows98 disk.
You definately NEED someone one hand who KNOWS how to build a computer system.
Gav

[Simon Ravn]

PC\'s assembled in stores are generally (at least here in Denmark) built from inferior mobo\'s, RAM and other vital components. I have very stable computers at home, but at work and other places where computers are bought assembled I see loads of problems... When you make your own PC you know that you\'re getting good compoments - at least if you bother researching the internet about mobo\'s, RAM, soundcards etc. I\'d never buy a premade PC.

[seclusion]

I went with a pre made for audio puter..
Talked with the guy about what I was needing.. He is a studio guy too so he had idea\'s of what to expect, needs and how reliable.. I got a rack mount, quiet, P3 1 gig with 512 ram and a dual maxtron video..
He said the weakest link alot of people do is installing a ****ty 5400 C:/ drive..
This system has ATA 100 seagate 7200 drives all around.. The audio drives are from a raid controller(4 hub).. Good for future drives.. The 2 drives are seen by the puter as 1 drive so the 2 45gig drives are really 1 90 gig ata100 drive that gets written to/from really quick..
The performance is awesome.. They pushed the envelop in the factory and told me what to expect.. With a midi man8X8 port and a MOTU 2408M11 the whole system was $4000 Can..
$1600 for the 2408, 600 for the midiman..
I think it was reasonable...
And I didn\'t screw with anything.
Glass imaged on a cdr of all the info too..
1 beef..I wish I got 160 instead of 96 Duh..
It\'s comin but the wife is still getting over the inital $4000..
Brian
Once my warrantte is up I will open her up and see what the components are..
Then I may build my own..
I still think that I\'d trust them with my $$.
My logic puter may be the next thing to tackle..

[Chadwick]

You got a warranty on your wife?....Wow!

[Partyhard]

The common theme here is - shop built PCs are made to a (lowest) price while a roll-your-own PC is built to what you need or can afford. Most commercial PCs are optimised for games or bussiness as that is where the volume sales are at. I used to do just that is a previous life...

Unless the vendor is specialising in audio, don\'t pay any attention to the sales pitch - they have totally no idea what you want.

MY TIP:
Buy name brand parts from internet sites that are near to you (for low-hassle returns). Cruise over-clocker and audio card sites (specially RME) for config info. Use the MoBo\'s default settings until you feel qualified to change them and don\'t be afraid to change the BIOS settings back to default when things don\'t work so well.

For the best \"bang for the buck\" look at the second or 3rd fastest AMD Athlon chip and mildly over clock it. You always pay a premium for the highest speed, and overclocking AMD is TOO easy nowadays.

[SOD213]

Partyhard:
The common theme here is - shop built PCs are made to a (lowest) price while a roll-your-own PC is built to what you need or can afford. Most commercial PCs are optimised for games or bussiness as that is where the volume sales are at. I used to do just that is a previous life...
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The company I work for doesn\'t scrimp on quality. I know a lot of retailers in this area can build a $600 computer that will compete with an HP Pavilion. (I see a lot of those on our repair shelves too, utter garbage those are! I worked on one of them with an Aardvark card in it that belonged to the local Piano/Keyboard shop. I pointed out the guy\'s mistakes.) We have a sheet with what a pre-configured system would be, and rarely follow that to the letter. When someone wants a computer, we build it how they want it.


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Unless the vendor is specialising in audio, don\'t pay any attention to the sales pitch - they have totally no idea what you want.
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Actually, the minute someone mentions audio when they\'re talking about a new system (as we ask the customer what they want to do.. \"Gaming? You\'re going to want this Athlon 1.4, GeForce video, SB Live, etc..\" ), the salespeople come and get me. I go over what exactly the person wants to do, and I come up with a solution that\'s in their budget, and that will do everything they want it to. I have yet to have a customer that isn\'t 100% pleased with the advice I\'ve given (and/or computer I built for them).

[seclusion]

Ya the wife of course comes with a warrantte..
The place that made the puter is a dedicated place that does only high end audio only puters and ones for video editing...
I really can\'t say how simple it is when you get a system and hook it up and bam....
Beautiful piano... No crashing, No glitches..
I even patched in the gig pianp 8X\'s and just tried to hit as many keys at one time.
Once the poly gets up to 96.. I just hear the voice robbin thing.. To me it\'s like I just got a 9 space rack mount sound module that kicks major *** .. 5 for the puter, 2 for the midman, 2 for the 2408..
I must say also that I run my studio commercially and I feel really confident with this system.. My P3 700 doesn\'t get this praise.. I guess it may be the next adventure.. I have all the guts.. Dual maxtron, good ram, a 2408, and MTP AV and a scsi card.. I may get them to put all this together in another rack.. I just don\'t have $2000 approx to give away yet..
Brian

[carlgt1]

I retract my statement above, I did a \"roll your own Thunderbird\" per www.prorec.com (\"http://www.prorec.com\") and it\'s phenomenal. I use GS96 and I run out of polyphony and the memory & CPU are at 20%!
I\'m also using a \"roll your own\" as my DAW. Now hopefully I can make some music instead of tweaking boxes!