All The Pretty Soundcards....

[Doc Bonzai]

Ok..so I\'m building a big-ole system for use with Gigastudio but I also want to run my sequencer (prolly Cubase VST 5.0) on the same PC. Here are the specs I\'m looking at for the machine...

-AMD Athlon 1.2 GHZ
-Asus Via Mobo (which one, I dunno yet...A7V maybe)
-512mb (DDR memory if I can get it)
-SCSI 160 Hard drive and CD

Now here\'s the question... what is the best sound card (or sound cards if the need arises) to use in this situation, running Giga AND Cubase on one system? Also, is there a better choice of video cards (like would one conflict with the sound card more than another)? Last, is there any other hardware I\'d need?
Thanks to anyone who can help!!
Doc Bonzai

[stmikkel]

Hi.

Good look with buying a new pc. A 1,2 gh athlon is certainly the way to go. Athlon is way superior to Intel in the price vs performance ratio.

My sound card recommendations: www.FrontierDesign.com (\"http://www.FrontierDesign.com\") Dakota/Wavecenter
Good soundcards with very flexiable and stable drivers. Great support from FD.

RMH Hammerfall cards have very low ASIO latency, and have gigastudio support.

Don\'t buy the A7V mainboard now. New both DDR and SDR ram mainboards are coming out now anyday. A7V have low PCI bandwitdh, and is not recommended.
The new athlon mainboards are supposed to have better PCI performance, so I would wait for those. (Create problems with certain soundcards, and ASIO problems etc....)

[Doc Bonzai]

TO ELLE: I read that posting. I just don\'t see when they are planning on releasing it, and on what models it will be released. Perhaps you can enlighten me. Thanks.

[elle]

Look at the Egosys Gigawire statement I forwarded two topics ago

[mikek]

dude, buy the Abit KT7A Raid board, don\'t wait for the DDR boards, they offer little speed increasement, and you need very expensive ram. One thing, with these DDR boards, u WILL NOT get higher PCI bandwidth like the other guy says, u\'ll get faster/higher memory bandwidth which is NOT the same.
mike

[Bifop]

Hello !

I\'ve installed a machine a few weeks ago for a local musician with the followings :

Abit K7 Raid
Athlon T-bird 1ghz
512 mb of Pc133
Maxtor 30 gb Udma 100 7200rpm for audio/gigs
Maxtor ...................... for systems (2)and backups/storage
Yamaha 16/10/40 Ide Cd burner
Matrox G450 Dual head Vdo card
2* 19\" monitors
MAudio Delta 10/10with latest drivers
Win 98 tweaked
Gigastudio latest version and Cubase Vst5

I didn\'t have the time to do all the test I wanted (I mean real benchmarks) but I\'ve been able to get 160 voices w/gigastudio + a few audio tracks in Cubase.
I\'m blown up !!
Doc, go for the 10/10, it\'s a beautiful sounding sound card and unless you want to waste extra cash, go for Pc133 Memory and the K7 Raid. I even wonder about the need for Scsi hard drive today (my machine is all scsi...)

Hope this helps,
Good luck in your (vast) choice...

Bifop


[This message has been edited by Bifop (edited 02-01-2001).]