Building a pc daw questions, What are the best brands to buy of ram, drives, etc...

[jimminy cricket]

if you want the best parts for your the pc your building

What is the best ram for recording...DDR3?

Is corsair the best type of ram ?

What about hard drives?

is seagate better then western digital ? somebody said western digital is not known for best quality.

What about motherboards and cpu's...how do i determine what is compatible with my soundcard interface ?...who do i call, what if they don't give a satisfactory answer ?


OH, here's one i want to know

What is the significance of watts in the power supply...how come some people have 250watt power supply and others have 600 watt psu...what is the benefit or trade off ?

thanks, i got more questions too

[jimminy cricket]

what is a fast speed for my hard drive's read/write cache ?

what is the fastest fsb made on ram today and how much difference does that make ?

how many hard drives should i get, and how beneficial is raid...and is that risky in terms of drive failure or less risky ?

[jagcmos]

Originally Posted by jimminy cricket

if you want the best parts for your the pc your building

What is the best ram for recording...DDR3?

Is corsair the best type of ram ?

What about hard drives?

is seagate better then western digital ? somebody said western digital is not known for best quality.

What about motherboards and cpu's...how do i determine what is compatible with my soundcard interface ?...who do i call, what if they don't give a satisfactory answer ?


OH, here's one i want to know

What is the significance of watts in the power supply...how come some people have 250watt power supply and others have 600 watt psu...what is the benefit or trade off ?

thanks, i got more questions too

DDR3 is the latest type of ram and usually the fastest. It depepends on the mother board and processor whether all 3 ports to/from the ram are used.

Corsair ram is good, but no faster than ram with the same specifications.

I have both seagate and western digital drives and both work fine.

I would make sure that you are using a sata 7200 rpm drive with a minimum of 16 Gbytes of internal cache.
Make sure you have at least one hard drive dedicated to recording only.

As for motherboards... If you plan on using a USB or PCI interface then most motherboards will work fine. Firewire interfaces tend to be more picky and work well with TI (texas instrument) firewire chipsets.

PSU wattage ratings are based on the total amount of current available from the supply. Voltages are usually +3.3, +5, -5, +12 and -12.
The wattage is a cumulative of all the voltages in the supply.
The more watts that are available means that it can support more periphial devices such as graphics cards, drives, pci cards , etc...

[jimminy cricket]

Originally Posted by jagcmos

DDR3 is the latest type of ram and usually the fastest. It depepends on the mother board and processor whether all 3 ports to/from the ram are used.

Corsair ram is good, but no faster than ram with the same specifications.

I have both seagate and western digital drives and both work fine.

I would make sure that you are using a sata 7200 rpm drive with a minimum of 16 Gbytes of internal cache.
Make sure you have at least one hard drive dedicated to recording only.

As for motherboards... If you plan on using a USB or PCI interface then most motherboards will work fine. Firewire interfaces tend to be more picky and work well with TI (texas instrument) firewire chipsets.

PSU wattage ratings are based on the total amount of current available from the supply. Voltages are usually +3.3, +5, -5, +12 and -12.
The wattage is a cumulative of all the voltages in the supply.
The more watts that are available means that it can support more periphial devices such as graphics cards, drives, pci cards , etc...

thanks

but so there aren't any bad ram companies ??

or bad hard drive companies ??

also

i thought there was something else about power supply's...that 500 watt doesn't necassarily make it better there was some other factor...no ?


what about graphics...I don't want any major graphics card but something acceptable, but should I avoid something that's integrated and how to i make it so the graphics card doesn't use my ram for music programs...i get different ram or something ??


WHAT if i want to use pci and firewire ???

I want to see which has less latency vs. portability i might choose firewire if the trade off is worth it but is there a pc motherboard that does well with pci and firewire?

If i decide to go firewire should I just buy a mac since they are the creators of firewire??????????????


hepl

[jimminy cricket]

ckan i really get away with using my pc daw as my internet computer and have no virus protection or firewall that will fuk with my performance if i only go to music sites and don't dl executable files nd don't watch porn????

will my pc daw be relatively safe without that bullch1t if i practice safe internet practices or what ?????????????

[fortyseven]

if you have a windows based pc you will need an anti-virus, regardless of whether you watch porn or not.
yes antivirus does slow your machine down somewhat but rather that than ending up with an intruder that corrupts your computer so badly that the only way out is a format, causing all sorts of data loss. its happened to me as im sure its happened to many others.

As for your original post, just because ddr3 is the latest in ram technology does not necessarily mean its the best. too many people get caught up in a 'whats the best' race rather than focus on actually getting the stuff and recording. it will make no real difference to your recordings if you have ddr3 or ddr2; as long as you have enough of it.
smae applies to hard drives; ive had all manner of hard drives in my time and i cant really say that one was significantly better than any other. just make sure that you have a high rpm; anything above 7200.
as for cpu's and motherboards; its up to personal tastes. remember that you are not building a gaming machine so dont get sidetracked by all the fancy gaming stuff that you will not need. as long as you have enough processing power from the cpu and enough of the right ports from your motherboard, you should be good to go.
i dont necessarily believe that one make of anything is definitely better than any other; its all a matter of opinions. i might say that a ferrari is better than a porche; doesn't make it true though; its just my opinion.

every device that you put into your computer has a power requirement. so the more hard drives, expansion cards etc you want in your machine the more power you are going to need and the bigger your psu will have to be. the psu has nothing to do with the actual performance of your computer.

one last thing, i would try to keep my daw and internet computer seperate if possible. that way you know your daw will always be safe and you will have less worry about viruses and antiviruses.

[fortyseven]

oh yes i forgot to mention, there has been a lot of debate over firewire vs usb. there are two schools of thought as far as i can see; those who swear firewire is better and those who believe usb is no different. this argument could go on forever but honestly, in my opinion based on my own experience, i have not seen any difference between the two. sure the firewire enthsiasts will now present the various benefits of firewire over usb but ultimately none of us could ever sit back and listen to a recording and say 'hey you can just hear that track was recorded using firewire..'.
both have their ups and downs, as with any competing technologies. the bottom line is what works for you.if you have an available firewire port and you want a firewire interface, get it. if you dont have a firewire port, then get a usb interface. quite simple really.

[jimminy cricket]

Originally Posted by fortyseven

if you have a windows based pc you will need an anti-virus, regardless of whether you watch porn or not.
yes antivirus does slow your machine down somewhat but rather that than ending up with an intruder that corrupts your computer so badly that the only way out is a format, causing all sorts of data loss. its happened to me as im sure its happened to many others.

As for your original post, just because ddr3 is the latest in ram technology does not necessarily mean its the best. too many people get caught up in a 'whats the best' race rather than focus on actually getting the stuff and recording. it will make no real difference to your recordings if you have ddr3 or ddr2; as long as you have enough of it.
smae applies to hard drives; ive had all manner of hard drives in my time and i cant really say that one was significantly better than any other. just make sure that you have a high rpm; anything above 7200.
as for cpu's and motherboards; its up to personal tastes. remember that you are not building a gaming machine so dont get sidetracked by all the fancy gaming stuff that you will not need. as long as you have enough processing power from the cpu and enough of the right ports from your motherboard, you should be good to go.
i dont necessarily believe that one make of anything is definitely better than any other; its all a matter of opinions. i might say that a ferrari is better than a porche; doesn't make it true though; its just my opinion.

every device that you put into your computer has a power requirement. so the more hard drives, expansion cards etc you want in your machine the more power you are going to need and the bigger your psu will have to be. the psu has nothing to do with the actual performance of your computer.

one last thing, i would try to keep my daw and internet computer seperate if possible. that way you know your daw will always be safe and you will have less worry about viruses and antiviruses.

Thanks.

Impossible to keep my internet computer seperate from my music computer, it has to be that way b/c of the way i work.

Maybe I should just go with a mAC...

in the case of a MAC, do i still need a dedicated audio recording hard drive and a seperate drive for the OS X ?

i diddn't see any option for having 2 hard drives installed in the imac

[jimminy cricket]

my friend uses usb and has terrible latency, chorus/verses going out of time with the beat when recording vocals.

I heard pci makes a noticeable difference, firewire only slightly better then usb i've read alot of opinions....but i wonder why all the manufacturers are going firewire over pci-e

....plus pc's firewire is haywire many times, no ?


i'ma try firewire or pci or pci-e (but no interfaces)...not usb.

[jimminy cricket]

can you put another hard drive in a mac ?

like seperate drives for audio and o.s. ?



apparently you don't have to defragment, and clean out spyware, malware etc...and other types of general cleaning much with a mac, right ?


I'm not good at maintenence, especially keeping up with virus/spyware program updates and all type of sh1t like that with pc, so you don't have to do this with mac ?