teh Forum

So my roommate is looking to put together a mid-nicer audio production box. What are people thinking about for PC hardware these days? He doesn't want to spend more than $400ish.

I am still rocking a Q6600, 4GB, P5N32E-SLi, 8800 GTS 512 so maybe it is time to pay it forward with these parts for him and put together a new box for me. Only thing I really care about is 4 cores that are speedier than my current cores. So some sort of i7 I suppose. Or are the cool kids sporting AMDs these days.

Anyone have anything they are looking to get rid of for some $$?

I'm still running my i7-930 system for main box. For living-room antics, I'm running a 3-core AMD PhenomII-somethingrather. It does quite well, and seems to play most things that my i7 does nearly as well.

Anyway, you can put together a really nice AMD system for the amount of money you're talking about. For audio, you definitely want a few cores, and plenty-o-RAM TM... Otherwise the system can be pretty average. I would definitely recommend that he has an audio interface that has ASIO support. Let me know if you need some recommendations in that department.

Oh, and if you go upgrade your system route, your current parts would do just fine with pretty much any audio situation. The i5 chips are basically the direct replacements for the Core2s, so if you want the same basic class, but faster, these would be the ones, and comparatively cheap. i7s are the top-end, but obviously a bit of a price premium. My 930 is running at 3.2GHz, and I've yet to see anything that really stresses it. I'm currently GPU limited with my GTX-460. It's a mainstream card, but really it's pretty effing quick. No complaints here. It's funny, motherboards are actually the expensive part these days. You can still get decent ones for cheap, but a decent X58 i7 board, runs into the $300 range a lot of the time. I'm sure you can get a good deal on one, but that seems to be the typical price for a new release board from the top tiers...

I haven't looked into any of this in some time. I've been addicted to buying electronic components, and building synthesizers. Haven't played a game, or really done much else in months now. (well, with the exception of my perpetual Zelda playing, just beat Ocarina again...) Looking around at the current parts situation now...

Looks like the 930 (cheapest i7 right now) is $279. If you need a lot of power, I'd say it's worth it. The nicer i5s are sitting around the $200 mark. The AMD Phenom II Black Editions are nice. That's what I have in the living room PC. They're multiplier unlocked, so they're very easy to get simple and reliable overclocks. (like the olden days of way back...) Depending on amount of cores, these are available at just over $100 up to mid $200s. They have 6 core versions now. I haven't really stayed on top of this, so you may want to do a little research. I can't imagine them being bad though based on my 3 core version. Mine's a 2.8, and is running at 3.2 (multiplier change,) and isn't running much hotter than default, and is stuffed inside a HTPC case. (get the low wattage ones for this sort of thing) DDR3 memory is in the dirt portion of it's pricing cycle right now. 8GB for $100. Recommend Gigabyte or ASUS for motherboards these days. ASUS has a bit of a price premium for the good boards. Gigabyte became one of my favorites during the hackintosh era a year or two ago, and they still are. They're built very well, have nice power components, good features, and are priced pretty well. Anyway...

Thanks for the info. This has pretty much turned into a it's time to upgrade my own computer thread and I'll work something out for my roommate with my Q6600.

I've been doing my fair share of research and it seems AMD is the way to go. Been a while but the seesaw teeters again.

I'm thinking about splurging on the Phenom 1065T Thuban that's about to come out. 6 cores at 2.9GHz and it is the only hex that runs at 95W for about $200.

I'd probably pair that with one of the Gigabyte GA-880GMA MBs with the 880G/SB850 pairing for around $100.

8GB of RAM is a tidy $80.

Video is tough since I don't really game much at all these days. I'd probably be fine with the onboard 4250 but then as soon as I did want to play a game I'd be upset. I'm looking at either the ATI 5770 or the GTS 450 with are both around $100. But if a used GTX 460 becomes available, lemme know.

That's it for now. I'll look into a new power supply and drool over SSDs when the time gets closer. Probably not for another month or so.

What are you rocking these days McNevin?

That sounds like a nice system to me! I'd definitely recommend the 5770, GTX-460, or the new 6XXX ATI that kinda took the place of the 5770 as the mid-mainstream part. Any of those should do quite well. I love my GTX-460, but also really like all the AMD parts these days. They're really doing a nice job of providing basically a whole system that works together quite well. Still can't beat Intel for top-end CPUs, but if you're not willing to pay the i7 prices (which I normally wouldn't if I hadn't gotten the amazing deal on them,) then AMD is definitely the current way to go I think. Price/Performance ratio is definitely high if you're not going for bloody-edged system. And I say that in relative terms, because a six core AMD chip is fairly bloody.