Hi. I've gone and revised the build I posted a few months back over in this thread with a little more research, and taking the excellent feedback provided on this forum. (thank you so much again to all of you who have provided excellent advice!)
To recap, the system is intended for use primarily for recording voice over audio and doing basic audio editing (typically only one track, or one track + music) using REAPER.
The secondary purpose of the system is as a gaming PC - not heavyweight, but able to run some recent games relatively well.
Ideally the machine should be silent, and energy efficient, as I'm keeping it on 24/7.
I've considered building an Intel-based system based on previous feedback, but I'm trying to keep things relatively low cost.
Here's the rig:
Antec SOLO case
ASUS M4A89GTD PRO/USB mobo
Seasonic X-Series Fanless 460W power supply
AMD Phenom II X2 555 BE 3.2GHz Dual Core CPU
PowerColor Radeon HD 5850 graphics card
Scythe Mugen 2 CPU cooler
2 x 120mm Nexus Fans (1 for CPU cooler to use 2 fan config, 1 for rear of case)
Intel 2.5" 80G SSD (for OS)
WD Caviar Green WD15EARS 1.5TB drive
Pioneer DVR-218LBK 22X DVD
8G Corsair DDR3-1333 memory
I've gone with the Phenom II CPU along with the M4A89GTD motherboard based on the principle of using the motherboard's capability to unlock the cores in the Phenom, effectively making it a quad core CPU.
I've added the Radeon HD 5850 for a little gaming punch, while still maintaining great power consumption when idling. I'll be keeping the machine under a desk, so I don't envisage that the difference in sound is going to be enough to be a factor.
I'm considering the Seasonic S12II 520W power supply as an alternative (which would mean another fan purchase) but from what I've read in reviews, I shouldn't need the extra power draw, and the better sound characteristics from the fanless is making me prefer that at the moment.
Thoughts? Have I missed something obvious here? Am I making a rookie mistake with the combination of parts?[/url]
Silent PC for voice recording/editing, take two!
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bonestonne
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M-Audio drivers are notoriously finicky. For some people, there are serious problems for others they work fine. Any series (FW, Delta, USB, etc).
For Reaper, a dual core is actually more than sufficient. Yesterday I had to do some quick vocal recording with Reaper on my first gen MacBook Pro, and it worked wonderfully. I'm running Leopard with 2gb of RAM (not the greatest spec laptop to be honest) but it runs Reaper without a problem ever.
I think the 5850 is overkill. A 5770 would do just as good unless you're trying to win a FPS contest at some high res.
I would avoid the use of the Green Power drives for audio work (I would guess that's your scratch disk, and storage drive). I've seen Green Power drives die in a very short time in those situations, so be warned.
Other than that, the build looks great and *shouldn't* give you any problems. Whether or not it does in the end however, is a whole different box of chocolates.
For Reaper, a dual core is actually more than sufficient. Yesterday I had to do some quick vocal recording with Reaper on my first gen MacBook Pro, and it worked wonderfully. I'm running Leopard with 2gb of RAM (not the greatest spec laptop to be honest) but it runs Reaper without a problem ever.
I think the 5850 is overkill. A 5770 would do just as good unless you're trying to win a FPS contest at some high res.
I would avoid the use of the Green Power drives for audio work (I would guess that's your scratch disk, and storage drive). I've seen Green Power drives die in a very short time in those situations, so be warned.
Other than that, the build looks great and *shouldn't* give you any problems. Whether or not it does in the end however, is a whole different box of chocolates.
It's funny you should mention the M-Audio drivers - they've been going great for a long time with my current laptop, but I've recently started getting BSODs that have sometimes pointed at them.
Thanks for the feedback on the GPU - that'll save me a few hundred bucks, and I can always upgrade later. Handy!
What is it about audio work that kills the Green Power drives? I've heard great things about the WD15EARS, but I'm not keen to see a whole 1.5TB drive die inexplicably. Is there an alternative you'd recommend that fares better?
Thanks for the quick feedback, bonnestonne!
Thanks for the feedback on the GPU - that'll save me a few hundred bucks, and I can always upgrade later. Handy!
What is it about audio work that kills the Green Power drives? I've heard great things about the WD15EARS, but I'm not keen to see a whole 1.5TB drive die inexplicably. Is there an alternative you'd recommend that fares better?
Thanks for the quick feedback, bonnestonne!
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bonestonne
- Posts: 1839
- Joined: Mon Feb 05, 2007 2:10 pm
- Location: Northern New Jersey
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From what I've seen, a 1TB Western Digital MyBook drive just outright died after being used as a scratch disk for an audio/video production computer. The drive is completely dead at this point, and was less than 7 months old.
The green power drives spin slower, and therefore have a slower data transfer rate (lets be honest, when you're using a scratch disk, it needs to be as fast as possible (7200rpm is fine, I've seen lots of people only use 10k, and the rare crazy who insists on 15k).
I personally have a WD 640 Blue as my scratch disk, and it's very quiet and gets the job done. I would say the WD Blue 500GB would be a great option, the drives are very light, and do not have much vibration, at least in the batch that I've been working with for the past month or so. It is important to take into consideration how much space you need, because sure, I've had raw sessions climb to nearly 150gb, but once mixed down and saved properly (in the right lossless formats) they still take up 60-70gb. But that would be the rare 16 channel session.
You aren't really going to be doing any work close to that (as you've stated), so 1.5TB seems like a big start, that you may not need. I'd look at prices for 500-750gb drives first before deciding a 1.5tb is the way to go.
Latest release M-Audio drives seem to have many problems, I would suggest using older drivers when you can, but if you're on 7, you don't really have a choice. Since Avid bought them out, things have been shady, from what I've seen.
The green power drives spin slower, and therefore have a slower data transfer rate (lets be honest, when you're using a scratch disk, it needs to be as fast as possible (7200rpm is fine, I've seen lots of people only use 10k, and the rare crazy who insists on 15k).
I personally have a WD 640 Blue as my scratch disk, and it's very quiet and gets the job done. I would say the WD Blue 500GB would be a great option, the drives are very light, and do not have much vibration, at least in the batch that I've been working with for the past month or so. It is important to take into consideration how much space you need, because sure, I've had raw sessions climb to nearly 150gb, but once mixed down and saved properly (in the right lossless formats) they still take up 60-70gb. But that would be the rare 16 channel session.
You aren't really going to be doing any work close to that (as you've stated), so 1.5TB seems like a big start, that you may not need. I'd look at prices for 500-750gb drives first before deciding a 1.5tb is the way to go.
Latest release M-Audio drives seem to have many problems, I would suggest using older drivers when you can, but if you're on 7, you don't really have a choice. Since Avid bought them out, things have been shady, from what I've seen.
Interesting... that's VERY good to know.
A 500GB disk should be fine for me for audio, so I'll give that a serious look. I could even make do with the remaining space on the solid state drive, realistically, but I'd rather not endanger the OS if I can.
The 1.5TB drive is more for storing EVERYTHING ELSE - I've been juggling drive space for games and music and important files for way too long, so I wanted to kit out this machine with a dependable drive that I'll grow into. Particularly as it's being used as the house file/backup server thanks to it being always on.
I was thinking about running some virtual machines off the Green drive for nerd stuff, but taking your warning to heart about using it as a scratch drive, I'll keep them off there as well.
I really appreciate the warning on the M-Audio. I'll keep an eye out for problems with it, and if it comes to it, I'll suck it up and grab a different USB pre-amp. Because you're absolutely right - I will be going to Windows 7.
Thanks again for info - it's a HUGE help!
A 500GB disk should be fine for me for audio, so I'll give that a serious look. I could even make do with the remaining space on the solid state drive, realistically, but I'd rather not endanger the OS if I can.
The 1.5TB drive is more for storing EVERYTHING ELSE - I've been juggling drive space for games and music and important files for way too long, so I wanted to kit out this machine with a dependable drive that I'll grow into. Particularly as it's being used as the house file/backup server thanks to it being always on.
I was thinking about running some virtual machines off the Green drive for nerd stuff, but taking your warning to heart about using it as a scratch drive, I'll keep them off there as well.
I really appreciate the warning on the M-Audio. I'll keep an eye out for problems with it, and if it comes to it, I'll suck it up and grab a different USB pre-amp. Because you're absolutely right - I will be going to Windows 7.
Thanks again for info - it's a HUGE help!
if you want reliability and speed, you'll get the 2-tb wd black, with it's 5-year warranty... but it is a bit noisy.
the thing to remember about scratch disks is that they don't get used much when there is plenty of ram, so any hdd will be fine, if your pc is set up correctly... access to lots of ram is why pros use socket 1366 cpu's.
the thing to remember about scratch disks is that they don't get used much when there is plenty of ram, so any hdd will be fine, if your pc is set up correctly... access to lots of ram is why pros use socket 1366 cpu's.
Thanks for the suggestion, danimal! HardwareCanucks have a really favourable review of the 2TB WD black.
When you say set up correctly, is there anything I'd need to look at (ie. creating a RAM drive) to get the PC to prefer using RAM over disk when recording?
I might end up going with three drives then - the 80G SSD, a 640G blue as a quieter scratch disk (noise is definitely a factor) and the 2TB Black as my "everything else" drive.
If the $$$ make sense, that'll give me storage that I won't have to fret about for a long time, and I'll really want that 5yr guarantee for the drive I'll be using to store pretty much everything important to me.
When you say set up correctly, is there anything I'd need to look at (ie. creating a RAM drive) to get the PC to prefer using RAM over disk when recording?
I might end up going with three drives then - the 80G SSD, a 640G blue as a quieter scratch disk (noise is definitely a factor) and the 2TB Black as my "everything else" drive.
If the $$$ make sense, that'll give me storage that I won't have to fret about for a long time, and I'll really want that 5yr guarantee for the drive I'll be using to store pretty much everything important to me.
if you're going with the 640gig drive as your scratch disk, don't even bother getting a 2tb caviar black as your everything else drive.
for that you want a 5400RPM (or eqivallent) drive, becasue speed isn't an issue. This is for stuff like movies, pictures, music etc. Essentially sacrifice blisteringly fast transfer rates for quiet/vibrationless operation.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6822136513
check out the greens
for that you want a 5400RPM (or eqivallent) drive, becasue speed isn't an issue. This is for stuff like movies, pictures, music etc. Essentially sacrifice blisteringly fast transfer rates for quiet/vibrationless operation.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6822136513
check out the greens
well, it depends how you define 'playing games'.
If the time it takes to load a game is a major concern for you, you should use a faster RPM drive. That said, the difference in raw data transfer is unnoticeable in MOST applications. For games, all you're really concerned with usually is video graphics performance, which has nothign to do with your hard drive. All HDDs do is load the game into memory and then you play from memory.
Hope that helps. IMO go with the green drive, they are dead silent.
If the time it takes to load a game is a major concern for you, you should use a faster RPM drive. That said, the difference in raw data transfer is unnoticeable in MOST applications. For games, all you're really concerned with usually is video graphics performance, which has nothign to do with your hard drive. All HDDs do is load the game into memory and then you play from memory.
Hope that helps. IMO go with the green drive, they are dead silent.
OH by the way..when you have multiple drives in your computer one thing you need to be concerned with is harmonic frequencies between the two drives. When I installed my second drive, the combination of the two in the hard drive cage caused them to hum in a throbbing sort of way. Hummmm....hummmmmm... etc
I didn't read your original post, so you might be planning to mechanically isolate them, in which case none of this matters. Internal drive noise however will be lower with the green drive due primarily to the slower spinning platters.
Check out my signature to see how I handled my HDD noise problem.
I didn't read your original post, so you might be planning to mechanically isolate them, in which case none of this matters. Internal drive noise however will be lower with the green drive due primarily to the slower spinning platters.
Check out my signature to see how I handled my HDD noise problem.