Thread: DAW BUILD 2013
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Old 03-06-2014, 05:10 PM   #58
JGrabowMST
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Quote:
Originally Posted by SEA View Post
Thanks JGrabowMST for your reply!

Would you still recommend an SSD for the C drive (for your OS and programs) vs a HDD C drive and then cut your projects on a separate HDD drive and stream samples from a 3rd HDD drive?

Currently I have 4 internal drives. 1 for the OS and programs, 1 for recording on, and 2 for streaming samples.

Thanks!
Yes. I recently decided to upgrade to an SSD for my C drive. Only OS and Programs are on it, all other data gets saved on various other internal HDDs I have. I have a dedicated 1TB drive for samples only, a 2TB for only active projects. This setup was also fairly cost effective, and was easily done.

As far as your parts go, I'll try and steer you in a better direction.

Quote:
CPU = Intel Core i7-4930K Ivy Bridge-E 3.4GHz LGA 2011 130W 6-Core

Mobo = Asus Sabertooth X79

Cooler = Corsair H100i

PSU = Either the Corsair RM Series 850 Watt ATX/EPS 80PLUS Gold-Certified Power Supply or the Corsair 1200 ax modular.

Memory = 32 or 64 gb Corsair Vengance

Video = NVIDIA - GeForce GTX 660 Ti 2GB GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 Graphics Card or perhaps the new EVGA GTX 750 Ti.

OS = Win 7 64
Get a good tower air cooler. There are many many of them. I do not trust liquid coolers, and have seen expensive problems caused by them. There are lots of very good air coolers on the market that will be fine for you. Noctua, Prolimatech, Xigmatek and Thermalright all make very good CPU coolers. I would strongly recommend going that route over water cooling. I'll make sure you're the first to know when I see a tower cooler go bad or have any problems over time.

I personally have a Gigabyte Windforce OC GTX660Ti 2gb. Great card, lots of outputs, and it works.

I personally have 32gb of RAM, more than I need, especially regarding Reaper. My most intense audio apps barely use any of it. Having 64 would merely be a convenience, but likely unnecessary, even in the long term.

You do not need any 850W power supply. I have a Dual Xeon workstation, and I have a 750W unit myself. Your single CPU will not use as much power as my two CPUs. I guarantee that. Get a very good 550-600W from Seasonic, BeQuiet, Enermax, Corsair or Antec. It'll be more than you need, and will be more than enough for your use. I promise.

The CPU is fine, I'm not a fan of the i7's anymore, but it'll be plenty fast for you, and should last several years with no hiccups. The same goes for the Asus motherboard.

For hard drives, I'm very biased to Intel SSDs and Western Digital HDDs. Specifically Western Digital Velociraptor and Black series drives. For projects and samples, the Black series drives are very fast, and more than you'll need. I have a 1TB and 2TB Black. I also have a regular 640gb (before there was Blue/Black/Green/Red) and it works fine for just my own personal data (music, photos, etc).

Operating System is all preference, so whatever you want. Just know that you have to get Professional. I don't see any reason to get Ultimate (all it gives you is more updates to cause trouble compared to Professional). Beyond that, whatever you want. Home Premium will max with 16gb of RAM, so that option is out the door.

As long as you take care of the machine, it will take care of you.
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