Good Virtual Instrument computer?

[spacedonkey]

I do a lot of Virtual Instrument rendering on my computer (currently an AMD Barton 3200+) and have finally hit the point where I need to upgrade. And when I say upgrade I mean kit out a new computer.

I want to create a processing 'whore' computer whose sole function is to run VST Instruments and my future 16GB Gigastudio library.

So, what Motherboard and Processors are there (need best bang-for-buck) that are faster than my 3200+ Barton and at a reasonable price range of say £250.

Also what hard-disk considerations do I need to make? I'm doing a lot of direct disk-streaming of samples which gets to the stage where I get clicks through disks not reading fast enough. (i.e. need a fast, large 200GB+ hard-disk)

Any help much appreciated, I've lost track of what's good & not-so-good, playing catch-up is difficult. Thanks.

 

[imported_Kensai]

Seagate 7200.8 series are very nice for their price, if you can fork over around 600$ USD, get a 300GB 10K drive. IF you've got 1000$ for HDs get two 147GB 15K drives and RAID 0 them.

For mobo+CPU combos, I'd suggest an A64 3200+ w/ 939 board. You won't see a super duper massive performance increase from an XP 3200+. It's still a good chip even today.

Possibly a Venice or SD might be your style. If your program runs in 64 bit, even better. Run Windows XP-64 with an A64. It'll show you *massive* increases.

 

[spacedonkey]

Put it this way, my Barton is choked by the amount of processing it's doing, I keep seeing the CPU usage get to 100% after I add about 6 VSTi's loading several samples. I think a new mboard, more RAM and a disk drive will help but it's a start.

What about an MSI K8T master 2 mboard?
And an Opteron 246?

When Steinberg make a 64bit version of Nuendo I'll run 64-bit, otherwise it's 32 I'd just like a beast machine that I wouldn't need to upgrade for 2 years.

I read that Hyperthreading isn't available on AMD CPUs is this true?

 

[imported_Solace666]

If your using that much processing you might want to think about going to the lower end Dual Core AMD's (of course they're not readily available). I agree with Kensai though, you should get a 939 board (possibly ASUS) and the best processor you can afford