Putting together new computer for music composition

[Penoir]

Hello all,

I'll be building my first new computer in about seven years, so I'd appreciate your expertise on current computer components, as I've quite honestly been out of the loop for a while and am still using a socket 939 Winchester Athlon 64

The rig will be used entirely for musical composition: Sibelius 6 and Pro Tools 8 mainly. I'd also like to use Logic as well if I can somehow find a Mac OS emulator, although I realize I'll probably just have to put a couple more gigs of ram in my MacBook to use Logic.

My budget is going to be from $300-$400, but I'll spend $400 if it will provide a significant benefit.
The components I need:
CPU
Motherboard
4 gigs of ram (with future upgrade to 16gb)

I have a seagate 160gb 7200rpm hard drive and a 500 watt blue storm power supply, which I hope will still have enough power to run a modern rig.
I have an antec sonata case, so I'm not sure if the new motherboards are still designed to fit in the older cases, and if I need to buy a new one, I'd like to get one that is somewhat quiet, but I'm not looking to spend a great deal on a new case. I currently have a GeForce 6600 video card, but I really don't plan on doing any gaming or any video intensive work, and I assume that onboard sound and video are at a level that I'm not anticipating that I will need to purchase individual components.

I would ultimately like to be able to upgrade to 16gb of ram, if this would be feasible with a the higher end versions of Windows 7, but I'll deal with that later and am just looking for an operating system now.

Processing many samples, especially high quality sampled instruments, is very memory intensive, and I'm assuming that Protools is set up to take advantage of multiple processors and larger amounts of ram, but I'm not sure. My problem now, other than slow load times, is that my dated system simply can't handle rendering multiple voices, and I've had several times that I worked on a composition for countless hours then was unable to bounce it without chopping it up into pieces because Protools kept crashing, and having to do individual pairs of voices at at a time can be very annoying as I have to go back and readjust the balances, not being able to hear them all at one.


Anyway, any assistance would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

 

[Blain]

I wouldm't install new components behind that old PS. I beleive it's false economy to hold onto it.
I think sticking with your old Seagate is the same story.
I'd advise putting off your build until you can bump up your budget.
In the long run you'll be more satisfied, rather than having to compromise now.

 

[mfenn]

I wouldm't install new components behind that old PS. I beleive it's false economy to hold onto it.
I think sticking with your old Seagate is the same story.
I'd advise putting off your build until you can bump up your budget.
In the long run you'll be more satisfied, rather than having to compromise now.

:thumbsup:

Exactly what I came in here to say.

As for the RAM, 16GB is doable on most modern motherboards with 4 DIMM slots, but 4GB DIMMs are $$$$$.

Also, your case should be just fine, quality cases last forever.

 

[Arglebargle]

I am putting together an audio upgrade system, also coming from a 939 AMD system, but mine is coming together from parts just laying about.

If I were going from scratch, with your budget, I would probably aim at another AMD system with a quadcore Athlon or Phenom II. Cache apparantly does matter, and the Phenom will do a better job. I use Cubase and more recently Reaper, both of which support multithreading. Can't help about ProTools compatibility info though. I would check and make sure that ProTools has no AMD issues. An Intel setup would probably be somewhat more efficient, but is much more likely to bust your budget. If you aim that way though, look at the physical intel quads instead of the hyperthreaded ones. I would personally go for as high a standard clock speed as possible in your budget, as you probably won't want to Overclock much.

If you are getting an all new AMD setup, go with an AM3 motherboard and DDR3 ram. Four gigs of ram should do you well for quite a while. Hopefully long enough for the 4gig sticks to come down in price. And 8 gigs is a suitable compromise.

I would suggest two hard drives, an OS one and a sample/recording one. The older one might work fine, if it's seek time is 10ms or less. Two hard drives will help a lot especially with the heavy sample workload you mentioned. IF your audio setup supports Windows 7, I would go for it when you can. Not familiar with your power supply, though a good 380-450 watt one should do just fine. Use onboard video, or get a cheap, fanless video card. I use an old GT6600 for mine also.

The Sonata should do just fine. I'm building into one, and it is a nice case for audio computers, imo.