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Suggestions Please

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confounded

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I'm building a new system. Current system is 440lx, PII 300, 128MG's RAM, W98SE. I use the system primarily for audio tasks (encoding, decoding, burning CD's, listening), broadband surfing, and mild gaming. Currently, can't really do anything else when burning CD's. What type of system would you recommend? Dual, single? What type? Ram?, Operating system? Motherboard? Your recommendations appreciated.
 
OK. I'll reply to my own message. What I really wnat to know is what type of system you think best for this type of usage. My system is in need of a general upgrade anyway - moboard, CPU, RAM, VIDEO, Soundcard. What do you think of dual CPU's given todays prices for powerful CPU's < $200 and dual CPU moboards, $200? 🙂
 
From what ive heard...SCSI is best for Burning because it dosent use that much CPU at all..therefore you can multitask better. Just buy a SCSI card and Burner and your set! 🙂

{edit} and as for the Dual CPUS...just get a system atleast 800-900mhz and thats helps a bunch too. I can Burn and do about anything without noticing a thing!
 
I do not beleive that a dual system is what you would want. Not all software is programmed to take advatange of a dual processor system, so you may or may not notice a difference in much of your day to day computing. Not to mention, only the NT/2000 series have support for multiprocessor system. (I know Be-os, Mac OS, and linux all have support too, but honestly, how many use them?)I agree with amonline that a scsi setup is the way to go with cd creating. Two reasons, one the SCSi bus can read and write at the same time (probably the biggest advantage of SCSI) so that your chances of buffer underruns are low. IDE's cannot read and write at the same time, so if you were to try to open something on your HD while using your CDRW you run into problems. And two, it has been my experence that SCSI devices tend to last a little longer. All my hard drives have 5 year warranties on them. If the manufacterer is willing to stand by their product for five years, I think that it was built to last.
I use the Tekram 390f which is great since it has 68 pin connnectors (very popular for hard drives) and the standard 50 pin on the same card. It was not very expensive (under 100 from compuplus.com) and has been working great since I got it. You can get a good SCSI burner for about 200 or so bucks. The most popular right now are Yamaha and plextor (I have a plextor reader and a yamaha burner, very happy with both).

Here is my setup:
single PIII 700 @ 903 (though you may want to consider an AMD, as they make great chips...)
256 MB PC150 RAM (You can get a really good deal on it right now at www.mwave.com 128MB is around 80 bucks!)
(3) 18 GB SCSI Seagate, 7200RPM
8x8x824 SCSi yamaha
40x SCSI plextor (I bought this as a refurbished model and it works great)
and some other stuff... that doesn't really factor that much into cd creation

I was able to play unreal tournament while burning a CD, though I don't suggest that....
So dual cpu's only if you are planning on running win NT/2k with 256 megs or more and Intel. Scsi is preffered but newer IDE's from good companies can can handle a lot too. Win98se is fine, so is winME. And as far as cup brand, Intel and AMD both have good lines of products. Good luck.
 
If you want to multitask reasonably well while burning, I'd defnitely suggest NT4 or Win2k (NT5). If your CDs suffer running other stuff with a PIII 300, then that would definitely be a good way to go. Here a PIII 350 (until yesterday when it went to a Duron 800) w/ 128MB memory, had no problems what-so-ever burning at 10x, encoding MP3s (Audiocatalyst), and browsing the web at the same time, running Win2k.
 
If all you want to do is burn while doing other things without fear of creating coasters, just buy a 12x BURN-Proof drive. See Hot Deals forums for some ideas. That'll be much easier and cheaper than going SCSI. Do that and buy more RAM ($128MB = $50 now) and add &quot;ConservativeSwapFileUsage=1&quot; under [386Enh] in system.ini. Obviously NT/2000 will be superior for multitasking, but the expense does not seem justified for what you want.
 
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