Just Ordered Mine Today

[Stratlord]

Hi guys, thought I would share my excitement with you guys, ordered and paid for my first Scan 3XS Pro Audio core i7 system today

[NightOwl]

Cool! They seem to build great systems at Scan so you have made a very good choice. And welcome to the forum!

Will you share the specs with us? It's always interesting to see what system others have chosen and how they configured it. Are you a musician?

I ordered my Scan 3XS i7 system last week, I'm just twiddling my thumbs at the moment while I wait for some further news of a build date etc. Come and join the club!

[Stratlord]

Case: Silverstone KL03B "Kublai Tower Series"
CPU: Intel i7 920 2.66GHz 4.8GT s QPI 8MB Cache Retail
CPU Coolers: Thermalright TRUE Copper 120mm
Memory: 6GB (3x2GB) Corsair XMS3 DDR3 PC3-10666 (1333) CAS 9-9-9-24
NVIDIA Graphics: 512MB Palit 9500GT 550MHz GPU 32 Cores 800MHz GDDR2
Power Supply Unit: 600W Zalman ZM600-HP Heatpipe Cooled Modular PSU
System Drives: 250 GB Seagate ST3250310NS Barracuda ES.2 7200 rpm 32MB Cache
Storage Hard drives: 750 GB Samsung Spinpoint F1 7200 rpm 32MB Cache, 2 selected
Floppy Drive Flash Card Readers & Writers: Akasa Multi Memory Card Reader & USB 2.0 Port
DVD Writer: Samsung SH-S223Q BEBN 22x DVD±R 8x DVD±DL DVD+RW x8 -RW x6 x12 RAM SATA L scribe
USB 2.0 Firewire Cards: Lycom PE-101 2 Port Firewire 1394a PCI-E Controller Low Hi Profile
Acoustic Sound Proofing: AcoustiPack ULTIMATE Multi-Layered Material Kit
Internal External (USB) Wireless Adaptors: Belkin N1 300Mbps Wireless PCI Card
Operating system: Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium 32Bit
Software - DVD Blu Ray Decoding: CyberLink PowerDVD 8 Standard Movie Audio Player & Decoder
TFT Monitor: 22" iiyama E2207WSV Black Widescreen LCD 1680x1050 1000:1
Keyboard & Mouse Pack: *Keyboard Not Required*
Logic Cubase Nuendo PS 2 Keyboard
Logitech G5 gaming mouse.

Its for my small recording studio at home and the occaisional game of Unreal Tournament online.

I have been recording with my Fujitsu Siemens P4 but it cant cope anymore but hadn't got a clue about current technology regarding computers, I am just a guitarist after all, and I had heard about these 3XS systems and Scan from sound on sound magazine and the review in that for the Scan Power DAW said its the best that money can buy. I gave Lee P a bell and was sold straight away.
Took the weekend to decide on the exact spec I wanted, gave him another call, and to be fair he gave me some great advice that actually made my system slightly cheaper, which always shows they try to sell you what you need rather than what makes more money, and I really appreciate that this day in age.............only problem now is..........I'm sat here like you twidling my thumbs......waiting, and I have got a while to wait yet......DOH!!!!!!

So Phil, any pics of it once it gets started would be greatly appreciated.pretty please

[sleepyhead]

Case: Silverstone KL03B "Kublai Tower Series"
CPU: Intel i7 920 2.66GHz 4.8GT s QPI 8MB Cache Retail
CPU Coolers: Thermalright TRUE Copper 120mm
Memory: 6GB (3x2GB) Corsair XMS3 DDR3 PC3-10666 (1333) CAS 9-9-9-24
NVIDIA Graphics: 512MB Palit 9500GT 550MHz GPU 32 Cores 800MHz GDDR2
Power Supply Unit: 600W Zalman ZM600-HP Heatpipe Cooled Modular PSU
System Drives: 250 GB Seagate ST3250310NS Barracuda ES.2 7200 rpm 32MB Cache
Storage Hard drives: 750 GB Samsung Spinpoint F1 7200 rpm 32MB Cache, 2 selected
Floppy Drive Flash Card Readers & Writers: Akasa Multi Memory Card Reader & USB 2.0 Port
DVD Writer: Samsung SH-S223Q BEBN 22x DVD±R 8x DVD±DL DVD+RW x8 -RW x6 x12 RAM SATA L scribe
USB 2.0 Firewire Cards: Lycom PE-101 2 Port Firewire 1394a PCI-E Controller Low Hi Profile
Acoustic Sound Proofing: AcoustiPack ULTIMATE Multi-Layered Material Kit
Internal External (USB) Wireless Adaptors: Belkin N1 300Mbps Wireless PCI Card
Operating system: Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium 32Bit
Software - DVD Blu Ray Decoding: CyberLink PowerDVD 8 Standard Movie Audio Player & Decoder
TFT Monitor: 22" iiyama E2207WSV Black Widescreen LCD 1680x1050 1000:1
Keyboard & Mouse Pack: *Keyboard Not Required*
Logic Cubase Nuendo PS 2 Keyboard
Logitech G5 gaming mouse.

Is there a specific requirement that means you have to remain with a 32bit OS? If not I would highly recommend getting 64bit Vista otherwise you will only really have access to just over half of your available RAM that you have purchased. I've highlighted the bits in bold.

Other than that, it looks like a nice system overall

[Stratlord]

Yes there is a reason, and its that thing that kept me re-speccing all weekend......my firewire interface I use, Tascam FW-1082, which is my control surface and my means for connectiing my audio to my DAW doesnt have reliable 64 bit drivers apparently so that was my reason for going with 32 bit Vista. The review model in sound on sound magazine had 3Gb of Ram and was using 32 bit Vista and performed unbelievably well under rigorous testing, and my system is nearly identical, so in my little studio I think it will be fine. I did go with the 6Gb of ram in the hope that in the future they do sort drivers for 64 bit or I have enough money to buy a different audio interface I would be able to use it all.

[leepen@scan]

Hi Stratlord, nice to see you on here! I've passed your paperwork to Phil this morning so you should be getting your build date later on this week

All the very best

[NightOwl]

Nice system, Stratlord, it should serve your recording needs well, with plenty of storage space and that acoustic sound proofing. I think I read that DAW system review (or one very much like it) and it sounded very good for specialist requirements like yours.

I've just had my confirmation today - the build is scheduled for March 2nd, delivery on the 6th. That will make it 16 days from ordering to delivery (they are very busy with builds right now). Still plenty of time for thumb twiddling, then.

[Stratlord]

I have already twiddled them to the point of falling off

[NightOwl]

I have already twiddled them to the point of falling off

Yikes! That's got to be bad news for a guitarist, surely!

You'll have to find something less risky to do. Me, I'm gradually working up the courage to tackle the mammoth task of sorting out what data/programs I will need to transfer/install on the new machine - it's time for a good old clear out and a re-evaluation of what stuff I really need and what I should just let go of and/or archive for the last time.... but I keep putting it off. *sigh*

[Stratlord]

Oh God!!!!! Dont make me think about having to do that. . . . . .I just can face it..........dont you find that once you know you have a new machine you just cant bare the old one anymore

[Philipp]

Hi Stratlord,

Great to see you have ordered a 3XS DAW, I have given PeteG our resident audio expert (he designed the SOS review machine) a nudge he is going to pop on to say helloooooo

Pictures are not a problem we will get some posted up, if you need anything else from me just give me a shout

Nightowl, im working on the build date, hopefully it can be moved forward

[PeteG@Scan]

Hi all,

Stratlord, good choice on the system (of course I would say that ) and i know you'll be pleased upon arrival. On the choice of O.S I do have something to add. The machine that went to review was running XP 32 and not vista 32.

My recomendations currently for this sort of work is Xp Home 32 or Vista 64 but as you mentioned the drivers for Vista 64 are still currently a bit lacking. Vista 32 doesn't really give you any benifits for audio set ups and the drivers even for 32 bit are still not quite as mature as they should be.

Pete.

[Stratlord]

So do you think I should change to XP? I currently run Cubase studio 4 on my P4 with xp and it runs fine bar my PC's obvious lack of power........If yout think XP would be better then I'll change to that if I can

[PeteG@Scan]

All depends on what your using with it really. If everything has full driver support then vista 32's fine, but the's no real reason that it's the better choice over xp32 and in some cases sound driver latencies are still worse on vista than 32 which is why I say XP unless your a 100% everything run's fine.

If you want to change it, then give Lee or Phil a bell back (or leave another note here and i'll have them call you) and i'm sure they can adjust the order for you.

Pete.

[Stratlord]

I'll bow down to your expertise here I think.........I know everything runs fine with what I use now, Cubase studio 4 and XP 32 other than my pc not being able to cope so I think I will change to XP 32 then, Thanks for the advice bud

[Rufass]

Hi Stratlord,

I noticed in another thread that you were unsure about Raid and what it meant. Just thought I'd elaborate and hopefully put your mind at rest.

Raiding disks is simply a way of getting them to share data for either performance or resilience/recovery reasons. There are a number of levels ranging from 0 to 7 but I'd imagine that for personal use you'd only be looking at either 0 or 1.

In a Raid 0 configuration (we used to call it striping) the disks array the data across the pair and because of that access is faster, the (very big IMO) downside is that if one disk fails you've lost the lot. Raid 0 is used by folks looking for performance increase. Effectively you're using two disks to create a volume the size of one, though that's not always true I suspect it probably works out more or less that way with two. More performance, more cost, more risk.

A Raid 1 configuration is aimed more at fault tolerance, this one used to be called mirroring. Data is effectively replicated on both disks. Takes two disks (or more) to create a volume the size of one of the members. Performance increase is small in some areas but if one disk fails you can carry on working with one until you replace the faulty one, the new disk can then be rebuilt from the remaining drive.

I doubt you would really need either for what you're doing. The set up you've posted has one smaller disk for the OS by the looks of it and a larger one for data, these are not raided. This would be a good configuration for video or music editing as you could spread the load across the two disks, one would be running the OS, application etc. and the other can be reading and writing the sort of large data files you will be manipulating. Raid is probably over the top for you as long as you take regular backups so the system Scan have designed and you'v selected looks good to me.

Hope I'm not teaching granny to suck eggs.

HTH

R