New PC for music/film production required...

[TheUnfinished]

Hi there. I've had this site recommended to me, so here I am. I'm looking to upgrade from my old Dell laptop to a decent PC for low-budget audio and film production. I mostly do soundtrack and remix work, but have recently started making short films as well.

My recommended requirements are: Core i5/i7 processor with 4mb cache, 4/6GB DDR3 RAM memory, 750GB/1TB 7200rpm SATA gard drive and a 20"+ monitor. Half decent graphics card for the film work required as well.

I'll be running things like Cubase, lots of softsynths, Adobe Premiere Pro and After Effects. Although not necessarily all at the same time!

Would appreciate advice on what the best Scan options are for my budget of under £1,000. ANy thoughts welcome.

Cheers,
Matt

[ash_rm]

Main thing I would recommend is to have multiple hard drives. One for the OS and programs and maybe another two just for the video editing and audio files.

[PeteG@Scan]

We do a socket 1156 board (i5/i7) based machine around that price but it may come in just above your budget as it stands.

Future Music Review Dec 2009
http://3xs.scan.co.uk/images/awards/p55_litedaw.pdf

That's configured with two operating systems and some extra features that may be above what you need. The's a more barebone version of that spec (with those extras missing) here:

http://3xs.scan.co.uk/ConfigureSystem.asp?SystemID=1019

The basic version above only has a i5 750 in it and I'd go for a i7 over an i5 for what you need it for. The key difference between the two is that the i5 is quad core and the i7 is quad with hyperthreading (8 logical cores) which is going to be well worth it if your doing video editing on the system. I'd say check up on the requirements for your video software before you go any further because i'm not sure if decent video card here is going to help you as much as you think.

Unless your video software is using cuda for some extra processing most video editing happens on the cpu as graphics cards tend to be designed to process for 3d games and not for video. Most of the higher end video clients do use very expensive extra processing cards but these tend to be dedicated solutions and not the sort of card ATI or Nvidia make. Saying all that Adobe products do use use CUDA on the current version (CS4) and if your using that then it'll be a big time saver to go for a more powerful card as it can take on some of the processing duties so if you have CS4 it maybe worthwhile. I think the your looking around the level of a Nvidia 9600 for standard use or maybe a 260 if your looking to use CUDA.

The other issue here if you go for a higher powered card is that the more grunt they have the louder they tend to be due to the cooling solutions. If the machines going to be in a recording area then you have to consider the gfx card solution carefully as they can be intrusive in a mixing enviroment.

So I'd recommend a i7 860 / 4gig / with the gfx card recomended by your software solution and a 24" samsung/dell monitor (around the £180 mark). That lot may come to about £1200 which is above your price point, but anything lower and your going to end up with a 775 based machine which is hardly worth it for the £150/£200 saving.

[TheUnfinished]

As I won't be using the PC in a recording environment, can I cut some corners around the noise issue (i.e. the case and the cpu cooler)?

I'm sure I could get by with a budget monitor, keyboard and mouse until I can afford something decent. Are there elements I can upgrade at a later date? Initially I need the rig for the beginning of January, whihc is why I currently have the £1000 budget.

I think I agree with you about i7 over i5. Perhaps the 1TB of hard drive space isn't necessary also, as I use a 500gb external hard drive to host most of my samples, kontakt instruments etc.

Cheers.

[jim]

Perhaps the 1TB of hard drive space isn't necessary also, as I use a 500gb external hard drive to host most of my samples, kontakt instruments etc.

Given how little the price difference is between even 320GB and 1TB disks, I'd personally take a 1 or 1.5TB and relegate the external drive to backup purposes.

[TheUnfinished]

SnootyJim, that's a fair point and not at all snooty.

Part of me is thinking: "I honestly can't afford this and, given that I currently use a Dell Inspiron laptop that's three years old and has rubbish specs, won't I pretty much be blown away by wahtever I end up purchasing?"

Part of me is thinking that. It might even be the brain part. Or part of the brain. Possibly.

[GheeTsar]

From my experience of using Premiere and After Effects, having a huge amount of RAM is really beneficial in terms of previewing what you are working on. I'd be tempted to get 8GB if at all affordable.

[sleepyhead]

<snip>The key difference between the two is that the i5 is duel core and the i7 is quad which is going to be well worth it if your doing video editing on the system. </snip>

I maybe rather ill at the moment and not thinking straight but...i5 = quad core no HT, i7 (LGA1156) = quad core with HT.

[jim]

I maybe rather ill at the moment and not thinking straight but...i5 = quad core no HT, i7 (LGA1156) = quad core with HT.

Have to admit, I was thinking that too :/

I didn't even know they'd released any i* dual-cores yet.

[TheUnfinished]

Okay... in what seems a very timely act, the new 3XS P55 Radius Edition has appeared on the site! At the sort of price I've been looking at too! Curious...

So, how does this sound to people... I could lose the Akasa card reader, swap down the Asus graphics card to an Nvidia 512mb Palit 9500, swap up the PSU to the 550W Be Quiet Dark Power and add a 1TB Samsung, 7200rpm, 16mb cache hard drive. That I believe would come to £759.55 after VAT.

I still have the option of adding the Microsoft Comfort Curve keyboard and mouse and a monitor (say the Digimate 22") and now the total is £871.08.

Which I could just about afford.

Or buy a cheap keyboard, mouse and monitor to see me through until I can afford something better.

[PeteG@Scan]

Have to admit, I was thinking that too :/

I didn't even know they'd released any i* dual-cores yet.

Yeah, sorry. Teach's me not to proof read my own posts. Someone distracted me with a "where's my cpu" type question and my mind wondered off into the fields.

The currect answer was indeed "i5 has 4 cores and i7 has HT".

i3 has duel core options in the range.

I've not had a look at the radias as yet, but I will look it over now and make some comments back here later.

[PeteG@Scan]

Hi,

Right looked over the Radias spec and a few things jump out.

The board.

http://www.scan.co.uk/product.aspx?ProductID=31749

It doesn't have firewire. It's also got a limited number of expansion slots due to it being a media center class board so you need to think over any expansions you may consider in the future.

The Standard board I go for is this one:
http://www.scan.co.uk/product.aspx?ProductID=31749

2 Pci's, 2x pcix and 3 x pci e as well as having Texus Instraments chipset for firewire connections makes it the most compatable and expandable motherboard for the p55 range.

If you don't need the expansion options or the firewire then the's cheaper options. This board with 4 pci but no firewire is £80 (£5 cheaper than the asus) http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Gigab...rboard-LGA1156 which may be a better option.

The case on the Radias isn't that quiet and for another tenner or so you can get the Silio500 with built in sound proofing and in my opinion a more solid build design. The sound card i'd go with is the 9500gt you mentioned.

I know you mentioned you wern't that overly concerned about noise, but I'd still consider trying to keep the noise down if your not recording in the room, as even mixing with background noise can be distracting and make you judgement harder when working. The two selections above along with the prolimia cooler and silient fan should prove far more effective than the Radias which uses the stock Intel solution which is quite loud.

I thrown together a spec below opting for the 860 over the 750. The's a £60 difference in chips but your doubling the number of cores which in a system doing any sort of video is going net you huge speed increases over a model with less cores.


Coolermaster Sileo 500 Black Mid Tower Case - Silent - w/o PSU
LN25976

120mm Sharkoon Silent Eagle SE fan Quiet Case Fan inc 4x Speed Cable Set
LN26609

500W Silverstone Strider ST50F-230 v 1.0, PSU Silent, Modular, V 1.0, 80+ Eff'
LN27468

4GB (2x2GB) Corsair TwinX XMS3, DDR3 PC3-10666 (1333) 240 Pin, Non-ECC Unbuffered, CAS 9-9-9-24
LN27738

Intel Core i7 860, S1156, Lynnfield, Quad Core, 2.80GHz, DMI 2.5 GT/s, 8MB Cache, 95W, Retail
LN28595

Gigabyte GA-P55-US3L, Intel P55 Express, Sok1156, PCI-E 2.0(x16), DDR3 2000, SATA 3Gb/s, RAID, ATX
LN28662

1TB Samsung HD103SJ Spinpoint F3, SATA 3Gb/s, 7200rpm, 32MB Cache, 8.9 ms, NCQ, LN28746

Sony AD-5240S-0B 24x DVDR 12xDVDDL DVDRW x8/-RWx6 SATA Black
LN28905

Prolimatech Megahalems Super 6 Heatpipe Tower Cooler for *NEW* 1156 &amp; 775/1366 (Fanless)
LN29054

Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition SP3 OEM - Single Pack
LN16381

500 GB Samsung F3 Version LN28751
LN22642

512MB Palit/XpertVision 9500 GT Super, 800MHz GDDR2, GPU 550 MHz, Shader 1350 MHz, 32 Cores
LN24047

The price including build + warrenty works out about £880 leaving you £120 out of your budget. You can get a cheap 22" for under a ton http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/22-Di...-7001-Speakers which will do the job fine and you'll appreciate the real estate if your currently working at under 20".

Leaves you with £20 for a keyboard + mouse combo. You'll notice I included Xp home on there as it's the cheapest O.S out. If your want to go Win 7 then it'll be another tenner, but either should do the job you need it too for the time being.

I think i've spec'd everything you need above. i could be wrong through, so feel free to read through and currect me!

[TheUnfinished]

Thanks for all the effort and advice Pete, both here and on KVR. It's the one thing that has definitely made me want to buy from Scan rather than elsewhere.

Well, I've re-evaluated my sums and though it might feel like I'm cutting corners, I need to tighten the belt slightly. I'll be honest, the music is the main thing. The films is a more short-term project and there are other solutions available if the film projects expand.

With that in mind, I think the most I can go for is the following:

3XS Radius Spec Asus P7P55-M, Intel P55 Express, Scan build £140.00
Cases Coolermaster Sileo 500 £55.95
CPU Intel i5 750, 2.66ghz, 8MB cache £129.15
Memory 4GB (2x2GB) Corsair XMS3 DDR3 £73.64
Graphics Card Nvidia 512MB Palit/XpertVision 9500 £35.97
PSU 500W Silverstone Strider £43.49
System Drive 500GB Samsung Spinpoint F3, 7200rpm, 16MB Cache £32.49
Hard Drive 1TB Samsung Spinpoint, 7200rpm, 32mb cache £58.25
DVD Writer Sony AD-5240S-0B 24x DVDR £13.94
Operating System Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 32/64bit £78.07
Monitor Digimate 22" £85.01
Keyboard/Mouse Microsoft Comfort Curve £11.97

Total £757.93
Total (inc. VAT) £871.62

Even after that I'm still slightly perturbed by spending so much money in one go, though I know it's an investment and if I don't do it now I never will. And then I'll never become the greates soundtrack composer the world has ever known... or something like that. All is compromise.

Cheers,
Matt

[jim]

Looks good to me - and you can always upgrade. Get yourself a decent base, and then if you want a faster CPU, drop in a nice i7 later on. If you want a better GPU, drop in a £150 graphics card. It's all fairly easy to swap in and out, so I reckon you've probably got a fairly good build there.

[PeteG@Scan]

Yeah, you should be all good there. As snooty says you leave yourself a valid upgrade path there to take advantage of in a few years, and the spec as it is should handle everything you need to throw at it for quite a while yet

[TheUnfinished]

Lovely, where do I sign?