New system (recommendations)

[J1NG]

Each to their own preferences I suppose on RAM. If you do anything half serious on a modern system and OS, Wombat is right. 512MB isn't enough.

J1NG

[az]

... or just paint it

I don't know what PSUs are hot atm. I have heard the 400w Zalman is quieter than the 350, though also has a lot weaker fan. The Seventeam PSUs are good and not too loud. Can be had with Verax fans, very quiet, but expensive.

AZ

[Jammrock]

The firewire Echo boxes are due out by the end of the year, early next year at the latest. If prices are similar to the Indigo I would suspect the prices to range from $100-$250. I don't know any solid details besides they are releasing a firewire audio solution by the end of the year.

So make sure your mobo has firewire on it

Jammrock

[the main lobe]

I'd spring for an Intel Board

If you do decide to go with an Intel CPU, I'd strongly consider an Intel board. It is *in my opinion* good though that the mainboard you are considering (although I truly dislike Abit) has an intel chipset. Only other suggestion is to go SCSI. More expensive, but in my case I really feel it was worth it in the long run.

[az]

Yes, if you do go intel, get an intel board with CSA.

AZ

[Jammrock]

Re: I'd spring for an Intel Board

Originally posted by the main lobe
If you do decide to go with an Intel CPU, I'd strongly consider an Intel board. It is *in my opinion* good though that the mainboard you are considering (although I truly dislike Abit) has an intel chipset. Only other suggestion is to go SCSI. More expensive, but in my case I really feel it was worth it in the long run.

That depends. If you plan on overclocking and tweaking, and since you are getting a watercooler bets are you are going to seriously overclock, DO NOT get an Intel board. It has nearly no overclock and mobo tweak options. Just ask dZeus.

Yes, if you do go intel, get an intel board with CSA.

Yes, definately. CSA is a wonderful concept. There are non-Intel boards that have it, like the Gigabyte GA-8KNXP Ultra,or the regular version has it as well..

Jammrock

[az]

Intel has released or is going to release some colorful windows overclocking tool for their own boards...

AZ

[Jammrock]

They've been saying that for a while. I'd still rather get a 3rd party board with CSA and already built-in overclock tools.

Jammrock

[Admiral]

Considering that for dual channel it's critical to have access to memory timings I'd advise against an Intel built board. From what I know you have to do a bios flash to change tRas, Ras to Cas and other timings except maybe CAS latency itself. And that if you know what Intel changed in the different bios versions or if a bios editor for these boards exists.

[dZeus]

Originally posted by az
Intel has released or is going to release some colorful windows overclocking tool for their own boards...

AZ

not true. This utility won't allow for overclocking. Or at least not more than the BIOS supports (4%).

It's more meant to control fan speeds and view the voltages etc.

[K6-III]

A very good reason to go with MAudio for Athlon 64 is that they claim that they'll have AMD64 drivers upon launch of WinXP-64bit

[az]

Which is next year. I tell you, it's too early to adopt AMD64.. at least wait for the second generation A64FX, when you won't need registered RAM anymore.

AZ

[knirfie]

Originally posted by Admiral


quote:
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Where the situation gets a bit cloudy is in gaming performance, as VIA decided to forego DirectSound and DirectSound 3D acceleration in the Envy24HT. This is stranger still because the original Envy24 did feature hardware acceleration. The Envy24HT certainly does have the high-end audio specifications, but we'll have to see if today's higher-clocked processors can make up for the loss in 3D audio acceleration.
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ups !

that's a bad thing, right?

[knirfie]

Ok

1. the plextor drive is staying, i'm not gonna bother with dyeing my drive black or changing the front for a lousy €4 difference.

2. 2 choices right now for the mobo: Abit IC7-G or Asus P4C800-E Deluxe, both feature the ICH5R southbridge and CSA (the Abit also has an extra SATA controler and is €27 cheaper)

3. any soundcard featuring the Envy24HT chip is off, because i dont want unnecesairy CPU utilization.

4. Probably gonna be Intel, unless somebody can give me some darn good reasons to get the Athlon64 config, i know, athlon 64 sounds nice, but €460 for a processor is a bit too much.

[dZeus]

Get the Asus.. it looks like a solid board.

If you want to game, I suggest you get the Audigy2. It also is supposed to have superb audio fidelity. Downside is that it's dependant on Creative drivers for DirectSound3D and EAX support.