KVR Audio

Lunch Money · Post by **Lunch Money** » Mon Aug 09, 2004 4:33 am

OK, well first off I don't have money for a new DAW... so no amount of opinions will get me to buy this thing. However, I was on my local OEM store's website and I noticed THIS system. Supposedly quiet(er) fan, passively cooled vid card...

For $1200 CDN, which is about $915 US or 500 quid.

Is that a good price for the components listed (note, I wouldn't WANT a better video card)? If so, I'll be keeping my eye on it for when gainful employment strikes.

Greg

Jeremy_NSL · Post by **Jeremy_NSL** » Mon Aug 09, 2004 5:23 am

That strikes me as a bit overpriced.. Have you checked www.ncix.com? Some of the best prices in Canada there, and they pricematch with any shady, fly-by-night price if you find one lower

I'm actually buying that cpu + mobo setup... Hopefully the A64 3000+ proves worth it.

Lunch Money · Post by **Lunch Money** » Mon Aug 09, 2004 6:39 am

I hadn't seen NCix before; thanks for the link!

Although, once I checked out a few systems similarly specced out, the price was pretty much the same, though the use of the Sonata case and quiet PSU still made it better value.

Cheers! Quite a good site for the Canadian consumer.

Greg

Sascha Franck · Post by **Sascha Franck** » Mon Aug 09, 2004 6:57 am

Hmn Greg, can't find this price to be too reasonable.
A friend of mine bought a machine not too long ago (that I configured), and while I don't remember the exact specs, it's a P4 3GHz, 1GB RAM, 160GB Seagate disk (S-ATA), extra low noise fan (which is really great), plus the usual suspects (DVD RW). Unfortunately I don't remember the mainboard, but I think it was an Asus as well.
Price was 900 Euro, Win XP Home was included.

Jeremy_NSL · Post by **Jeremy_NSL** » Mon Aug 09, 2004 6:58 am

NP Greg

. Here are a few nice sites that I wouldn't order from, but work well for pricematching with ncix.
www.atic.ca
www.computerlinksystems.com (check out the athlon prices!!)
anitec.ca
www.a-power.com
www.kellysmusic.mb.ca

Lunch Money · Post by **Lunch Money** » Mon Aug 09, 2004 7:51 am

Sascha Franck wrote:Hmn Greg, can't find this price to be too reasonable.
A friend of mine bought a machine not too long ago (that I configured), and while I don't remember the exact specs, it's a P4 3GHz, 1GB RAM, 160GB Seagate disk (S-ATA), extra low noise fan (which is really great), plus the usual suspects (DVD RW). Unfortunately I don't remember the mainboard, but I think it was an Asus as well.
Price was 900 Euro, Win XP Home was included.

Thanks for the reply Sascha. The system I mentioned is only 745 Euro (using the xe.com currency converter), so the extra money would be used toward more RAM.

I'm not sure if the Athlon 64 in the system mentioned is actually faster than a P4 3Ghz, but what I'm interested in is that it gives me a WEE bit of an upgrade path, esp. software-wise. On the other hand, I don't know jack about the Athlon 64, so perhaps it's just mis-named and has a dead-end upgrade path, too!

Greg

Sascha Franck · Post by **Sascha Franck** » Mon Aug 09, 2004 8:39 am

Oh, I was just reading the "$915 US" remark.
Anyways, I'm not sure either whether the Athlon would fullfill its promises right now allready. From what I know, applications need to be optimized to take advance of 64bit processing, no?

Lunch Money · Post by **Lunch Money** » Mon Aug 09, 2004 8:59 am

Yup.

What I can't figure out is why the Opteron (Athlon fx) 64-bit processor is roughly 3 times the price. There's something different about the 64-bit technology, but I can't figure out what.

Which is why I need to learn more about the Athlon 64 (normal) before I take any jump at all!

Greg

Sascha Franck · Post by **Sascha Franck** » Mon Aug 09, 2004 9:01 am

FWIW, what a system are you using at the moment, Greg?

Lunch Money · Post by **Lunch Money** » Mon Aug 09, 2004 9:15 am

I have:

Athlon XP 1700+
512 MB Corsair or Kingston (can't remember) RAM
MSI KT-3 mainboard
1 80 GB Maxtor Fluidbearing w/ 2MB cache
15" monitor (ugh)
Audiophile 2496

The reason I'm shopping around already is that I'm trying to fight off the urge to upgrade, and save the money for something better-- because I CAN afford the following upgrades:

Athlon XP 2500+ Barton core
1 more hard drive
256 MB RAM

That would bring my system up to a satisfactory level for now. That's a total cost of only $300 CDN or so, but I'm still thinking I'd be better off keeping that money on the bank and waiting until I can just get a new system.

Greg

Sascha Franck · Post by **Sascha Franck** » Mon Aug 09, 2004 2:17 pm

I would say: Invest into some nice 17" or 19" display! Worth each penny! Keep the 15" as a secondary monitor to place your mixer, explorer or whatever on.
I really wouldn't want to do recording and sequencing without two monitors anymore. Well, actually I still do so rather often as I'm using my laptop mobile - but in that case it's allways only for some layouts or so.
For me, screen estate is more important than the odd little bit more of CPU power.

The_Hidden_Goose · Post by **The_Hidden_Goose** » Mon Aug 09, 2004 2:29 pm

I paid way over the odds for my athlon xp64 3400 (bought it on finance - paying over the next two millenia), but I'm well happy with it.

It's the biggest jump I've made (base technology-wise), and I won't be finding it's limit for a while yet since I won't be able to afford the latest software that pushes it to it's limits in the coming few thousand years hehe

I'm still happy to pay the distended pricetag I'm forking out for it.

Durk · Post by **Durk** » Mon Aug 09, 2004 7:43 pm

Lunch Money wrote: I'm not sure if the Athlon 64 in the system mentioned is actually faster than a P4 3Ghz,

Please read the 7-page AMD versus Intel thread in this forum.

Jeremy_NSL · Post by **Jeremy_NSL** » Mon Aug 09, 2004 8:07 pm

You won't get jackshit from 64-bit itself. That just lets you install more than 4gb of memory (need that much?). And you need a 64-bit OS to do even that, which doesn't exist yet. But the athlon64 has several key architectural improvements (built-in memory controller, etc) that make it much faster than both the pentium 4 and the athlon xp.

Lunch Money · Post by **Lunch Money** » Mon Aug 09, 2004 9:22 pm

Sascha Franck wrote:I would say: Invest into some nice 17" or 19" display! Worth each penny! Keep the 15" as a secondary monitor to place your mixer, explorer or whatever on.
I really wouldn't want to do recording and sequencing without two monitors anymore. Well, actually I still do so rather often as I'm using my laptop mobile - but in that case it's allways only for some layouts or so.
For me, screen estate is more important than the odd little bit more of CPU power.

Well... I WOULD like more screen real estate, but to be honest, I installed another 15" monitor just to see if I'd use it, and so far I don't.

It directly relates to the fact that I use Tracktion. Mixer? What mixer? Explorer? I use ModulR's Tackywrapper! I rarely even put VSTs in the other monitor... I have done so just because I "can", but I haven't ever felt the need to. I know it gets annoying to hear us Tracktioneers rant, but it really IS so simple that I don't strictly "need" more space.

HOWEVER, I digress. I WOULD still like a larger monitor, regardless. I want to jump up to something bigger than 1024 X 768, even if it's on one monitor.

----

THG, thanks for that opinion, and floyd thanks for that information-- if the architechture is sufficiently improved, it's still worthwhile, whilst waiting for 64-bit apps.

----

Now I just need regular gainful employment. <grumble>

Greg

Pipe Dream-- but I'm thinking...