DAW Build 2011

Just got off the phone with my tech friend.

1)Is it better to have onboard TI or a dedicated TI PCI card for firewire interfaces, or does it not matter either is fine?

2)How many fans should I have? I am thinking a case fan and a heatsink fan? will that be enough to keep things cool?

What size fans should I look at etc.? I want things to be pretty quite so any advice will be greatly appreciated. I heard larger fans at lower RPM’s are the way to go to keep things cool and quiet is that true?

3)What speed of Ram is acceptable?

  1. I want a pretty good graphics card to play games but this is a DAW machine so no incompatibilities or too much added noise please. what do you guys recommend?

Thanks this is turning into a good thread I think let’s keep it going.