New pc specs for cubase 6/ Opinions please?

Gazadi · February 21, 2011, 1:47pm

Motherboard : ASUS P6X58D-E - X58 Chipset
Processors : INTEL i7 950 Quad 3.06Ghz
CPU Cooler : Ultra Quiet CPU Cooler
Cooling System : Automated Fan Controller
Memory : 6Gb DDR III 1600Mhz i7 Triple Core Kit
Graphics Card : ATI Radeon HD5450 1024Mb Dual Head
Program Drive : 500Gb SATA 7200RPM
Audio Drive : 1000GB SATA 7200RPM
Optical Drive : Single DVD Writer
Power Supply : 600w Ultra Quiet Power Supply
O/S : Windows 7 Professional Edition 64Bit
Peripherals : Additional 3x USB II Ports - (Internal PCI Card)
3 Port Firewire Card - Texas Instruments Chipset 1394a (TI Chipset)
Really would like to hear what you guys think about these specs. Haven’t placed my order yet so if you think anything here needs changing or adding please advise.

Thanks

Gazadi

JCschild · February 21, 2011, 2:27pm

the 960 is now the same price as the 950
asus would not be my first choice…
the new Sandy Bridge systems outperform for the same price.
should be available in 30 days or less

Scab_Pickens · February 21, 2011, 2:55pm

ASUS site shows only 6GB RAM support for that motherboard ?!?
Maybe look at a Gigabyte with onboard TI firewire.
Go with Windows 7 Home Premium unless you need more than 16GB RAM.
Get 12GB from the start and be done with it.
More watts on the power supply just to be safe?

Like JCschild suggested, it might be worth waiting for the latest generation. However, I can’t complain about my Gigabyte UD3R/i7-950 combo.

Reiknir · February 21, 2011, 4:08pm

Would skip any Sany Bridgge systems for a few months until stocks of the buggy/recall version have cleared from warehouses

JCschild · February 21, 2011, 5:46pm

1)all boards have long been recalled
2) even with the affected boards it was no big deal adding a sata card fixed any potential issue which was slight (5%)
3) its worth the wait for 30 days as the 2600 outperforms all but the 980x.

Sid_Chigger · February 22, 2011, 8:56pm

OT- Good to see they let ya in here, Scott!

Paul_Bryce · February 22, 2011, 10:06pm

And you too Sid…

JCschild · February 22, 2011, 10:37pm

thanks chigger,
took forever to get my dongle registered…had to be walked thru it glad to be here finally…
pretty sad for a guy who owns a computer company
now that i think of it my wife has to program my cell phone

Sid_Chigger · February 22, 2011, 11:39pm

Hi Paul!

LOL @ Scott…

Thalys · February 23, 2011, 2:32pm

[OT]
Nice to see you back here Scott
[/OT]

Cheers,
Bernard

veetguitar · February 23, 2011, 3:21pm

@JCschild:
What are exactly those “upcoming Sandy Bridge CPUs”?

JCschild · February 23, 2011, 4:06pm

brand new processors from Intel
they were released Jan 9th
they had a chipset recall the new boards will be back out in a few weeks.

the 2600 keeps up with the 980x. (within 10%)
equal to or a hair better than the 970
beats all other 1366 processors

veetguitar · February 24, 2011, 10:13am

Ah, of course I was aware of sandy bridge, the bug in it etc…
So, from a “strategic” standpoint it will be best to go fo the 2600k because all the cpus that are even stronger wont be out on the market for quite a long time, correct?

PascalVB · February 24, 2011, 11:57am

You might consider an SSD as primary drive. 120 GB will be enough to install Windows, Cubase and most of your plugins. The speed difference with a traditional hard disk is incredible. No more waiting when you load a plugin or a sound.

I recently bought a new system myself and decided to go for a socket 1366 processor, rather than the new socket 1155 processors (“Sandy Bridge”). Although the specs look really good, this platform has not proven itself yet in the audio world. I don’t like gambles, especially when it comes to such a big investment.

As already mentioned, maybe your best choice (for Socket 1366) would be one of the Gigabyte X58A-UDx boards. It can be tweaked to incredibly low DPC latency numbers (which allows lower ASIO buffer sizes and thus lower audio latency) and has a built-in TI firewire chipset. Most DAW pc system builders use Gigabyte motherboards.

12 GB RAM is also nice to have. If you have this amount of RAM you can turn off the page file in Windows safely, which means no more swapping to the disk and thus increased performance. I use the Kingston 1333 MHz ValueRAM and they give a Windows experience index score of 7,8 when the BIOS memory frequency is set to 1333 MHz.

JCschild · February 24, 2011, 2:24pm

unless you want to wait until Dec yes the 2600k is it.
however with the recent price drop on the 970, that now makes it a more viable option.
the 2600 and 970 are neck and neck. with about a $300 price difference and 16gig(SB) vs 12gig(X58)

dont waste your money on an SSD for an OS drive you gain nothing from it for audio.

Sowseed7777777 · February 25, 2011, 2:55am

Maybe 3 500gig with 2nd and 3rd drive a raid config. Might be an option if you don’t go ssd.

PascalVB · February 25, 2011, 6:45pm

I would not call it “waste your money”. Once you tasted the increase in system performance you will be addicted to SSD’s. Extremely fast boot times, no more waiting for an application to start up, for a plugin to load, to browse through presets, etc.
If you have an extremely fast CPU, why let your hard drive spoil your overall speed experience?

JCschild · February 25, 2011, 11:29pm

LOL i am on my 3rd SSD drive
they are a waste of money. i am still waiting on the "WOW’ factor

the drive i have now is the fastest on the market without getting into the PCIe kind.
Mushkin 120G Callisto. a tad faster on writes than the Corsair C300.

SSD as an OS offers NO increase for audio performance.
as a samples drive yes…

Gazadi · March 2, 2011, 8:05am

Hi guys,

Thanks for the replies.
Have decided to go i7 2600k, Win7 x64 with 16g ram