[LAU] New workstation | DAW pc

[Jeremy Jongepier]

On 09/04/2010 11:52 AM, rosea grammostola wrote:
> On Fri, Sep 3, 2010 at 10:24 PM, Joshua Boyd<jdboyd at jdboyd.net>  wrote:
>
>> On Fri, Sep 03, 2010 at 10:59:02AM +0200, rosea grammostola wrote:
>>> Hi,
>>>
>>> I need a new workstation | DAW pc, would be nice to get some advise.
>>>
>>> Silent
>>> Energy friendly (relative...)
>>> Good for audio work
>>> Price: 300 - 500 euro
>>>
>>>
>>>     1. Which components are the most important? And which components might
>> be
>>>     good second hand as well?
>>>     2. How many cores, is a dualcore enough, or do I need a quatro core?
>> It
>>>     would be nice to be able to enjoy the computer in the coming 3 years
>> (I
>>>     don't know how heavy computing will be in 3 years...)
>>>     3. Which computer case?
>>>     4. Motherboard
>>>     5. Monitor
>>>     6. Fans?
>>
>> You could give more detail about exactly what you plan to do with it.
>>
>> There are people who need massive power today (not to mention 3 years
>> from now), and there are people who don't need tons of power today, and
>> probably still won't in 3 years.  The number of audio people today using
>> 3-5 year machines is pretty darn high, and they aren't limited to
>> amatures either.  That makes me think you probably don't have to worry
>> too much about machine performance.
>>
>>
>
> Right, for audio a dualcore with 4 GB will do imo, but I might need some
> extra power for other work.
>
> Another aspect of a pc for audio is noise. I was wondering, might it be
> possible to use a long cable to my pc monitor and place my pc in another
> room. Will there be any degradation of the quality of the visual display
> with a long>= 5m. cable?
>
> Regards,
> \r
>

You could also try finding a more or less silent PC. I don't have 
experience on different hardware, I just use what I can get my hands on 
that gets written off at my work, but I have very good experiences with 
Dell PC's: they all work very well with Linux, they're pretty silent 
(especially the business models like the Optiplex or Precision) and they 
are reliable and solid. You could also try placing the PC in some sort 
of silencing case.
Longer quality cabling shouldn't degrade the quality that much. Those 
cables can be pretty expensive though.
When it comes to performance, I think the minimum for a decent set-up is 
a dual core system with 4 Gb. That should allow you to do all the stuff 
you'd like. With a less powerful system you might run into performance 
issues, especially when you use it with one of the bigger DE's (which 
you're not planning to do I think).

Best,

Jeremy