[LAU] New workstation | DAW pc

[Mark Knecht]

On Tue, Sep 7, 2010 at 11:03 AM, rosea grammostola
<rosea.grammostola at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> On Tue, Sep 7, 2010 at 2:29 PM, Kjetil S. Matheussen
> <k.s.matheussen at notam02.no> wrote:
>>
>> Probably a good choice. Intel processors are able to handle more heat than
>> the ones from AMD.
>
> Thanks for the info, great!
> How hard is it to  upgrade a processor later? I'm thinking of buying a i3
> now, but like to be able to upgrade to a i7 later.
>

NO!!!!!! i3, i5 and i7 all have different pinouts. They are not
hardware compatible. What you build now is what you get. The most
you'll likely do over time is buy some more advanced i3. You'll likely
NEVER run an i7 in that machine, short of buying a new motherboard and
starting over.

>>
>> Most motherboards usually works, but Intel is generally less tweakable,
>> which could be important if you want a silent computer.
>
> So then MSI or ASUS might be better. But is that working with the integrated
> GPU?
>

The DH55HC for the i5-661 isn't as tweakable as my gaming oriented
Asus Rampage II Extreme for the i7-980. However the DH55HC has enough
features that the machine works. I don't even use most of what's on
the DH55HC MB - RAID, etc. It's just a very basic workhorse for me.

Again, at the time I did mine the only MB's that the integrated
graphics worked with were the Intel MBs. THis may have changed but
you'll have to read the Intel website to find out I think. Good luck
with that! ;-)

Someone - Ken maybe? - mentioned an issue with the integrated GFX
machines not working with the real-time kernel. That's a good point
and one I cannot speak to at the moment as I'm not running the
rt-kernel on that machine at this time. I could look into trying it
out, if I get some time, but it would likely be a week or two before I
could report anything back. I think the safest bet is probably NVidia,
but they also have problems at time with different kernels. Linux is
SUCH a crap-shoot when it comes to this stuff. There are never any
guarantees.

I have more faith in Gentoo getting around this sort of problem in a
timely manner. I don't know what folks using Fedora, Ubuntu or other
pre-packed binary distros do. I just brought up a Ubuntu PowerPC
machine I'm I'm already hitting little roadblocks on that machine.


>>
>>> Power:
>>> When it comes to a power supply I was thinking about Enermax PRO82+ 385W.
>>> I
>>> heard that brand is good...
>>>
>>
>> Yes, but also check out www.silentpcreview.com.
>
> You have a PS without fan? Most PS I see have a fan inside (120mm)
>
>
>>
>> Bigger is more silent. bigger => colder => more silent.
>
> That's why you have a midi tower and no mini tower I guess...
>
>>
>> Another (extremly important) factor to look out for is that the PSU is
>> placed at the bottom of the case, and not anywhere near the CPU.
>> Antec, fractal design and coolermaster are some manufacturers
>> providing this design.
>
> Thanks, I'll search for one.

Good point on that. My older CoolerMaster cases are old designs so PS
on top. The newer CoolerMaster Cosmos is on the bottom which is nice,
although it was a bit more difficult (but not impossible) to do some
of the front switch wiring.

Cheers,
Mark