New Audio Pc build/Old Audio Pc upgrade to Gaming

bradlente

Hello.

I'm planning a new Audio pc build that I'll hopefully have finished for the Summer.Don't fancy the warm weather and barbecues so instead I'll stay inside with the blinds closed alone making something that almost resembles Music.:pac:

I started a previous thread here http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=89572982#post89572982 and was directed by Benway to this area.

Right now I have a very old model(6 years) of Audio pc that I'm also considering turning into a half decent gaming machine and just a general wankabout system.My plan for the time being is to only upgrade the ddr2 ram on this from 4 to 8(maybe 16 if possible or relevant) and upgrade the graphics card.I'm strangely fond of my cpu, for some reason I think it can still do the business mid-range wise.

Anyway here's the spec I put up in the other thread.It's very sparse so I'll add to it here in the coming days.I meant to get going on this since Christmas so hopefully just getting the thread up here even though I'm putting up fukall information to begin with will get the ball rolling.

OS Name Microsoft Windows XP Professional
Version 5.1.2600 Service Pack 3 Build 2600
OS Manufacturer Microsoft Corporation
System Name AUDIOPC
System Manufacturer Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd.
System Model EP31-DS3L
System Type X86-based PC
Processor x86 Family 6 Model 23 Stepping 10 GenuineIntel ~2833 Mhz
BIOS Version/Date Award Software International, Inc. FDa, 27/10/2008
SMBIOS Version 2.4
Windows Directory C:\WINDOWS
System Directory C:\WINDOWS\system32
Boot Device \Device\HarddiskVolume1
Locale
Hardware Abstraction Layer Version = "5.1.2600.5512 (xpsp.080413-2111)"
User Name
Time Zone W. Europe Standard Time
Total Physical Memory 4,096.00 MB
Available Physical Memory 2.57 GB
Total Virtual Memory 2.00 GB
Available Virtual Memory 1.96 GB
Page File Space 5.19 GB
Page File C:\pagefile.sys

Thanks in advance,
Todd

(my names not Todd)

Lu Tze

bradlente wrote: »

Hello.

I'm planning a new Audio pc build that I'll hopefully have finished for the Summer.Don't fancy the warm weather and barbecues so instead I'll stay inside with the blinds closed alone making something that almost resembles Music.:pac:

I started a previous thread here http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=89572982#post89572982 and was directed by Benway to this area.

Right now I have a very old model(6 years) of Audio pc that I'm also considering turning into a half decent gaming machine and just a general wankabout system.My plan for the time being is to only upgrade the ddr2 ram on this from 4 to 8(maybe 16 if possible or relevant) and upgrade the graphics card.I'm strangely fond of my cpu, for some reason I think it can still do the business mid-range wise.

Anyway here's the spec I put up in the other thread.It's very sparse so I'll add to it here in the coming days.I meant to get going on this since Christmas so hopefully just getting the thread up here even though I'm putting up fukall information to begin with will get the ball rolling.

OS Name Microsoft Windows XP Professional
Version 5.1.2600 Service Pack 3 Build 2600
OS Manufacturer Microsoft Corporation
System Name AUDIOPC
System Manufacturer Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd.
System Model EP31-DS3L
System Type X86-based PC
Processor x86 Family 6 Model 23 Stepping 10 GenuineIntel ~2833 Mhz
BIOS Version/Date Award Software International, Inc. FDa, 27/10/2008
SMBIOS Version 2.4
Windows Directory C:\WINDOWS
System Directory C:\WINDOWS\system32
Boot Device \Device\HarddiskVolume1
Locale
Hardware Abstraction Layer Version = "5.1.2600.5512 (xpsp.080413-2111)"
User Name
Time Zone W. Europe Standard Time
Total Physical Memory 4,096.00 MB
Available Physical Memory 2.57 GB
Total Virtual Memory 2.00 GB
Available Virtual Memory 1.96 GB
Page File Space 5.19 GB
Page File C:\pagefile.sys

Thanks in advance,
Todd

(my names not Todd)

You will better Info on the spec if you go to start -> run and type in dxdiag. Or download speccy from piriform

beauf

Sounds like its a Intel® Core™2 Duo Processor E7400 (3M Cache, 2.80 GHz, 1066 MHz FSB)
Motherboard http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=2893#sp

If you run something like Speccy http://www.piriform.com/speccy it will give us a better idea of what you have.

One important thing is to find the model no of the power supply and post it up here. As playing games will be dependent on the graphics card you can put in than that requires a decent power supply.

Its not going to play the latest titles. But with a half decent card you'd be able to play some games. Maybe you already have one in it.

bradlente

Yeah it has a card in it,It's been running the South Park game decently albeit crashing from time to time.Not exactly a graphically impressive game though.

I'll run dxdiag or get speccy and throw it up later on,Cheers for that.I'm not too worried about the latest titles,Not looking for state of the art but would like an above average setup if possible with my main system,Might be a little optimistic though.

beauf

You can't. best you can do is a low end/low mid range setup.

The top end gaming needs a very serious spec these days which means the mid and even the low end risen considerably.

yawhat!

Whats your budget?

bradlente

yawhat! wrote: »

Whats your budget?

I'm thinking around 1.2-1.5k but it's not strict.I'll look up the best components over the next few months and scale down to something not crazy.If anyone wants to put up a few particular components they rate that would be great as it'll help me cut a few corners and educate me a bit quicker.:pac:

I was going to post a copy of my dxdiag but I might just have a browse through it later and try pick out the relevant stuff.

SuperTortoise

New gen of CPU's and GPU's supposed to launch 2nd half of this year, even if you're not getting those, when they do launch it will probably drive the price down of the exisiing stuff.
Might be worth considering if you're not planning building for a few months.

yawhat!

if your budget is 1.2k to 1.5k then you have to start from scratch. You'll get around 100 for the PC you currently have.

The CPU is pretty awful in it and has old sockets. its not going to be turned into a gaming PC. CPU would be fine for office work and the likes

You could build a top gaming PC for around 1000.

Heres an example

Item|Price
Intel Xeon E3-1230v3 Bx, LGA1150|€213.19
8GB-Kit G.Skill PC3-10667U CL9-9-9-24|€63.43
Samsung SSD 840 EVO Basic 120GB SATA 6Gb/s|€69.99
Corsair CX Series Modular CX600M, 600W|€65.03
Gigabyte Radeon R9 290 OC Windforce 3, 4GB DDR5, PCI-Express|€377.77
Corsair Carbide Series 200R, ATX, ohne Netzteil|€45.18
ASRock B85 Pro4, Sockel 1150, ATX|€61.44
WD Blue 1TB 6Gb's|€49.80
Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit SB-Version Englisch|€88.47
Shipping|€18.99
Total|€1053.29

Item|Price
8GB-Kit G.Skill PC3-10667U CL9-9-9-24|€63.43
Samsung SSD 840 EVO Basic 120GB SATA 6Gb/s|€69.99
Corsair CX Series Modular CX600M, 600W|€65.03
Gigabyte Radeon R9 290 OC Windforce 3, 4GB DDR5, PCI-Express|€377.77
Corsair Carbide Series 200R, ATX, ohne Netzteil|€45.18
ASRock B85 Pro4, Sockel 1150, ATX|€61.44
WD Blue 1TB 6Gb's|€49.80
Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit SB-Version Englisch|€88.47
Intel Core i5-4440 Box, LGA1150|€155.99
Shipping|€18.99
Total|€996.09

or a mid range gaming PC for around 750

Item|Price
8GB-Kit G.Skill PC3-10667U CL9-9-9-24|€63.43
Samsung SSD 840 EVO Basic 120GB SATA 6Gb/s|€69.99
Corsair CX Series Modular CX600M, 600W|€65.03
Corsair Carbide Series 200R, ATX, ohne Netzteil|€45.18
WD Blue 1TB 6Gb's|€49.80
Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit SB-Version Englisch|€88.47
AMD FX-6300 Prozessor, Boxed, Sockel AM3+|€97.75
Gigabyte GeForce GTX 760 WindForce 3X OC, 2GB GDDR5, 2x DVI, HDMI, DisplayPort|€216.26
ASRock 970 Pro3 R2.0, AM3+, ATX|€56.79
Shipping|€18.99
Total|€771.69

The three builds above have windows included so not sure if you need that

bradlente

The main purpose for the new build is all Audio.
My main aim with the upgrade was just to optimize it.Overly optimistic with my expectations,but I play as much indie and old games as new stuff.I'll probably still do a bit of programming with it too so I'd like to put whatever I can into it to help improve performance.I probably won't approach the new build until I have the small upgrade done.Even though it's small it'll probably take me an age to do.

Don't plan on waiting around for the price drops but at the rate it'll take me to get going I'll probably end up buying around that time:pac:

bradlente

Probably a bit naive here but could this do a decent temporary job for me?I'm thinking of holding out for the next-gen processors now and am not in as much of a rush for the full-spec job.

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2057206301

Would probably get Windows for it,unless Linux is compatible with some sample libraries and daws out there,no idea how stable that would be.

DERPY DERPFACE

Whatever you want. Laptop CPUs are never anywhere near desktop CPUs in performance, same with GPUs. Bit would still be better than your current PC.

scuba8

If you want to see the cutting edge of audio PC builds you should take a read of this Irish forum.

http://www.tirnahifi.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=1494

You could go to about page 110 where components are being established.