The best P3(370) Motherboards for my audio PC?

[AcidJazz]

To whom it may concern,

I am attempting to build "my" own ultimate audio system. I would like your advice on which motherboard you would recommend me purchasing.

Here is what I'm looking for: 1) Pentium III, 2) High Stability, 3) No integrated sound and audio enhancers attached to board, 4) Preferably, excepts DDR RAM.

According to audio-enthusiast the Pentium III is recommended for professional audio PC's for two major reasons: 1) Many professional audio hardware and software has compatibility issue with some AMD processors, and P4 processors, 2) Processors above 1GHz require more fans thus more noise which is very undesired in an audio PC.

Here are the rest of my PC's Hardware & Software:

1) CoolerMaster ATC-210 (Blue)
2) 2 x IBM 40GB Deskstar 60GXP
3) 2 x Plextor 12/10/32 CDRW (quieter than the 16 and 24 speeds)
4) Digital Audio Labs - CardDeluxe 24/96kHz
5) Magic Fleece - Noise control
6) Fans & Power Supply (undecided) "looking for quiet machines, know any?"
7) Sound Forge 5.0, Vegas 2.0, Reason 1.0.1, Cool Edit Pro
8) Windows 98SE (compatibility reasons)
9) 512 MB of SDRAM or DDR RAM

Can you help me make a wise choose?

Thank you,
Steven Andrade

[Floydian]

Hey acicjazz - good choice with the PIII

Firstly, you may as well scrap the ddr ram idea unless your going to go for an amd. Intel PIII's use a 133 mhz front side bus which limits your ram to 133 mhz (unless you overclock your fsb, which inturn overclocks your ram anyway) whilst amd chips use ddr (double data rate) ram - 266 mhz. I may be unaware of a board that does this, but as far as i know, you want p3, you want sdram.

So, as for the mobo, go for the TUSL2-C - newer version of the CUSL2-C - probably the most stable P3 board for audio work + no integrated audio or video ( -C denotes this, TUSL2 has onboard vga which can create problems and takes up an irq).

As for power supply, look at the Enermax 300watt (or more powerful if you feel you need it). Meant to be the quiestest psu around. Also, if you want a quiet pc, you can try getting a cpu heatsink that uses an 80mm fan - papst and panaflo make the quietest fans - and then run that at 7 volts (use red as ground and yellow as +ve), this will keep it quiet and cool. You can also try putting damping material (mouse mats work for me) throughout your case, mounting your hdd's and fans on grommets (reduce case vibrations), also, probably no need for a chassis fan.

One more suggestion, if your ram is cheap, standard computer shop crap, sell it to a mate (who doesn't do digital audio work) and get either Crucial Technologies, Mushkin, Kingmax, or Infineon (they are the ones that stand out, i'm sure there are many other good brands). Also, try not to mix brands.

Sites that may help you:

www.7volts.com
www.bluelifeaudio.com/~pcconfig/

good luck

[everett_chris]

You might want to consider one of the Supermicro boards with the serverworks chipset. They are a bit more expensive, but they lack all of the junk that you don't need (integrated sound) and they are designed for excellent memory preformance, about as good as systems with DDR memory. Also much better reliability. I would stick with the HE version of the chipset. Make sure your case is big enough for one of these, they are pretty big. I'll second Floydian's comments on power supply and memory, Also make sure and use a ground strap when you put everything together. For good reliability stick with windows 2000, and stay current on the windows update stuff. Do all of that and you'll have a fast system that never breaks. (Take that mac fans) :D

[chrome]

A question concerning windows updates - I was, and currently am, on my friend's computer seeing about windows updates. I noticed that the sight wants to automatically update it based on what it can gather from my friend's computer (through the DSL connection). BUt being that I have no intention of hooking my computer up to the internet and dealing with everything else that comes with it, is there a way I'd still be able to update my OS accordingly?? I have seen, and sifted through, hundreds of individual files for a given OS (currently use 98se, and am considering 2000), but are these different files than what microsoft would automatically attempt to install if my compuer was connected? Or can I simply grab what I feel I need?? Hope this makes sense. Any help would be great...

_chad s._

[Charlie H.]

another vote for the CUSL2... thats what I'm running in my audio rig (P3 667 with 512MB ram. Windows XP Pro.) and I have no problems with any of the software listed.

[homarne]

I've run Reason 1, Reason 2 , and Cool Edit 2000 for hundreds of hours on my P4 system without issue (not to mention Steinbure Cubase SX, Halion, and Native Instruments Absynth and FM7). My main concerns are a) the moment your system is complete, it is out of date, and b) getting quality parts for a platform this old may be tricky; I've gone the ebay route for out-dated parts and been unsatisfied.

I reccomend you build a P4 2.4GHz system with the lates 865 chipset mobo and ddr memory. If it doesnt work with your software, sell the parts to for cost and go this route. But I am 95% confident you will not have issues unless one of the software vendors you listed specifically indicates compatability issues, and you will end up with a vastly more powerful system and enjoy a longer life (not you, the computer!)

Would love to hear more abbout this P4 compatability issue, though...

[Matt2346]

Steven,

I would NEVER use Windows 95, 98, or ME for any mission critical application. I would use Windows 2000 or XP if you can get drivers for your hardware. Windows 95 and 98 will crash and Windows 2000 and XP are much more stable. The equipment you list should atleast run under Windows 2000.

Matt

[TimOBrien]

I just spent $500 on my new system and heres what I put together:

i845GEBV2 Intel motherboard with builtin graphics and 10/100 network.
512 Mb Kingston DDR Ram
2.54Ghz P4
60 Gb WesternDigital 7200rpm drive with 8mb cache
I bought a case from a local computer fair; the above came from newegg.com. For $145 more, they also have Win2K Pro with Service Pack 3 included OEM (no fancy retail box, just the disks.)

I already had an EchoMia soundcard and 60Gb WD data drive from my previous DAW.

Fired up perfectly with zero problems. My first test was loading up 35 separate stereo 24bit/44.1kHz tracks and the CPU meter only hit 8-10% with no tweaking of Win2k.

My P4 is half as loud as the Athlon game system I built for my son, but you can always put extension cables on the keyboard, mouse and video and put the CPU in the closet or in the next room and pass the cables through a hole in the wall.....