Advice regarding hardware for modeling/sound pc

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FacELesS.

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My cousin is planning on getting himself a desktop for modeling/music making/gaming. His budget is around R13000 (he will be buying the hardware in canada so approx $1400 canadian).

Specs regarding gaming is easy... big GFX card, fast cpu and minimum 2GB ram with the gfx card being more important than the cpu.

But regarding modeling and music making I am a bit clueless.

Modeling is very cpu intensive, but would the big gfx card used for gaming aid the modeling? Do the modeling programs (3D studio max, maya, xsi,...) favour nvidia or ati/amd?

He is a budding psy trance musician and would like to further this hobby. What type of sound card would be used for such a purpose? Will the gaming sound cards be of any use or would one need to look at manufacturers other than sound blaster or asus? Is sound processing also cpu intensive?


At the moment we looked at the following rough setup:
cpu: Intel core i7 920 2.66GHz
ram: 3x2GB 1333MHz
hdd: 750GB
gfx: ati 4870 512MB
psu: 500-600W
screen: 22" LCD

Advice please :)
 
Regarding sound, in my limited experience, go for something like the M-Audio Audiophile PCI or USB (external) sound card. This has ASIO support for low latency between software and sound card.

I'm sure DJK will be able to provide some valuable input. :)
 
PostmanPot said:
Regarding sound, in my limited experience, go for something like the M-Audio Audiophile PCI or USB (external) sound card. This has ASIO support for low latency between software and sound card.
Click to expand...

Aha - you're learning!! :D

@OP: not sure what you mean by modelling? :confused:

Regarding music production, the 2 single most important factors are memory and sound card. Don't skimp on either of these two and your friend will be fine. The m-audio range are decent. Whatever you do, do not go for a surround sound audio card - they are useless for music production - do not be sold by anyone on this - surround sound cards are rubbish for music production. I would also suggest that his gaming and music production hard drives be completely separate, even on separate operating systems. ASIO support on the sound card is also essential.

WRT your setup:

RAM is sufficient
CPU is fine
Scrap the idea of one large hard drive and rather get two smaller ones
You're missing a sound card there...

;)
 
FacELesS. said:
My cousin is planning on getting himself a desktop for modeling/music making/gaming. His budget is around R13000 (he will be buying the hardware in canada so approx $1400 canadian).

Specs regarding gaming is easy... big GFX card, fast cpu and minimum 2GB ram with the gfx card being more important than the cpu.

But regarding modeling and music making I am a bit clueless.

Modeling is very cpu intensive, but would the big gfx card used for gaming aid the modeling? Do the modeling programs (3D studio max, maya, xsi,...) favour nvidia or ati/amd?

He is a budding psy trance musician and would like to further this hobby. What type of sound card would be used for such a purpose? Will the gaming sound cards be of any use or would one need to look at manufacturers other than sound blaster or asus? Is sound processing also cpu intensive?


At the moment we looked at the following rough setup:
cpu: Intel core i7 920 2.66GHz
ram: 3x2GB 1333MHz
hdd: 750GB
gfx: ati 4870 512MB
psu: 500-600W
screen: 22" LCD

Advice please :)
Click to expand...

perhaps you should look at getting a core 2 quad rather then an i7 as the mobo for the i7's are fscking expensive... and that ram is quite pricey too.

edit:
DJK what business you in?
and IMO you might need to go for an AMD HD4850 to pay for sound card... and with regards to ram, you can get 8 gig's of ddr2 for the price of 6 gig's ddr3. oh and get a 64bit OS other wise you've just wasted money :D
 
Last edited:
Oh, and remember if he's serious about making music, he'll need some decent monitor speakers. Entry-level active (amplifier is built-in) monitor speakers go for around R5000.
 
PostmanPot said:
Oh, and remember if he's serious about making music, he'll need some decent monitor speakers. Entry-level active (amplifier is built-in) monitor speakers go for around R5000.
Click to expand...

Yip - headphones won't work. He can go for passive monitors as well which is my new setup, because there is very little interference and IMO the excuse for actives because they colour the sounds less is rubbish because the signal still passes through an amplifier. The only worthy argument of using active monitors is that it electronically splits the audio signal and separately amplifies at each cone - but considering the low levels of studio production, this doesn't really become much of an issue.

The signal goes from pc to an amp and compressor, then to a set of passive speakers. The interference is minimal because of the shielding and separation of power sources. It works out to around the same price as really decent active monitors, and with sublime sound reproduction and more control considering the room acoustics. Some active monitors can also allow control of the eq pre-amplification to match room acoustics, however these are usually pretty damn pricey.

WRT monitors, I'd suggest looking at JBL's range locally. Behringer are a little cheaper and for audiophiles it is understandable why - but for an average joe/intro music producer, this won't be a problem. Active or passive is up to him, however active is easier if he is a n00b and does have its advantages. If he goes passive, then he'll need to buy a separate amp, and possibly a compressor as well. If he is building a studio then he'll probably want a mixer desk as well. Mackie if he can afford it. He'll then need microphones, instruments, snake cabling etc. It gets really pricey - over R250k for a decent studio. If he's just wanting to mess around with production on a pc and a midi controller, then he's looking at around R30k for everything, including the software and hardware...;)
 
Well depends on what type of modeling you want to do. Generally more is better in terms of CPU and RAM although if you want to use the GFX card to do some processing the more stream processors the better. Also keep in mind that large models require large amounts of storage space and if the data is critical a raid setup might be benificial
 
For 3dsmax a fast quad core is needed (quicker rendering), max ram for the board and a decent gpu for when you start moving massive models around.
 
Thanx for the input regarding the sound djk and others.

I'll go an draw up a new spec and post it later today for final input.
 
You can model on any graphics card, but if he's really into modelling, you'll want to get a Quadro or FireGL card, as these are highly optimised to handle 3D Rendering. Unfortunately, the price for these cards are usually hair raising. The nice thing is that you'll be able to game on them "after hours"

Sound card wise I'm not too clued up on music production cards, but maybe as an entry level card, take a look at the ESI Juli@. I used this at my old job for sound and music recording, and it was beautiful quality output.

As said by others, you want lots of ram, a 64 bit OS, and ideally, a case that is very quiet. Fans can lead to some sort of interference I understand.

If you ever get a chance to walk into a Paul Bothner's music shop, do so, and ask questions. Those guys are pretty darn professional.
 
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