Your thoughts on a DAW/Gamer...

[WARonWAR]

Hi All,

I've been poking around here for a while and wanted to get your opinions on a build I plan on doing (yes it is my 1st!). This will be my DAW and my Gaming PC. I plan on using a TH2GO http://www.matrox.com/graphics/en/products/gxm/th2go/ to run 3 monitors. I will also be recording my music thru this http://www.tascam.com/products/fw-1082.html . I doubt I will be overclocking- if I do it will be rather mild. If you have any suggestions, feel I could save $ in one area, or feel I should have spent more on something Id love to hear it!

MOBO: ASUS M4A79T Deluxe AM3 DDR3 AMD 790FX ATX AMD $189
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813131363

CPU: AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition Deneb 3.2GHz $215
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819103674

GPU: EVGA 01G-P3-1180-AR GeForce GTX 285 (nvidia because per iracing forums it works better with th2go...) $330
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814130480

PSU CORSAIR CMPSU-750TX 750W ATX12V $110
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...%20cmpsu%20750

RAM: CORSAIR DOMINATOR 6GB (3 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM $210*
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820145232

DVD: SAMSUNG Black 22X DVD Burner $28*
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16827151188

Case: COOLER MASTER COSMOS 1000 Full Tower Computer Case $168
(could probably save a bit here, but I do like this case)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16811119138

Windows Vista 64 Home Edition $99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16832116488

HDD: Caviar Black 1TB $100 (x2 or x3?)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822136284


Total= $1450 (not counting in mail-in rebates)

What I am unclear on is HDD(s). I know in the past many DAW guru's insisted on having 2 or 3 HDDs. Would I be fine with just 1? Should I get at least 2 and use one only for large files such as audio plugins? Would I benefit from installing my Gaming software (iracing and maybe a flight sim) on a different HD than my recording software? As much as I would hate to mess with it, is a dual boot system something I should consider? Sorry but I am just confused when it comes to this area.


Thanks much for thoughts guys and gals

Edit:

Sony DVD burner: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16827118032 $31

Corsair Memory: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820145220 $115

new cost $1360!

[Khalil]

Samsung optical drives are no good. Lite-on LG or Sony is your best bet. The memory you picked is over kill and is too expensive try this http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820145220 and welcome to pcmech forums.

[WARonWAR]

Wow Khalil! When do you sleep? Haha. Thanks for the quick reply! I has hoping to get your thoughts as I had read a couple of threads where you talked about building DAW's. There are Windows tweaks that are recommended for audio recording. There are also settings that are recommended for gaming. Would I benefit from creating 2 user accounts in Windows one for audio, one for gaming?

[Khalil]

You could but it won't effect performance in anyway.

[WARonWAR]

Originally Posted by Khalil You could but it won't effect performance in anyway.

Well performance is all I really care about. I've just read where people swear by having the OS on it's own Drive, Audio on another, etc etc. Others mentioned using separate user accounts or dual boot systems.. If it wont affect performance much then I'd just rather keep it as simple as possible. So just put everything on 1 (non partitioned) HDD? I would only need a 2nd HDD if storage became an issue? Sounds easy enough to me! Thanks for the help khalil!

If anyone else has any thoughts or suggestions, I'd love to hear them..

Thanks everyone!

[Khalil]

well you said 2 different profiles, you didn't say anything about partitioning. I do not partition. I use seperate hard drives. On my Audio rig I am using 2x 15k RPM SAS hard drives in Raid 1 for my OS/Programs and 6 1TB WD hard drives for data storage.
What I recommend for you is installing the OS/Programs on 1 hard drive. make sure it is a 32MB cache, WD Black are excellent. And put all your data on a seperate larger hard drive. Seperating your games from your audio software won't make any difference in performance because you are not going to be editing tracks while you game. If you can't justify paying for multiple drives then don't worry about partitioning.

[WARonWAR]

Originally Posted by Khalil well you said 2 different profiles, you didn't say anything about partitioning.

I thought I had mentioned it in my OP, sorry for the confusion. I doubt I will mess with any partitioning anyway. The 1TB Caviars seem like a great price to me (although I doubt I would need anything bigger than a 200GB for the OS/Programs). If there is a different <$200 drive that would be better (performance wise) for the OS/Programs than the Caviar id love to here it. If not, I will probably just go with 2x 1TB Caviars.

Thanks again for answering all of my elementary questions.. very helpful of you!

P.S. Khalil... I just saw that you were from the Watseka area. I am from Momence! ~~insert momence joke here~~. haha. thanks again!