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that unlocking thing is hit/miss.  I bought a board and 3 core with the idea that I would try to unlock it.  I changed the bios to unlock but windows still only shows 3 cores.  Oh well.  the 3 core is only marginally worse in performance to the quad for pretty much everything I do so I don't miss it at all.
 
Well maybe not much help but... Haven't used any Intel processors since the mid 90's. All AMD here. Not for overclocking reasons. But I run Pro Tools exclusively. And Gigabyte motherboards seem to be better than Asus in Pro Tools. Not sure if they are better in your software.

I would spend more money in the destination drive for audio. 10,000 rpm SATA. 7200 works fine too. Don't need mega storage for audio these days. 200 Gigs is almost overkill. Just get 2 smaller ones and leave one unplugged and plug it in to back up the main. Even a power surge or other calamity your "Tape Deck" will be secure on the unplugged one.

John
 
John, I'm told that when "backing up" to a drive and powering it down, it's best to
"spin it up" at least once every few weeks to keep it lubed and active ?
Heard that one ?

MM.
 
Ptownkid said:
Already done Rochey. It's not that I think I need a ridiculous rig or anything, I just want something stable that will last me a good amount of years and I want the best bang for my buck because I'm cheap.

Right now I'm waffling between the AMD Phenom II X4 965 and the Intel i5 750


Just built an Intel i5-750 system. Posting from it now.
Really awesome so far.
If the results of my performance tests are correct, it's about 5.5 times faster than my previous system (AMD X2 4400+).
Recommended.
 
So i ended up going with the following

Intel i5 750 quad core
Asus p7p55d LE mobo (was the only one I could get at my local stores that fit my needs, but I've had 3 asus boards and never any problems so...)
WD sata 500GB hard drive
1TB external e-sata hard drive
4GB of ocz 1333MHz ram
MSI sata lightscribe dvd drive
Windows 7 professional 64bit

I already had a cooler master centurion case, but I swapped out the psu for a better 460W cooler master psu.

So far so good, windows 7 formatted the drive and installed and updated in a freakin heartbeat...seriously impressed thus far!
 
Ptown,  You might have better luck than I, but recently I was in the same boat and went with an Intel mobo. For years I was in the Asus,  Abit, Gigabyte camp along with AMD processors. The problem I have found in recent years is stability. I just want a computer for day to day tasks and a really stable platform for recording. The non-Intel boards are geared almost exclusively for gaming and the stability from them is not what it was like even 5 years ago. Updates by way of bios fixes are few and far between and there's almost zero tech support available if you can even get them on the phone.

I made a pack with the devil and went with an Intel mobo and processor. It's a very stable rock solid workstation platform, no overclocking and not good for gaming by gaming standards but I don't use a computer for that. What it is great for is recording and has a few legacy PCI slots (along with the newer PCI express). You can also set it up to dual boot between Mac and Windows.  8)
 
Yeah, I was looking for an intel board that fit my needs...but i could only find them online and did not want to pay extra for shipping. No matter how much I read about intel boards being the most stable out there, I know from personal experience that 3 of the 4 mobos I've ever owned have been asus and the only one I EVER had problems with was an MSI. I have no idea if it's somehow biased, but Asus is rated number 1 in reliability.
 
Ptown, I've been living a PC nightmare for the past 3 years going through one after another of these "gaming" boards. I used to be a big proponent of Asus mobos. But one issue after another made me move on to something else.

The problem I've had (doing searches and getting the info online crossing the T's and dotting the I's so to speak) is doing those searches you'll find a whole group of people telling you that such an such mobo is the best out there. Best bang for the buck, best at this and that. Then after you buy the board and six months down the road when you're having issues with it you'll go to those same sites and do a search for info on your your mobo problem and they'll say "Oh man you got that board? That's a big piece of crap, I feel sorry for you I wouldn't give that to my worst enemy".  These are the same (HS kids  ::)) that said "It's the best out there" a few months earlier. I got sick of it after a while and so did my pocket book.  :'(
 
Yeah, I know exactly what you're saying, but like I said, Intel was a non-option for the most part. Hell, Intel has only one 3 pci slot model that fits the i5 anyway...and it has an inferior chipset. Worst case scenario I'll have to buy a new mobo down the road.
 
MartyMart said:
John, I'm told that when "backing up" to a drive and powering it down, it's best to
"spin it up" at least once every few weeks to keep it lubed and active ?
Heard that one ?

MM.

I heard you needed to do the spin-up thing every six months or so with the older drives. That's going back ten years though - I don't know how important that is now. Might look into it.

The simple solution for backing up is something like this:

http://www.mailorder.anglianinternet.co.uk/acatalog/ICY_BOX_IB_138SK_BEZ_SWAP_SATA_HDD_REMOVABLE_RACK_WITH_LED_BLACK.html

We use these with some of our video servers at work and they're very reliable.

You don't even need to take the drives out - you can just turn them off with the key and only turn them back on when you want to spin the disk up - much less hassle than opening up your machine and fiddling with sata cables.

I bought two for my pc - one for docs/images and one for audio. If my house catches fire I can easily pull them out on the way out the window!!
 
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