Hey guys, Ok im building a computer that has to be VERY quiet and mainly used with audio production, so I have been looking around at different forums and what not researching and this is what I have come up with. Now I already have DVD drive a couple hard drives a specialized soundcard monitor mouse and keyboard, so I don’t need to buy them. My budget is around $AU 2000. I will go higher if needs be, but that all depends on necessity. Ok this is what im considering thus far: Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 4 x 1024 ddr-2 533 ram (Audio production needs heaps) 400+ GB HD (perhaps 2) Upper market brand 7200.10 16mb Cache Antec Solo case. $134.00 www.antec.com/us/product...php?ProdID=18500 Zalman 460 Watt Quiet Power Supply (I don’t know if that psu has to much or to little power for what im using it for.) I need an ATX motherboard that pretty much has all the bells and whistles and is of high quality. Was thinking about getting an ASUS P5B but I think that is a bit of overkill since im not overclocking. And finally I need help getting a graphics card, now I won’t be doing much gaming but I would like for the option to be there, I was thinking of spending no more than $150 tops on a Card. I don’t want to over clock, but I want this computer to be upgradeable, wouldn’t mind getting 1 of those Intel quad cores next year when I could pick one up for a song, so I will need the appropriate motherboard/cooling/psu etc. Any ideas, thoughts or opinions will be greatly appreciated. Tom
I'm not sure I can tell you what motherboard would do the job for futureproofing. If you want to have a lot of CPU power, then a Xeon system with the new Woodcrest (Xeon 5100 series) core would be the way to go. If not, we're going to have to hope that Intel doesn't update the voltage requirements for the quad-cores. The one advantage of getting a dual Xeon-capable motherboard is the option to add a second CPU down the road, which seems to be a big concern for you. Motherboard: even if you're not overclocking, Asus makes very solid boards. A second option would be the Abit AB9. Tyan and Supermicro would be two companies you'd be looking at if you can afford a Xeon setup. For the power supply, Zalman isn't terrible, but it's highly adviseable to get something 500W or better. The Seasonic S12 series would be an excellent choice for this. On the hard drives, Seagate is a good choice as is Western Digital. Maxtor I would avoid right now, since they've had some quality control issues. However, they may change since Seagate purchased them. A third option is Samsung drives. For the video card, a GeForce 6600GT or GeForce 7600GS (the 7600GT is more powerful) are about the same performance-wise, so those would be a consideration since you may do some gaming. Neither are king in performance, but they'll handle most games just fine and are relatively inexpensive (usually $100 US or less). Since noise is an issue, I recommend hitting up Silent PC Review for some ideas.
