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Mac or PC? If you want to work at the Hit Factory in NY or Miami you're going to have to learn to use a Mac. If you just want to sell tracks, use whatever you want just make sure you make the track hot!!

If you like Mac invest in a Mac Pro Desktop or PowerBook laptop. You can even save money and go with the PowerMac G5 if you can find one (that's the prior model). Many colleges are getting rid of their G5's at cheap prices. Call and ask around ; make sure you upgrade the RAM to 2GB.

If you don't like Mac, PC's are excellent. In fact Intel makes processors for both Mac and PC's so it is really a matter of preference. If you're comfortable using Microsoft Windows stick with PC.

Purchasing a PC:

AMD or Intel Dual processors. Windows Vista works best with Dual processors. No Celeron processors people!!

2GB or RAM. If you're using Windows XP you can go with 1GB, but if you're using Windows Vista you definitely need 2GB. Vista sucks up a lot of memory and and processing power.
SATA Hard Drives. Serial ATA hard drives. They come standard on most computers.

Usually bigger is better, but not with hard drives and audio recording! There is a lot of deleting and saving with audio production. The bigger the hard drive, the longer it takes the computer to retrieve data. As a rule of don't exceed 250G. Tell that pushy sales associate to stop trying to sell you the 500GB hard drive.

'Stack Your Hard Drives'. This is an expression used by audio engineers and producers that means use external hard drives to back up and store recording sessions. Again don't exceed 250GB on an external hard drive. It would suck if you stored everything on one 500 GB hard drive and then it crashed. Stack your drives, buy multiple external hard drives.

Video Card. If you're using XP the video card should have 128MB or more. If you're using Windows Vista you need a video card with 256 MB or more.

DVD-R and CD-R Drives. It really does not matter that much, go with what ever is out. I do recommend having a DVD burner on hand, you can burn more info on DVD's than CD's

USB Ports and FireWire. Make sure you have a lot of USB and FIreWire Ports. You'll use them to hook up your sound card and MIDI controller. Make sure the USB ports are current (no 1.0). If they're not current you need to update them by downloading the drivers.

Computer Cases. If you're buying a computer from a store, make sure it is quiet and it has an excellent cooling system. If you're building it yourself I recommend Antec or Thermaltake cases. They usually have pretty good cooling systems. Check out Newegg.com

Power Supply. If you're buying a computer in store you don't have to worry about this, make sure it's quiet. If you're building it yourself, 500W or greater and again I recommend Antec or Thermaltake. Visit Newegg.com and see if you can a combo deal (power supply and case).

Doch bevor ich überhaupt den Kauf gewagt habe, gingen ganze 5 Monate für die Recherche drauf. Denn so ein Kauf ist alles andere als Einfach. Zum einen will man sich nicht mehr mit ausrangierter Hardware begnügen, zum anderen will man aber auch keine 3000€ ausgeben.

Mein erste Zusammenstellung belief sich auf satte 1100€, doch dank der Internet-Seite DMV nextgen wurde ich eines besseren belehrt und konnte meine Zusammenstellung ein wenig abspecken und satte 200€ sparen. Immerhin etwas und ich bin durchaus zufrieden mit meinem PC. Auch das Warten hat sich gelohnt, da ja jetzt der Intel Core 2 Duo (Wolfdale) erschienen ist.Zumindest kann ich nicht meckern, wenn ich Unreal Tournament 3, The Witcher oder Command & Conquer 3 zocke.

Wen es interessiert, was jetzt unter meinem Schreibtisch friedlich und leise vor sich hinschlummert, hier die Daten meines neuen PC's :-)

• Gehäuse: Antec P182 Tower
• Netzteil: be quiet! BQT P7-PRO 450W Dark Power PRO
• CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo (Wolfdale) 3GHz
• Mainboard: Gigabyte GA-EP35-DS4
• RAM: 2x1024 Corsair DHX Series DDR2-800
• Grafikkarte: Asus Extreme EN8800 GTX
• Festplatte: Samsung SpinPoint F1 HD753LJ 750GB
• DVD Brenner: LG GSA-H62N

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The Zotac Geforce 8800 GT AMP! card is working like a charm. I ran 3DMark and scored just below 13000 with stock settings, and when I've got the new heatsink and some overclock, I'll run it again and post the results.

This is the third time in 6 days that I've been awake for 32+ hours in one go. Yes, and this run is about 36~ hours, and I don't feel tired. This is bad. I was tired earlier, but caught a second wind, so to speak.

Okay, so what is it this time - why did I stay up all night again? In one word: ncix. I finally (actually from order to pick-up, it was only a few days) got all my needed parts, i.e. the motherboard, with all the other pieces.

I bought a case built for mATX motherboards, but don't let that fool you. It's the Antec Mini P180, and it's far from being small. I believe it's actually bigger than my Antec Lanboy. It's also heavier because it's not aluminum, but steel. It's geared towards a very ambiguous market: gamers/enthusiasts who want a quiet PC that can be packed up on the go due to the fact that it's a "mini" case. Gamers and quiet don't really mix, and to say that it's easily usable for, let's say, lan parties is a bit ridiculous. As I mentioned, my Lanboy (Super Lanboy actually) is slightly smaller than the Mini P180, is a LOT lighter, and fits ATX motherboards, so it's not restricted in what you can put in it.

So, enough of my griping; in truth, I still like the Mini P180. It's black, it's cool (in the literal and idiomatic sense), and has some very nice organizational units. Of course, I went through a number of steps to get my "finished" product (which is still rough; later on that).

I had to put all the components for my motherboard (Gigabyte GA-MA78GM-S2H) in their proper places. Not much to say here. I decided to just use the pre-applied thermal pad on the OCZ Vanquisher heatsink I got instead of applying thermal paste. I almost forgot to mention the main actor in this show: AMD Athlon X2 5000+ (AM2 socket, 2.6GHz rated) Black Edition (more to come!).

So, that went fine. Then I had to put it in the case. The case, despite being as big as my ATX case, did not fit the mATX board without giving me trouble first. The I/O shield... I hate the bits that stick out. That's what got me first when I lowered the board into the case the first time. Took me at least 5 minutes to pry the sucker out of there. Change in plans - I actually measured checked which holes I needed to use in the case. Those standoffs didn't want to go in without a fight. So, I fixed the I/O shield, put in the standoffs, then got my motherboard sitting pretty in there. Did I mention that this is after I removed both HD cages to give myself some extra room to work with?

So, where exactly did all that width and height come from? The power supply is actually put at the bottom of the case. There's a hole in the thick partition (big weight and height to add on there) that lets you sneak your cables up to the motherboard. The width comes from the fact that you get about an added inch on the right side of the case to run your cables through to be hidden from sight. Like I said, it's got some nice organization.

On the top of the case, there's a 200mm fan that blows air out, like a spout. Obviously, I chose to have my heatsink fan blow in that direction. The huge fan actually got in the way of my main optical drive (my recently purchased Pioneer DVR-212D), and thus I had to place it at the bottom of the case, just in front of the PSU. This just about gave me trouble, with all those cables in the way, but the smaller sata cables were a blessing to be sure.

Along the way of transferring my drives from my old case into my new one, I accidentally stepped on the connected cable that was on one of my hard drives. It was the locking kind of connector, so it went *snap* and I wasn't a happy camper. I managed to McGuyver my way out of complete frustration, and set the slightly broken hard drive such that it worked (no details, but it was annoying). I plan to RMA it when I've transferred all the necessary data (i.e. all of it; I don't trust I'd necessarily get the data back). Yeah, so all my energy went into that, and I lost track of every thing else I was supposed to do. So, I ended up backtracking a couple times to set up the bloody pins everywhere. Done right?

WRONG! It wouldn't start. No explanation, it just wouldn't power up. Too much power being drawn? I doubt it. But in any case, I redid some of my cabling, unjuiced some components...then somehow presto! It turned on and Windows loaded. Oh, wait - I don't have an optical drive set up right now. So, I plug in my IDE DVD-ROM that I put in the top slot (where I was going to put my DVD+-RW) and give it a shot. It powers on, all's good then right? Right?!?

WRONG! The single IDE connector on the motherboard doesn't seem to appreciate my DVD-ROM. Combine that with flakey power, (I should have sufficient power, but it's been weird to me), and you've got a certified annoyance. So, no problem, I had my nice new Pioneer, and that worked. So, I finally get to install the drivers on the provided disc. Because I wasn't getting a connection to the internet, I presumed I just needed to install the LAN port's drivers....

WRONG AGAIN! So, here I am using my laptop to write this. And, yeah... I had to re-activate Windows XP on my new rig because it was apparently too much of a change in components (i.e. change of motherboard). It was morning (dark morning) and I didn't have internet, so I just put up with the annoying note about activation. I eventually called in and got an automated procedure which cleared up the annoyance without (amazingly) too much annoyance. Microsoft got a +1~pt. for that one.

But, to summarize the events, which felt unnecessarily long and excruciating, I put together an unfinished , slightly broken product for myself. For now, I'm content to overclock my rig and burn some DVDs. The problem is that I'm running out of DVDs (no prob, I'll order some), and overclocking is actually pretty boring.

Speaking of over-clocking, the Black Edition that I mentioned earlier...that's my CPU. It comes with multiplier unlocked!! Yes, stock voltage, no hassle, I was able to turn the sucker into a 3.1GHz machine by simply setting the multiplier from 13x to 15.5x. I didn't do any stress testing at that point, I just wanted to see the awesomeness that is the unlocked multiplier. At this point, I'm doing the boring stuff. I'm not very patient, so I don't wait hour upon hour for each new setting to be tested.

I actually chose to do some undervolting first, staying at the stock speed of 2.6GHz. The voltage went down. I actually just decided to stop at a point where I felt comfortable. So, at this point, I'm trying to slowly work up to where I was before, except with lower voltages (that is, under stock).

I don't admit to be an extreme overclocker, but with this awesome (and cheap <$100) CPU, it feels like it's really worth it to put it to the test. That much almost makes me forget that I'm hunched over a laptop and having haven't gotten sleep for 36 hours or so.

Case: Antec Sonata III (with 500w psu)
Motherboard: Gigabyte EX38-DQ6
RAM: Corsair XMS2 ddr2 800mhz 1gb X 4 (4 gb total)
Video Card: Zotac GeForce 8800GT 512MB AMP! Edition

CPU (don't have it yet): Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 3.0GHz Boxed (Wolfdale, 6MB)
I'm getting the HDD + CD burner + CD reader from the old pc.
Hopefully I get it soon, then I can maybe post some benchmarks.

At the time I didn't think much of it, and thought it simply was its time, until even the replacement board failed 2 years later. I began to think that maybe the power supply is the one to blame. Everything worked good until my video card fan broke down and I had to buy one of those giant Arctic Cooling fans. I also replaced the CPU heatsink as well along the way, but something in there wasn't right. Perhaps the wattage on my power supply just wasn't cutting it anymore, it most likely is the case.

This time, instead of simply going through the effort and cost to get back to pretty much the same state as before, I shelled out for a new PC. It was time, really. The only thing I managed to keep actually, were my hard drives, and the case... I had originally wanted to just simply replace the motherboard with a newer model, but since motherboards nowadays all use PCI-Express, and all I have is an AGP video card, it also meant I would have to get a new video card with the motherboard. One thing lead to another... In addition, my power supply is only 360watts, which isn't enough to power current gen hardware (and also lacks the supplemental plug for the video card). My DVD drives are also IDE, and current motherboards only have one IDE port (which I'm currently using with my one IDE hard drive) which meant I had to get a new SATA DVD drive as well. My computer case is an Antec Sonata, and the power supply has a "quiet feature" which monitors the case fan as well. Unfortunately, my new power supply doesn't have that feature, so I had to replace my case fan as well. Also, my RAM was outdated. Though it might have been compatible with my new motherboard, it probably would have slowed the system down. Also, because I was getting a new motherboard, it also meant a new CPU as well.

In the end, my shopping list wound up to be fairly big:

• Antec Earthwatts 500w power supply
• Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600
• E VGA Nvidia 8800GT
• OCZ RAM (2 gigs)
• Asus P5K ATX motherboard
• Pioneer DL DVD +/- SATA
• Scythe Slipstream case fan

For the first time in my life, I took apart my own computer, and installed a new one in its place. I'm still praying that everything will remain fine and working...

I have to say though, that it was much easier than I thought. Only light cursing (and mostly in humor) was the highlight of the process. Every plug has pretty much been dummy-proofed so there's no real way you can plug it in wrong (except for the Firewire and USB plugs, that is). Overall, I'm quite happy with the performance, especially with the Scythe Slipstream. It's inaudible! Same with the power supply fan! Right now, the loudest fan I have is the Zalman CNPS7500-CU, which in its own right is probably one of the quietest CPU heatsink fans already!

So now, everything's all closed up, and my system is re-installed. It pretty much looks the same as before, but now it's improved significantly. It'll prolly last me for another 4 years before I need another replacement, but in terms of my needs, this will probably do for the rest of the computer's life.

NeoPower 650W Blue

με τα παρακάτω τεχνικά χαρακτηριστικά:

Features

• NVIDIA SLI-ready certified
• AQ5 - 5 year warranty
• High Efficiency, Super Quiet Operation
• Highly efficient (up to 85%) with one super-silent 120mm fan keeps NeoPower cool and blue internal LED illumination
• Advanced Cable Management System
• Universal Input with Active PFC
• Dedicated Power Circuitry
• Supports ATX12V v2.2 and EPS12V systems
• Low-speed 120mm blue LED fan delivers whisper-quiet cooling and ensures quiet operation by varying fan speed in response to load and conditions
• Three +12V output circuits provide maximum stable power for the CPU independently of the other peripherals
• Accurate power rating allows NeoPower to deliver its full rated power, 24 hours a day rated at 50ºC
• One 8 pin and one 6 pin PCI Express graphics card power connectors
• Four SATA connectors for your Serial ATA drives
• Industrial grade protection circuitry prevents damage resulting from short circuits (SCP),
  under voltage protection (UVP), power overloads (OPP), and excessive voltages (OVP)
• Approvals: UL, CUL, CE, CB, FCC Class B, TÜV, CCC, C-tick.
• MTBF: 80,000 hours

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Overall Rating: 9/10

Pros: Outstanding cooling, roomy interior, sexy black finish with LED lights

Cons: No removable motherboard tray, fans are pretty loud at medium and max, dust magnet

Antec might have made the ultimate air cooling case.  At a glance you immediately notice the HUGE 200mm fan that dominates the top of this case.  Next, your eyes are drawn to the large perforated front bezel spaning 9 drive bays and shows off two more 120mm fans.  To round it all up the clear side shows off an additional rear 120mm fan.  Let me just say that with all these fans cranked up to max, this sucker is loud.  There are two things that make the Antec 900 stand out from other so callec "gamer cases."  First of all, the clearside panel has a perforated aluminum cut out (you can mount another 120mm fan if you must) to allow more air to the CPU.  This is great for overclockers and gamers alike.  Who wants a BSOD in the middle of an intense shoot out in Crysis?  Second, the power supply mounts at the bottom of the case.  This unconventional approach allows for the laws of physics and thermodynamics to go to work.  If you remember from your high school physics class, heat rises.  Mounting the PSU on the bottom of the case allows all of the heat to rise and be sucked out by the massive 200mm fan.  Even if you want a water cooling set up, Antec has accounted for this and cut two holes in the back of the case for your tubing set up.  The tray on the top is very convenient for storing mp3 players, digital cameras, and other peripherals.  Once this thing is up and running, it looks fierce with a flat black finish and blue LED light bleeding from almost everyon opening.    Moving onto the inside of the case.  One of my biggest problems with this case, is that it does not have a removeable motherboard tray.  Not a huge deal, but definitely inconvenient.  All the drive bays feel very sturdy, and the extra slots for fans are sure to keep your graphics card and hard drives cool.  Overall, this case doesn't disappoint.

Antec P180, P182

Lian li anniversary edition snail like case

Asus Vento 3600

Asus Vento 7700

The most underrated of all but most liked by me:

The Spire pininfarina case, (a designer case)

Enjoy!

The Spray Can