decent computer for an audio pro?

[i3lacKnyte]

i have a friend who who has his own radio show (a real one, not an intarweb one, heh) and takes a lot of his work home with him to do on his computer. his computer recently broke beyond repair, and needs a new one. he asked for my help, and has a limited budget since he has a new addition to the family. what is a good cheap computer for an audio professional? unfortunately i do not know what programs it is that he uses. he has a case, keyboad, mouse, and moniter that he can recycle.

i was thinking something along the lines of:

EPoX "EP-8RDA3+" nForce2 Ultra 400 Chipset Motherboard for AMD Socket A CPU -RETAIL $77.00
Creative Labs Sound Blaster Audigy2 ZS Platinum PCI Sound Card, Model "SB0350" -RETAIL $166.00
AMD Athlon XP 2500+ "Barton", 333 FSB, 512K Cache Processor - Retail $87.00
XFX nVIDIA GeForce MX4000 Video Card, 128MB DDR, 64-bit, TV-Out, 8X AGP, Model "PVT18LRT" -RETAIL $49.00
Crucial 184 Pin 256MB DDR PC 2700 4T - OEM $48.00
Crucial 184 Pin 256MB DDR PC 2700 4T - OEM $48.00
Seagate 80GB 7200RPM IDE Hard Drive, Model ST380011A, OEM $63.50
VANTEC ION VAN-400B (400W) Serial ATA readyPower Supply $53.00

591.5

all from newegg.com

what do you guys think? he was previously using a pentium 3 550 with 128megs of sdram, and probably onboard audio and video. im guessing he would be very delighted with the capabilities and performance of this machine

 

[RS3RS]

Sounds like you've got a good start, however, I'm going to guess that he does a lot of audio encoding. I'd switch that to a Pentium 4 processor, as they are usually faster in encoding. However, if you can't fit it into the budget, the Athlon XP will still serve him well.

Sound card sounds nice, if not overkill. However, I'm not a soundcard expert, so I'm going to stay away from commenting on it too much.

Who cares about the video card, as long as it works However, if that one's not, you might consider putting a (cheap) dual head graphic card in it incase he wanted to upgrade to dual monitors at any time, which can be really nice for audio editing work.

It depends on what software he uses, but a lot of audio software can be a RAM hog... Just to be on the safe side, you might change one of the 256 sticks to a 512, so he'll have 768.

Hard drive sounds good, seagates are quiet and reliable while not giving up any speed (Exactly what an audio buff wants). If he needs more storage, he can always add on later.

As far as the power supply goes, I'm going to guess this guy is going to want a simi-quiet rig if he's going to be doing any type of recording on it. I suggest a 300 watt Fortron powersupply with the "Noisekiller" feature. Don't let the 300 watt part scare you, these are high quality power supplys, and they will put out much more than 300 watts if you need it, though 300 will be plenty for the computer you're building. The good thing about the fortron is that it uses a single, low RPM 120mm fan that is practically silent. It really helps to cut down on noise. Plus, it's cheaper than the one you picked out. Here it is:

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=17-104-979&depa=0

Just my opinion.

 

[i3lacKnyte]

thank you for the wonderful info! i think the fortron is going to replace the vantec, and i forgot about dual moniters. im still contemplating the pentium 4 route but yet to find a solid cheap motherboard that im content with. he lives about an hour and a half to two hours away, so house calls when things go wrong is pretty much out of the question, heh. we can always add more ram as needed too.

 

[RS3RS]

thank you for the wonderful info! i think the fortron is going to replace the vantec, and i forgot about dual moniters. im still contemplating the pentium 4 route but yet to find a solid cheap motherboard that im content with. he lives about an hour and a half to two hours away, so house calls when things go wrong is pretty much out of the question, heh. we can always add more ram as needed too.

I'm just picky, and thinking what will be the very best as far as switching to the P4 goes. A 2500+ is still going to be a countless number of times faster than the processor he was using before, so he probably wouldn't notice much difference between it and the P4 anyway. Or, if you wanted to go a little faster...

A mobile barton 2400+ (Laptop chip, same thing as the desktop except it can take more voltage, and usually overclocks better, plus unlocked multipliers) for $78 (Oem, so you'll need to buy a heat sink to go with it), with a Shuttle nForce2 Ultra 400 board ($54, good budget overclocking board) will almost 100% surly get you a completely stable 3200+ processor at stock voltages.

You may not want to go the overclocked route, just giving you something else to think about, as the mobile processors when "overclocked" are usually just as stable as any retail processor. The stock voltage for them is 1.45 volts, and you can take it all the way to 1.65 volts and still be at the same level as a retail 3200+ or 2500+ would be. They are the same chips, just hand picked for higher quality, so they can actually take MORE voltage than a desktop chip would, they just run at a lower voltage since they are supposed to be used in laptops.

Again, just throwing out an idea.

Edit: Forgive me if this post makes no sense, typing it right before I turn off the lights to go to bed, so I'm pretty out of it at the moment