Noob Looking for SFF Build Suggestions (General use + Music Production)

8

808

n00b
Joined
Apr 14, 2010
Messages
5
Hi Everyone,

Looking for some build suggestions thanks!

1) What will you be doing with this PC? Gaming? Photoshop? Web browsing? Etc.

Web Browsing
Watching Movies
Music Production

2) What's your budget? Are tax and shipping included?

1000-1500 USD tax and shipping not included

3) Where do you live?

Canada, will buy locally and online

4) What exact parts do you need for that budget? CPU, RAM, case, etc. Please be very specific.

Everything
Case
CPU
CPU Cooler
GPU
PSU
RAM
Harddrive X 2
dvd burner
Sound Card (suitable for music production, ideally with pre amp)
Vid Card (necessary?)

Did I miss anything?

5) If reusing any parts, what parts will you be reusing? Please be especially specific about the power supply. List make and model.

none

6) Will you be overclocking?
Not sure, but open to it

7) What size monitor do you have and/or plan to have?
24” Westinghouse and possibly dual monitor sometime down the road if posible

8) When do you plan on building/buying the PC?
Approx 3 months

9) What features do you need in a motherboard? RAID? Firewire? Crossfire or SLI support? etc.

Firewire would be nice, don’t think I need the other ones

10) Do you already have a legit and reusable/transferable OS key/license? If yes, what OS? 32bit or 64bit?

Not yet but would likely go for Windows 7 64 bit version and if hardware compatibility permits dual boot with OSX


Extra Notes:

My number 1 priority is it has to be quiet, other than that the case has to look slick and preferably black (Da Box, Silverstone, Thermaltake, NZXT etc)


Thanks guys!
 
Hi, I built a small DAW for home recording. Works wonderful with Leopard and since it's working and I haven't had time haven't tried snow leopard yet.

I use a Maya44e (it is recording grade, low latency and works fine on Windows and OSX)

As for internal cards there are not many PCI Express options.

If you want to see my small build components see signature, It says DAW. Otherwise for a bigger build I'd recommend:

- Silverstone GD04
- Gigabyte GA-P55M-UD4
- Intel Core i5 750/i7 860
- Scythe Big Shuriken
- 2x ESI Maya44e (would give you 8 total inputs and 8 total outputs)
- Corsair VX520
- Any 1 slot GPU maybe a Geforc 9800gt would suffice and it's compatible with Snow Leopard

I think that build plus HDD/optical would cover all your bases
 
You're budget is pretty generous, and without heavy gaming on that list, you really have a lot of option. You still will need a graphics card - several intel chips don't have onboard graphics, and watching movies in good definition will benefit from at least a decent gpu - but it doesn't have to be very beefy. As far a OCing - you get limited by case cooling - the small size does make it a little tougher to hit the higher bounds.

First thing I'd pick out - the case: SFF
Da box is a good looking case. Silverstone maked darned good gear. I don't like thermaltake's sff cases. NZXT is also a nice looking case. I personally own a Qmicra - but I have specific reason's for my build. If I had your requirements, I'd probably do "da box" as I really liked how it looked.
(so lets say $170 there for now).

Next you got CPU and motherboard. Encoding is cpu heavy from what I understand, so you'd want to probably invest solidly here. You can go either way amd and intel are both good at this range. Intel I'd go with an i5-750 and a gigabyte board (same one fr500 recommended) - will run you 199 for the cpu and 139 for the motherboard. AMD you can get a good phenom II like the 955. Pair that up with a gigabyte board (160 for the chip and 94 for the board) and you get a potent combo as well.
For this lets say you went with the intel -$338 added

GPU - you don't anything great, but you want something that lasts a while, and has good performance. There's a lot of choices - i personally would do a 5770 (512mb) for that build. It's solid, has direct x 11, will be good for awhile. That's about 145

PSU - you definitely want to invest here so you have something solid for builds to come. Your build probably won't need that much energy, but it's good to have extra (and psu's tend to be most efficient in the middle of their range). A good modular 750W will have room for near unlimited expansion and still be nice and neat for your case. I like single rails, so you don't have to calculate where everything needs to be plugged. Silverstone makes a 750-P strider plus that's amazing. I own the 1000w version, and it's rock solid. You can even buy a short cable set to lower case clutter. It runs $109.

Memory - this is will be an odd recommendation:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231320
Both cpu's I recommended will need ddr 3. That set particularly is amazing. I set up a friend with a pair of those, and now I have to pick up some myself. The low voltage lets your cpu run cooler (or you can just overclock the heck out of the ram). I'd recommend the one with lower cas, but it's out of stock right now. that's 119


If you were to build all the stuff I recommended you'd be up to 851 before adding your optical drive, sounds card, and cpu cooler. I'd of course recommend a solid cpu cooler - but I haven't air cooled in a while, so I won't suggest anything there. You can obviously spring for a blu ray player and the best sounds card they make. Depending on what window's version you get - it'll run you 100 too, so really 950ish before the sounds cards, optical and cpu cooler - which gives you a ton of room to work.

Of course, standard disclaimer, these are just the items I like that I've worked with, and I'm sure there is a lot of good advice that other people will have as well.
 
fr500: Funny thing is when i searched on the forum i read one of your posts on you building your daw and i am definitely intrigued with the ESI card, i've actually never heard of them before but will take a look. Thanks. As for your smaller build, could i modify it and still make it work if i beef up the processor and ram? Definitely smaller size and being dead quiet are my preferences

Shiny: Awesome to know that 1000 is a generous budget, i was afraid that i would even have to spend more. Thanks for the recommendations. Da box is definitely something along the lines of something i find aesthetically pleasing. However the price doesn't seem all that attractive consider big names like Lian, Silverstone are all around the 100 price range. Do you know if it coolers significant room and/or cooling options then the others?

I was actually considering if I could even go for a mini-itx route, but i guess in terms of performance and music production purposes they would be inferior im guessing.
 
808: well you could get a q9550 and 8gb RAM in 2 4GB DDR2 dimms. If you want to go the i5/i7 route I would recommend sizing up to use a P55 based motherboard with an NVidia GPU, that's the best bet for a fully working OSx setup and the Gigabyte mobo I recommended should be 100% compatible with OSx.

The ESI card was pretty popular in the USB and PCI variant, you can find reviews on those and DJs used to love it. There are some good ESI products indeed, like an ADAT card in PCI-e + external box format. You should check them.
 
fr500: so i guess the p55 would require me to get a bigger box, do you know which is the smallest sff box that can fit a p55? I would definitely like that setup more especially with the added bonus of OSX compatibiltiy.

I did a little research and it looks like the esi juli@ card is a good choice, i might consider that one too.
 
808 said:
fr500: so i guess the p55 would require me to get a bigger box, do you know which is the smallest sff box that can fit a p55? I would definitely like that setup more especially with the added bonus of OSX compatibiltiy.

I did a little research and it looks like the esi juli@ card is a good choice, i might consider that one too.
Click to expand...

Well there is the DFI P55 miniITX although I can't say anything about OSX compatibility.
 
You can get the DFI P55, but there is only one PCIe slot, P55 does not have integrated video so you would have to use the slot for video leaving no space for an external audio card
 
fr500 said:
You can get the DFI P55, but there is only one PCIe slot, P55 does not have integrated video so you would have to use the slot for video leaving no space for an internal audio card
Click to expand...

fixed it.

I would personally recommend going with H55 and a Core i5 with an IGP. Look into OSX compatibility -- I know Jobs doesn't like intel's IGP, but who knows.

If you don't care about gaming, intel's IGP is more than enough to handle h.264 @ 1080p, and the video quality is tested better than nvidia or ati.

Otherwise look for a fanless video card, as it will be silent and you need essential 0 horsepower on a discreet GPU to decode video and do 2D.

Didn't see anything about this but with your budget you should definitely get an SSD. The intel x25-m G2 80gb should complement a 2TB drive for storage very well.
 
well, internal soundcard would be nice to have, however i do have a external usb audio interface, so if i had to choose i would rather go for a smaller case rather than a bigger case with an internal audio card. Ideally i want a tiny mini-itx setup, but we can't have it all or can we?

Proneax: Yes i think IGP might be a little iffy with OSX, however fr500 made a great suggestion with the nvidia cards which i think are fairly OSX friendly. Fanless cards sounds interesting! It sounds like it fits perfectly to wanting to build a near dead silent system with a bit of a punch. Gotta look more into SSDs too, at that price range they better be offering something awesome lol


*edit i just realised too that i would actaully need 3 harddrives... 1 for windows, 1 for osx, and then 1 for music related samples etc, do many of the smaller sff cases accomodate that?
 
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Maybe the Lian PC-Q08.

Honestly I think matx like the GD04 or an SG03/SG04 would be way to go, with the GD04 probably fitting a studio better.

btw: You can install OSX and Windows in on driver alone just fine and use Chameleon as a boot loader (or EBCD, it's far easier to setup)

What recording software are you going to purchase/use?
 
I just really love the cube cases, thats why i love the DA Box (but i'm guessing it is a little overkill seeing i dont need to house crazy gamer gear). Both the lian PC and the SG05 recommendation you made are great too. As long as airflow is great, size is small and i can make it dead silent then its all good!

oh thats great! in that case i can just do a 2tb drive plus a SSD to dual boot the W7/OSX then awesome.

For PC i would be using Sonar and Reason

For OSX i would definitely love to try out Logic Pro


also probably is a dumb question, but these mobos usually have integrated wifi right? or do i need to install another card for that?
 
Only the Zotac 9300 ITX and the Zotac H55-ITX,

The DFI apparently has issues with many WIFI adapters
 
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