What I did this week...

... I took delivery of £500 worth of pre-built hardware from this place.

http://www.easypc-uk.com/

It was late being delivered but Martin there was really helpful explained the delays and I ended up with free CPU (from a 2600 to 2600K chip) and PSU (CORSAIR CMPSU-400CXUK to XFX 450) upgrades.  I couldn't have sourced the components individually any cheaper and I have support and a years RTB warranty thrown in on top of the individual component warranties.  IOW I highly recommend this company who have an excellent reputation here in the UK already.

So from my trusty Dell 531 which has now retired back to factory fresh after I culled the parts I needed for my new system my spec sheet today reads.

i7 2600K (3.4Ghz standard) running @4Ghz approx,
4G DDR3,
XFX 450 PSU
Intel 3000 iGFX
Dual Boot Win7 x64 - XP x86 Pro,
Asus P8H67 M Pro, 2 X 1 Tb 1 X 500Gb Seagate HDD, (portions of this HD real estate courtesy of my great chums in the CHB)
UAD Solo,  (c/w a load of plugs courtesy of an anonymous benefactor that  completely blew me away with this a while back, and I love it more and more each day)
Sonar 8.5.3 Producer,
E-Mu 0404,
MA-15D's,  (courtesy of my great chums in the CHB)
Cheap Mics, Mixer
and Assaulted Percussion.

It's taken me 4 days to install both OS's, level up the system and get ALL my current productivity software as well as Sonar up together on the x86 OS and image the boot drive,  I could have used an image from my old system but given all the new hardware I decided to take the long route.  The 64 bit Win 7 platform will develop over time as I wanted at least to get back everything I had already before moving forward.  64 bit not that it matters to the Bouy.

If this machine sees me right for 3 years as the last one did then my annual hardware budget will be about £150.  When I hear that this is an expensive pastime, combined with a similar spend on software £300 pa makes for really good value when you stack it up against the price of hookers and blow these days.

I haven't got round to stress testing with really big projects yet but my initial findings are that it is flying, another reason why I don't hold much store with DPC latency testing either as this machine shows an average of 60us, 4 times slower than the old machine but real life tests with the E-Mu driver shows that it runs without a glitch at 96 samples whereas at least 12ms latency was required for stability on the old machine.

I'm one happy if tired bunny today.

That's a sweet set-up JB, enjoy! I had a look around the site, really well laid out and the prices are pretty good too..

I'd be glad to try if you have any further thoughts or ideas.

Nice, have fun.

 Sweet.....and way better than hookers and blow.

A la Supertramp--Screamer, you know you have screamer...  

Happy recording. 

rsp@odyssey.net

Starise


 Sweet.....and way better than hookers and blow.

Don't underestimate the short term value of hookers and blow. True, the shame and self loathing afterwards can be daunting, but the key is to block such thoughts out during the debauchery itself. This kind of mental self discipline can only enhance the experience. Then you just tell yourself, "Well, I won't be doing that again". Again....and again...and again.
 
Randy
 
p.s. Nice rig JB.

 I tried to reach Weiner,Tiger Woods,Arnold Schwarzenegger and Charlie Sheen for comments but noone would answer their phone.
 
 On another note. That looks like one fine machine you have there from your descriptions....I just spent a lot of time on a laptop my wife had on the shelf that was full of worms and viruses. I THOUGHT all she wanted was the pics from the HD so I removed it and took all the pics off and wiped it with a win 7 reload. I ended up in the dog house because there were other things she wanted too. Took it to a friend with good recovery software and he was able to recover some of the stuff....no good deed goes unpunished!
 
 I really enjoyed building my computer although i'm not running an i7 but a Quad chip. Does great for me though.
 
 Best of luck to ya on the new machine!

Straummy,

I actually think it's smokin' hot, not cool.

And it's a computer, not beans.

But other than that, you're spot on.

That is a problem. 

Can you keep it in the garage and use it just when you need it?  That gets it out of the house and still running Nagbap. 

If that's not an option, send it to Bapu and then he can call himself on Skype.