Guitarhacker, this is wonderful story. I will attempt to build my own model one day. Right now I am also in school, I hardly have time to play music. I am on break now, so I want to buy computer while I am able to read anything other than medical literature. But I am glad it works for you and thank you for reasurance.

Bob, thank you for your pro. opinion. I sure would take 16 Gb of memory. I was asking if 2133Ghz memory would give any benefit compared to 1600Ghz- it says on Intell site that i7 supports 1600Ghz, nothing about any higher speeds of memory. I am wondering if it would recognize that memory is 2133Ghz if i choose that.

The company is based out of Baldwin Park, CA. I am in Virginia- not the best configuration. Also after reading reviews I noted that they suffer from long time turn around for new systems- takes them 3-4 weeks to deliver. I am afraid if I wait that long, some new technology I want might be released. lol.

I am looking on Dell web site and their machines are awful. May be they waiting to after CES 2013- I may wait for that as well- it happens 2nd weekend of January.

I also looked in to the Dreamstation by Sweetwater. They only build horisontal PCs, no towers. What in the world? I do not have real estate to lay down computer.

@OP
 
I have built my own DAWS for many years now. Yes, I am a retired Tech of sorts but still, it is pretty simple and very cheap.
If I were to pay for a Custom built daw I want to choose the mother board and everything else-not just how much of this and that.
 
As John stated, it's pretty easy- 
Heres another option:
I have done this 3X now with Multiwave.
Buy a Motherboard\cpu combo or a Barebones PC. You get to pick all the parts and how far you want to go.
 
The mnother board bundle saves you probably the most tedious part-mounting the CPU on the mother board properly with heat sink paste and cpu fan so it works the way it should.
 
Multiwave is the company-Just another option.

vladasyn


Guitarhacker, this is wonderful story. I will attempt to build my own model one day. Right now I am also in school, I hardly have time to play music. I am on break now, so I want to buy computer while I am able to read anything other than medical literature. But I am glad it works for you and thank you for reasurance.

Bob, thank you for your pro. opinion. I sure would take 16 Gb of memory. I was asking if 2133Ghz memory would give any benefit compared to 1600Ghz- it says on Intell site that i7 supports 1600Ghz, nothing about any higher speeds of memory. I am wondering if it would recognize that memory is 2133Ghz if i choose that.

The company is based out of Baldwin Park, CA. I am in Virginia- not the best configuration. Also after reading reviews I noted that they suffer from long time turn around for new systems- takes them 3-4 weeks to deliver. I am afraid if I wait that long, some new technology I want might be released. lol.

I am looking on Dell web site and their machines are awful. May be they waiting to after CES 2013- I may wait for that as well- it happens 2nd weekend of January.

There is no need for that speed of memory.  All of it from 1333 on up is plenty fast - go with some based on cost, and try to get memory with decent heat sinks, so they run cooler.  I have the 1600 memory (32 GB of it), and it shows in the Windows performance index as 8.0, which is at the top of the chart.  You can get 16 GB of memory for literally  $70 - with GREAT heat sinks.  Here is a link to that from Micro Center: 


 http://microcenter.com/pr...wo_8GB_Memory_Modules)

They have a Micro Center in Virginia - Fairfax I believe, and great prices on top shelf components.  They also offer extended warranties on individual components, where they have a replacement plan in-store, rather than just ending up with a bunch of manufacturer's warranties.  Also, if you were to pick up Seagate hard drives, and one were to ever fail, for $10 they will actually pre-ship a replacement drive to you that gets to you in 2-3 days, and then you take the same box and their shipping label and send the old one back to them.  That is available for 5 years from date of purchase of the drive.  You can't beat that for little downtime.

I believe I sent you a PM with details on individual component prices - I know I worked them up during my review of the system you were looking at from that place in CA.  If I did not send that to you, I will.  

Anyways - we will get you going, if at all possible, with a more stable current system, while you weigh out other options, 

Bob Bone

Also +1 on Stratman's comments.  Building your own you get total control over components, and if you are not comfortable with putting it together you can always bring all the components to a local PC shop and pay them $20 to mount the CPU to the mother board.

The rest of assembling a PC is super easy.  Most of it only plugs in one way, and you already have the experience of ripping defective drives out of your chassis and replacing them - connectors and all.  

Something to consider.

Bob Bone

 +1 for Jim. My latest build is his and is working very well;-)

I am inspired to try to build my own system for the first time. This would be something to be really proud of. But I do not know which motherboard I want to what case. I will not have enough time to research it all before school starts again... Lets say I want to do it. Where would I start? Thanks.

Hi,

I purpose built my new DAW only a couple of months ago (first build attempt although I did have some help).

My set up is as below and the combination of ASUS motherboard and cpu work very well indeed. With many tracks (both midi and audio), large instances of buses and plugs the cpu is barely using 10% of capacity.

One key item for me was noise, or preferably lack of it. I went with an ANTEC Sonata case and its inbuilt fan is more than sufficient. The only noise I hear is from either external HD's or the DVD firing up.

No question I saved a huge amount by self building. The key is working out exactly what you want vs budget and then sourcing the parts. Once you have the parts the build and os installation should only take a couple of hours.

Good luck.

Vlada - check your email when you get a chance.

Bob Bone

Vlada - Check out the computer forum, you find some more good advice there by going through some of the threads http://forum.cakewalk.com/tt.aspx?forumid=46

But while this thread is active what is the consensus on accelerator cache drives? UK DAW builder INTA audio offer this option on some of their computers. Basicaly a 40 or 60 GB Crosair SSD drive and software. They say

Using an Accelerator Series™ solid-state cache drive can boost your system's read and write performance up to 5x compared to using a hard drive alone. We will install the cache drive to your system, download and install the intelligent caching software, and start enjoying faster boot times and quicker file access.