[Badwrench]

I am building a rig for a guy that will be using it for his recording studio. He is on a tight budget and has nothing, so I am trying to keep this as close to $500 as possible. The only component I already have is a 2x2gb set of Kingston HyperX 1600 ddr3 which I was planning on using.

Here is what I have come up with so far:
I went with a Llano build in case he wants to play some games as well - should play source games decently.

Mobo: ASUS F1A75-M PRO $70
PSU: Corsair CX430 $27 after $25mir
HDD/CPU combo: A4-3400/WD500gb $130
Sound Card: Xonar DG $19 after $10mir
Case: Coolermaster 430 $35 after $10mir
Memory: already have
OS: Windows 7 64bit $100
Monitor: Acer 20" LCD $20 (I know it's only d-sub, but for $20, can't complain).
Keyboard/mouse: Logitech MK120 combo $15

Total after mirs is $416 shipped. ($461 before mirs)

If you have any suggestions or other builds, post away.

 

[noobsrus]

Hey Badwrench,

Does he have any decent speakers like studio monitors or something, you don't NEED them but it helps in the long run, if he does and can stretch all the way to $500 then try get a better sound card, latency matters, the sound card is very good for the price i must admit though!

Good Luck!

 

[Ryleh]

If latency will matter then don't get an Asus board and instead get something like a Gigabyte board (they had a few of the boards with the lowest latencies). I forget what it is exactly but there is something involved in polling the hardware for information relating to the CPU that doesn't affect processor performance but does significantly worsen the DPC latency. Asus boards don't have an option in the bios to disable it however.

I would still recommend an Asus soundcard though as the unified drivers for them are great(something like a DX or D1 are supported and would still fit around the budget).

Something else you should keep in mind is the possibility of never getting all of your MIRs...

 

[Badwrench]

Quote:

Originally Posted by noobsrus

Hey Badwrench,
Does he have any decent speakers like studio monitors or something, you don't NEED them but it helps in the long run, if he does and can stretch all the way to $500 then try get a better sound card, latency matters, the sound card is very good for the price i must admit though!
Good Luck!

I am not sure about speakers, I was assuming headphones - hence the card I picked (also the price

)
Quote:

Originally Posted by Ryleh

If latency will matter then don't get an Asus board and instead get something like a Gigabyte board (they had a few of the boards with the lowest latencies). I forget what it is exactly but there is something involved in polling the hardware for information relating to the CPU that doesn't affect processor performance but does significantly worsen the DPC latency. Asus boards don't have an option in the bios to disable it however.

I would still recommend an Asus soundcard though as the unified drivers for them are great(something like a DX or D1 are supported and would still fit around the budget).

Something else you should keep in mind is the possibility of never getting all of your MIRs...

Didn't know that about the Asus boards over the Gigabytes. I will switch it out. As far as MIRs, I have received all that I have ever sent - 10 plus.