Tech Corner

[Pol]

@mr.hackcrag
As much as performance is related, you may save some money by going to i5-3550 3,3GHz - however that one is nowhere in your shop. Perhaps it will appear later. This one can't be overclocked but with Turbo on 3,7GHz you should be on the safe side and with nearly identical base performance.

This memory is a nice compromise, not meant primary for overclocking but setting up a nice quality standard.
Z8GX3M2A1600C9B

They aren't listed on memory compatibility list for the board but theirs brothers are, so you may be 99,99% sure that they will be an excellent choice.

8GB of memory is the best choice.

Depending on the tasks you might be able to use 5-7GB of RAM. If you will get some spare ram - like another 8GB - you may create from it a RAM drive, which of course is much faster than SSD drive. And it's free.

Do you have an idea of connector on your midi keyboard? And software which you will be using with? Are you counting with audio and video cutting programs? (They aren't coming for free on win*.)

@GreatEmerald
Silence is silence. There's nothing like digital and non-digital silence

Once again you're mentioning speedfan and did you checked that the fan controller used by the board is supported by the program? It might be in this case. Whereas for most MSI boards you would be out of luck instantly. Anyway use of speedfan may be pretty dubious. - Do a check before you speak for a sure.

But buying an additional one before even hearing how the machine sounds is just not sensible at all.

It's very sensible. You prevent the worst case scenario. After something will went wrong it may cost you much more. (Although usually it's just your nerves, you will see with time.) And you make your system more (heat) effective.**

However most noise will be caused by bundled system coolers and even more by bundled VGA cooler.

It's certainly good idea to build PC on phases. So you could listen it and then been finicky. But you can put CPU cooler in instantly, it's much better - let leave listening for the other coolers.
Primary reason for the non stock cooler is and always been better heat dispassion in the load, better cooling of the other components and more silent performance.

Now a short note, Sandy Bridge (which seems that spoiled you GE and generally lead you to a very wrong conclusions about perfection of stock coolers.) is having very nice heat dispassion. So it's extremely silent even with stock cooler but you're buying Ivy Bridge which is worse at least many processors tested on the beginning showed inferior results, because the used compound by Intel. One of many articles here.

Often you can listen to your coolers on the youtube.

* That is here specifically for you GE.
** This, at least last part of it.
The temperatures in the idle and under load with the stock coolers are not-optimal. With a good coolers you will get temps like 25°C at idle and 55°C under load, mostly even better. (generally) So it's not surprising approximate difference of 15°C which you can turn into additional silence with a good cooler (or overclocking). Perma.

[mr.hackcrag]

Pol, I'll add that fan you mentioned, probably the cheaper one unless you think otherwise . I was wondering how you decided which power supply would be best from the three we talked about because I'm not an expert about this:

Is the memory you mentioned better because of the heat sink?

My piano has two midi in/out slots that look like DIN connector (I'm pretty sure). I don't know exactly what I need to connect it to computer. If it's expensive, it sounds like it would be easier to just get a USB piano. I don't know much about programs too, but I heard that Reaper is a pretty good free program.

http://www.reaper.fm/

[GreatEmerald]

Are you counting with audio and video cutting programs? (They aren't coming for free on win*.)

You got your answer from mr.hackcrag, I do believe

Silence is silence. There's nothing like digital and non-digital silence

It's a term used in digital recordings. If you record a microphone and don't speak into it, you'll record noise, which while is usually inaudible, is not 0 dB, whereas 0 dB is a completely silent and programs will understand it as being silence.

Once again you're mentioning speedfan and did you checked that the fan controller used by the board is supported by the program? It might be in this case. Whereas for most MSI boards you would be out of luck instantly. Anyway use of speedfan may be pretty dubious. - Do a check before you speak for a sure.

Hi, I'm using a brand new MSI board and it's supported. The thing is that SpeedFan supports ACPI fans (and ACPI is a generic interface) and also special Super I/O controllers. These controllers are also not unique, but used across different motherboards. I have used SpeedFan on 6 entirely different configurations and it worked flawlessly every time. The chances of a board being unsupported are very slim, unless it's some kind of a rare board with a unique Super I/O controller. Some newer boards, like mine, are supported in the beta version of SpeedFan. It's under constant development.

It's very sensible. You prevent the worst case scenario. After something will went wrong it may cost you much more. (Although usually it's just your nerves, you will see with time.) And you make your system more (heat) effective.**

Like I said, if you're monitoring your temperature, nothing wrong can happen, unless the part that is being cooled is flawed itself. But I agree to differ...

However most noise will be caused by bundled system coolers and even more by bundled VGA cooler.

This! And unfortunately, there is not a whole lot you can do about the VGA cooler (although, once again, SpeedFan allows to control those, although it took a few years for it to support my HD4890). It gets even worse when it malfunctions - that happened to one of my friends (it got very noisy), and in the end, when he attempted to start the card when the fan was disabled (for testing purposes), it burned out instantly.

Now a short note, Sandy Bridge (which seems that spoiled you GE and generally lead you to a very wrong conclusions about perfection of stock coolers.) is having very nice heat dispassion. So it's extremely silent even with stock cooler but you're buying Ivy Bridge which is worse at least many processors tested on the beginning showed inferior results, because the used compound by Intel. One of many articles here.

Hi, I'm using an Ivy Bridge here. Core i5-3470. And before that, I was using a Phenom II X4 925. And I have maintained a variety of laptops and PCs over the years. Never had to change a stock cooler.

[GreatEmerald]

My piano has two midi in/out slots that look like DIN connector (I'm pretty sure). I don't know exactly what I need to connect it to computer. If it's expensive, it sounds like it would be easier to just get a USB piano.

Hmm, I looked over the current range of sound cards and it seems that indeed there is not a whole lot of cards that support DIN connectors any more. The last mainstream card that supported those was the Creative SoundBlaster Live!, which is no longer supported on Windows. So your best bet is to use a DIN to USB adapter. Those sell for around $30 now. Just make sure to check that the connector is exactly right, as there are different DIN standards. And, of course, cable length and whether the connectors are male or female.

[Pol]

With what I know that give us:
REAPER http://www.reaper.fm
Ableton.com http://www.ableton.com
FL Studio http://www.image-line.com/documents/flstudio.html

But I'm not the right one to recommend any of these product. However I heard good references for REAPER too but also for FL and Ableton. I own Ableton live but used it too little to say. I have usb keyboard with it and Maya44 Sound card(no MIDI can be bought separately).

Getting a separate at least semi-profesional sound card is a good idea ( = low latence is almost a necessity to produce a good music, it also warrants very good sound fidelity and better compatibility with music programs), always. However your shop doesn't appear to offer any. The same applies for MIDI interfaces.


Memory:
Difference is XMP profile supports, heat spreaders and lifetime limited warranty. (They will send you a money back after they will be out of stock.) If someone would test they would be probably a little bit faster. Quite a very little.

The warranty and XMP are the good thing, the heat spreaders are just a bonus.

PSUs:
This is very tough decision. I live in the region of the World where are preffered different brands of PSUs, namely Enermax, Seasonic and Fortron. So I know more about them and can compare them better.

Silencer Mk III Series 600 - should be silent but it's a 'new brand' on the market. The real manufacturer and line designer is Highpower and it's doing them for OCZ. The modular connectors are rounded and a bit non-practical. Otherwise it's nice build. It supports also Under Voltage Protection. May be all capacitors are japanese could nowhere confirm. This one would excel more in 750W variant, where it would have been first. That is because different wattage means different components used, the low wattage equals to worse capacitors. (2)

ModXStream Pro 600W Modular - very similar from the first one but a less quality components were used however it has better connectors. The real manufacturer is Higpower and it's doing it for OCZ - which explains all. I wouldn't recommend it. (3)

EarthWatts Green Series 650 - It's a bit stronger, confirmed quality build but not all condesators are japanaese, looks like a half to half. Real manufacturer is Fortron (FSP-Delta). Protections: Over Current Protection, Over Voltage Protection, Short Circuit Protection, Over Power Protection, Over Temperature Protection, Under Voltage Protection, No Load protection - so it should survive with you. In that aspect it's best from all previous PSUs. Non-modular. There is one possible problem though, main capacitor is also the less quality one. (1)

Imaginary marks are in the brackets Choice is now yours, I would pick the first only or look for even better. Source for reviews: http://www.hardwaresecrets.com


Coolers:
To prevent any confusion. The first one is a system cooler to replace default system coolers in your case - you will need (usually) two to secure the airflow.
The second one is for CPU. Whereas you may probably combine them. Even in that mean, that you can dismount original cooler from my selected cpu cooler and mount here the slip stream one.
It's however all question of how much do you like silent environment - but as you're building a station for playing with music I dare say that more silent = better.
Silencing the PC is however costy . And as you don't know yet how much nosiy will be your VGA cards I would recommend to hold the other changes back now.

As for VGA cards there are silent variants on the world (I have one myself) but again your shop doesn't offer any. So it's good to remember, that if you don't have (semi)passive card the best with coolers are usually HIS, Sapphire (only one spec. edition) and Gigabyte. Then generally twins and so on..

>>
http://www.microcenter.com/single_produ ... id=0386737
Will be quite silent but you will hear it. Still it seems to be a best buck of silence (performance) and the money.

This one is likely a closest second
http://www.microcenter.com/single_produ ... id=0385589

If its indeed the second I can't say. Review and comparsion would be needed. This one is also very silent and may be the first but it costs more .

[mr.hackcrag]

You should consider not only Windows 7 PRO 64bits [/i] .

Hmm, Pro is $100 more than Home. Is it worth it? If I buy Win7, does it include both 32 and 64 bits? Win 8 is also being released October, should I hold off to buy that? Will Win 7 price come down after 8 is released?

And as you don't know yet how much nosiy will be your VGA cards I would recommend to hold the other changes back now. .

Are you saying don't buy any fans yet?

Now a short note, Sandy Bridge (which seems that spoiled you GE and generally lead you to a very wrong conclusions about perfection of stock coolers.) is having very nice heat dispassion. So it's extremely silent even with stock cooler but you're buying Ivy Bridge which is worse at least many processors tested on the beginning showed inferior results, because the used compound by Intel. One of many articles here. .

I'm not sure which processor I should be going for any more. .


It sounds like I won't be able to use my piano keyboard with the computer easily.

[Pol]

Hmm, Pro is $100 more than Home. Is it worth it? If I buy Win7, does it include both 32 and 64 bits? Win 8 is also being released October, should I hold off to buy that? Will Win 7 price come down after 8 is released?

Take Win7Pro if you will need the best support for XP apps - ie older programs (CAD, accounting software, wrappers.. ). If you don't need it take Win7Pre. For support of dos apps you may use dosbox, so that's not an issue.

Nah, you will only receive one version. So you need to choose 64bits or 32bits. And you will choose 64bits because only these can work with more than 4GB of RAM.

For the cheapest OEM version, this one will become sticky with the computer and the license then cannot be transferred anywhere else.

There's no need to wait for Win8. Some people even expressed opinion that with Win8 on the market the prices of Win7 will slowly graduate up. Win8 will probably not make it into the lines of famous - Win3.11/98/2000/XP/7. Even if they are revolutionary, mostly in the way which si completely unnecessary for nowadays PC model. (Although very nice for tablets.)

So don't buy any fans yet?

That's matter of priorities or money. System coolers may be always bought later, CPU cooler would be better to be mounted with the computer build. As you probably noticed we do have with GE on that completely opposite opinions.
So it would be best, if you create your own opinion - and for that you will first need to assemble the computer without coolers, to listen to it and then decide.

I'm not sure which processor I should be going for any more.

If you can, go for i5-3550 3,3GHz

It sounds like I won't be able to use my piano keyboard with the computer easily.

Easily yes, without additional price not. You need to visit a bit different shop to resolve this question. Something for musicians.

[Pol]

Hmm, Pro is $100 more than Home. Is it worth it?

You must overlooked somewhere, Pro cost about $40 more.

See
http://www.microcenter.com/single_produ ... id=0361170

http://www.microcenter.com/single_produ ... id=0361168

[mr.hackcrag]

They have it at this shop, but it looks like everything is more expensive here and the bundles don't save as much money. How do you think?

http://www.compusa.com/applications/Sea ... CatId=1969
http://www.compusa.com/applications/Sea ... CatId=6982

Hmm, Pro is $100 more than Home. Is it worth it?

You must overlooked somewhere, Pro cost about $40 more.

See
http://www.microcenter.com/single_produ ... id=0361170

http://www.microcenter.com/single_produ ... id=0361168

At my school bookstore, I have a $180 gift card and they sell Home for $200 and Pro for $300. It's a huge ripoff there, but since I have the gift card, it would be cheaper than the OEM at microcenter overall.

The other option is to get the OEM version, and use the gift card for something else, (but the only other thing over there that is interesting is a samsung galaxy tablet for $500 and I don't really know anything about tablets and whether or not they are useful machines.)

Easily yes, without additional price not. You need to visit a bit different shop to resolve this question. Something for musicians.

Are these the kinds of cables I need?

http://www.guitarcenter.com/MIDI-Cables-Cables.gc

[Pol]

They have it at this shop, but it looks like everything is more expensive here and the bundles don't save as much money. How do you think?

http://www.compusa.com/applications/Sea ... CatId=1969
http://www.compusa.com/applications/Sea ... CatId=6982

If it's more expensive, then there's no reason to going for it. The sole reason for getting i5-3550 3,3GHz over i5 3570K 3.4GHz was, that it's supposed to be cheaper. The bundle is also worthless.

At my school bookstore, I have a $180 gift card and they sell Home for $200 and Pro for $300. It's a huge ripoff there, but since I have the gift card, it would be cheaper than the OEM at microcenter overall.

The other option is to get the OEM version, and use the gift card for something else, (but the only other thing over there that is interesting is a samsung galaxy tablet for $500 and I don't really know anything about tablets and whether or not they are useful machines.)

Get Premium then. Now I just learned something about a "business offers."

Are these the kinds of cables I need?

http://www.guitarcenter.com/MIDI-Cables-Cables.gc

NO, you pick usb slower version or midi+soundcard. Obviously the second one is superior.

M-Audio USB Uno 1X1 MIDI Interface
M-Audio Audiophile 2496 PCI Digital Audio Card
Please double check the connectors with the shop.

[GreatEmerald]

I support everything Pol said in the last 3 posts (surprisingly enough ).

And yea, Win8 is a terrible mess. It will be the new Vista, where nobody will like it. For instance, the "desktop" is now an application instead of the default shell (and the default shell is the Metro interface, made for smartphones). There is also no more start menu, and they now have "Microsoft store" for buying applications on. The app store is a copy of Apple App Store, which in turn was a copy of the package management systems from Linux. On one hand, that might help with the unorderly installer mess that Windows has now, but on the other hand, MS likely will have standards set so that not everyone could submit their apps unless they meed certain specifications. And those can be up to something like "it must have Xbox support", or "half of the share of sold apps goes to us". No wonder Valve is now turning to Linux as a platform to build upon. That said, what's bad for Windows is good for Linux, and what's bad on Windows doesn't affect Linux

[mr.hackcrag]

[M-Audio USB Uno 1X1 MIDI Interface
M-Audio Audiophile 2496 PCI Digital Audio Card
Please double check the connectors with the shop.

Yikes, $100. Would it be better to just get a new keyboard with USB terminal like one of these:

http://www.guitarcenter.com/Yamaha-YPT- ... 2446302.gc
http://www.guitarcenter.com/Yamaha-PSR- ... 1881151.gc
http://www.guitarcenter.com/Yamaha-EZ-2 ... 2398391.gc

Thanks for everything you two. I learned a lot and have a pretty good idea of what parts to choose for the PC. Now I just have to convince my friend to build it for me.

[GreatEmerald]

Why aren't you building it yourself, again?

[Pol]

Yikes, $100. Would it be better to just get a new keyboard with USB terminal like one of these:

http://www.guitarcenter.com/Yamaha-YPT- ... 2446302.gc
http://www.guitarcenter.com/Yamaha-PSR- ... 1881151.gc
http://www.guitarcenter.com/Yamaha-EZ-2 ... 2398391.gc

Thanks for everything you two. I learned a lot and have a pretty good idea of what parts to choose for the PC. Now I just have to convince my friend to build it for me.

It wouldn't be better, just different. I don't know what keyboard you have now. And I cannot judge if you plan to compose music in the PC with help of keyboard (like pro and "semi-pro" do) or just to play the keys and if you will like it, transfer the music to the PC.

If you have quality card with midi and the program and the keys then you're likely to play on the keyboard and hear the output from the PC. Through samples you can assign or create any sounds you would like.

If you have keys and the PC only, you probably will be mostly playing on the keys without PC and connect it just sometimes to record.

Of course, you still can have both, in that case you will be having midi keys, sound card and the program.

So, what keys do you have (What they can do?) and how do you plan to use them?

[mr.hackcrag]

I have this keyboard:

http://usa.yamaha.com/product_archive/k ... mode=model

I do not know too much about composing music using PC, but I would be excited to learn because it sounds like it has more potentional to create something professional and with variety of instruments. For example, if I wanted to play H2POL Necropolis or Barbarian town theme, it seems like working with the PC would make it sound like a CD arrangment/remix, rather than doing a live performance, correct? Or could I just play the keys and edit/replay/ add more instruments without much PC work?

Why aren't you building it yourself, again?

I wanted to build it myself, but then when I read I could electrocute myself and die, I lost my confidence.

[GreatEmerald]

I wanted to build it myself, but then when I read I could electrocute myself and die, I lost my confidence.

Well, it's possible... ...except that the only way that would happen is if you were trying to build it when it's plugged into the mains. And that would be just stupid. Otherwise, there is no electricity flowing through it, so it's impossible. The only other thing to remember when building PCs is to touch a metal object (preferably a larger one) to get rid of static electricity so that you wouldn't create sparks that could potentially damage the components. Otherwise it's safe for both the assembler and the PC itself.

[Pol]

I have this keyboard:

http://usa.yamaha.com/product_archive/k ... mode=model

Seems to be good enough, get the card now.
But I'm by no mean expert on the keys.

[mr.hackcrag]

After finishing installing Win 7, PC would have bare bones programs I think, so what are some essential programs that I would have to get/download for PC? The only thing I can think of right now is security like Microsoft Security Essentials and something to word process like Notepad.

About my piano, the electric and distortion guitar samples are of low quality, so if I wanted to get better sounds, would that be through PC program or could better samples be put directly into the keyboard and how does this process work?

Maybe we should just delete it now?

No way! In case of emergency where would you pray?

( In many scattered threads 'bout tech stuff nobody would pay attention. But here, just me. )

Heh, this thread saved my life.

[GreatEmerald]

After finishing installing Win 7, PC would have bare bones programs I think, so what are some essential programs that I would have to get/download for PC? The only thing I can think of right now is security like Microsoft Security Essentials and something to word process like Notepad.

About my piano, the electric and distortion guitar samples are of low quality, so if I wanted to get better sounds, would that be through PC program or could better samples be put directly into the keyboard and how does this process work?

Well, about security programs, it depends on your hardware and common sense. If you have a router, then it has a hardware firewall and as long as you don't put your computer on DMZ or something else crazy like that, you should be good with the built-in Windows firewall.

As for anti-virus software, Microsoft Security Essentials are OK, but personally I prefer using none. I recently caught a virus while searching for a program, but that was stupidity on my end, because I downloaded it from an untrustworthy source. And guess what, the first thing the virus did was disable MSE. So much for protection... Even more hilariously, when I force reset the PC and booted into safe mode, then did an extensive scan using MSE, it didn't find anything. At all. I just manually removed the virus and that's that. However, from that encounter I learned that the best way to deal with viruses is to have UAC on (with disabled virtualisation, as that's just evil) and use a limited account, not an administrator, for normal tasks. That would have notified me of suspicious activity instantly, and I would have destroyed the virus earlier. (Unless, of course, it's as easy to disable UAC as it is to disable MSE, which might very well be true knowing how the whole security system there is just a poor knockoff of the Unix security model.)

Notepad is already included. One of the things you may need is network drivers. It's kind of silly, but at least for my board, there were no network drivers included in Windows that support the onboard network interface. Good thing I use Linux as my primary OS, which has support for all of the network interfaces out of the box, and that allowed me to download the Windows drivers with relative ease. But without that, and without another PC to do that on, it could have been quite an uncomfortable situation.

Another thing that you might want to have as soon as you install is the browser of your choice. Saves a bit of time going around using IE.

About music: I'm also not very familiar with the field, but generally you can use custom samples on the PC. You can download a soundfont and use it in software with timidity to provide a virtual MIDI device, or, if your sound card supports it, load the soundfont and all its samples on the soundcard directly. The latter process is easier and saves a bit of resources. As for being able to put new samples into the keyboard itself, I have no clue.

[Kalah]

After finishing installing Win 7, PC would have bare bones programs I think, so what are some essential programs that I would have to get/download for PC? The only thing I can think of right now is security like Microsoft Security Essentials and something to word process like Notepad.

AVG (if you don't have anti-virus already).
CCleaner
VLC media player.
Notepad++
Paint.NET?
OpenOffice
Your preferred web browser (Chrome, Firefox, Opera etc.)
utorrent maybe?
Skype?