I've been discussing this with a friend, and this is what he's looking for - Im just building. This is what he's said. Firstly, I have around £2000 to spend on a PC build, but I do have requirements. I'm looking for the PC to fit in a HTPC case, which Ill post soon, so I know some 9800's and a few newer nVidia cards wont fit. MINIMUM SPECS: Processor: Intel Core 2 Quad Q9550 LGA775 'Yorkfield' 2.83GHz 12MB-cache (1333FSB) Processor Motherboard: DDR2 supported minimum. Atleast 2 PCI-e. RAM: 4GB DDR2 - possibly DDR3 HDs: 2 x 1TB + a 15kRPM boot PSU: No less than 1000w GFX: crossfire/SLI nessessary. Blueray player / HD-DVD recorder Got to have 12 USB ports in the back - small adapter cards HDMI port Ability to watch TV / plug into and record from SkyBox. MUST HAVE: Tru-HD from Dolby capability. The pre-amp alone that it will running thourgh, before getting to the amp, costs more than this whole PC. The 6 speakers and sub-woofer cost 10 times the cost on an entire PC. THEREFORE, it is nessessary to have Dolby's True-HD. The sound system this will run through is worth over £25,000 - This is the next update I have to do, a PC. No £150 "creative" soundcards again. Just looking for some opinions. Instead of just specing smething and bulding, Im asking here first as I know nothing about the new Dolby Tru-HD-Sound. Cheers.
About the only consumer sound card I know of off the top of my head is that Asus Xonar HDAV1.3, but it's got terrible reviews at the moment... http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16829132008 Or at Scan... http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Asus-Xonar-Hdav-13-Deluxe-True-HDMI-Soundcard#ProductSupport Info @ Asus... http://www.asus.com/news_show.aspx?id=11638 http://www.asus.com/products.aspx?l1=25&l2=150&l3=0&l4=0&model=2385&modelmenu=1 According to the specs, the card uses Burr-Brown DACs, which are pretty highly coveted. That's all I've got time to comment on right now (at work), but I'll see what I can do for you on the rest later.
Thanks so much! Thats the perfect thing Im looking for. He's such a tart with his sound, that he'll only go and upgrade for £2000 again next year anyway. This'll be perfect! Do you know the wires that would be needed for the audio in/out to and from the central audio switch hub thing? He has everything organised from one hub, so we'd need an optical/fibre-optic cable coming in/out to carry the information?
The card comes with an optical adapter (the optical socket itself is hidden behind one of the RCA jacks) for optical output. Assuming that's all you need, then you've got everything in one box.
I'm sure you know but this all new to me and I've taken an interest "Connecting a Dolby TrueHD source to a receiver requires a digital link capable of transporting either the encoded bitstream or the unpacked linear-PCM audio data (18 Mbit/s max for a Blu-ray source). HDMI 1.0 (and higher) can transport multichannel PCM-audio, and therefore can transport an unpacked TrueHD audiotrack. An HDMI 1.3 (or higher) link is required to transport Dolby TrueHD in bitstream form.[1] TOSLINK (and SPDIF) cannot carry Dolby TrueHD due to bandwidth and content protection limitations. When using either of these connections, a device such as a Blu-ray Disc player will automatically send the Dolby Digital audio." Couldn't you go without a sound card but pipe the audio over the graphics card out the HDMI? Seems to just be a sound format ale mp3, flac so CPU with correct software should be able to decode it and shunt it out the PC over which ever cable (HDMI, Optical) that has enough bandwidth.......but thats audio novice speculation
Mazin. Thanks guys. This is exactly what I wanted! My mate is a complete arse when it comes to sound. I think that sound card would be good enough! Looks amazing.
Actually Denis, I'm not up to speed on all of the information either... Then again, I don't have such high audio requirements myself, so my knowledge on the subject is based off of what I've read and experienced through other individuals. The info you posted is news to me as well.
Personally, I have a 7.1 dolby worth £35. Nothing to the extent of £25k. He's ridiculous with it. A 6 inch cable which connects him pre-amp with him amp cost just over £210, becuase I had to order it for him. It's shockingly obsessive. Cheers though. This helps.
sounds an audiophile with alot of cash, guarenteed he will bankrupt himself on those oldschool vacuum tubes resistores one day
Why do you want a 15krpm HDD? They are some SCSI or SAS jobbies which aren't really suited for desktop work. A simple 7200rpm 1TB HDD will be good enough IMO. Also, why a 1kW PSU? Way overkill for (nearly) any machine on the planet! A 750W can run a system with two quad core CPU's and two graphics cards with ease so I see no problem in running this system.
Just to pipe in about SPDIF and the apparent inability to carry Dolby TrueHD signals. Technically there's no problem. The mentioned "content protection limitation" really is the only "limitation" and it's an artificial one at that. Have at you, you thieving media pirates! As for the system as outlined in the first post. Is this going to be primarily a media center or a fully fledged (gaming) system? I'm not really sure I'd put a Core2 quad core in a media center, especially since there's hardly any software that can truly benefit from more than 2 cores at the moment. The cores'll most likely just end up sucking juice without doing anything most of the time. I also wholeheartedly agree with mm_vr that a 1KW PSU is complete overkill. I'd rather look at a good 600-650W PSU with modular cable management. As for HDDs, I'm not sure how much you can gain by getting a 'Raptor these days (I'm assuming that what you meant by a 15K drive). Get a couple of huge drives for storage (e.g. 2x Seagate 1.5TB) and perhaps a WD6401AALS as a boot drive. Should work like a charm. Case-wise, have you looked at the OrigenAE S21T? It just doesn't get any cooler than that...
15000rpm drives are SCSI or SAS drives, like Seagate Cheetah. They are designed and optimized for very high end servers, and you'll get bad performance on a desktop system. (Veloci)Raptors are 10000rpm. They only offer a bit faster seek times, and generally a 7200rpm normal 1TB drive is as fast. If you really want speed, get some SSDs.
Talking of overkill, the guy has 3 Merc's - One for weekends, one for work, and the other becuase he wanted it ... This guy IS overkill. Overkill is what we want. http://www.quietpc.com/gb-en-gbp/products/htpccases/mon-932 This s the case we're going for. Now, with that, we would need to find either: A bBlu-Ray player, HD-recorder which is NOT 200mm deep - We need the standard size for DVD_RWs. Blue Ray tend to be bigger and I havnt found any smaller yet. OR we'd need a mobo which is 194mm deep, as opposed to 244mm. This is our main problem:
You really should have your friend have a look at the OrigenAE S21T. I'm pretty sure there aren't any clearance issues with that case. Did I mention the touch screen on it is motorized and will slide down automatically to give access to the drive bay behind it? I have until now *never* seen a HTPC case cooler than this, but of course it's pricey. Then again, that doesn't seem to be an issue for your friend. And just for kicks you could complement it with this.
Why the hell are you going with a Q9550? Its outdated. If you're going to be spending £2000 on a computer, you want Intel's new Core i7 products. Either get a i7 920 or 940, depending on how much money you have to burn.
Has to be an i7, yes more expensive but for £2K what is the point on old gear... http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2008/12/01/what-hardware-should-i-buy-dec-2008/8
+1 , but will need a SFF case that can fit full atx m/b so lian-li a05b i think it is or the falcon northwest fragbox i think can fit atx
