[Nottingham] Buying advice sought

[Matthew Sackman]

On Wed, Feb 06, 2013 at 12:26:53PM +0000, Martin wrote:
> > I use Ardour for recording and it works reasonably well although in order to 
> > achieve low latency I have to do things like disable my wireless network card, 
> > and shutdown a few other non-essential processes. It would be nice if I didn't 
> > have to do that with a new machine.
> > 
> > So, I am thinking: PCWorld? Dell? Build it myself? Is everything 64 bit 
> > nowadays?
> 
> For a 'desktop' system, we are all 64bit now (32bit is sooo last decade
> ;-) ) and 4GB+ RAM and SSD. You also now have a good choice for going
> quiet and/or low power and still enjoy good performance.

If you do go down the self build route, I'd recommend paying attention
to http://silentpcreview.com/. IME, finding a heat-friendly-enough GPU
is often the biggest issue. If integrated graphics is good enough for
you and you don't have any fans on the mobo then that'll work nicely.
Otherwise, the general rule is large slow spinning fans are the
quietest, and don't be afraid to undervolt them if they're not PWM
types. Keep an eye on temps. My case of choice is the Antec P180, though
I think they've updated that to the P182 by now. Well designed and with
sound dampening but not inexpensive. There are also "boutique" builders
out there that build complete "silent" systems. That will be top dollar
though, and probably not a worthwhile spend.

Matthew