Hi everyone. I'm looking into building a PC for using a DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) and would like some advise if anyone has any. I'll mention just now that i've never built a PC before. After some research i'm looking at getting the following components: CPU - Intel Core 2 Duo E6550 MOBO - Intel DP35DP Case/PSU - Coolmaster RC-930 itower In addition to these, can anyone recommend: RAM - 2GB Graphics Card - something simple as the graphics don't really matter for what i'm doing Cd/Dvd Drive - Probably a fairly standard one PCI Card - Would I need one? I'll need a few firewire connections but will the MOBO i've choosen be enough I'm also looking at a couple of Western Digital Hard Drives, A decent Sound Card and Windows XP Home for the OS. If anyone has any advice or can add anything i've missed that would be great. Thanks, Bryan www.myspace.com/tobaccoslammers

Hi Bryan Have you considered connectivity? I assume you will want to plug various instruments into your setup, and will you need to plug in more than one at a time? eg; mic & guitar etc. you may want to look at digital audio interfaces such as M-Audio's NRV-10. This completely takes the load off of your system's ram and cpu. Whatever you go for make sure your sound card is full-duplex and ASIO compatible. the other thing i would say to watch for is system noise. you want your system to be silent. Reviews on the Coolmaster itower suggest it's quite noisy, you may want to check out Antec cases. I've built a few systems with the P182 and get almost no noise. pick a graphics card that doesn't use a fan and check out Zalman products for noiseless CPU and case fans. Hope that helps a little. Paul

RAM - I would generally go with Crucial or Corsair. Their high performance versions would suit you best, but if costs an issue their standard/value products offer decent performance. SoundCard - Creative soundblaster all the way for me. I've never found anything that comes anywhere near them for sound quality. Pick the model that best suits your need. Western Digital Hard drives are a decent choice, as are Seagate - there's not much to choose between the two these days. Wizard ICT. Microsoft Certified System Engineer. www.wizard-ict.co.uk