Hi guys. as usual, thanks for all the great replies and info!!
Yep, I can already vouch for the nice load times using a solidstate drive.
Silent too! Oh and in keeping that audio-only drive defragged, and formatted with 64K clusters.
Re. CPU:
So, I'll check with Asus just to make sure my board has the right socket etc.
I'm glad this doesn't look too complex.
What am I doing with the old chip if I do indeed upgrade? I don't have any plans for it. PM me.
It's less-than six months old, has been in a well-cooled machine, dry smoke-free environment etc.
If anyone else here does serious DAW work, meaning say, mixing 24-36-track projects with tons of plug-ins, what sort of DPC latency are you seeing on your DAW, when it's just idling at the desktop?
If you're wondering what DPC latency is, check out the free monitoring tool and the PDF explanation at:
http://www.thesycon.de/deu/latency_check.shtmlFor fun, I tried turning off anything network/internet related today, to see if any of that was causing glitches or stealing resources. Honestly, I didn't notice much change/difference in performance. (I turned off Microsoft Security/Firewall, network controller, even a couple USB 3.0 ports not being used). With all that off, I'm seeing DPC latency numbers ranging from 65-120 with the system just sitting at desktop.
I'm not experiencing problems really, just trying to see how far I can push things and optimize everything.
One last question.
I'm currently using on-board video, for two reasons.
1. I'm blind, use text-to-speech software, and usually only turn the screen on if I need a handy sighted person to look at something for me. So, graphics performance was very very low on the priority list. The screen is usually switched off, the mouse getting dusty somewhere behind it.
and
2. I usually run 1024x768 here, since it works best with my screenreading software. That's probably old-fashioned these days.
but, maybe going with on-board video wasn't a great idea, and installing a dedicated video card, although not a seriously expensive one, would free up system resources? Any thoughts guys? I originally thought going AMD with onboard video would mean less heat from a video card, less power consumption, and more room in the case.
Also, currently connecting the screen to the PC via analog. There's a digital connection available too. Does the onboard video chip do less work if it sends digital to the monitor?