On the market for a PC

[DanLights]

I figured this would come out on a simple forum search but I surprisingly didn't find anything. Plus it's a pain that short words like pc aren't allowed in a search.

So I'm looking for a good desktop Pc for recording purposes only, my laptop is definitely out of it's league when mixing stuff, and I haven't even tried using it for recording.

What is most important, processor speed (Ghz?) or Ram? what else? i'm looking for example at a pentium 4 with 3 Ghz but 512 Ram (could upgrade that, but not more than an extra Gb), would that be nice, or better have a 1/2 gb ram with less ghz like 2/2.6? I'm practically blank on this, would appreciate some help

 

[Line666]

Doesnt look particularily fast for audio stuff. Whats your budget?

 

[ParsonsMatt]

I would avoid that computer if I were you. Do you have any good parts retailers in Venezuela?

 

[kev]

Hey man, this post sounds like a spec request from 4 years ago CPU & RAM are equally important factors. If you propose your budget, it will be easy to come up with a suitable specification. For anything serious, you're looking towards quad core chips now, especially with octo cores on the horizon. There is no point in having anything less than 4GB ram in your board, as its quite literally cheap as chips.

 

[DanLights]

Doesnt look particularily fast for audio stuff. Whats your budget?

Impossible to say accurately given the foreign currency issues in my country, everything is 4 times more expensive than is US/Europe

I would avoid that computer if I were you. Do you have any good parts retailers in Venezuela?

Not sure, I think there is, maybe I should go for building a frankenstein you say?

Hey man, this post sounds like a spec request from 4 years ago CPU & RAM are equally important factors. If you propose your budget, it will be easy to come up with a suitable specification. For anything serious, you're looking towards quad core chips now, especially with octo cores on the horizon. There is no point in having anything less than 4GB ram in your board, as its quite literally cheap as chips.

Ok thanks man, sorry i'm totally outdated on this subject. I'll look for quad core

 

[DanLights]

well to try to specifiy a budget, I'll Say I could afford a core 2 quad Q8200 with 4 gb ram and that's totally pushing it as far as I could go, for a monitor and keyboard i'll buy the cheapest shit I can find and use my same mouse I use for my laptop. Is that ok? I'll probably be using reaper if I don't switch to Cubase sometime soon btw

 

[NicholasDWolfwood]

a Q8200 with 4GB should be more than enough. I've ran superior drummer 2 with a 1gb kit, plus 3 instances of ampegsvx (which is a big memory eater too iirc) plus 3 instances of soloc/kefir...no lag at all, cpu was only at like 50% usage tops. same exact cpu and ram (4gb corsair ddr2 1066, q8200 @ stock speeds)

 

[DanLights]

great, thanks Nicholas, I guess I'll go for that then. I found a similar one with monitor and all but 2gb ram within my price range, and a 2 gb card is pretty cheap so I might go for that since it will be cheaper in the long run for the monitor and all. Thanks guys

 

[NicholasDWolfwood]

great, thanks Nicholas, I guess I'll go for that then. I found a similar one with monitor and all but 2gb ram within my price range, and a 2 gb card is pretty cheap so I might go for that since it will be cheaper in the long run for the monitor and all. Thanks guys

of course if you can, go for a faster cpu (ie a q9650 or even an i7) but otherwise the q8200 is a great investment.

for latency (ie during recording/monitoring DIs), more cpu power is needed than ram. (ie a dual core 3ghz will not perform as well as a 2.5ghz quad core, but neither needs a whole lot of ram for tasks where latency will fuck things up).

for running various vsts etc, more memory is definitely needed as there's quite a few vsts that hog memory like no other (an instance of sd2 in reaper with a 950mb kit ate up like 1.1gb - any of the amplitube products eat like 200mb a piece I think).

I upgraded from an athlon xp3200. even on xp-32 bit, this system FLIES compared to my old one. on 64 bit the benefits would be even more, as you can take advantage of the 64-bit instruction set as well as access to memory up to 16gb I believe it is (xp-32 can only see/use up to 3.25gb, it's a restriction of 32-bit operating systems)

also something you need to think about is the longevity of your "investment." right now my PC isn't even maxed out, as my motherboard can take upto 8gb ram I believe, and it supports the top of the line Core2Quad cpus. I can get 3-4 years out of this PC, easily. something like a P4 3ghz system is already basically obsolete.

my temperatures are also great on this CPU. at 75% load (highest I've been able to get it so far), it only hit 104F/40C. my case itself never gets hotter than a constant 109F/43C. my XP3200, at 100% load, would be up towards 130F/54C. from what I heard, the comparable AMD Phenom CPUs also run very hot, in the 120-130F range @ a pretty full load.

just a whole bunch of things to think about.

 

[DanLights]

of course if you can, go for a faster cpu (ie a q9650 or even an i7) but otherwise the q8200 is a great investment.

for latency (ie during recording/monitoring DIs), more cpu power is needed than ram. (ie a dual core 3ghz will not perform as well as a 2.5ghz quad core, but neither needs a whole lot of ram for tasks where latency will fuck things up).

for running various vsts etc, more memory is definitely needed as there's quite a few vsts that hog memory like no other (an instance of sd2 in reaper with a 950mb kit ate up like 1.1gb - any of the amplitube products eat like 200mb a piece I think).

I upgraded from an athlon xp3200. even on xp-32 bit, this system FLIES compared to my old one. on 64 bit the benefits would be even more, as you can take advantage of the 64-bit instruction set as well as access to memory up to 16gb I believe it is (xp-32 can only see/use up to 3.25gb, it's a restriction of 32-bit operating systems)

also something you need to think about is the longevity of your "investment." right now my PC isn't even maxed out, as my motherboard can take upto 8gb ram I believe, and it supports the top of the line Core2Quad cpus. I can get 3-4 years out of this PC, easily. something like a P4 3ghz system is already basically obsolete.

my temperatures are also great on this CPU. at 75% load (highest I've been able to get it so far), it only hit 104F/40C. my case itself never gets hotter than a constant 109F/43C. my XP3200, at 100% load, would be up towards 130F/54C. from what I heard, the comparable AMD Phenom CPUs also run very hot, in the 120-130F range @ a pretty full load.

just a whole bunch of things to think about.

yeah definitely lots of things to think about and I don't know much about that stuff, although I do understand everything you said in your post. so if I get a q8200 it is a good investment? cause I don't think I could afford anything better. The good thing about my country is I can always sell "obsolete" systems, many people have pieces of crap for pcs

 

[DaWolf]

I have a P4 2,5 in our reherasal room. Recording is ok up to 8 tracks at once.
Mixing I can forget though, 5-10 effects and I`m at the limit. So I have to use my Q9450 at home which is fine but lack good monitors instead.
I`m on a budget as well so I thought about upgrading to an E5200 system, what do you think how far I could get with that ?