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In the market for a new pc.

Specs, brands and websites to look out for please.

I will consider mac too. The new 27" iMac looks delicious.

I already have a very nice 24" widescreen Monitor however so a tower pc will also do nicely.

I can build my own but I am really far behind with latest spec of hardware, etc.

Muchos thanks,

Lunar.

Budget?!

I suggest an SSD based pc, its freaking awesome.

Budget not really a massive issue tbh, but obviously value for money and longevity is.

I bought a Sony Vaio for �400 and frankly it is a fucking piece of shit.

Keeps reseting all the time for no fucking reason.

iMac still are portable however so I reckon I could take that to work or if needed to any future events where I'll play off my computer.

I got the Vaio for this purpose plus to replace my 6 year old Athlon 64, and I would not trust this with anything. I suspect it is a driver conflict with Numark Omni Control but fuck if I can fix it.

Anyway. Let me know what you recommend, just throw some good systems with a bit of background or info attached/explainations and i'll read and igest.

Cheers again.

Lunar

I'm not going to talk about mac vs. pc but if you go pc go high-end but not top of the line (on everything). It will save you tons of cash and last at least a couple of years.

imac. all problems solved. especially since u already consider it, u will not regret.

quote:

Originally posted by tehlord Budget?!

Well he's considering the 27" iMac, so his budget must be pretty large. I'm pretty sure one of those costs about $1700.

quote:

Originally posted by Viber I suggest an SSD based pc, its freaking awesome.

+1, but not yet, imo. I personally won't be buying a SSD until they're above 500GB and reasonably priced. As of yet, a 160GB Intel SSD will cost you around $430, that's more than 4x what I payed for a 1TB HDD.

ya ssd isn't really worth it right now. The kink in the system is hardrive speed so unless all your drives are ssd, I don't think you would see that much improvement and as the guy above said, 160 gigs for 400 isn't really alot of space.

If money's really not a problem i'd suggest looking at an i7 based system from Scan. Those guys are regular posters over at KVR and seem to a) know their stuf, b) are approachable and communicative and c) not silly money expensive despite constant praise.

This looks a good place to start speccing, although will be more than useable right out the box :-

http://3xs.scan.co.uk/ShowSystem.asp?SystemID=935

get a mac

lol sony sucks @ PCs/laptops, overpriced and underfeatured.

If the iMac is a possibility then I'd just buy that. I want one of i7 27" iMacs so bad!

i just grabbed an amd 3.4ghz quad core from newegg, 4gigs of ram, 1tb hd, very nice gigabyte mobo, case, and katana fan for $550

has handled everything i've thrown at it in ableton so far. i opened up 48 instances of softube's a range trident EQ, turned saturation to 100% on all of them and processor was still only going at 60%

i'd get more RAM though. i'll be getting another 4 gigs soon. get at least 8 gigs, 16 if you're feeling spunky.

quote:

Originally posted by floyd741 +1, but not yet, imo. I personally won't be buying a SSD until they're above 500GB and reasonably priced. As of yet, a 160GB Intel SSD will cost you around $430, that's more than 4x what I payed for a 1TB HDD.

Do you really need more than 40GB (SATA II) for your OS,DAW and current WIPs?

Your HDD might have 1TB but its at least two times slower!
People keep talking about RAMS\CPU speeds and SATAII-III HDDs but as long as your'e using an HDD your cumputer is like this big truck driving in a really fast highway - you have the bandwidth to go super fast but you don't have the ability to go really fast or to do the maneuvers of a new mazarati.

quote:

Originally posted by Viber Do you really need more than 40GB (SATA II) for your OS,DAW and current WIPs?

yes. i have nothing but logic installed on my computer and i use 85GB. 10 of those are mp3, so that leaves 75GB, which probably 20 is OSX and rest is Logic. and my project folder is almost empty, in a few years im guessing there will be many MB in there too so u definitly need atleast 250GB main hd.

I'm not going to start the mac vs PC debate here but if you have the money and are considering it, go for the imac.

A friend just got one of the (refurbished) 27" Imacs. It is just so fucking nice. We had a ton of design work to do and after 4 hours of staring at the screen there was no eye fatigue and at one point we had 27 applications open (including the entire Adobe CS5 masters bundle which is seriously CPU heavy) and the thing just didn't flinch.

Logic is just fucking superb (along with all the built in plugs), the imac is so quiet, fast, tiny footprint, great peripheral devices, and my imac has not crashed (even once) since I got it over two years ago.

The argument about lifespan on mac vs pc is irrelevant these days. You get easily 4+ years out of a mac which is really as much as you can expect from any computer - any PC that is 4+ years old will be outdated to the same degree that you'd need to consider upgrading.

I still like PC's as well, but I just couldn't really think about buying a PC in the future for DAW use unless mac really fuck up the imacs in the future.

Now when wavelab mac comes out in about a month there will be absolutely no need for me to even consider firing up a PC for audio use.

quote:

Originally posted by Viber Do you really need more than 40GB (SATA II) for your OS,DAW and current WIPs? Your HDD might have 1TB but its at least two times slower! People keep talking about RAMS\CPU speeds and SATAII-III HDDs but as long as your'e using an HDD your cumputer is like this big truck driving in a really fast highway - you have the bandwidth to go super fast but you don't have the ability to go really fast or to do the maneuvers of a new mazarati.

What about having multiple drives? I like the idea of having a 1+TB HD to archive onto that could/would be USB connected but also want plenty of room for large projects. Would separate 80GB audio and sample system drives slow the system down to any noticeable degree?

quote:

Originally posted by EddieZilker What about having multiple drives? I like the idea of having a 1+TB HD to archive onto that could/would be USB connected but also want plenty of room for large projects. Would separate 80GB audio and sample system drives slow the system down to any noticeable degree?

Nope. Actually having larger external archive drives, with smaller (even multiple) internal drives are a good DAw model.

That's how we run it at the studio. In fact only current projects (along with OS, PTHD and all the plugs) are kept on the internal drives.

Any new or old projects are brought in from an external drive and tehn copied to main internal drive. Once the project is done, it's migrated to the external and back up to tape then, deleted from the internal drives.

Really there's not need for anything larger than 250gb on your main internal drive if it's really an audio computer. Even if you use a bunch of samples in any given project, most daws have the option (at least protools HD and logic do) to copy the samples used in the project to main project folder, which for performance and housekeeping reasons should be on the internal(s).

If possible, it's a good setup to have OS and software on one drive, then library and samples on the other internal drive, otherwise just have it all on one internal and make sure it's regularly backed up.

quote:

Originally posted by DJ RANN Nope. Actually having larger external archive drives, with smaller (even multiple) internal drives are a good DAw model. That's how we run it at the studio. In fact only current projects (along with OS, PTHD and all the plugs) are kept on the internal drives. Any new or old projects are brought in from an external drive and tehn copied to main internal drive. Once the project is done, it's migrated to the external and back up to tape then, deleted from the internal drives. Really there's not need for anything larger than 250gb on your main internal drive if it's really an audio computer. Even if you use a bunch of samples in any given project, most daws have the option (at least protools HD and logic do) to copy the samples used in the project to main project folder, which for performance and housekeeping reasons should be on the internal(s). If possible, it's a good setup to have OS and software on one drive, then library and samples on the other internal drive, otherwise just have it all on one internal and make sure it's regularly backed up.

That's exactly the configuration I was wanting to verify. 250GB seems reasonable, too. Thanks for the clarification on that. Oh, and I'm also now committing to the HS80's.

quote:

Originally posted by 19503 yes. i have nothing but logic installed on my computer and i use 85GB. 10 of those are mp3, so that leaves 75GB, which probably 20 is OSX and rest is Logic. and my project folder is almost empty, in a few years im guessing there will be many MB in there too so u definitly need atleast 250GB main hd.

Yea, Logic can take 48GB...
Its always necessary to have another BIG hdd installed anyway.

As i said, SSD is for your OS, DAW and current projects only. I think that there is a way to use a small SSD as an effective workstation.

Perhaps storing all the samples\loops\jams in the HDD, the actual app in the SSD while saving all the stuff you are using within current projects in the SSD.

Its still pretty hard to ram LOGIC and OSX together, you will probably need 60-80GB SSD to avoid struggles.

quote:

Originally posted by Viber Yea, Logic can take 48GB... Its always necessary to have another BIG hdd installed anyway. As i said, SSD is for your OS, DAW and current projects only. I think that there is a way to use a small SSD as an effective workstation. Perhaps storing all the samples\loops\jams in the HDD, the actual app in the SSD while saving all the stuff you are using within current projects in the SSD. Its still pretty hard to ram LOGIC and OSX together, you will probably need 60-80GB SSD to avoid struggles.

No exactly true - if you install the jam packs and audio content, yes you're getting close to 35g in content but honestly I didn't bother installing them and it having browsed the packs, I really don't miss them.

Logic without the content packs is only a few gigs.

SSD's are indeed faster but unfortunately the bottleneck is really the rest of the system. An SSD in raid0 - yes fantastic, but also bloody expensive,and still there's so much performance potential there that is not being used so there's not much in bothering IMO until both the hardward and software of computer systems adjust to accommodate the faster stransfer speed.

Any frankly until the price drops considerably, the extra increase in speed really isn't worth it.

The cheapest usable SSD is by kingston at 64gb for around $145 inc tax and shipping. It faster (but not that much) but you can get an internal 2tb sata 6g drive for that.

In a years time, SSD all the way - right now, not such a great idea unless you just have to have it.

quote:

Originally posted by DJ RANN Nope. Actually having larger external archive drives, with smaller (even multiple) internal drives are a good DAw model. That's how we run it at the studio. In fact only current projects (along with OS, PTHD and all the plugs) are kept on the internal drives. Any new or old projects are brought in from an external drive and tehn copied to main internal drive. Once the project is done, it's migrated to the external and back up to tape then, deleted from the internal drives. Really there's not need for anything larger than 250gb on your main internal drive if it's really an audio computer. Even if you use a bunch of samples in any given project, most daws have the option (at least protools HD and logic do) to copy the samples used in the project to main project folder, which for performance and housekeeping reasons should be on the internal(s). If possible, it's a good setup to have OS and software on one drive, then library and samples on the other internal drive, otherwise just have it all on one internal and make sure it's regularly backed up.

Secretly this guy works for Steve Jobbs

Get the new imac and use your current monitor as a secondary display for maximum awesomeness. That display is soooo gorgeous.

If you're gonna do a custom build go intel I'm using a now older core 2 quad chip, the go stepping version and I have yet to max it out in logic with around 30+ tracks.

The new i7 chips give me a raging boner.

quote:

Originally posted by DJ RANN but you can get an internal 2tb sata 6g drive for that.

You do understand that HDDs can barely use the technology of 1.5 GPS?

You have a point though, home ssd is a little pre-mature and really pricey at the moment...but if a guy is throwing money at an iMac than it means he has money for SSD

I'm trying to highlight the cost difference in size in relative mediums. HDD's are indeed slower but SSD's are so new that the value is just appalling in comparision to perfectly usable spinning diks, especially as the rest of the technology in the overall computing system has not yet really been streamlined or optimised for SSD technology yet.

SSD technology (not just the drives) has so far to go from where it is now to where it will be even in a few months time in terms of it's potential performance and cost that adopting it right now just doesn't seem a very good idea.

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