It is the season for new PC, reccomendations?

T

Thurgood

New member
PC died... Time for new machine for use as daw. I am looking for a solid PC platform that is fast and reliable. Most of the use will be mixing a typical project of 64 to 100 tracks in addition to 100+ plugs. (most low cpu eq, comp etc.) Yeah that is a lot but most are basic hi pass and or mild comp) I use heavier stuff when necessary. I was very happy with my (not so happy) dead machine running Reaper 32 bit or 64 bit. 3 ghz, processor and 8 gb ram, 2.5tb total drives allocating 500 gb to OS (was win 7) and the extra hard drives for samples, media storage and odd bits. That system ran fine until IT WAS A LEMON out of warranty and no support for win 7 from the manufacturer. Oh well. I am limited to $1000.00 US. I have two monitors and pci firewire card for my Rme interface (those can be moved to new machine). I know I have left out some important detail but what do you guys/gals think? I am considering SSD for primary OS as an option but kinda costly and warey of SSD failure rates. As of this writing things may have improved in the SSD world. Dunno. Any reccomendations are welcome. Heck, I had very few times that I ran the now dead machine over 75% no dropouts or even a minor hiccup. Gimme advise please.
 
Hey,
If you were very happy with your old machine maybe we can figure out what went wrong with it?
I don't know how savvy you are, but it could be repairable.

Was it a software or hardware issue. Symptoms?
 
I've been very happy using an SSD for my OS- C drive, and if you have other drives you don't need a very large one for your main drive and it did increase performance and boots very fast.
 
Contact some of the retailers (iBuyPower, etc.) and actually talk to them. Get the specs you want (that should fit into $1000 machine. Tell them specifically that it is for a studio and you will want it to be SILENT.
I bought a $1800 computer last year from another firm (i won't mention) and did exactly that. Their first ship out came with the liquid cooler squalling and leaking all over the place. Back it went. Came back weeks later and made all sorts of racket like it was completely unshielded and getting bleed from the graphics. Back it went. They fixed something else and returned it with all the same problems. I ended up having to get my credit card to stop payment and I waited till they asked for it back (with all the normal threats). But I was specific about needing a quiet machine for studio work from the very first call, and they could not argue that the machine was quiet or that the machine did not need to fulfill my NEED, but only the specifications I ordered (which they tried). So be specific about that aspect.

I've learned since, that it is the AMD 6 and 8 core processors in general that do the nasty sound from graphics bleed, so I recommend i5s and i7s now.
For your $1k budget, you should shoot for a good i5 with 8G memory (HyperX Beast, or G.Skill Ripjaws are nice) 256G SSD, 1 TB drive (work with Caviar Black), onboard graphics and sound and silent fans. Also, if the company offers it, get the pro wiring (less air resistance = better cooling = less fan speed required = quieter) and the sound reduction foam in the machine. Usually an extra $30 for the sound reduction and $20 for the wiring. Then hook it up with Windows 7 64bit (home premium will do nicely). And there you have what should be a great system for your DAW, but you'll not be playing the latest games...

You can pull your hard drives from the old system and install them in the new, btw.
 
For that matter, most computer failures (besides boot drive failure) are either power supply or capacitors on the mother board. When the caps go bad they look like they have brown corrosion on them. http://www.tnpcnewsletter.com/dan/Bulging_Capacitors/close-up.jpg
If your mb has some of those, you need to replace the MB and the power supply. This is much cheaper than $1000, but requires you to replace the mother board in your machine (or take it to a local pro)...
 
BroKen_H said:
Contact some of the retailers (iBuyPower, etc.) and actually talk to them. Get the specs you want (that should fit into $1000 machine. Tell them specifically that it is for a studio and you will want it to be SILENT.
I bought a $1800 computer last year from another firm (i won't mention) and did exactly that. Their first ship out came with the liquid cooler squalling and leaking all over the place. Back it went. Came back weeks later and made all sorts of racket like it was completely unshielded and getting bleed from the graphics. Back it went. They fixed something else and returned it with all the same problems. I ended up having to get my credit card to stop payment and I waited till they asked for it back (with all the normal threats). But I was specific about needing a quiet machine for studio work from the very first call, and they could not argue that the machine was quiet or that the machine did not need to fulfill my NEED, but only the specifications I ordered (which they tried). So be specific about that aspect.

I've learned since, that it is the AMD 6 and 8 core processors in general that do the nasty sound from graphics bleed, so I recommend i5s and i7s now.
For your $1k budget, you should shoot for a good i5 with 8G memory (HyperX Beast, or G.Skill Ripjaws are nice) 256G SSD, 1 TB drive (work with Caviar Black), onboard graphics and sound and silent fans. Also, if the company offers it, get the pro wiring (less air resistance = better cooling = less fan speed required = quieter) and the sound reduction foam in the machine. Usually an extra $30 for the sound reduction and $20 for the wiring. Then hook it up with Windows 7 64bit (home premium will do nicely). And there you have what should be a great system for your DAW, but you'll not be playing the latest games...

You can pull your hard drives from the old system and install them in the new, btw.
Click to expand...

Make sure to keep in mind that all i5 processors are not 4 core... Check that. The 4 core ones are not that much more expensive. Hell, neither are the i7's but motherboard must be capable.
 
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