Minimum Requirements for a New PC

johnnyburke85

johnnyburke85

New member
Hi Guys,

I am using Ableton Live 10 Suite and Komplete 12 on a 4 1/2 yo Dell Desktop that has a 1 TB SSD and an Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-6700 CPU @ 3.40GHz, 3408 Mhz, 4 Core(s). I also started recording video podcasts so I am looking at a new PC Desktop with enough storage capacity to handle over 100 WAV files of the episodes. So far, I have found this :

Dell XPS 8950 but it only has a 512 GB SSD. There are other models that have both an SSD and a traditional HD. Currently, my Onedrive has about 594 GB of music projects and podcast episode WAV files. Suggestions wold be appreciated.

Thanks!
 
Video and audio projects eat up storage. I've got a 16Tb Raid that I use as a NAS drive so I can edit video and do sound projects in either of my studios - BUT - this means all the machines need space so, my audio computer currently has two external drives connected to it with 6Tb - but mainly because my sample libraries and getting bigger and bigger. So now it's not just storage space for what you record, but that new library you bought that takes 32Gb, and you have lots of them. I don't have any performance issues with external drives as long as they're fast ones - so my MacBook has 512 internally as an SSD, but I can use this in the studio if I add external drives for the audio files and the samples. Internet storage as remote files, not local ones is a total pain once your content goes up because of the download/upload time. I have a 550+ fibre line and rarely can the host the other end get remotely near that speed. I stupidly thought that everything would download fast, but while some do (thank you Spitfire), some Kontakt downloads can be really slow.
 
SSDs are cheap enough these days. If that's the computer you are buying, just clone the system drive and add a second. My Lenovo had a 1TB spinner in it when I bought it years ago. Now it has a TB SSD and a 2TB spinner for data, plus a 4 TB external backup drive. 100 WAV files is nothing. I have about 8 audio projects alone on my drive that have 8 channels each and are 4-6hours long each. They dont even put a dent in my storage.

If you're doing video podcasts, you probably won't need to worry about things like instrument sample libraries. The last video project I worked on(20 minutes) had 6+GB of initial video, plus a separate audio file, and the final production file that was another GB long. At that pace, I could put a couple hundred of those video projects on the data drive alone. How long are your video podcasts going to be?
 
I took a look at your link johnny. They say maximum SSD of 512G, but they don't say whether or how many additional SSD drives it might accommodate.
I keep all my large video files on an external usb hard drive, with the main drive just for essential applications.
Your existing setup is pretty powerful. How about just adding external drives to it?
 
I checked some places that have reviewed that computer and it appears that it has 2 M.2 slots and at least 1 SATA port, so you can have a DVD/CD or HDD along with a couple of TB M.2 drives. That should be enough storage for most people.
 
The Dell XPS8950 offers a 1.5 TB option for an additional $600. Looks like external SSDs would be more cost effective.
 
A 1TB NVMe Samsung Evo 980 is $65 right now on Amazon. An Evo 970+ is $80. A 2 TB Barracuda HDD is $50. Paying Dell $600 for a bigger driver is insane! For about $120-135 you can add a second NVMe drive and the HDD for 3GB of additional storage.
 
And if you call right now, we'll throw in this Mr. Blower Air Fryer valued at over $250.00; a Mr. Grillit Bullit valued at $199.95; and this Kitchen Witchen that replaces over 15 of your old appliances. All this will be included with your order at no extra charge (just pay $350.00 additional shipping).

I'm sorry. I couldn't help myself. I feel so ashamed :o
 
johnnyburke85 said:
Hi Guys,

I am using Ableton Live 10 Suite and Komplete 12 on a 4 1/2 yo Dell Desktop that has a 1 TB SSD and an Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-6700 CPU @ 3.40GHz, 3408 Mhz, 4 Core(s). I also started recording video podcasts so I am looking at a new PC Desktop with enough storage capacity to handle over 100 WAV files of the episodes. So far, I have found this :

Dell XPS 8950 but it only has a 512 GB SSD. There are other models that have both an SSD and a traditional HD. Currently, my Onedrive has about 594 GB of music projects and podcast episode WAV files. Suggestions wold be appreciated.

Thanks!
Click to expand...
Add another 2TB SSD to the computer - and make sure you have at least 16 GB Ram.
 
Further to Rob's mention of "Cloud Storage". A recent documentary showed that server farms are an increasing problem. They use prodigious amounts of electricity and dump millions of Joules of heat into waterways and the air.

Ireland has an electricity problem NOW but they estimate that if all the farms planned were allowed, by 2030 they would use 30% of all Ireland's electricity output.
The problem is that the server farms have to keep the data indefinitely because they cannot know when a customer might want to access it. Some is stored on unpowered tape cassettes but they are slow coming online.

We just can't keep everything forever!

Dave.
 
ecc83 said:
Further to Rob's mention of "Cloud Storage". A recent documentary showed that server farms are an increasing problem. They use prodigious amounts of electricity and dump millions of Joules of heat into waterways and the air.

Ireland has an electricity problem NOW but they estimate that if all the farms planned were allowed, by 2030 they would use 30% of all Ireland's electricity output.
The problem is that the server farms have to keep the data indefinitely because they cannot know when a customer might want to access it. Some is stored on unpowered tape cassettes but they are slow coming online.

We just can't keep everything forever!

Dave.
Click to expand...
Just wait until we plug in all those Telsas to recharge!
 
TalismanRich said:
Just wait until we plug in all those Telsas to recharge!
Click to expand...
Well, you jest sir (I think?) but that is another problem. We have got to generate far more electricity to replace oil and gas heating plus even more for transport. "They" tell us that the grid can cope with the proposed extra load for cars, overall but many local mains systems will not be able to cope with a car being charged every night in almost every home.

The politicians just keep banging on about "growth" but the truth is we have just got to DO and USE a shedload less stuff.

Dave.
 
In the UK, in domestic older property areas it was common for houses to loop through their electricity supply - so house 1 took a feed in from the road, but then looped it through to property 2 - and sometimes even property 3. This was very simple for those who still get their power via overhead cables, rather than buried ones - the dangly cable came to house one, then fed to the one next door and so on. In the 'olden days' everyone had 60 Amps for your home - for everything. Some had electric cooking, which took at that time 30A max. Then people started on electric showers, and sometimes that 60A fuse got uprated to 100A. We now have the stupid situation that car chargers take so much, if you have the feed looped to next door, they might also buy an electric car.

You now have to apply for permission for a charger and sometimes they say no - or both properties get downrated so overnight charge is OK, but fast charge is disabled. All new chargers have to be internet connected so the charge rate can be varied when supplies can't cope. Damn silly nobody thought of this. Few roads in the UK could cope with even 50% of the properties having an electric vehicle.

In my town, the main town centre car parks have zero charging points. It's a total mess. A quick check of my town shows a few supermarkets only - and one public one with 'issues'.
 

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There are very few properties in my town Rob that are on overheads and the armor coming into my front bedroom looks well able to handle 100 amps. I was always given to understand that houses were connected on alternate phases?
So, No 1 is P1 No 3 over the road is P2, No 2, P3. No 4 P1 again? That helps share the load but of course only applies to an underground service.

But yes, there are grave concerns that local subs and cabling will not be able to cope if everyone wants a fast charger. "We" might be better placed than some areas (NN5 5PF) as just a couple of streets away there is the mother of all sub stations (find Duston rd) Historically the area was very 'industrial'. Timpkin bearings...Huge factory site. Pollard Bearings, Standard Valves, Express lifts. All gone now and new estates on the land. Hopefully they left all the electrical ordinance in place? Or maybe some rascal weighed it in!

I did not know you had to get permission to have an EV charger installed? Makes sense though. I don't know how our car parks are served, never use them. I just park for free a mile from the town centre and walk in. Saves money and does me good!
There is an Audi dealership about a mile from me (Weedon rd) and I saw they had at least one charging station there but I don't know if every T D And Harry can use it? A 5 min drive away in Vicarage road there is a charger.

Maybe people who want to run an EV will be told to get solar panels first!

Dave.
 
I just noticed that the person that made the post about the computer hasn't been back since he posted back on Sunday. I'll bet he'll be amused that we've gone from asking if the Dell would be a good enough computer to discussing the UK power grid's problems and EV charging restrictions, assuming he ever returns!

There's been a big push to install charging stations here in the US. About 2 years ago, Tesla put a supercharger station in a parking lot a half mile from my house. It is right off the interstate highway, so it's convenient for travelers. It's right across the road from a coffee shop, so you can go have a Frappuccino or a Latte while you charge your car.


chargers.jpg
 
People are buying cars and then the dealer says, hopefully your point can be fitted in a few months. I too thought that everyone went on different phases but looping is common - sometimes the capacity is fine, but in some roads, with old electrics, looping is common. You have to fill in a form before the electrician is able to fit a charger, and one question is "Is the supply looped?" If it is it could be bad. Many of the first generation chargers are now technically illegal as they don't have the mandatory internet connection used to throttle speeds. Others don't have the new safety features required PEN faults in particular - touching your car and getting a shock could be tricky. Rare, but death only happens once.

Is it just me that finds that Teslas having a little plastic panel you can pull out, revealing two wires you can touch to a 9v battery is the only way to open the frunk if you have total battery failure - the towing kit is inside, so ion the batteries are dead, the doors are locked and you can't get the tow eye - so a dinky 9V battery will open the doors and open the hatch!
 
Circling back to the topic:

I understand the Dell XPS 8950 to be good, but it will need an external drive to store data. Yes?

Is the Dell XPS 8960 better? It states: 512GB SSD + 2TB HDD. Does the 2TB HDD fix things, memory-wise?

Package - Dell - XPS 8960 Desktop - 13th Gen Intel Core i7 - 16GB Memory - NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 - 512GB SSD + 2TB HDD - Graphite and S2722QC 27.0" 4K IPS LED UHD - AMD FreeSync - VESA - Monitor (USB-C, HDMI) - Platinum Silver​


I copy-pasted a list of pros and cons, but need to translate this to creating music.

tI seems like it has the RAM and memory (maybe), but the FAN might be a problem when recording if the cooling system is not optimal.

* Any better options for $1,719.98 USD? Note: I don't have the skills to build my own system; I need to purchase 'key in hand' ( I will add hard drive, USB audio interface/mixer, etc).

Pros
USB-C on front and back
SD Card reader2 hard drive cages
Prewired for accessories
Clean wiring
Most service is toolless
Extra NVME slot
Fast Processor
Subdued chassis design
Quiet most of the time

Cons

Only 2 USB-C ports
No thunderbolt
Anemic CPU fan
Undersized CPU Heatsink
Fan profile prefers throttling over better cooling
Proprietary Power supply
No extra capacity on power supply
Proprietary motherboard power connection
Proprietary CPU cooler mount
No option to upgrade to an optical drive

Any NO GO in the list of CONS?

Thanks
 
There are lots of configurations of the Dell system, so I can't directly compare the systems. An 8950 or 8960 can be configured a half dozen different way, but here would be my comments on the general system. It seems that these are designed more as a game system, so it's targeted for more graphics intensive work.

2 USB-C ports is a non issue. 5 more are standard 3.2 ports. Its only a connector difference. 9 total USB Ports ought to cover just about everything.

Very few PC systems have thunderbolt at this point. If you have a Thunderbolt interface, move on to something else..

An external drive is mostly for backup. It's a non issue.... $100 will get you 4 TB of space which means you can probably back up your whole system 2 or 3 times! If you really fill that up, go spend another $100. By that time, it will probably get you an 8TB drive.

$25 will get you a USB DVD/CD drive. You probably will use it once every 2 or 3 months to burn a demo disk.

Which processor does it have? A stock I7-13700 is only a 65 watt processor at base rate and the stock CPU fan and heatsink should be adequate unless you plan to drive it hard (audio isn't that intensive). If it has the 13700K, it pulls 125W at base level and should probably have the liquid cooling option. Dell doesn't design their systems to be marginal for cooling or power, as that would have a direct effect on failure rate, with consequences for reputation and warranty costs.

The video card is a not really needed for audio recording. If you're doing video, then it definitely helps. If you are having Dell build the system, then you could just go with the onboard UHD video in the processor and save money and a bunch of power (135W), and fan noise.

There is more than enough power in that system to record real time audio. If I was looking at that system, I would get the base $1099 system with 13700 processor, 16GB and 1TB SSD, add another SSD or HD myself, I already have a USB CD for use with my laptop. It would run rings around the system that I am currently using. I'm not into playing XCON or Half Life, so hi rez game play FPS isn't an issue for me.
 
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