Any glaring errors in planned DAW upgrade?

  • Thread starter Thread starter keithpurtell
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keithpurtell

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I'm planning to upgrade from XP Pro (with Intel D865GBF board) to the following. Pretty sure it's the right feature set within my budget ($500), but I would like to know if I've overlooked any glaring errors. I'm using Reaper with an M-Audio Delta 1010LT card ...

-Intel Core i5-4670K Haswell 3.4GHz LGA 1150 84W Quad-Core Desktop processor
-ASUS Z87-A LGA 1150 Intel Z87 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX motherboard
-Windows 7 64-bit

This is inside my original Antec Sonata II case.
 
What's your RAM going to look like? For audio stuff, I'd recommend 8-16GB. 16 being max, I'm not sure you'd ever actually exceed that in a home recording situation (I work in a studio and I've never needed the full 16... Only passed 8GB when doing a lot of work with Melodyne).
 
Yes, I'll use that recommended RAM. Starting at base and adding more as $ is available.
 
Drive configuration???

You want 3 for maximum efficency:
OS, apps and plugins on boot drive
Sample libraries on a second drive
Audio projects and tracks on a third drive.
 
TimOBrien said:
Drive configuration???

You want 3 for maximum efficency:
OS, apps and plugins on boot drive
Sample libraries on a second drive
Audio projects and tracks on a third drive.
Click to expand...

Reaper's 64 bit upgrades rather well. Very easy upgrade. Haswell chips are getting pretty good reviews. I am using the M-Audio 192, not having any issues, I think (I think) the drivers are the same for both cards. So I think that should go well. Reaper has a bridge as a part of the install, so even your 32bit VSTs will work in 64 bit version.

As far as the above, the efficiency will be more from a workflow perspective than that of a performance boast as most consumer grade MBs use the same I/O interface for hard drives. One item to note, you should turn off indexing on folders/drives that will contain audio information (if it is dedicated to audio, you can turn it off completely) . Indexing is not really needed and it slows down the IO between the DAW and the OS. (Not a huge gain, but it is noticeable).

Going from XP to Win7 once you get past a slight learning curve will be a huge joy. I have had only one blue screen in two/three years and that was due to a faulty graphics card. Really stable, much better than XP.
 
Thanks everyone for the useful information. David, you're right about Win7. I've been using the 64-bit version at work for more than a year. The only glitch has been sometimes Explorer will not refresh the screen when files/folders are deleted/moved. Compared to the *constant* tinkering and troubleshooting with XP.
 
keithpurtell said:
Thanks everyone for the useful information. David, you're right about Win7. I've been using the 64-bit version at work for more than a year. The only glitch has been sometimes Explorer will not refresh the screen when files/folders are deleted/moved. Compared to the *constant* tinkering and troubleshooting with XP.
Click to expand...

If you are so inclined, there is a way to fix it, what do when windows explorer doesn't refresh

I just learned to live with the problem. :cool:
 
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