T
TenToez
New member
Looking for insight into PC parts overhaul for under $500. Recommendations on processors, motherboards, RAM and hard drives would be great. Currently running XP Pro. Need more power and efficiency.
michaelst
New member
The best upgrade would be to Windows 7 on an SSD drive.
If you start changing processors/motherboards/memory, you'll need to upgrade your software to get maximimum utilization your new hardware. That means you'll go over your $500 budget.
If you are already in the dual core processor world, and have at least 2gb of RAM, Win7 on an SSD drive will not only save some cash, but speed up your PC at least 50%.
If you start changing processors/motherboards/memory, you'll need to upgrade your software to get maximimum utilization your new hardware. That means you'll go over your $500 budget.
If you are already in the dual core processor world, and have at least 2gb of RAM, Win7 on an SSD drive will not only save some cash, but speed up your PC at least 50%.
T
TenToez
New member
If I upgrade to 7, would I have to get a new video card as well? What if your RAM isn't expandable?
dastrick
huh???
What are the specs of your current PC?
Jeff_D
New member
A $500 pc today is very doable and can be very powerful, if you're willing to build it yourself. If your old machine is more than a few years old, I wouldn't bother to try and save anything other than maybe the keyboard, mouse and whatever monitor you have. I'd do something like this...
$100 AMD quad core CPU- Athlon II or Phenom
$80 Motherboard to match above- Asus, Gigabyte come to mind
$50 4 gigs of Ram- get the fastest that matches the board above (I'd stay away from OCZ memory- I've had recent bad experiences)
$25 OEM decent CD/DVD burner
$50 Video card. I'd go for something with a gig of memory onboard and VGA, DVI and HDMI outputs (video on the motherboard uses system resources, and hey you might want dual monitors someday). You don't need gamer quality, but you want something decent. If you want to skip the video card, I'd go for more ram and maybe consider a nicer mobo.
$100 OEM system builders copy of Windows 7 64bit Home Premium. If you need the added functions of Pro, add $40. Thats mostly networking / remote access type stuff the best I can tell though.
$70 1TB internal hard drive (you can go smaller- my studio PC has a 320gig drive and I've been using it for several years). Western Digital or Seagate are really the only two brands I would even consider. SATA 3.0. Lots of people like to have separate drives for their OS and data. You can pick up another small drive for your OS for another ~$40.
$40 decent Case with a power supply. If you can find a case laying around, just spend that on a better power supply.
Thats about $515. right there. There's places to save- a smaller hard drive could easily knock off $15.
Now, that doesn't include a backup drive for your data. If your music is even kinda important, you will NEED to back it up. You can either get another internal drive and use a backup utility you back everything up which you can schedule to do automatically, or you could do a raid array or you could get an external usb or esata drive to backup to, but that means you have to remember to plug something in and make it happen. Obviously each of those methods has its pluses and minus.
Before you jump in to Windows 7, you'll want to make sure if you have any hardware you want to keep will work- sound cards, audio interfaces and printers would be the things to consider. Some older equipment doesnt have drivers for the new 64bit OS's.
I've been building PC's with parts from newegg.com for the past 10 years now. $500 has always been kind of my target mark for any current PC.
Hope that helps.
$100 AMD quad core CPU- Athlon II or Phenom
$80 Motherboard to match above- Asus, Gigabyte come to mind
$50 4 gigs of Ram- get the fastest that matches the board above (I'd stay away from OCZ memory- I've had recent bad experiences)
$25 OEM decent CD/DVD burner
$50 Video card. I'd go for something with a gig of memory onboard and VGA, DVI and HDMI outputs (video on the motherboard uses system resources, and hey you might want dual monitors someday). You don't need gamer quality, but you want something decent. If you want to skip the video card, I'd go for more ram and maybe consider a nicer mobo.
$100 OEM system builders copy of Windows 7 64bit Home Premium. If you need the added functions of Pro, add $40. Thats mostly networking / remote access type stuff the best I can tell though.
$70 1TB internal hard drive (you can go smaller- my studio PC has a 320gig drive and I've been using it for several years). Western Digital or Seagate are really the only two brands I would even consider. SATA 3.0. Lots of people like to have separate drives for their OS and data. You can pick up another small drive for your OS for another ~$40.
$40 decent Case with a power supply. If you can find a case laying around, just spend that on a better power supply.
Thats about $515. right there. There's places to save- a smaller hard drive could easily knock off $15.
Now, that doesn't include a backup drive for your data. If your music is even kinda important, you will NEED to back it up. You can either get another internal drive and use a backup utility you back everything up which you can schedule to do automatically, or you could do a raid array or you could get an external usb or esata drive to backup to, but that means you have to remember to plug something in and make it happen. Obviously each of those methods has its pluses and minus.
Before you jump in to Windows 7, you'll want to make sure if you have any hardware you want to keep will work- sound cards, audio interfaces and printers would be the things to consider. Some older equipment doesnt have drivers for the new 64bit OS's.
I've been building PC's with parts from newegg.com for the past 10 years now. $500 has always been kind of my target mark for any current PC.
Hope that helps.
I
iampj
New member
If you really want to keep your current computer, a solid state drive is a great idea...
From wikipedia - "Compared to traditional HDDs, SSDs are typically less susceptible to physical shock, quieter, and have lower access time and latency. SSDs use the same interface as hard disk drives, thus easily replacing them in most applications.[2]"
From wikipedia - "Compared to traditional HDDs, SSDs are typically less susceptible to physical shock, quieter, and have lower access time and latency. SSDs use the same interface as hard disk drives, thus easily replacing them in most applications.[2]"
Jeff_D
New member
While thats all true, theyre still reallu expensive and only come in pretty small sizes.
dastrick
huh???
I agree. I think the money could be more usefully spent on other components. A good 7200 rpm hdd will suit probably 95% of home recorders out there.
ranjam
New member
Maybe even look at a 'new' motherboard that has that faster processor. Depending on what you have now, the extent you can upgrade may be limited. If your using Intel or AMD, there's more to limit your excursion. Obviously, if you have a socket 370 (from around 1999) you can go miles further with a new motherboard than trying to find a faster PIII that will fit that motherboard you have now. If you have a socket 478, your bus speed is limited to 100MHz or 200MHz, so a new board is better. But if you have a socket 'T', you're likely as good as it gets, so you have to know what you have, and what you think you'll accomplish will be clearer.
That will also tell you the RAM you use, and if more is possible and better. The socket 370 MB may be PC2100, and the socket 478 MB will be maybe PC5300 or PC6700 of DDR2 and can go up to 4GB of RAM. Even 512MB or PC5300 is 'better' than 1GB of PC2100. And you may be 'limited' to 2GB with PC2100 (I don't know for sure).
The big thing I've found is the power supply. The 'bigger' and the 'better' just seems to stall less and crash much less when you have a lot of tracks open with a lot of plug ins on each track.
Hard drives almost don't matter. Stick to 7200 RPM SATA or SATA2, and get as as big as you can, with as much on board cache. That won't make the recording process 'better', but everything else you do with that computer will go smoother.
That will also tell you the RAM you use, and if more is possible and better. The socket 370 MB may be PC2100, and the socket 478 MB will be maybe PC5300 or PC6700 of DDR2 and can go up to 4GB of RAM. Even 512MB or PC5300 is 'better' than 1GB of PC2100. And you may be 'limited' to 2GB with PC2100 (I don't know for sure).
The big thing I've found is the power supply. The 'bigger' and the 'better' just seems to stall less and crash much less when you have a lot of tracks open with a lot of plug ins on each track.
Hard drives almost don't matter. Stick to 7200 RPM SATA or SATA2, and get as as big as you can, with as much on board cache. That won't make the recording process 'better', but everything else you do with that computer will go smoother.