What CPU should I get?

  • Thread starter Thread starter ericlingus
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ericlingus

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I was thinking about getting an AMD athlon64 4000+. But do I really need that much? When I first start out recording im not going to really use MIDI or anything. But I think in the future I will, plus plug ins and stuff. Would a 3700+ or even less be enough for that or should I stick with the 4000+? I'm going to get two hard drives and 1gig of RAM.
 
also, should I get a less expensive CPU like the 3700+ and get 2gigs or RAM instead of getting the 4000+ with 1gig of RAM?
 
Depends on how intensive your sessions are going to be. As you mentioned more pluggins eat up horsepower real fast. Simple recordings seem to work well with pretty low end CPU's.
I'm happy with my Athlon 64 3800 dual core. Probably overkill right now, but will handle 64bit operations down the line, as well as benefitting from apps optimized for dual core.
 
Re the ram. Again it depends on usage, but 1 gig seems like a reasonable starting point price/performance wise right now.
 
do you think I really need that powerful of a CPU? I'm thinking of just getting the 3700+ with 1 gig of ram. Two hard drives: /120/160. That would suffice for a while. I only intend on recording myself. One track at a time. I'll use MIDI a little. Probably not that much. Probably some plug ins too. I doubt i'll use any virtual instruments.
 
1 gig should be plenty.

The 3700+ 64-bit is pretty sweet.

Just make sure it's 1 MB L2 cache.
 
Dude, for just one person, that's a lot more than you need. That's a badass computer though, so if you have the money, I would get it. Just to let you know though, one time my recording computer was on the fritz, and I had scheduled to record this band from a nearby town. So I used my friends computer. It was a Pentium Celeron running at 1.5 ghz with 256 of ram. I ran up to 8 channels at a time through my firepod into cubase LE with no problems. It didn't even drag at all. It worked fine. So, just a heads up.
 
I have a 2500 limit on my computer. That includes the video monitor and audio interface with software. Then I have about 500-700 dollars to buy speaker monitors,cables, and whatever else I may need. I already know i'm going to get the firebox that comes with cubase LE so i'm good in that department. For speaker monitors I don't want to spend more than 300. I'm getting one built at pcaudiolabs.com. For some reason I don't see any video monitors on that site. That's strange..
 
For that amount of cash, you should be looking for a dual core system for sure (X2 is what the AMD calls it), there really is no need to be buying single core chips anymore.

Most DAW software is written for duallies and believe me, you will never go back

I built a DAW for a friend in the summer and for $2000 he got:

Pentium D 2.8ghz on a ABIT 955 based MB (I forget the model)
1 gig Corsair XMS RAM
2x 200 gig Segate Barracuda SATA Drives in removable cooled drive bays
Geforce Dual head Video
2x 19" Fuji LCD Monitors
4 space rackmount case
Yamaha i88x interface
DVD Burner
 
I really don't have the money to get dual core. It's more expensive to get it custom built than to build one myself which i'm not going to do. I can always upgrade later when I get more into recording anyways.
 
ericlingus said:
I really don't have the money to get dual core. It's more expensive to get it custom built than to build one myself which i'm not going to do. I can always upgrade later when I get more into recording anyways.
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If you get a Socket939 mainboard with AMD X2 capability you can easily upgrade later :)
 
I had pretty good luck shopping at newegg.com for stuff to build a system. I ended up with an Antec quiet case, an AMD 64 processor, an ASUS board and 1 GIG RAM. The ASUS board has both the IDE and SATA interfaces, so you can load it up with peripherals if needed. Firewire is on the motherboard.

Be sure to look for a good brand of RAM; I did some research and ended up getting Corsair chips as they have a reputation for reliability.

I ended up building a box for under a thousand bucks including new drives. I used my old monitor, keyboard, CDR/W and a couple of old drives. Next move is to fit up with DVD-R units and more RAM.
 
Corsair chips as they have a reputation for reliability.
Click to expand...

I'll second that. I run TWINXLL and I will NEVER buy another brand of RAM.
 
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