Minimum laptop specs for production

j-sh · Post by **j-sh** » Sun Jul 26, 2009 11:11 pm

So im thinking of upgrading my laptop cuz at the moment it grinds to a jittering halt whenever things get a bit complx in ableton

So im looking at pcspecialist.co.uk to build a custom laptop, with a budget of about £500

at the moment the specs im thinking of getting are:

Processor:
Intel® Core™2 Duo Mobile T6400 (2.00GHz) 800MHz FSB/2MB L2 Cache

Ram: 2GB CORSAIR DDR2 667MHz SODIMM

Running on windows Xp, with a 160gb internal hardrive alongside my 500gb external

Most of this stuff is complete jibberish to me so i was wondering if anyone could tell me - is this gunna be enough to run ableton live rewired with reason, quickly and easily

cuz at the momnt my computer is too slow to get ideas out!

all of that comes to about £474 which i realise isnt alot, but im a student so im skint basically all the time!
Any help would be awesome becuase i literally have no idea about this stuff

idlemode · Post by **idlemode** » Mon Jul 27, 2009 3:06 am

i would say that should work well enough with ableton. i run on similar specs.

but for an even better experience and to be able to have more vst's open at the same time etc consider a memory upgrade, now or in the future to 4gb ram. will make a big difference in performance.

deadly_habit · Post by **deadly_habit** » Mon Jul 27, 2009 8:31 am

lol that def will work
you said min specs i mean shit i can run on a [entium 2 like 600 mhz and 512 ram

JFK · Post by **JFK** » Mon Jul 27, 2009 9:39 am

Yeah that will be fine mate. I run on almost exactly the same specs, the only difference being I have crappy Vista.

j-sh · Post by **j-sh** » Mon Jul 27, 2009 9:44 am

thats the thing, XP doesnt support 4 gb of ram. I could choose to have it with vista but i have never heard a positive word about it.

At the moment im working with a 585mhz processor with 512 ram and i literally cant finish tunes on it!

Cheers for the replies, any other thoughts?

stappard · Post by **stappard** » Mon Jul 27, 2009 3:17 pm

J-sh wrote:thats the thing, XP doesnt support 4 gb of ram. I could choose to have it with vista but i have never heard a positive word about it.

At the moment im working with a 585mhz processor with 512 ram and i literally cant finish tunes on it!

Cheers for the replies, any other thoughts?

As far as I could see when researching my laptop purchase, its all in the processor for music production, so if you can get an 8000/9000 series Core 2 Duo for that money, go for it...

zion cluster · Post by **zion cluster** » Mon Jul 27, 2009 9:25 pm

A few things that come to mind:

Reason does not run multi-processor, so whatever dual core you have, Reason will only be able to use a max of 50%. Probably not an issue if you're just rewiring it into Live.

Live is a CPU hog, just because of what it can do, and that it has to be ready to go all the time.

GET A GOOD GRAPHICS CARD. Seriously, Laptops with bad gpu's can be crippled for audio.

Use a cut down OS. There is a great one based on XP SP3 here:
http://forum.cockos.com/showthread.php?t=30162

This will cut down on all the bloat and shit, making sure your computer can dedicate all its power to audio.

djdickclark · Post by **djdickclark** » Fri Jul 31, 2009 4:57 pm

i havent heard anything good about vista either, but i'm on it as we speak, and haven't had probs, idk

hurlingdervish · Post by **hurlingdervish** » Fri Jul 31, 2009 6:06 pm

i haven't had any problems with vista, but then again alot of people do.

i quite like being able to search things really quick with the windows button.

i heard some drivers don't work though

i dont know where you will find a laptop without windows vista/7 though...

bobbytron · Post by **bobbytron** » Fri Jul 31, 2009 9:07 pm

how about a second hand macbook? that will piss on everything i picked up white macbook with the 2.4 processor and 2gig mem for 550

mickledan · Post by **mickledan** » Sat Aug 01, 2009 10:28 am

http://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Laptops/ ... ctId=37272

ok so it has vista on it but if you source the drivers you can easilly put xp on as it should be

Minimum laptop specs for production

Minimum laptop specs for production

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