My suggestions for anyone looking for a new computer atm

[EDN]

I would back up on something outside your main tower as well, just incase your PSU blows up all yo' shit.

By the way, I got a similar setup for a similar budget and its the mutts nutts (running ableton like you are I believe)
Phenom II x6 1090t
Asus M4A89td PRO (Usb3)
Corsair dominator 1600mhz 2x2gb (4gb total, which is by the way more than enough, and I run loads of instances of East/West Symphonic Orchestra)
Msi Hawk 5770 Graphics (you blatently don't need this, I wanted it for gaming)
Some rubbish hitatchi 5400 1tb hdd (big mistake, the only weak link in the chain)
Antec 900 (big awesome fan ontop)
Corsair h-50 liquid cooling
Stealthxstream 700 psu.
Which all came to about 900ish.

You can axe the graphics card (which was like 150) and if you axe the other hard drive and replace with a 7200 and an ssd then your sorted.

[gen_]

Maybe my reasoning wasn't totally sound but i was still correct though.

Also please could you point me in the direction of some specific benchmarks that deal with audio to demonstrate your point.

thanks

You were correct, I just didn't want the OP to go and burn his dough on a large SSD

Evidence - The worlds fastest HDD (Veliciraptor) vs a comparably priced SSD (notice its only 32GB in size so it should be shit hot)
http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/IDE/SSD_vs_V ... aptor.html

Quotes:
Write performance:
As we've seen earlier, random writes are the SSD's achilles heel because of it's erase blocks, so performance is not nearly as good as the random reads. Disk drives on the other hand are able to cache written blocks and write them later.

QuickBench: Sequential Reads
The Velociraptor is in the lead across all file sizes. The SSD performance is mostly in between the two disk drives.

QuickBench: Sequential Writes
The Velociraptor is in the lead again – it shows that it has a SATA-300 interface, whereas the Raptor and the SSD have a SATA-150 interface. Note these high speeds (up to 238 MB/s) are reached thanks to the disk cache.

Also note this is all before anyone even mentions RAID, which is my suggestion. 2 1TB HDDs in RAID should be pretty close to this thing.


As for evidence in relation to Audio. It's no different to any other file on the computer, as its recorded its written sequentially to disk unless your HDD is fragmented. The reason applications benefit from random reads is because all of the data is spread over many many little files and frequently accesses system files as well, which are more little files all over the HDD.

[decklyn]

it will still be expensive and hell most daws aren't exactly utilizing quad cores or 64 bit to the full potential yet

yeah every daw should be threaded to the max now.

Disagree!! 64 bit is b/s and your ram requirements go up 25-50%. (caveat is that you're capped at 3.5 gigs on x86 on windows so don't run a vm farm while you're writing tunes)
But multicore - go for it!!
Watch your cores under load! screeeeeeeeen shot!
Article: http://decklyn.com/dublog/2011/01/rants ... platforms/

[gen_]

Disagree!! 64 bit is b/s and your ram requirements go up 25-50%. (caveat is that you're capped at 3.5 gigs on x86 on windows so don't run a vm farm while you're writing tunes)

Disagree!! 64bit is the future and your foolish for not seeing that. I can easily use 3.5GB in a single plugin (Trillian) these days and people have been able to since 2003 when east west made symphonic strings library (200GB of strings). Most midrange HOME PCs come with 4GB of memory and your supposed to be a power user.

Furthermore you have no evidence to suggest RAM requirements go up 25-30% If anything they go down, as your CPU cache and memory can hold double length strings and float values within a single sector rather than having to spread them out over two or more.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/64-bit

You also gain about 10% performance on 32bit apps and up to 50% on apps designed (not ported) for 64bit because your processor can work on numbers that are two large or precise to work on on a 32bit processor. THe 32bit processor would have to break the number into smaller pieces, store one part in memory, operate on the other, swap them, operate on the second, then sum them up, which as it sounds is considerably slower.

THe most important thing to remember is that most DAWs have at least a 64bit summing engine, as its soooo much more precise than a 32bit one. You WILL notice the difference in speed running a 64bit engine on a 64bit chip as theres no bit conversion. If your DAW is hardcore and uses an even more detailed engine (I've heard of 512 bit engines out there) you will still see a huge benefit.

Proof http://forum.cakewalk.com/tm.aspx?m=118 ... print=true second comment

[decklyn]

your ram requirements go up - see microsoft.com
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/wind ... quirements
Microsoft minimum ram requirements for windows 7: 1 gigabyte (GB) RAM (32-bit) or 2 GB RAM (64-bit)

Yes you get performance gains on 64 bit apps, yes 64 bit is the way of the future, yes if you can afford more ram go for it (I run 64 bit at work) but if you're stuck on a PC laptop with a 4 gig wall imo you're better to go 32 bit. It's not that things take more space in memory, but that more memory is used for 64 bit apps (with performance gains). I only have 4 gigs in my system so I would be running into issues if I was running 64 bit.
But yes by all means if you can go 64 bit, have money for extra ram, don't mind a bit of work and hassle that comes with it (there is a bit more - I work in IT and we're provisioned with both OSx and PCs running win 7 64 bit and I'm telling you that there are defo some headaches and compatability issues at this point in time). I've also had to have desktop order more ram for my 2 gig of RAM machine because I'm constantly going into swap. I havn't found a reason to hop over on my daw yet but maybe a big fat rampler would change my mind.

It's certainly up for debate but I ran 64 bit on my daw system and switched back due to many driver compatibility and system stability issues (couldn't get drivers for my soundcard and daw crashing constantly).
Mind you it's probably better 2 years later but I still find at work I'm having to hop over to 32 bit vms because shit won't run on my system. But we do crazy shit - security testing in particular is hard to do on the platform. Daws are probably up for it now a days.

So weigh your options

This article sums it up too - this reflects my concerns mentioned here:
http://www.w7forums.com/windows-7-64-bi ... -t484.html

I just want to note here too that even with 8 instances of massive running, i cannot hit the limit on my system which is by no means new - q6600 4 gigs of ram

[Demian]

For laptops id always say go Dell or HP.

I disagree. Read reviews on laptops, quality is very important on something that isn't user serviceable.

Most HP's are super cheaply made...as I've said before, I work in a tech shop and have to fix more HP's than any other brand....so it means a disproportionate number of HP's breakdown.

[paravrais]

For laptops id always say go Dell or HP.

I disagree. Read reviews on laptops, quality is very important on something that isn't user serviceable.

Most HP's are super cheaply made...as I've said before, I work in a tech shop and have to fix more HP's than any other brand....so it means a disproportionate number of HP's breakdown.

Also, I used to be a big fan of Dell laptops but the studio xps has a MASSIVE design fault that they don't seem to be planning on fixing anytime soon. Basically the screen covers up the fan at the back when in use so it can get real fucking hot if your producing on it. I haven't got any experience with the rest of their current line but I'd be careful. My laptop literally caught fire about 6 months ago and luckily it was still under warranty so they replaced it but now I bought these little feet things that stick under it and keep it lifted up off my desk to increase airflow. Still gets real hot but hopefully it won't explode again cos the warranty is expired now :s

[gen_]

your ram requirements go up - see microsoft.com
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/wind ... quirements
Microsoft minimum ram requirements for windows 7: 1 gigabyte (GB) RAM (32-bit) or 2 GB RAM (64-bit)

Yes you get performance gains on 64 bit apps, yes 64 bit is the way of the future, yes if you can afford more ram go for it (I run 64 bit at work) but if you're stuck......

This article sums it up too - this reflects my concerns mentioned here:
http://www.w7forums.com/windows-7-64-bi ... -t484.html

I just want to note here too that even with 8 instances of massive running, i cannot hit the limit on my system which is by no means new - q6600 4 gigs of ram

Some of your points relate to business and its tendency to rely on legacy 16bit software cos its always worked. Arguing that it should still work 10years later is like arguing that ipods should have vinyl decks.

The memory requirment is because of windows shitty implementation of WoW and more importantly wsxs which pages different versions of drivers and link libraries. In general use 64bit doesn't use more RAM. Look at snow leopard or linux.

Finally if running 6instances of massive was your goal, your idea of fast and mine are different. On my mini (64bit but only 2gb of ram and a 2.2ghz dual core atm) i have 34 track comps with 147plug in effects and 18 soft synths including lots of trllian and rapture. Granted, i'm on mac, but with only 256 on the buffer i don't think i could do it on 32bit.

Plus there's always the virus protection.

[deadly_habit]

your ram requirements go up - see microsoft.com
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/wind ... quirements
Microsoft minimum ram requirements for windows 7: 1 gigabyte (GB) RAM (32-bit) or 2 GB RAM (64-bit)

Yes you get performance gains on 64 bit apps, yes 64 bit is the way of the future, yes if you can afford more ram go for it (I run 64 bit at work) but if you're stuck on a PC laptop with a 4 gig wall imo you're better to go 32 bit. It's not that things take more space in memory, but that more memory is used for 64 bit apps (with performance gains). I only have 4 gigs in my system so I would be running into issues if I was running 64 bit.
But yes by all means if you can go 64 bit, have money for extra ram, don't mind a bit of work and hassle that comes with it (there is a bit more - I work in IT and we're provisioned with both OSx and PCs running win 7 64 bit and I'm telling you that there are defo some headaches and compatability issues at this point in time). I've also had to have desktop order more ram for my 2 gig of RAM machine because I'm constantly going into swap. I havn't found a reason to hop over on my daw yet but maybe a big fat rampler would change my mind.

It's certainly up for debate but I ran 64 bit on my daw system and switched back due to many driver compatibility and system stability issues (couldn't get drivers for my soundcard and daw crashing constantly).
Mind you it's probably better 2 years later but I still find at work I'm having to hop over to 32 bit vms because shit won't run on my system. But we do crazy shit - security testing in particular is hard to do on the platform. Daws are probably up for it now a days.

So weigh your options

This article sums it up too - this reflects my concerns mentioned here:
http://www.w7forums.com/windows-7-64-bi ... -t484.html

I just want to note here too that even with 8 instances of massive running, i cannot hit the limit on my system which is by no means new - q6600 4 gigs of ram

ram is cheap and using a laptop as a benchmark standard is just asinine, there are some compatibility issues, but no where near as many as there used to be when the 64 bit architecture and windows 7 came out
it's definitely the route that the standards are going and DAWs along with the video industry should be the ones maximizing the potential for every lil bit of processing power

[decklyn]

your ram requirements go up - see microsoft.com
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/wind ... quirements
Microsoft minimum ram requirements for windows 7: 1 gigabyte (GB) RAM (32-bit) or 2 GB RAM (64-bit)

Yes you get performance gains on 64 bit apps, yes 64 bit is the way of the future, yes if you can afford more ram go for it (I run 64 bit at work) but if you're stuck on a PC laptop with a 4 gig wall imo you're better to go 32 bit. It's not that things take more space in memory, but that more memory is used for 64 bit apps (with performance gains). I only have 4 gigs in my system so I would be running into issues if I was running 64 bit.
But yes by all means if you can go 64 bit, have money for extra ram, don't mind a bit of work and hassle that comes with it (there is a bit more - I work in IT and we're provisioned with both OSx and PCs running win 7 64 bit and I'm telling you that there are defo some headaches and compatability issues at this point in time). I've also had to have desktop order more ram for my 2 gig of RAM machine because I'm constantly going into swap. I havn't found a reason to hop over on my daw yet but maybe a big fat rampler would change my mind.

It's certainly up for debate but I ran 64 bit on my daw system and switched back due to many driver compatibility and system stability issues (couldn't get drivers for my soundcard and daw crashing constantly).
Mind you it's probably better 2 years later but I still find at work I'm having to hop over to 32 bit vms because shit won't run on my system. But we do crazy shit - security testing in particular is hard to do on the platform. Daws are probably up for it now a days

So weigh your options

This article sums it up too - this reflects my concerns mentioned here:
http://www.w7forums.com/windows-7-64-bi ... -t484.html

I just want to note here too that even with 8 instances of massive running, i cannot hit the limit on my system which is by no means new - q6600 4 gigs of ram

ram is cheap and using a laptop as a benchmark standard is just asinine, there are some compatibility issues, but no where near as many as there used to be when the 64 bit architecture and windows 7 came out
it's definitely the route that the standards are going and DAWs along with the video industry should be the ones maximizing the potential for every lil bit of processing power

Yeah I'm seeing I'm creeping towards the windows 3.5gig ram limit on my projects.
Next pc Build will go for 64 bit os.
(hopefully I can get another hackintosh gwanin - Built one a while ago. The thing would even play WoW my x and I used to play)

[deadly_habit]

yea my next box is going to be a triple boot 64bit
win7, osx, and slackware

[decklyn]

yea my next box is going to be a triple boot 64bit
win7, osx, and slackware

Yeah I used to run a dual boot: vista 64 and OSX - that's why i didn't write tunes for a year (fucking computer! I didn't mean to click "Update" steve Jobs! It was an accident!) and why i'm bitching about 64 bit windows (deck boots up computer on x64, goes to download drivers for pci sound card... no drivers on x64 available... Opens old cubase... Crashes on x64...

ok point taken. Things have moved forward since my 64 bit forays.
honestly, working and living and breathing IT: handling production infrastructure changes the way you look at things.
It's probably about the ripe time to go x64 so long as your stuff is supported.

Deadly, I think we should talk because my next rig I want running snow leopard on intel.

[deadly_habit]

yea it was fun explaining support to some people for pro tools when i worked at GC
well i have windows i have this i have this... yea but your processor isn't supported
i don't get it
your cpu isn't supported
huh
did you check the requirements and specifications on their website before you bought it?
you need a new computer
but i have windows i have...

[decklyn]

hehe yah I bet ha.
Seriously tho - we need to chat

[deadly_habit]

word i'll hop on aim

[decklyn]

decklyndubstep

[deadly_habit]

added but you ain't online
deadlyhabitdnb