New pc, thoughts on hardware

For my latest I went to a pro DAW builder (SCAN in the UK) and I am happy with what I got.
 
partitioning disks is not recommended these days but multiple disks are.
 
1 - OS and programs
2 - Audio
3 - Sample libraries.
 
Its probably worth looking at what the Pro DAW builders are doing these days even if you are going to build yourself. It may be worth posting down in the computers forum too, things get buried very quickly here.

depends the money you want to spend, ive seen daws for 600 us $
just as stable and powerful as a daw for 1200 us$ depending on how hard u wanna push it

What's the current exchange rate these days? 600 pounds is what? A thousand bucks american? You should be able to get something pretty decent for that. I'd was gonna say put some money aside for an interface too but you have a MOTU and from what I understand those are pretty solid.
 
Check out the specs of some of the systems in this link...
 
http://www.cakewalk.com/PCResource/default.aspx
 
Particularly the ADK site because it has a PC builder page/form that'll let you see what kind of stuff they use in their systems. If you are feeling adventurous $1000 will get you some very nice parts to build your own with. That's what I did and my system is pretty darned powerful. I went for top of the line/most current components for the time and my parts cost about $1200. I could have easily shaved a few hundred off that if I had gone for slightly less fancy stuff. I had never built a PC before either. I just watched some vids on Newegg and got a tech friend to check out my parts list to make sure I wasn't buying duds but they didn't have to correct any of my choices once.
 
It was a lot of research and build day was a little stressful but it all came together quite nicely. MOST of my programs work flawlessly and the problems I do experience are known issues with the programs. Even then I still have a much easier time getting things done than others I've seen post on the net.
 
However a store bought PC with the right components can do the trick but you'll need to do a few things to it like do a fresh install of windows to get rid of any bloatware (you can download an ISO from Microsoft and just use your windows product key to register it) and make sure you do all the necessary tweaks for audio. Avoid Green Drives or drives that spin slower than 7200RPM. Other than that i7 or now Haswell CPUs and a healthy amount of RAM (16GB) are pretty standard. I don't know much about vid cards but I bought a cheapo Gigabyte one with a GB of video RAM and it seems fine (I play older games though so you may want to buy something fancier if you are into more modern games... that will jack the price for sure). If you don't mind a little noise there is no need for fancy fans and unless you are REALLY pushing the rig you shouldn't have to worry about cooling (again if you are into heavy duty games you may need to worry about that). ASUS makes some great boards but you can get ones that are comparable for less from Gigabyte.
 
Whatevs... I thought it would be a lot harder to build a system than it really was and now that I know better I look at some of the prebuilt consumer boxes and they're really not that much different. You just gotta know what to look for and know how to tweak it for audio.
 
That said you can't beat a custom built DAW by some of the pro companies out there. It eliminates all doubt and you get to bug them if something goes wonky. Well worth the extra money if you have it. I could have gotten one from ADK similar to what I built for only a few hundred bucks more but considering I'm across the border the shipping and taxes would have brutalized me and frankly I did not even have the extra $300 to spare anyway.

+ 1 for the pro DAW builders.  I went to INTA Audio in the UK and have a rock solid machine which will handle anything I throw at it and then some.

Well, the way I look at it, the OP is coming off an XP computer and has limited funds available.
 
He cannot possibly run anything beyond X2 at the moment, but wants to.
 
Buying components and putting them together is cheaper than buying a ready-built one, at the expense of the mechanics of building it.  In that, I put forth that starting with a non-ssd drive is cheaper than springing for one to start with, and it's not a waste of money to approach it that way, as you can use that drive for holding audio/projects/samples or whatever, after someday cloning it to an SSD replacement drive.
 
Even with my computer having nothing but regular SATA III drives, I have no audio issues, and no performance issues either.
 
I myself would not recommend buying a refurbished machine, although it is a choice.
 
Anyways, best of luck with getting something to where you can run X3 and beyond.
 
Bob Bone
 

and this is the part I disagree with.. its simply no longer true, but the op can do the math.
 

robert_e_bone
 
Buying components and putting them together is cheaper than buying a ready-built one

Mystic38
and this is the part I disagree with.. its simply no longer true, but the op can do the math.
 

robert_e_bone
 
Buying components and putting them together is cheaper than buying a ready-built one

I think really the biggest problem with the pre built consumer systems are the crummy drives they put in them. Usually "Green" drives at slower speeds and should be replaced which would add some cost (two good, decent sized HDDs would add about couple hundred bucks). However many come with SSDs for the program drive these days so it would only be a matter of swapping out the second drive (if it has one). CPUs and RAM are what they are and not much is gonna change across systems using i7/Haswell and DDR3. Not all MOBOs are the same obviously but with a USB 2.0 interface most connectivity issues shouldn't be a problem. Any firewire problems can be dealt with with a PCIe firewire card w. TI chipset. Legacy PCI interfaces should just be replaced but I doubt that MOTU OP has is PCI.
 
The one thing I mostly notice about consumer systems is the lack of connectivity/expandability. I've got every port, slot and connection imaginable on my MOBO with tons of room for expansion in almost every area and the board layout is such that I actually have room to install this stuff (extra slots are no good if you can't bloody well fit the cards in... lol). But if it's a USB based interface then if there are plenty of USB 2.0 slots to connect the interface and any MIDI stuff directly to the board (not the front panel... use those for peripherals) and a couple USB 3.0 ports to connect storage drives to.
 
If I knew what I know now about computers and what I immediately needed to do what I'm doing I quite possibly could have gotten away with buying an prebuilt $800 tower BUT I thought I'd be using my old PCI interface (which didn't end up working that well anyway) and I wasn't sure what I needed so I made sure I had EVERYTHING covered. All I really needed was good USB port count and some fast drives.
 
Oh well. At least I can connect pretty much any semi modern device imaginable to my system if need be. lol
 
That's what I get for not being a computer tech.
 
/not a computer tech

This site gives you a quick overview of the relative capabilities of different CPUs.
 
I've noticed that you can no longer presume that, for example, an i3 is necessarily less capable than an i5 as both have multiple versions.
 

_angus_

I'd go out of my way, if possible, to get a laptop.

Lots of the community folks here might disagree, but since I went with a laptop I've used my music set up probably 100% more in terms of time spent with it. I can work on music on my laptop in more places and situations which makes it well worth it. Laptops powerful enough for Sonar X3 are affordable. You just need to look for enough memory.