Bub,
 
Spec's in sig.

Do I agree you need to know how to spec/pick a system when you are looking for a dedicated machine..? yes I do...
 
But  I also think the "DAW specific" bit is pure marketing BS.... to me anyway, PC specs are as apples to apples as you can get.. the equivalent performance to my machine at studio cat would be about $1400 .. TWICE my purchase price...
 
IMO recommending or going "DAW specific" is the easy option for folks who do not know how to spec a system in detail or are not conversant with what they want.. and that is ok for some for peace of mind.. but its not worth $700 to me :)..
 
As for support.. FYI It took about 30mins to extract HP bloat and make this a clean machine.... adding Sonar, Maschine, the KA6 and all my other music gear (editors, librarians, sample libraries etc) had to happen regardless.. so i see no DAW specific support at all... its up running and a silent fast joy to use.
 
BTW, I have built many machines over 20 years and i costed one out,  but in this case it would not have saved me any money, nor given me a warranty..
 
 
        Bub

Mystic38

That Studio Cat is a ripoff at $1050.. pretty much any mainstream PC manufacturer does better, cheaper.

But you're not comparing apples to apples. It's not a ripoff if you consider the DAW specific support you get with it and how much time is taken to customize it for DAW usage. Plus I'm sure they would adjust for current market values of such a system. And ... you're not being fair now. :) The ones from Sweetwater and Musicians Friend were $1500.

FWIW, about 5wks ago for $800 I purchased an HP Elite 580T with i7-950, 8GB RAM, Blu-ray, 1.5T 7200rpm SATA 3G, GTX460, Win7/64.. and it flies.

I paid $703 (after a $50 rebate on the video card) for an Intel i5 Quad 2.67GHz CPU, Gigabyte Mobo, 8GB RAM, 500GB SATAII HDD, Galaxy GeForce 9500GT 512MB Video Card, Windows 7 x64, killer Rosewill case with 2 huge case fans and quick connect screwless drive mounts, built in closeable storage compartment, washable air filter, 800Watt Green Power Supply, 22x Light Scribe DVD drive, and they threw in a free multi-card memory reader. That was 2.5 years ago.

You could have got much more PC for your money if you would have built it yourself, but there is no reason your HP shouldn't work great! :)

Mystic38

Do I agree you need to know how to spec/pick a system when you are looking for a dedicated machine..? yes I do...
 
But  I also think the "DAW specific" bit is pure marketing BS.... to me anyway, PC specs are as apples to apples as you can get.. the equivalent performance to my machine at studio cat would be about $1400 .. TWICE my purchase price...

I'm not calling you a liar ... but man, I searched all over and could not find your PC for less than $1399 new. I found one that was open and never used for $900 ... but it has a different Video card than you listed. So they are selling different configurations under that model number which is typical. You got a hell of a deal on it where ever you got it (if it was new).

BTW, I have built many machines over 20 years and i costed one out,  but in this case it would not have saved me any money, nor given me a warranty..

Every PC I've ever built had a warranty on the parts. RAM is usually lifetime, HDD's +/-5 years, CPU's lifetime IIRC, mobo's 2 ~ 5 years. And I've always been able to build my own systems for a fraction of what I could buy them pre-built. Yeah, I could get a P4 system cheaper than if I built it myself, but it was always cache starved compared to the one I spec'd out and it was stuck on a Soyo mobo. LOL!

As for a DAW, again, they are tweaked and tested and sometimes come pre-loaded with whatever you request, you just use your serial to register it when it arrives. Something like an HP, Dell, etc is setup for generic usage and aren't spec'd out with larger cache, faster memory, etc, unless you upgrade the advertised box.

But, like I said before, that HP should be a great system for you and it sounds like a great deal at that price. Glad you like it!

I had a gentlemen tell me an i5 w/4GB ram was not enough to run a 1 track project with Guitar Rig on it in X1.

Gentleman?  I thought Freddie said it...

Specs in signiture...  CPUs barely know they are running!

I have a 2.2GHz laptop for X1 below recommended spec and have a lot of **** on it too! it works fine, it will get sluggish with a lot of tracks and I even notice some random clicking sometimes rarely. other than those pretty fine for what I need.


Cian

Well, I thought I could spruce up my signature with some nice specs. for you Bud. But I can't even do that. I paid for 550 characters, but I barely get half, so... this will have to do.

Windows 7 Professional SP1 (x64)
Asus P8Z68-V Pro - Intel Core i7 2600K @ 3.4GHz (default)
Noctua NH-C14 cooling solution (1 fan, low-profile configuration in an Antec Take 3 rackmount 3u case - 650w PSU)
16GB Kingston HyperX Genesis - DDR3 dual-channel @ 1600MHz (4 x 4)
1 x OCZ Vertex 3 @ 120GB - SSD (SATA III - 6Gbps)
2 x Maxtor Velociraptor @ 600GB - 10k rpm - 32MB Cache (SATA III - 6Gbps)



And I did activate GR 4, but I don't want to discourage you, cause the numbers are pretty darn good. The one thing that bugs me with this piece of software, is the extra service it creates. Is is needed just for the NI hardware side of things and can I zapp it and still use GR 4? Please say yes! 

Alegria
The one thing that bugs me with this piece of software, is the extra service it creates. Is is needed just for the NI hardware side of things and can I zapp it and still use GR 4? Please say yes!

I think that's right. What's the service name?


EDIT:

Hmmm... found it on my own system: NIHardwareService

Thought I told GR not to install any controller stuff when I set it up, though I do seem to remember there was some obstacle to de-delecting it.

Anyway, it's disabled now, and does not seem to have affected any of my NI synths or GR4 LE at first glance.

Wish I looked as good as my system specs.

My PC specs are in my signature. Now running X1C very well (so far).
I've never bought an off the shelf PC though I have done so with the 2 laptops I own.

I wanted Jim Roseberry to build my last PC but of course he's in the US and I'm in Australia so that was impractical. Well what do you know - Jim offers a consultation service where he will give you a parts list according to your needs and budget with links to online stores where they can be purchased.

As Jim builds PC's for a living he's getting access to new MOBO, RAM, CPU's before they hit the market and gets to test the relialility and compatability of various components.  For a one off charge for a 30 minute consult I got the benefit of all that experience. During the course of my initial enquiry, buying the parts and building the machine we exchanged about a dozen emails to help refine my choices, help me with burn in procedures, memory testing and the software to really stress test the build once it was finished. I got far more for my money than I expected. I got the confidence that apart from component failure I was going to get a tried and true system that Jim himself had built quite a few times over and I got to do it myself properly.

I had no trial and error to go through - I have a PC that performs exceptionally well and the manufacturer warranties on the various components. It's the next best thing to getting Jim to do it himself. Why didn't I buy one built in Australia? Well the cost was at least double what I paid for my simiarly spec'd machine. AND Jim's reputation is impeccable and even though I didn't pay a premium I got a premium PC. I took the trouble to really lay out the cabling very neatly and do it just as I figured Jim would have built it for me. In that way it was far different to any other build I'd undertaken. After having run the machine for a year I swapped out the basic graphics card and replaced it with a nVidia FX Quadra 3800 for the graphics work I also do along with audio and video

Let's face it - anyone can build a PC. Order the parts online get them delivered and away you go. Only need a Philips head screw driver and that's about it. but will it work, proabably, will it provide optimal performance for your desired application - maybe, maybe not; and that's the lottery. $40 took all that risk out of it for me. And I learned a bunch.

The Sonar-X minimum specs call for a 3rd level cache.

Why?

What is this cache used for?

And what happens if the chip does not have it?

J

"jm24"
The Sonar-X minimum specs call for a 3rd level cache. 

Can you link to this info? I've never noticed this requirement.


Thanks
jc

brundlefly

I started this thread to prove a point. I had a gentlemen tell me an i5 w/4GB ram was not enough to run a 1 track project with Guitar Rig on it in X1. LOL! So I figured I'd ask around for some confirmation. :)

If you can run the "Floating" demo project, you can run GR4 (assuming Pro is not inherently that much heavier than LE). It's got five instances on top of all the other plug-ins, ProChannel instances and a few synths.


The modest system in my signature runs the demo very nicely at 132 samples at about 45-50% CPU (per Windows Resource Monitor).


Actually, it would be kind of interesting to know what other posters see for CPU usage on this demo project at the same buffer size (call it 128 samples).


And while you're at it, post your disk usage, too. With buffers at 256k, I'm seeing an average (while it's actively reading) of about 30-35%.

I'd like to give this a shot, where might I find the Floating demo?

All Hail to the Big Tomato !!

Q9550 on a asus P5Q stock board ..uptodate bios and chipset drivers and nvidia drivers xp32 win7-32 its all
good here.. im waiting on 8core/16 thread processors..oh
there is a m-audio firewire 410 in the system too.