I am a total newb at the more recent PC hardware, so I am calling upon The Collective for some opinions. COOLER MASTER HAF X Blue Edition http://www.newegg.com/Pro...x?Item=N82E16811119239 ASUS SABERTOOTH P67 (REV 3.0) LGA 1155 Intel P67 http://www.newegg.com/Pro...x?Item=N82E16813131702 HIS IceQ X Turbo H685QNT1GD Radeon HD 6850 1G http://www.newegg.com/Pro...x?Item=N82E16814161363 CORSAIR HX Series HX750 750W http://www.newegg.com/Pro...x?Item=N82E16817139010 Intel Core i7-2600 Sandy Bridge 3.4GHz (3.8GHz Turbo Boost) http://www.newegg.com/Pro...x?Item=N82E16819115071 Two sets of G.SKILL Sniper Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1866 (PC3 14900) http://www.newegg.com/Pro...x?Item=N82E16820231460 The seller is asking $500 for all of this. Does this sound like a good computer to use for SONAR PE853? ADVthanksANCE -Jack (in Austin)

I'm thinking that the case you've linked to looks noisy.

What Hard Drive strategy are you looking at?

Might want to check out Fractal Design Define XL Black Pearl w/ USB 3.0 ATX Full Tower Silent PC Computer Case. Quiet due to internal sound panels and a bit less money that the one you picked. http://www.newegg.com/Pro...x?Item=N82E16811352017 gs

gibsongs, thanks for the info on the quieter case. It looks like a great choice if I decide to build a PC myself. The system I described is one that is being offered for sale by a local gamer. I was curious as to whether this was a reasonable deal for the asking price ($500) and if it would be an appropriate choice for running SONAR. -Jack

That $500 system should be a step up from your sig system and run most DAWs - I have a similar Pentium 4 XP SP3 system now and am in the process of going to a i7 3770K and 32MB ram. My XP 32 bit system has been running fine for the past 5 years, however, I waited until now to go to Windows 7 (which has proven much stabler that Vista). I would suggest to purchase a second disk for your sample files and keep the boot disk clean with only Sonar and system files (and application files). Disks are pretty cheap these days. By the way I purchased my latest build from Newegg - fast and pretty good bargans when they bundle items. Good luck, gs

Well, I missed out on that one, but I just found this one: Precision T5500 Workstation with: -2x Xeon E5506(quad core) 2.17Ghz processors -4GB Ram -500GB Hard Drive -DVDRW -ATI Radeon HD 5750 1gb video card -Windows 7 All for $819.00 If the 4bg RAM in my old computer won't work in this one, they will exchange mine for ones that will, which puts me up to 8GB RAM. I will likely add a SSD for system and apps. How big will I need? Is this system a good deal? ADVthanksANCE -Jack (in Austin)

The Precision's are listed in the Avid/Pro Tools compatibility list.   Looking at the spec's this is an impressive PC.  The Precision line is a step up from the Optiplex line. 

Here is a link to the Dell manuals for this model.  http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/wsT5500/en/index.htm

If you are serious about making music check Jim at StudioCat or Scott at ADK.
You'll save yourself some serious aggravation in the long run...

Tom

DeeringAmps


If you are serious about making music check Jim at StudioCat or Scott at ADK.
You'll save yourself some serious aggravation in the long run...

Tom

Good advice. But not really what the OP was asking about, was it? I'm sure you were only trying to be helpful, and as I said, it's good advice, but it hardly serves to answer profwacko's question. From his posts inquiring about a $500 system, I doubt he's prepared to spend as much as Jim or Scott charge for even their lowest spec boxes.


Now, if I didn't think you were really trying to be helpful, well then it would smell like a shill.


profwacko, I know a place (animation house) which used those Dell dual Xeon workstations.  Nice machines, intended as graphics workstations but I would think sufficiently powerful to be suitable (probably over-specified) for what you want to do. They are noisy though, and I would think probably pretty cramped inside (dunno, never went inside, only saw them in use). Looks like the original graphics cards were pulled and replaced with a consumer card (which will be fine for a DAW), You will want more memory (at least 8 GBs if not more), so budget for that. You'll need to use server class ECC memory, which costs more.

I have to agree.  I suggest Jim or Scott many times to users for DAW systems.  But in this case the user is asking about specific systems, way below the class ($$) that Jim or Scott supply.