Hi all,
  If I'm going to upgrade to X3 studio which sounds like the way forward, I'll need to upgrade from XP and I think it would be the time to get a new pc. I don't know much about graphic cards, sound cards or motherboards etc so I thought I'd see if you had any advice. Currently I have an Nvidia 9800 1GB graphics card, Phenom II Quad Core . It copes just about okay (for my humble useage) of Sonar X1 Essential, although I have spent a lot of time trying to sort out "crackles and pops". I want it to be able run modern games and cope well with my (again pretty humble) video editing software. I think I'd be using windows 7.
 


I can't afford it right now, but ideally I'd spend about £600 on it, which wouldn't be enough right, so I'll need to spend a bit more, but hopefully not too much more.
 



I heard some talk about solid state hard drives, which sound like the way to go. When I were a lad, the idea used to be have a minimal partition for your OS and core software and everything else on separate, larger partitions, but I gather that's not considered such a good idea with audio and video editing these days?
 
Grateful for any thoughts.
 
 

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.

look on Ebay. you can get factory reconditioned high end PCs with whateer you are looking for for cheap money. spend an hour de-bloating the software are you will be well pleased.

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

Solid state drives are certainly nice - for your primary drive, but are most definitely not needed.
 
I had multiple SSD's on my monster machine, and got pissed off that they failed six months into having them, so I just went back to SATA III regular drives that spin at 7,200 rpm, and those work just fine for Sonar.
 
So, since money is an issue, I would suggest putting your money into a better CPU, such as an Intel i7, and into main memory, such as 2 8GB memory strips (16 GB - costs around $150, on average).
 
You can ALWAYS take your primary drive and clone it to a solid-state drive at some future point, without having to re-install anything, as long as you keep the size of what is loaded onto your pre-SSD primary drive limited to the OS and applications.  That way, the clone will work, since the volume of what will be cloned is small enough to still fit on the new SSD drive.
 
Lots of folks, myself included, split where things are loaded, so that only the OS and applications are stored on the primary drive, and all data, like sample libraries and Cakewalk projects and such are all stored on one or more additional drives.  This is good for performance, and great for switching out later to a solid-state primary drive when more money is available.
 
So, a 1 TB SATA III drive runs around $75 usd, and a 2 TB SATA III drive runs around $105 usd.
 
And for whatever the worth, I just use the on-board graphics to run 2 displays, and that works just fine.  Again, you can always decide to add a video card later, if desired, but unless you are having issues using the on-board graphics, there is no need to do so.
 
Summarizing, I suggest an Intel i7 CPU, 16 GB of memory (as 2 8 GB strips, so later you an add 16 GB more for an eventual total of 32 GB), and a couple of SATA III 7,200 drives.
 
You should be able to get good quality components, like Seagate drives, and such, for a reasonable price.
 
Hope that helps, 
 
Bob Bone
 

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.

robert_e_bone
Solid state drives are certainly nice - for your primary drive, but are most definitely not needed.
 

Not necessary maybe, but boy, I wouldn't go back.  My laptop i5/7200rpm has become painful to use compared to my desktop.  They're also very nice to have when working with samples, they make a huge difference.
 
I would suggest getting a quality SSD, though, like the Intel 520 series (or whatever may have replaced it).
 

+ 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.

I have built many a PC, but the last two have been both factory reconditioned from ebay.. some examples of (what I think are) solid bargains.. I don't think I could have built these machines for the same price. add one SSD if you wish and you are done.
 
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Dell-XPS-8700-Desktop-Intel-Quad-Core-i7-4770-12GB-1TB-AMD-HD-7570-Win8-Warranty-/301005432381?pt=Desktop_PCs&hash=item461552663d
 
or
 
http://www.ebay.com/itm/HP-ENVY-H8-1520T-Desktop-i7-3770-3-4GHz-10GB-Ram-1TB-HD-WiFi-2GB-Video-W8-/301005867465?pt=Desktop_PCs&hash=item46155909c9
 
 

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