If you can possibly wait with the gaming part, you could use the on-board video for a while and then upgrade to a high end gaming card later. That should shave off enough of the cost to do the rest right and you don't need it for Sonar at all.

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

it all depends, if you bought all refurbed components you could.
 
theres a whole sale store I buy all my parts from new and used and they have great deals on refurbished I5's, I7's, Phenom's you name it they got it.
I build all my own units and I build for others.
buissiness has not been as good in the past because people are buying computers to run software like sonar for dirt cheap prices.
some people don't want to max the machine out, they want it for doing smaller projects.
so they go with a walmart off the shelf special and have good results.
 
this is of course not the way i do it.
but ive learned within the last few years (2 to be honest)
im building efficient DAW's that will run very good.
but they don't have that endless pit of  cpu behind it like some of the upper models that cost 2000 bucks. 
it all depends on what your doing.
 
and sonar has grabbed newer users from a beatbox generation that creating there own stuff using samples, so they don't necessarily need to be musicians (quote-unquote) so cakewalk has expanded its user base.
and a lot of those users are using out of the box/ off the shelf computers.
hard to compete with that as a builder.
 
so ive gone and tested different CPU's, different PSU's, different video cards.
 
what ive found is believe it or not, AMD's phenom 2- 8 core bulldozer stacks up there with the best of them and saves a couple hundred dollars.
some video cards half the price of others are doing the job.
these tests ive been doing are only a couple years old now but so far so good.

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

Hi guys,
 
Many thanks for all the suggestions, you've given me a lot to think about.<p>
 
I'm not too sure how the Intel cpu's are classified, I gather not all i5/i7 cpu's are created equal. At what point do they start to  convincingly blow away my current Phenom II 965 quad core 3.4 Ghz? (Or would it make sense keeping it?)<p>
 
...and sorry, what is a MOTU?
 

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.
 

Sorry, for some reason I thought you had a MOTU but I was reading someone else' specs. MOTU is a company that makes some very nice interfaces.
 
As far as CPUs you are correct. There are various versions of the i3/5/7 series and I'm assuming the same goes for the new Haswells. What you really want to look for is the speed of the specific processor in GHz. Make sure you aren't looking at the POTENTIAL speed by way of overclocking. Just the normal speeds it can handle without any tweaking. There are other considerations but they seem to mostly be for ultra techie types. If you want to learn more about CPUs I recommend reading some of the articles over on Tom's Hardware (just google it) or the vids/articles at Newegg.com (which are a little easier to digest for the less tech savvy... that's where I learned how to build my own PC).
 
Cheers.

_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.

lawajava
_angus_

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

I respect what you say, but I'm just not really keen on laptops. I don't like batteries, I like big screens, I like to do this stuff "in my place" and have no need to do it on the move. Its just not my thing.  :) Thanks though, seriously - it is a very sensible option.