Hello all,
 
Could someone please tell me if my computer and processor can handle running Sonar X2 Producer?
I have been thinking of upgrading from Sonar 6 Home Studio for a while but money has always been a factor however a good update deal has just been released by cakewalk and I am curious if my hardware can manage it before I spend the next month eating beans :)
 
I have seen the processor requirements for X2 producer at 'Intel Core 2 Duo E8200 2.67 GHz'
 
My dual core processor on my laptop is an Intel Pentium CPU B970 @ 2.30GHz.
 
I know the Ghz mentioned on my laptop are lower than those mentioned on the X2 requirements but I am confused by some information I was told many years ago regarding processors, handling capapbilites etc. I am at a loss to remember basic information of what I was told however it has made me question things such as this. My technical knowledge is so-so, I know more about certain things than others but haven't wrapped my head around processors enough for me to understand much.
 
Any help would be greatly appreciated as it would be nice to try out something a bit more up to date than my current DAW.
 
Thank you,
 
Scott :)

I think those are the recommended specs... not the minimum specs. If you have a decent interface, do a thorough optimization of the system, keep other programs from interfering with it and don't push the system too far (don't overload the project with heavy duty synths/VSTs, keep your buffers high) then you should be okay. There are guys here running well below specs without problems. I'm going to be trying it out on my laptop which is less powerful than yours because of these reports. You could always try out the demo though. That should give you an idea of what to expect.

I don't know how much more power X2 requires compared to 8.5 PE that I'm running on a  PC just slightly stronger than your laptop.
I guess that if you're using Windows 7 or 8 and X2 you'll bump into resource problems very easily. The amount of RAM is quite important as well. If you're running a 64 bit OS you can use more than the 3 Gb that a 32 bit OS can utilize.
 
My system works quite fluently as long as I'm carefull with when and how I use the more CPU intensive plugins like Perfect Space, Vocal Channel or other mastering VSTs, and keep the track / plugin count sensible. Actually, I'd like to upgrade my system, but as it works so well, I'm not willing to start the hassle - re-registering plugins and everything, not to mention spending the money.

And what's wrong with beans? I hear they're good for the heart.

To the original poster:  Why not try downloading and installing the free X2a Demo?
 
That way, you could play around with it for 30 days and see if it works on your system.  NOTE that this would not include all of the effects and such, but the audio ENGINE could be fully tested on your system.
 
Bob Bone
 

like bob says, try the demo,
only way to really find out.
 
best of luck with sonar man.

Thank you everyone for your advice. I will give the demo a go and see how I get on.
 
I currently have Windows 7 and have just upgraded ram to 8g.

In my experience any music audio program will become very frustrating if you cannot use it like you would use an analog studio setup. Since you have endless capabilities in sonar x2 with real (DIGITAL) block box effects, compressors, reverbs, etc, you will quickly see that your creative process for mixing and finally mastering will be greatly reduced if you do not plan on spending some bucks on a well decked out pc with some horsepower. I have used cakewalk products since the early days when midi was king and recording audio to digital was all but a dream. I perform weekly in a local duo and use sonarx2 for my backing tracks with great success but only after many trial ans error results. I am on an ASUS G74S with 75,000rpm dual hard drives, W7, intel i7 processor. I use 2 Edirol UA-101 audio interfaces when the need to multitrack live recording arises but only use one unit for mix and playback. Believe me I have used every interface on the market at one time or another and found the usb2 format more friendly that any FireWire system. The finer points of the fidelity of USB verses FireWire are mute when you mix it all down to one 16bit stereo track.
I am currently reworking a song that was created on the first version of Sonar1 several years ago. It has about 20 tracks of combined midi driven synths and audio tracks. I will be recording next week a spoken word intro in the piece by a local great English style copy voice and I have to go to him with my rig to get it done. I will just need my ASUS, UA-101, and a good mic. (C-414 will work nicely). Find a room with dead ambiance. Easier to add reverb and other effect after the fact than to try to remove reverbs and other room sounds that get recorded. This is just an example of what you will want your system to do sometime in the future. Can you do that with just the minimum pc requirements with good results? My real world experience says no. Hope this helps.

Thanks Wayne, that has given me more to think about.
 
I currently use the Edirol UA25. I used to do my recording on a pc until I invested what I could into this laptop last year. It is a pretty basic spec by todays standards (Sony SVE1511A1EW) but I wanted something portable to record in different locations.
I have downloaded the trial and shall install it sometime over the next couple of days.
 
Thanks again everyone