janeelissa


Thanks for sharing this here!

o come on now, not cool to spam on someone's thread looking for help.

Chuck delete your post, you have now become the spammer.. admin deleted the spam

chuckebaby


these days you can build a nice desktop for around 500-600 dollars, thats including the cost of windows 7.
are you handy at all?
building one isn't as hard as one would think.
I have a line of 10 videos out there that take you through each step.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LFZ7ZrsTl3g

ive got a book that will also help(the one in the video) if you'd like a copy, I can give you one free.
just message me.

there are certain things about building your own, you know the quality your using and you have a better knowledge of systems.
not to mention its cheaper to build a higher performance computer than to buy one, this excludes laptops however.

+1

these days you can build a nice desktop for around 500-600 dollars, thats including the cost of windows 7.

Obviously I'm a bit biased...   
But even building yourself, $500-$600 bucks is a budget build.
Take $100 for Win7x64, that leaves you $500.
A fast CPU and a quality motherboard will eat $500.    

Definitely agree with Jim that, starting from scratch, $5-600 is a bit low.  There's bargains and then there's cheap, and I'm not really good enough to tell them apart, so I tend to buy stuff that I am pretty sure will not fail.

One site that I have found useful for playing around with builds is http://pcpartpicker.com.

Question for you....which version of SONAR 8? If it's lower that 8.5 you could have some issues if you used Bundles. There were some changes made by Microsoft in how audio was handled by Windows 7. Since you're jumping from XP to 7 or 8 it's good to know these things.

One thing I'd totally recommend is to go through the forum and seek out (or search) for people posting: "I'm running X2a, and haven't seen or had any issues..." etc. See if you can gather some specs in their signature, and even ask them directly what they run (hardware-wise). That's the next best thing to having Roland/Cakewalk tell you what they tested the software with. Hope this helps!! Sorry to volunteer the solid users here. 

Jim Roseberry

these days you can build a nice desktop for around 500-600 dollars, thats including the cost of windows 7.

Obviously I'm a bit biased...   
But even building yourself, $500-$600 bucks is a budget build.
Take $100 for Win7x64, that leaves you $500.
A fast CPU and a quality motherboard will eat $500.    

 
you call it a budget build, I call it a 6 core 3.5 ghz AM3/ with 16 gb of ram.
 
your insulated case is going to run you around 80 bucks
a combo AMD 6 core CPU + ASUS Motherboard will run you 120.00
http://www.microcenter.com/site/products/amd_bundles.aspx
the RAM  for 16 gigs is about 130.00 http://www.microcenter.com/product/373498/16GB_DDR3-1333_(PC3-10600)_CL9_SO-DIMM_Laptop_Memory_Kit_(Two_8GB_Memory_Modules)
the Power supply is another 75.00 bucks.
your hard drive is going to run you about 60 bucks for a 500 gb.
I don't think you would agree but a higher upgrade on this offer will get you dual onboard vga/dvi graphics(which ive used and had no problems)
but even an upgrade on an entry level graphics card with dual dvi wont break the bank too much over what im saying here.
im still under 600.easy, fact, im under 500.
anyway, so here we have a 6 core CPU with 16 GB of RAM.
if this doesn't do the job, then im really not sure what we are trying to record here with sonar ?
 
I think the 500 CPU and Motherboard is overkill.
I know we differ in opinions, that's okay. I respect your opinion.
but you have to at minimuim respect mine.
what did you think I was talking about ?
 
I know your in the digital audio building business and this doesn't fair so well with sales on your end.
but truth is a lot of users are moving towards walmart and  best buy off the shelf laptops and desktops. 
your not going to buy something like I have presented here at wallmart or best guy for under 500/600 bucks. 
 
and lets just say you have your copy of windows from the computer that just died, or your hard drive as well.
whats that bring the price down to ?
under 500.00 ?
 
say what you will but ive been using this same model for over a year now, which stared out as a test build for my customers.
and it flys,
does everything I need and at a great rate.
 
a couple years ago I probably wouldn't have believed this,but you know what, after testing it, benchmarking it.
more importantly, testing it with digital audio.
I learned something, I can do a lot on these computers with sonar or any other application and for what difference ?
spending 500.00 for a fast cpu and mobo compared to 200.00 for a almost just as fast cpu and mobo ??
is a 6 core 3.5 ghz w/16 gigs of ram not fast ?  
 
it goes back to the "well those parts aren't as good/not the same quality.
sorry im not seeing it,if I did I would have no problem admitting it. 
I see the problems on this forum as you do as well,I see their specs, I see I7's, I5's..i also see AMD.
if you ask someone who is using an intel (middle of the road) quad core, and ask them if its just way to slow, I don't hear that too much.
 
I will admit this though, if you need a daw that can run over 100 tracks and 40 soft synths,
I think your way is the way to go,its only fair I admit that I haven't had the need for 40 soft synths and 100 + tracks.
 
 
  
  
 

AndyDavis


Definitely agree with Jim that, starting from scratch, $5-600 is a bit low.  There's bargains and then there's cheap, and I'm not really good enough to tell them apart, so I tend to buy stuff that I am pretty sure will not fail.

One site that I have found useful for playing around with builds is http://pcpartpicker.com./

if your really not good with telling them apart than who can you agree with anyone never mind post a link to a pc picker app ?
serious ? lol.
 
again, your not good enough but you tend to buy things that do not fail?
so how do you know what is failing/not failing ?
 
if you have never shopped for parts of a new build than im sorry I don't think you can side with anyone,: saying "I think jims a good builder and he knows his stuff"
well I cant disagree with you. from what I heard and the advice he shares on the forum, I do to.
 
I just happen to disagree with you

Apart from laptops, I have built every computer that I have owned since 1988.  I am pretty familiar with the parts shopping process.

I know my machines don't fail because my computers don't crash.
To save my time and sanity, I tend to buy very well recognized brand names.  Buying a solid case that will not buzz or rattle is a lot easier when you are spending $100 vs when you are spending $30.  Same with power supplies.  

My point was that while there may be a $30 power supply out there that is quiet and will not fluctuate when the wind blows, but I don't know what it is.  There are lots of quality choices if your budget is $80 or more, but it's more chaff than wheat down at $30.

Taken together, those choices make it very difficult to construct a machine for $500.  I built an i5 based machine for my son last year that was about $700 (without the gamer class video card).  I think an i7 would have taken that to $800.  Again, this machine is whisper quiet and never crashes.

Using the parts picker app, you can get a decent idea of what a complete rig will run you.  I thought it might be useful to someone contemplating building their first machine (like the OP). 

Edit: Just read your reply to Jim
I stopped using AMD processors with my latest round of machines (my i7 replaced a Phenom x4).  I am personally far happier with the Intel products, but the AMD stuff is undeniably less expensive.  For me, it falls into the money for sanity trade off; obviously you have had different results. 

I realize that the point about $80 vs $30 parts does not apply to your $500 build, but I am going to leave them in because I think they are still useful advice to the system builder.