I've been out of the loop for quite a while & I upgraded to X1 producer from HS6 about 6 months ago. I opened it up once & haven't even used it yet & now X2 is already out. Anyways I've been planning on upgrading my computer too. I don't need anything top of the line because I only use about 6 to 10 tracks. I would appreciate any recommendations for: Motherboard CPU Video Card RAM Windows version or anything else considered a must.

Check out the this link to the Cakewalk system guide:

https://www.cakewalk.com/PCResource/default.aspx

Lots of good info there. Particularly the ADK link. Here's a link to ADKs systems page. If you click through it takes you to their online system builder where you can see what parts they use:

http://www.adkproaudio.com/choose2.asp

But generally you'd be good with...

CPU: i7 series

RAM: 8GB DDR3 or more

HDD: 7200RPM (Caviar Blacks are good) or you could get an SSD

MOBO: It would depend on what you needed for connections but both Gigabyte and ASUS make some good boards.

Then just make sure you have quality interface. Obviously this is very general but it should get you into the ballpark. Cheers.

Today's PC's at your local big electronic stores can handle most anything now. Just get soemhtnig with an i7 and get at least a quad core with at least 8 gigs of ram and youll be set. Make sure to get extra hard drives for your audio also

CJ

CJ is right and I would add that be sure you run the PC and Sonar in 64-bit if you plan to use a lot of plugins or virtual instruments so your PC can address all the memory.

I assume 64-bit is pretty standard now...

Thanks for the advice, I've not heard good things about Windows8 so I wonder if I would be better off with Windows7 for my OS.

Windows 7 Home and Pro will be supported until 2018 (2015 for Ultimate so maybe avoid that). We don't really know what's gonna happen with 8 yet and a lot of the manufacturers haven't gotten their drivers up to date yet either. 

Some may not agree with this statement but I think Win 7 is probably the safer and perhaps wiser choice right now. It just works and pretty much everything has solid Win 7 drivers at the moment (and likely will for a long time like XP did). 8 just seems like a gamble at this point. 

Just my opinion. Cheers.

garyed


Thanks for the advice, I've not heard good things about Windows8 so I wonder if I would be better off with Windows7 for my OS.

This depends on what sound card you get and if it has good Win 8 drivers. Everyone is always scared to go to the next new windows, but from my experience, as long as your sound card driver has good drivers for that window architecture, you'll bee just fine...


CJ

You scared me with that, Beepster, me who just installed Win7 Ultimate on my brand new system that is supposed to last me at least 10 years like the last one.

So I ran over to Microsoft and looked it up and they say Ultimate will be supported until 2020 (phew).

It's support for "Ultimate N" which ends in 2015, that's a version for european countries.

Sorry about that Paul. They must have changed it since I was shopping for an OS. It did really strike me as odd the Ultimate Version was going to be dropped sooner but that was directly from the MS website a little over a year ago. That's why I opted for Pro over Ultimate. Thanks for the updated info.

Cheers.

I've been using an M-audio audiophile 2496 for about 7 years & have never had a problem with it & don't plan on changing it if I don't have to. Even though it only has RCA hookups the sound quality is excellent. M_audio is pretty good about drivers so I'll probably be O.K. with Win7. My other question is a lot of boards today come with built in audio & video. I assume they can be disabled in the BIOS. Does anyone here ever use the onboard video? I'm just not getting the difference between PCIe or PCIe2.0, 2.1, 3.0 etc.. so I'm considering using the onboard video. I know I sound like a novice but I've been building my own systems for a pretty long time & just haven't done it in about 7 years so a lot has changed in the hardware department.