Suggest a PC

[Thunderpaws]

Hi everyone. 

Calling all computer experts! 

I am about to spend about £500 - £600 on a computer. This budget is for the tower and monitor if I go that way or for a complete All-in-one. 

My main priorities for the computer will be:

vector graphics and DTP

CAD (though not to large projects)

Recording guitar based music using a usb audio interface  

Photo editing

then the usual stuff like internet, excel, etc...

So, based on this I have a few questions as there have been a lot of changes since I last bought a PC.

Is it worth the extra for i7 over i5 or should I look for a different processor? (I’ll try and go quad core)

is it worth looking for 16gb ram or will 8 suffice? The graphics software I run recommends minimum 8gb  

Is it important to get SSD instead of a hard drive? 

Are refurbished machines from Amazon reliable? 

What’s a decent monitor for that sort of budget? 

What sort of graphics card should I go for? 

I’ve heard that latency can be an issue when recording (most likely using Reaper), what has the biggest influence on this? 

Finally, if anyone can point me in the direction of someone who builds computers that would work put good value please share a link here......

thanks everyone. 

Paws. 

[cheddatom]

I'd definitely go for 16Gb RAM

Any reason you're ruling out AMD CPUs? Whenever I've spec'd a new build I've saved loads of money going for high spec AMDs over Intels

To record without latency you need a half decent audio interface and a fast CPU (and keep your VSTs to a minimum)

[Thunderpaws]

Haven’t ruled AMD out, didn’t think to mention them!! What’s i just don’t know anything about them. 

Whats a VST?

[Skol303]

42 minutes ago, Thunderpaws said:

Whats a VST?

Virtual Studio Technology... typically a 'plug-in' (add on) for music-making software.

As mentioned above, definitely opt for 16Gb RAM if you're wanting to run music and/or photo editing software.

SSD drives are useful but not essential. Hybrid drives are also an option; My Mac uses a hybrid set-up, whereby the software/files I access most frequently are stored on the SSD partition and everything else is archived on the regular HD (I assume PCs must offer the same approach).

Refurbished machines are certainly reliable, especially if the refurbisher is certified by the manufacturer.

[Sibob]

The problem with PCs (that you get less with Macs for obvious reasons), is that no hardware  is built with other hardware in mind, so you have to be a bit careful with PCs just arbitrarily thrown together hardware wise, motherboards not optimized for certain other PCIe cards etc etc.

With that caveat in mind, out of the options you’ve given, always go 16gb and i7. I’d go better spec if the budget allowed.

Check the motherboard has the all connections you want, including any future connections you might want. The amount of people I’ve come across who spec’d and built a computer only to be annoyed because they want a Thunderbolt interface or something, and the motherboard doesn’t have Thunderbolt header to add a PCIe card.

Just worth bearing in mind. 

Si

 

Edited July 26, 2018 by Sibob

[bazzbass]

On ‎27‎/‎07‎/‎2018 at 00:54, cheddatom said:

Any reason you're ruling out AMD CPUs? Whenever I've spec'd a new build I've saved loads of money going for high spec AMDs over Intels

general consensus amongst the recording community is that Intel chips work much better with audio than AMD chips, probably why AMD are cheaper.....

 

PS in case you weren't aware, if you have Windoze 32bit you can only utilise 4Gb RAM.

Edited July 28, 2018 by bazzbass

[Thunderpaws]

I’ll be going 64 bit as it’s better fo CAD work. 

Thanks for your input everyone. I’ll let you know how I get on. I’ll also need to get some monitor speakers so most likely KRK I guess though I see there are lots of other brands at the same price point. 

[bazzbass]

I thought you'd be going 64bit but u never know.

 

+1 to what Si said. ie i7 CPU 16G RAM 

PLUS make sure it has more USB3 sockets than you need right now

[Leonard Smalls]

Having looked into this recently (see thread!) I'd recommend a refurbished machine as you won't find anything new with anything like the spec you'll need.

Google refurbished Mac Pro, or refurbished HP Z640. At that price you might just get an Intel Xeon dual processor 32Gb machine - the Xeons are more robust with bigger L3 cache than i7 so will work better for especially CAD stuff..