 What to pay attention to for a new pc? |
Friscko 
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my dad announced he's planning to buy a new pc this summer..
he doesnt know to much of it tough, so he asked me to tell him what is needed, and to ask it to some people who know a lot about it..
so, what should I look for on todays pc market?
it's got to run all audio programs (fl, live, cubase) and photoshop without problems. it needs to have a lot of hdspace, because my dad probably will want to digitalise his music collection..
i told him it might be a wise choise to have one custom buit, but probably he'll be going the easy way and buying a brand pc.
i dont really know how much money he wants to spend on it, but the Acer Aspire E700 (Intel® Core™2 Duo processor E6600 (2.4GHz/FSB1066/2x 4M), 2048MB DDR II, 640GB (2x 320GB SATA 7200rpm), DVD-RW Multi & DVD16x, FW1394, nVidia G7600GS 256MB fixed mem. DVI&VGA TVO, Lan 10/100/1000, WiFi 54g) looks rather nice imo..
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07-07-2007 00:09 |
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BattleDrone
2161... the future.
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Sounds like a fat office machine to me dude. Only the GFX part is a bit low and there is nothing about the soundcard, so it will probably be some onboard super high latency bitch. You might want to add a better soundcard (nothing from soundblaster and the likes though.
Make sure you buy an external HD with that so you can make backups.
I got one custom built in februari, nothing but problems with it though, sometimes it doesn´t boot, sometimes it doesn´t shut down, sometimes it doesn´t recongize the harddrive,.... done all possible changes to it, even replaced motherboard, memory,...
still problems. Chances to have a working pc are better when you buy out-of-the box.
Last tip: If you can get it with XP, get it. Avoid Vista as the machine you described is about the normal config you need to run Vista with all the visual bullshit switched on (GFX card might be pushed to the limit allready)
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07-07-2007 10:41 |
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cynik
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07-07-2007 11:03 |
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Friscko
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@ Battledrone: my dad told he'd get an external hd with it, just to put my stuff on it and i already told em we'd have to get a soundcard 
it's the top of their aspire desktop pc range, costs about 1300€
Bitch comes with vista tough
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07-07-2007 15:13 |
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gls
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| quote: |
Originally posted by BattleDrone
You might want to add a better soundcard (nothing from soundblaster and the likes though. |
It's funny you say that, the guys at flstudio reckon the Creative X-Fi XtremeMusic is unbeatable for the money and advise people to get them.
http://www.soundblaster.com/products/pro...8&product=14066
Creative own emu so they must know how to make a decent soundcard. I don't own one so I cant really comment though..
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07-07-2007 16:00 |
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Friscko
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| quote: |
Originally posted by gls
| quote: |
Originally posted by BattleDrone
You might want to add a better soundcard (nothing from soundblaster and the likes though. |
It's funny you say that, the guys at flstudio reckon the Creative X-Fi XtremeMusic is unbeatable for the money and advise people to get them.
http://www.soundblaster.com/products/pro...8&product=14066
Creative own emu so they must know how to make a decent soundcard. I don't own one so I cant really comment though.. |
i'm more looking for an external soundcard, since
1)i'm getting myself a laptop at the end of the summer (after my summerjob) and i'll be using it for that as well
2)once i have that laptop, the stuff my dad and stepmom will use a pc for dont need a supergood soundcard
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07-07-2007 17:38 |
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tetsuo
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if you want to use the soundcard on both machine, get a firewire one then!!
I have a ge7600 on my laptop, and you can play the latest game on it, so it is not that bad... and enough for photoshop. Try tp avoid vista as already said.
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08-07-2007 02:26 |
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BattleDrone
2161... the future.
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| quote: |
Originally posted by gls
| quote: |
Originally posted by BattleDrone
You might want to add a better soundcard (nothing from soundblaster and the likes though. |
It's funny you say that, the guys at flstudio reckon the Creative X-Fi XtremeMusic is unbeatable for the money and advise people to get them.
http://www.soundblaster.com/products/pro...8&product=14066
Creative own emu so they must know how to make a decent soundcard. I don't own one so I cant really comment though.. |
Creative or going so wrong, they really joined the dark side. Imagine, they are now asking money for Vista drivers for some soundcard which works perfectly fine under Windows XP. For people who uderstand Dutch link
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08-07-2007 11:34 |
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cynik
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08-07-2007 12:37 |
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BattleDrone
2161... the future.
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OK, the "pay for drivers" shit seems to be a mistake (but not mine 
)
Read about it here if you're interested (in English).
Anyway, they are free as it seems. Don't like creative soundcards though.
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09-07-2007 00:00 |
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Shinyuri
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instead of a soundcard how about using one of these?
http://www.zzounds.com/item--YAMMW10
i got one of them and although its not highly rated i think its awesome - acts as a soundcard - its a usb machine - acts as loads of quality inputs to ur machine - and its quite good to slightly boost ur track when its done, mastering purposes.
ive got an aspire 3100 laptop and it works really well with it - the drivers that it comes with gives me a nice low latency.
problem is tho when i use it cubase works like a dream n never crashes - as soon as i take it away cubase acts like a bitch n crashes so now i use reason so i can be more portable.
anyways its good to consider instead of going for a soundcard cos its also quite cheap.
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revel in the crapness of the website and then hit the add button... go on, do it, u know u wanna
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09-07-2007 01:33 |
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Friscko
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| quote: |
Originally posted by Shinyuri
instead of a soundcard how about using one of these?
http://www.zzounds.com/item--YAMMW10
i got one of them and although its not highly rated i think its awesome - acts as a soundcard - its a usb machine - acts as loads of quality inputs to ur machine - and its quite good to slightly boost ur track when its done, mastering purposes.
ive got an aspire 3100 laptop and it works really well with it - the drivers that it comes with gives me a nice low latency.
problem is tho when i use it cubase works like a dream n never crashes - as soon as i take it away cubase acts like a bitch n crashes so now i use reason so i can be more portable.
anyways its good to consider instead of going for a soundcard cos its also quite cheap. |
it's something like that i'll be getting, but more like this
http://www.zzounds.com/item--PRSFIREBOX
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09-07-2007 03:30 |
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Shinyuri
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| quote: |
Originally posted by Friscko
| quote: |
Originally posted by Shinyuri
instead of a soundcard how about using one of these?
http://www.zzounds.com/item--YAMMW10
i got one of them and although its not highly rated i think its awesome - acts as a soundcard - its a usb machine - acts as loads of quality inputs to ur machine - and its quite good to slightly boost ur track when its done, mastering purposes.
ive got an aspire 3100 laptop and it works really well with it - the drivers that it comes with gives me a nice low latency.
problem is tho when i use it cubase works like a dream n never crashes - as soon as i take it away cubase acts like a bitch n crashes so now i use reason so i can be more portable.
anyways its good to consider instead of going for a soundcard cos its also quite cheap. |
it's something like that i'll be getting, but more like this
http://www.zzounds.com/item--PRSFIREBOX |
o ok- thats sweet, completely protable 2 eh. might get one meself
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www.myspace.com/shinyuribeats
revel in the crapness of the website and then hit the add button... go on, do it, u know u wanna
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09-07-2007 13:53 |
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Friscko
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my dad asked me to make a list with what i would with a pc, so he could check around for prices..
so here's what i have written down till now..
-should be able to run FLS7, SX4, Ableton Live 6 and Reason, and combinations of these together (rewiring)
-needs enough memory to handle lots of audio
-needs enough (at least 6) USBports and (at least 2) firewire ports
-needs a GOOD soundcard (with preferably 4ins and 4outs), which should be made for producing needs and not for gaming/entertainement bs
wrote down some examples like M-Audio Audiophile 2496 (yes thats 2in and 2out, but start low, aim high)
eh..am i forgetting something?
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12-07-2007 01:39 |
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Halph-Price
Zombie Algorithm
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12-07-2007 06:52 |
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thechronic
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Don't buy a brand PC if you want to use it for serious stuff. They're inferior in both hardware and software.
I would take this as a base for the PC: Link
I made several like these over the past weeks, and they give at this time the best performance and lowest power consumption for the price, and with quality components from top brands.
Casing, OS and optical drives at your discretion
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15-07-2007 21:30 |
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Friscko
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| quote: |
Originally posted by thechronic
Don't buy a brand PC if you want to use it for serious stuff. They're inferior in both hardware and software.
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| quote: |
Originally posted by BattleDrone
I got one custom built in februari, nothing but problems with it though, sometimes it doesn´t boot, sometimes it doesn´t shut down, sometimes it doesn´t recongize the harddrive,.... done all possible changes to it, even replaced motherboard, memory,...
still problems. Chances to have a working pc are better when you buy out-of-the box. |
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www.myspace.com/djfriscko
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16-07-2007 12:37 |
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tetsuo
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compatibily a I guess...but a custom one is always better, if the shop you buy it from knows what they are doing.
plus all the HW will be compatibile.. If you go for a dell, the power supply are specific to them only.. mean if yours failed, you'll have to pay 80 euros to get it replaced, while a generic one is about 40 euros
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16-07-2007 13:00 |
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thechronic
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a decent power supply costs 65-100 euro too
A 40 euro one is low grade, it will waste up to 50% of power, become hot, can be noisy and can make your system unstable.
custom built PCs have far less problems than brand PCs, they are usually built with better components and more care.
Brand PCs always cut costs in essential components like power supplies, HDs, memory etc, and they often have low budget onboard graphics with shared memory and other horrors
And they are a bitch to service, cases are difficult to open, non-standard components that can't be replaced, no free RAM slots to put extra memory in, no driver updates after 6 months, crap motherboards, crap BIOS, ...
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16-07-2007 13:19 |
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tetsuo
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16-07-2007 14:22 |
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