I'll be moving to smaller place and am thinking about replacing my large desktop music production machine with a widescreen notebook machine. I'd like to know what the minimum specs I'd need on the notebook to match or exceed the performance of my semi-dated desktop.

Current specs: Pentium 4 HT 3.0Ghz, 800Mhz FSB, 1GB DDR400. This machine still runs very nice for me.

Also, I have a feeling drive speed will come into play... would an external USB drive running at 7200 outperform and interal notebook drive at 5400?

Thanks!

Essentially anything with a Core 2 Duo in it will outperform that Pentium 4. A Mobile Turion X2 will also outperform a pentium 4, but not to the same degree a Core 2 Duo will.

Since XP isn't really an option, I'd look for a laptop with 2GB of memory (Vista). You may also want to look for lappys with a 7200rpm drive.

As far as a 7200rpm external outperforming a 5400 internal, i'm not sure. I personally have a 5400 rpm external drive for my lappy and it performs well (i watch full 1080i resolution videos from it)

Thanks for the quick reply. To be honest, I would probably "downgrade" back to XP, because I have a stable software platform running on there... at least until I upgrade DAW software.

Should I be concerned with FSB numbers or will all Core 2 Duo's and Turion's beat out the single core P4?

Thanks again!

I have a Sony laptop with a 1280 x 960 widescreen display and a Core Duo processor. Seems to do a lot more than my desktop PC at work, which is a 3GHz P4. It came with XP Media Center Edition which has worked well for what I use it for (light development, music and movie playing, and a few other odds and ends).

Pretty much all Turion X2s and Core Duos are going to outperform a plain ole Pentium 4. So don't worry about FSB.

My advice is to just try Vista. I'm running it on my Core Duo laptop and it's extremely stable. Everyone out there is just assuming that Vista is going to be riddled with bugs... but so far it isn't. How many articles have you seen criticizing Vista and/or bugs? None. There are a few compatibility issues between some programs, but the device drivers are mature. Vista is a very polished OS. Quite frankly I'm shocked at how polished it is.... i mean this is a serious departure from Microsoft's typical MO.

I've been runnin' Vista non stop for 2 days now... not a SINGLE problem has presented itself.

thanks again. yeah, my wife has vista home premium on her new laptop, and i like it - its just a matter of whether or not some very specific production software will run well on it. also, having a problem with wireless networking on it, as you can see from my other post.
http://forumz.tomshardware.com/sof [...] 34029.html

Thanks again for the tips.

If you want to put aside your old PC and reuse it's parts, nothing would be cheaper than a small factor Socket 939 PC (if a laptop is not a must). You'd be able to reuse your 1G of RAM and an Athlon64 3800+ blows a 3.0G P4 w HT. This solution gives you a cheap, compact, silent and overall decent PC.(Everything else better will run just fine but won't be so cheap)
Not that a widescreen laptop is bad, but as wide as that screen might be, I hate laptops because they distort your posture; not a good idea for hours-long PC jobs.

Yeah, I hadn't thought of that... small form factor could work. I think I have a socket 754 microATX with Athlon64 3400+ sitting in my closet (NewEgg closeout special ). Do you think that would be at least comparable?

thnx

8O You have kept the best system you had in your closet all this time; a socket 754 3400+ is clocked @ 2.4GHz, same as a socket 939 3800+, same cache also. The only difference is that the 3800+ has dual channel memory controller.
The final point is that a 2.4GHz Athlon64 (be it s754 3400+ or s939 3800+) is always better than a 3.0 GHz P4 (with or without HT). You should have used it as your primary PC rather than keep it aging in your closet,... however, better late than never

I always thought processors were like fine wine ... better with age? Oh wait, I have that exactly opposite!

It was actually a matter of convenience - I didn't want to go through the OS re-install inherent in the change. And had I done that I knew that Vista was coming which would necessitate another re-install, and then I'd have to upgrade my production software, etc. etc. The upgrade cycle can be paralyzing!

Thanks

I just did that or am in the process of doing it. I had a 3200+ (too loud - even with noise reduction) and bought a Turion X2 which is whisper quiet. Because even 24bit/96K sound is not that much bandwidth, a 5400 will still do 8 simultaneous. Having a faster drive will let you do 16 simultaneous (depending on your recorder most only do 8 ) but playback won't be affected until around 24 total tracks.

The bigger thing now is having the CPU power for real time recording FX.

Thanks for the info... the main thing for me is running virtual instruments... but, yeah, eventually i have to mix it down to audio...

Yeah, those will be more memory bandwidth as sounds are loaded into RAM. Make sure you have at least 2GB. Sonar - which I use - has a 64bit version that will allow you to have 4GB or more.

Having DDR2 will be more important than the CPU for instruments.

greetings fellow SONAR user!

Only spend the money on a neat mini case for now and put together the system with the 3400+ and the 1G of RAM you have. Vista will run on that hardware but will cripple performance a bit compared to XP.
Then July to September will be a good time for a new build; new powerful CPUs and lower prices for existing ones.