bjornaz

Honorable
May 11, 2012
13
0
10,510
Hello friends,

I am looking to purchase a new system. My current one is about to bite the dust. I am a musician and my music is very much important for me. I know about computers, but not enough to consider myself professionally knowledgeable on the subject.

My machines have all been HPs and I am looking to purchase another machine from them. However, I saw they no longer carry Creative sound cards. They are all integrated sound cards -- the Beats Audio sound card. As I mentioned above, I am no professional, but from my experience integrated is usually tantamount to bad, or sub-par. Does anyone have an opinion on this Beats Audio card? It's integrated right, as in I cannot replace it in the future?

I will be using this machine primarily for music production, so I would like to put my hard earned cash somewhere I feel i've been treated well and it'd be music to my ears :)



Now for my second inquiry. How much RAM is enough? My current machine has 3 GB of RAM. When I open instruments in my DAW, I get a little delay in load times. Even at times my sound stutters and pops when there's too much going on (I do large productions with other artists). I was looking for maybe 6 GB - 8 GB of RAM. Would the difference be noticeable with all that extra RAM? How about the processor? 3.3 GHz will do the trick? I believe it is six cores. There're options for dual core and quad core, but if it's not immediately available, I think I could do without it. I am not even sure where the processor or the RAM would come into play in this equation. I am looking for fast performance in loading and playing live instruments in my favorite VST programs, such as the East West Quantum Leap series.

I cannot offer compensation, but any help from this community will earn you large kudos points. Thanks! :hello:
 

bjornaz

Honorable
May 11, 2012
13
0
10,510
I assume you are refering to my music software? I use Fruity Loops Producer Edition, Ableton Live, and Cubase. Depends on the team I am working with and the files we are using. I use many different kinds of software for the music creation process as well as live recording. I'd like to render some compositions on my machine, but I am not sure if a better system really will contribute in the end product and what other machines will output when they open the file.

As for budget, I am probably looking in the 700-800 USD range for personal use. Although, I don't want to buy anything unnecessary. I already got great studio quality speakers and monitors. Thanks!
 

zander1983

Distinguished
Mar 26, 2009
424
1
18,860
CPU, RAM and Sound card plays a big role.

You said you plan to build, is that a custom build from say Dell/HP or DIY?

Care to share what components you are looking at i.e CPU, Soundcard etc?

[EDIT]
Integrated graphics should support that, but depends on your CPU. Some CPUs like my Intel 2600k does not have an integrated graphics card. But that is not an issue, can get a cheap graphics card to run all of your software with no issues.
 

BVBKilljoy

Honorable
May 12, 2012
1
0
10,510
That means we can substitute a high end Audio Card instead of a gaming card, and run off of the integrated graphics!
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