PC for music production

damian1990

Right lads, could do with a bit of help on this one please

Need a desktop for producing, and have a fair idea as to what I need (something powerful) but not sure exactly what are the crucial bits to get right i.e. a powerful soundcard, processor etc.

Been looking at the Dell XPS 8500
Windows 8 64bit, English
3rd gen Intel® Core™ i7-3770 Processor (3.40GHz, 8MB)
Integrated 7.1 with WAVE MAXXAudio 4
8192MB (2x4GB) 1600MHz DDR3 Dual Channel Memory
AMD Radeon™ HD 7570 1GB DDR5 Graphics Card
1TB Serial ATA (7,200 rpm)



Seems decent enough for €840 delivered but I'm not sure if i would be better off buying from someone reputable on eBay.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated, cheers in advance

BTW budget is about €900-€1000 including a monitor.

Serephucus

Something like this to start you off:

Item|Price
Intel Core i5-3570K Tray, LGA1155|€201.55
ASRock Z77 Pro3, Sockel 1155, ATX|€85.04
16GB-Kit Corsair ValueSelect PC3-10667U CL9-9-9-24|€62.78
Super-Flower SF450P14XE Golden Green Pro 80plus gold|€67.99
FRACTAL DESIGN Define R4 Black Pearl|€102.73
Corsair Hydro Series H100i|€106.99
Acer G226HQLBBD|€111.00
Club 3D GeForce G 210 Noiseless Edition, 1GB DDR3, 1GB GDDR3, DVI, HDMI|€26.82
Crucial M4 256GB SSD 6,4cm (2,5")|€176.24
Shipping|€18.99
Total|€960.13

I'm not sure how threaded music production applications are, so I went for a 3570K. It lacks the Hyperthreading of the 3770 (which can increase performance up to about 40% if you have an application that will use it) but allows overclocking, which can gain you up to about 30% of an improvement over stock.

I also added 16GB of RAM, and went with a power efficient and quiet power supply, as well as a quiet case, GPU, and CPU cooler.

One of the big improvements over what I assume is the Dell build, is the 256GB SSD. It will hugely speed up everything you do in comparison to a mechanical drive, and is a must for a build of this calibre.

There's a 1080p monitor thrown in as well.

I left just about enough room for Windows, as it's personal preference whether you go with 7 or 8. Both cost about €80, so slightly over budget, but I'm sure someone can make it fit.

gagomes

Serephucus wrote: »

Something like this to start you off:

Item|Price
Intel Core i5-3570K Tray, LGA1155|€201.55
ASRock Z77 Pro3, Sockel 1155, ATX|€85.04
16GB-Kit Corsair ValueSelect PC3-10667U CL9-9-9-24|€62.78
Super-Flower SF450P14XE Golden Green Pro 80plus gold|€67.99
FRACTAL DESIGN Define R4 Black Pearl|€102.73
Corsair Hydro Series H100i|€106.99
Acer G226HQLBBD|€111.00
Club 3D GeForce G 210 Noiseless Edition, 1GB DDR3, 1GB GDDR3, DVI, HDMI|€26.82
Crucial M4 256GB SSD 6,4cm (2,5")|€176.24
Shipping|€18.99
Total|€960.13
I'm not sure how threaded music production applications are, so I went for a 3570K. It lacks the Hyperthreading of the 3770 (which can increase performance up to about 40% if you have an application that will use it) but allows overclocking, which can gain you up to about 30% of an improvement over stock.

I also added 16GB of RAM, and went with a power efficient and quiet power supply, as well as a quiet case, GPU, and CPU cooler.

One of the big improvements over what I assume is the Dell build, is the 256GB SSD. It will hugely speed up everything you do in comparison to a mechanical drive, and is a must for a build of this calibre.

There's a 1080p monitor thrown in as well.

I left just about enough room for Windows, as it's personal preference whether you go with 7 or 8. Both cost about €80, so slightly over budget, but I'm sure someone can make it fit.

Digital Audio Workstations software make extensive use of multicore systems, as there is a lot of stuff going on at the same time. Memory, CPU and SSDs are critical here and I would definitely bump that up to i7

el flaco

If you are recording external instruments the soundcard is really important. An on-board soundcard might be OK for output, but for input it might not produce the desired results. If you are creating music entirely through software this may not be such a big deal.

Also, do you currently have a decent set of monitors (as in speakers)? If you're listening to your music through wonky speakers you could end up with the wrong readings on certain sounds and it will end up sounding poor when you play it back elsewhere.

Anima

CPU is important anyways so get the best you can. Music apps are highly concurrent so they'll make use of any spare cores you have.

Onboard sound cards are terrible. If you listen to the output with a decent playback system you'll hear the noise floor so buy a proper one online afterwards. thomann.de are good.

ED E

OP: What software do you use?


While there is some valid input here, I think you guys might be going for overkill. The OP may just be using FL, in which case a mid range dual would in fact do him fine. Ableton say gets heavier, but only with large projects. Still, not a huge amount of power needed.

From the sound of it he's not doing a live recording rig for protools or w/e, so maxing everything out would be a waste.

3570
8GB
Basic GPU
Proper soundcard
Quiet Case

Thats what I'd look for. Could get 16GB but TBH, it wont be used.


OP, budget a good 150 for a soundcard, or as it'll be called in this case Audio Interface. As above thomann.de is the place to look.

damian1990

Cheers lads,

I am indeed using FL, have it on a laptop and it sends my CPU through the roof once I start using a few plugins (I know its only a laptop but still I don't want the same thing happening again)

I don't think I will be recording real instruments, just software for the minute. If needs be I may buy an external soundcard when the time comes.

Monitors are something I will look at after I get this sorted, not a priority at the minute.

As for this hardwareversand website, I take it they don't build the computer, just supply the parts yeah?

Serephucus

http://lb.hardwareversand.de/Service/746/Rechner+-+Zusammenbau.article

Chuck the above in your basket and they'll put it together for you. The only things they won't do are install heavy CPU coolers than the like. (Possibility of breaking things in transit, etc.)

indough

im looking at these monitor speakers as they have a usb interface built into them, but then you will more than likely have room for a dedicated sound card while i dont. they probably arent the best quality wise but okay for entry level. anyway, it might be an option for you to consider, killing two birds with one stone. they also have a smaller, cheaper model