I'm thinking about a new recording PC

[youngthrasher9]

Here's my main question: is a budget of $400 at all possible for a PC almost solely dedicated to recording guitars, bass, vocals, and *possibly* a little synth?
I have a brother who can build it if I pay for parts. My needs are as follows: I need to be able to run cab sims, and drum programs. I'd most likely be running reaper. A WiFi connection would be good. I don't do video or animation editing at all. Is it doable? Part names might be helpful if you have some to recommend.

 

[cream123]

Re: I'm thinking about a new recording PC

Im going to say that you can but you'll be a little limited ocassionally if at all

I haven't done a PC build in a while though.

http://www.newegg.com

Check their deals...they have some insane ones quite often

I would be willing to drop a little bit more dough on the interface and mic. The 400 bucks won't cover that I wouldn't think. That said between sweetwater and newegg you can find some hella deals...you'll need to hunt for deals but I think you can do it


I would go AMD for the processor. You want a good chunk of cache for music stuff and don't skimp on RAM. Looking at it you might need to bump that to 500...

 

[uOpt]

Re: I'm thinking about a new recording PC

Absolutely. The only thing that needs a beefy PC is effects and you can just do them one by one, you don't need them all at the same time as in a traditional mix. Obviously you don't need a big graphics card and that also cuts down on the power supply demands.

Enough RAM is nice to have but 8 GB cost < $40 in the US. I'd get some silly little i5 system with a gigabyte board, the cheapest memory (fast memory is a waste of money) and a pair of solid Seagates or WDs in some form of raid1 (not sure what is a good raid for windows). A solid PSU, I use Seventeam, not sure whether they have consumer PSUs right now. Corsair has been pumping out good PSUs. Absolutely no cheap PSUs and no OCZ. No SSD.

 

[cream123]

Re: I'm thinking about a new recording PC

Absolutely. The only thing that needs a beefy PC is effects and you can just do them one by one, you don't need them all at the same time as in a traditional mix. Obviously you don't need a big graphics card and that also cuts down on the power supply demands.

Enough RAM is nice to have bug 8 GB cost < $40 in the US. I'd get some silly little i5 system with a gigabyte board, the cheapest memory (fast memory is a waste of money) and a pair of solid Seagates or WDs in some form of raid1 (not sure what is a good raid for windows). A solid PSU, I use Seventeam, not sure whether they have consumer PSUs right now. Corsair has been pumping out good PSUs. Absolutely no cheap PSUs and no OCZ. No SSD.

You may very well get the full cost in under 400 then with the interface

 

[youngthrasher9]

Re: I'm thinking about a new recording PC

Thanks guys.

 

[Vasshu the humanoid typhoon]

Re: I'm thinking about a new recording PC

Good luck, I just use an AMD based one, and 8gigs of ram.....uses a 10'000rpm disc.....but still wonder how a SS disc would do....

 

[dominus]

Re: I'm thinking about a new recording PC

I would go Intel CPU and chipset. AMD has been lagging behind Intel performance-wise for years. It's not worth saving $20, especially if you're running cab sims.

 

[cream123]

Re: I'm thinking about a new recording PC

I would go Intel CPU and chipset. AMD has been lagging behind Intel performance-wise for years. It's not worth saving $20, especially if you're running cab sims.

The saving is a bit more than 20 bucks...It didn't sound like he wanted to get too crazy with the synth stuff.

 

[uOpt]

Re: I'm thinking about a new recording PC

It is very difficult to predict which workload with still perform competitively on AMD and which workload will not. Even I can't do it anymore and I do it for a living. Unfortunately you are unlikely to find premade benchmarks about audio processing on the web.

The AMD world sometimes see cool mainboards a lot cheaper, so it also falls back on the question whether you just want a base board or something better.