M

[MDV]

Yeah, but he isnt running monte carlo sims or video. This isnt a generalised PC discussion, he wants audio.

DAWs have been using 64 bit for a while, and sonar 7 and up and reaper at the very least have been making better use of the quads. 8G of ram wont do anyone (thats not running an obscene amount of VSTs) any good for a few years yet, 2 is enough, 4 is enough to make certain.

A fast quad with 4 gig of fast ram and 2 fast hard drives and a sturdy and unfussy MOBO is the general format for a modern audio PC with a dose of future-proofing thrown in.

[Bradock PI]

Was relating the fact that quad cores are great for speciallist video and monte carlo which you just said he isnt running supporting my point? Also since cache is one of the most important factors in general processing unless you can afford the Quad cores with 12Mb cache the dual core will be faster if you run 32 bit OS. 

The RAM is not an issue of space but speed, as RAM access is around many times faster than HD access even if only a small percentage of acitivity is on drive it has a huge impact on speed. More cores = more demand on RAM.

[HTH AMPS]

Thanks for all the help/suggestions so far.  However, before anyone gets carried away with spec, I'm pretty much tied to whatever I can get on 'buy now/pay later'.  Specing a PC down to the last nut and bolt is out of the question and lets not forget that I'll probably only ever be using a few tracks at a time.  Seems like the bar gets raised all the time - my last HDD recording setup used a PIII 450 with 500Mb RAM and Logic Audio - I could record 8 tracks at once and run 24 tracks with plugins on each one with no problem.

Also, Digidesign don't advise using a 64-bit OS, so it'll be 32-bit all the way.

[Bradock PI]

There are component suppliers that do by now pay later on orders over a certain amount so the build option is still possible.

My apologis for getting into too much detail on spec any mid priced (c£100-£120) intel or AMD processor will do the job fine.

[MDV]

Thanks for all the help/suggestions so far.  However, before anyone gets carried away with spec, I'm pretty much tied to whatever I can get on 'buy now/pay later'.  Specing a PC down to the last nut and bolt is out of the question and lets not forget that I'll probably only ever be using a few tracks at a time.  Seems like the bar gets raised all the time - my last HDD recording setup used a PIII 450 with 500Mb RAM and Logic Audio - I could record 8 tracks at once and run 24 tracks with plugins on each one with no problem.

Also, Digidesign don't advise using a 64-bit OS, so it'll be 32-bit all the way.

Well if theres to be no 64 bit you may as well go with 2Gb of ram too. 32bit windows can only index 3gb of ram (some will say its 3.5 or 4 but I've had 4 in 32 bit XP and it registered only 3).

There are quite a few places where you can build a PC from the ground up (or at least a selection of there high-volume, high-turnover items) and pay later. I think PC specialist do it, and computer planet.

[_tom_]

I upgraded from 2gb ram to 4gb (well, just over 3 technically) ram on 32-bit Vista and didnt really notice much difference. No difference with Reaper anyway but loading games was a little bit better. Other than that, not really worth it!

[MDV]

Yeah, I didnt get any noticable improvment from going from 2 to 3 (i.e. 4 but crippled) on XP32

Going from 2Gb of 533mhz, dont know what CAS, to 4Gb of 800Mhz CL4 with vista 64 was entirely another story, though. World of difference in everything.

[HTH AMPS]

thanks for the help gents, I'm spying a couple of Dell PC's that look interesting.