Update Old or Buy New?

Configure and optimize you computer for Audio.
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I bought a new Dell Vostro 400 in 2007. At the time, Vista and 7, 64 bit had just been released, but I set it up with XP 32 bit because at the time, very few DAW's or plugins were running 64 bit. Now, eight years later, I am still running 32 bit XP. I have four gig of RAM and two 250 GB harddrives. Should I max out the RAM on my machine (4 slots) dual core and is it possible to install SSD drives to replace the harddrives? Is a USB 1TB external harddrive fast enough for sample storage? I have been told to go to Windows 7 64 bit. I want to run Cubase Pro 8.5. I would much rather spend $1200.00 than $3500.00. Will the performance suffer too much by upgrading what I have rather than replacing it? Any advice would be appreciated greatly. :party:

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Build new for sure.

Can get a whole lot more computer for the $1200 you are looking to spend.

This is a real rough mockup on an Australian site but Black Friday is coming up in a few months so you could probably get everything for $500-700 in the US. Much less if you drop the i7 CPU and grab an i5.

You wont be able to add more ram in the future and you may want to add a usb hub if you have a lot of usb devices.

Only other things I would add would be external backup and an average CPU cooler (Hyper 212 variation etc)

You will be low on USB ports, and missing a few bells and whistles but I will never build a full on gaming PC then use it for music production again, too much noise/heat (Aussie gets hot) even with water cooling on the GPU and the ATX/Large tower days are over imo.

I actually built a very similar small PC for myself, I ran no video card and an i7 @ 4 ghz, It was tiny and it worked very well, wish I hadn't sold it. My next build will be built with the same ethos.
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I play guitar

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Great name! Thank you Chickenman. You've got me thinking. Guess I should start googling and adding. Thanks, again.

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Definitely not worth trying to upgrade that machine. For $1200 or less you can get something much more powerful than what you could upgrade to. Depending on your computer knowledge you could build your own or buy a Dell or HP(I prefer HP over Dell). My one suggestion is to skip Windows 7 and get Windows 10 64bit(32bit is dead and gone). I have been using Windows 10 for almost 2 years now with no issues at all.

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bobhva wrote:Definitely not worth trying to upgrade that machine. For $1200 or less you can get something much more powerful than what you could upgrade to. Depending on your computer knowledge you could build your own or buy a Dell or HP(I prefer HP over Dell). My one suggestion is to skip Windows 7 and get Windows 10 64bit(32bit is dead and gone). I have been using Windows 10 for almost 2 years now with no issues at all.

Thank you, bobhva. Looks like that is the way to go. I know now that my processor is a dinosaur. I guess that it's i7 quad core, max out the RAM slots, (2) 960 GB SSD SATA, big cooling sys. & power supply and one thousand USB sockets. Oh yeah, guess that I need a new sound card. All this so that I can interface my Yamaha MX61 and Cubase. :dog:

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Get the best processor that you can afford and at least 16GB of RAM(I have 32GB). Also make sure you have some room for expansion, like extra PCIe slots. I don't think you can ever have enough USB ports, especially USB 3.0/3.1 ports - though these can always be added with a USB card or a hub. And yes a good sound card, unless you will be adding an audio interface later on for audio inputs and output to studio monitors.

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I'm not a techie, so building a new box is not an option for me. But I finally put away my Dell XPS laptop (Win7) after years of faithful service. Great machine, but I was finding that it just couldn't keep up with all the great programs that I wanted (needed to run). Just this week I replaced it with a Win10 Dell Inspiron with a bunch of bells and whistles (at least for me, and especially in comparison to my old XPS) so I can finally run the graphics and audio programs I want with confidence.

Sometimes you just have to let go...
Berfab
So many plugins, so little time...

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Buy a nice interface, a nice big monitor and some powered monitor speakers to plug in when you are working at your desk etc. If you already have a laptop you should be able to do anything but the most demanding audio production, even then you could splurge on a UAD duo or something to offload some processing.

Bonus of never having to transfer projects but definitely some drawbacks in terms of setup and obtaining the most from the laptop in comparison to a desktop.

If I was doing nothing but a few soft synths and a bit of audio even my 5yo i7 laptop handles that without issue.
I play guitar

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I'm a desktop dude. I can't see the screen or work the mouse or keyboard on laptops - hate 'em. I think that I will build a box. Looks like the best way to get the power and speed that I will need. I just got a new Yamaha synth with a built in midi controller and a bunch of Motif sounds. You can wire it to Cubase, put down a midi track which outputs to the synth, which in turn sends the audio of whichever patch you choose back to Cubase as an audio track. Bad, huh? This synth sounds so much better than any virtual synths that I have, this could be real bad. Just the drum and bass patches are superb. It has a hundred different pianos and every piece of percussion that there is. I can't see using any virtual synths, Too bad after buying the synth, that I have to spend another fifteen hundred to make it do what I bought it for. I didn't find out all of the requirements until I bought it. Ain't that always the case? I even have to upgrade my Cubase. :hihi:

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So sorry Bubba, I got confused between you and BERFAB lol.

Have you looked on ebay for ex government lease PCs? A whole lot of Sandy Bridge i7s have recently come on the market here in Aus, they are more than capable and very inexpensive. Dell Optiplex 990, HP 8200 etc. (Generally don't have USB3).

If all you are recording is MIDI... well, I would call shenanigans on needing to upgrade at all :P


My first comment still points to the direction I would take if I was building a specific tool for a very specific purpose.
I play guitar

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Hey Chickenman, I've got a great soundcard/IO, but it's full of gray hair. Thomas Oberheim had a company called Seasound and they made a card and breakout box called a Solo. Had a great analog sound and two stereo/mono mic or instrument inputs. It's been good to me. Seasound was out of business by the time XP came out. Some Seasound owners wrote some XP drivers to run it and I am still using them. It might be time to update my I/O box. Presonics or Focusrite should do the trick. I have an old pair of JBL monitors. I record vocals, so I will need some serious audio capability. UAD Apollo is tempting, but expensive. My wife will kill me or just pull the plug the next time that I am hospitalized.

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