need help about laptop

paseppa

New member
Hi everyone. I want to buy a laptop, but my budget is not so high, and I found a second hand Lenovo Thinkpad w530 for 500 euro. It comes with i7-3630QM processor and 32gb ram. I think the owner removed the original ssd drive but I have an external (usb 3) 240gb sandisk extreme 500 that I can use with it. I just want to know if for this money it will be a good deal, if I will be able to work smoothly with lot of vst plugins and kontakt libraries. It´s not for professional business, I just want to be able to record and mixing my own stuff with a decent budget machine.
Thanks
 
If I were you I'd save up for a laptop that can get a score of 2500 minimum. [Laptops over 200$ will suffice]
Get any interface afterwards.
 
Hi KonKossKang, I don´t get what you mean with a score of 2500. The Thinkpad w530 I was talking about is gone, I am looking for some other deal. At the moment, on my budget I found these two that look interesting:

Dell 7720 for 300 euro

- Intel Core i7 3630QM 4x2,4 GHz, Turboboost bis 3.4 GHz
8GB RAM DDR3 SDRAM, PC3 12800 (1600 MHz)
1Tb HDD ( it´s 5400, so not the fastest one)

MSI GE40 for 500 euro

Intel Core i7-4712MQ
8GB ram
128GB SSD plus 1TB HDD ( don´t know if this is 4500 or 7200)




I don´t know if it´s worth to spend 200 euro more for the MSI or get the cheaper DELL and add it an SSD, wondering how much the i7 4712MQ is better than the 3630QM


PS. I already have a Roland quad capture usb as external soundcard

Antonio
 
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A highly rated processor than costs upwards of 3-400$ will have a score of minimum, 8000.
An average desktop cpu will be in the 4-6000 range [AMD, older I7's etc]

A lowend laptop will do a max of 2500. A good portion of the recent machines should be in the same range as prebuilt desktops provided you find the right ones.
 
A highly rated processor than costs upwards of 3-400$ will have a score of minimum, 8000.
An average desktop cpu will be in the 4-6000 range [AMD, older I7's etc]

A lowend laptop will do a max of 2500. A good portion of the recent machines should be in the same range as prebuilt desktops provided you find the right ones.



Thanks for the explanation KonKossKang

What about some i7 4700 or 4710? Are they something good?
 
So...
The idea that SSD's are inherently better is a bit misguided (in my opinion).

FL studio itself (as in the core executable and various associated plugins and DLLs) is pretty darn fast to load no matter what you put it on. A much more important aspect is the RAM speed and total amount. You can have the fastest SSD /Ram-Drive ever made and you will still be limited by how fast your memory can swap.

Regarding your question in more detail, you really need to look at what your accessing within projects to figure out the "where". As I suggested before, FL will do perfectly fine (great even) on a standard HDD. Your project files and external plug-ins are another matter.

For instance, I have about ~2 Terabytes of Kontakt Packages. Those of us who frequently use Kontakt (especially some of the super big packages) have all ground our teeth at one point or another waiting for the seemingly never-ending loading times for specific soundsets (I'm looking at you SampleLogic products!).

I host all of my Kontakt Packages on a 2tb Western Digital Black (9800rpm) drive. Could I get more speed in loading if I hosted them all on an SSD (or a raid of such)? Probably... but due to the incredible read/write amounts and cache thrashing Kontakt can inflict on a drive, an SSD's lifespan would likely be terribly short.

I have one pair of SSDs in Raid-0 that are strictly dedicated to hosting my OS and nothing else. Everything else that is not project-creation-related has an individual WD Black 9800 HDD (I.e. Program files on Drive A, VSTS on Drive B, Kontakt Packages Drive C..etc).

All of my actual project-creation files (I.e. Wav files, MP3s, any recording / Media) is hosted on another pair of Raid-0 SSDs. This is because... A) I don't often delete project files (not on the same scale as let's say a cache file is written and erased) so these SSDs aren't getting tore up overly quick... and B) when editing "on-the-fly", speed is absolute king. Not only do visual waveforms change with a single simple cut or edit (and I don't want to wait even 2 seconds to see the changed form), but that wave file is getting sent to RAM and back to disc every time. Thus, SSD makes sense here (for me).

To make a long story well... long... I personally wouldn't waste the money or space putting FL on an SSD, it's a performance boost that is negligible in this setting. Save that SSD for your OS or actual project cache and files. Just my opinion.
 
It's a matter of if you want more storage or speed. [I heard ssds are twice as fast as a 7200rpm hdd]
So that would probably inflate the price considerably. They would be good to pick up during price drops.

I go for Hdd, due to the transfer rate being in the 40-100 Mb/s range already.
My next storage choice would most likely be a 2-4tb as a result.
 
Thanks for all your suggests and tips guys. I have another option, I think I will go for this one considering all you said. It's an HP ZBOOK 15 G2, it has these features ( I copy-paste) :

Intel Core i7-4810MQ 2.8GHz, NVIDIA Quadro FX 2100M, 16GB RAM, 240GB SSD for operating system, 750GB HDD for data, display 15.6 "AntiGlare 1920x1080, WLAN, Bluetooth, USB 2.0 and USB 3.0, DisplayPort, Thunderbolt, ExpressCard, SmartCard Reader, SD card reader, original German backlight keyboard, battery still has 80Wh (of original 83Wh)
, of course a power supply as well as a docking station, a DisplayPort DVI adapter, operating system DVD for Windows 8.1 and Windows 10 .
Windows 8.1pro is pre-installed and activated. Only the pure operating system, drivers and updates need to be installed.
There is still the manufacturer's warranty until September 2018.
I read around it's pretty good working machine, for music as well (anybody have experience with it?) Considering I will pay 580 euro and still will have warranty, plus an ssd for os and daw with 16gb ram I think it's a good deal. I don't know if the hhd is 4800 or 7200 but I have an external WD 7200 for kontakt libraries. What do you think?
 
hollandturbine, if I needed a tower system this thread wouldn't exist, I need to have an opinion about that laptop
 
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