Look at Sagers if you want to run windows
I did a large amount of research recently before I bought my laptop .. and I decided that PC was still thw way for me to go . I run Cubase SX personally, and Samplitude 7 at the studio i work for, so keeping the platform the same was important to my future work oppertunity
plus if youre technically inclined, clustering computers is easier on PC than mac (linux clusters can run off a CD on PC, and share all the processing power for huge projects w/ lots of plug-ins)
I was looking at gaming machines, why? cuz they are insnaley speced out. Alienware makes some great machines, and with a price tag to patch .. Sager and Clevo make the same machines (all the parts bought from the same places) but don't have as big a name attached to them. Check out
www.pctorque.com
I got a Sager 5600, this isn't state of the art by any means: but a few of my specs are ::
800MB Front Side Buss
3 GhZ P4 (real P4, not some M version)
1Gig DDR400 Dual Channel RAM
60gig 5400rpm drive
4 usb 2.0
1 firewire400
ATI Radeon 9600 (tons of screen real-estate) + it's a dual head card, So I can support a seperate monitor as another desktop for big projects.
Total cost after shipping? $1,400
Got a deal on ebay cuz that model has been discontinued.
Ok greaaat ::: So i have more power than two of my regualr old desktops (literally, that frontside bus speed is huge) .. I can run massive amounts of processing, and never have a glitch.
Downsides? sure:
- The battery lasts for 1 hour!
- it runs reeeally hot (it IS a desktop P4 inside a tiny case) .. so the fans can be loud
- definatly not light, or slimline
But I decided that the extra power was nessacary for some of the work that I plan on. Ask yoruself what you are going to use the machine for? Producing beats in fruity loops? Running 4 instances of Rekator +12 Waves plug-ins? Live recording? (loud fans?) how many tracks ... :: answer those, then find your price range. . and buy $300 higher