Buying A new cheap PC for music production?

R

RobSmith1995

New member
I am looking to buy a new PC for music production, I will primarily be running Ableton Live 7, Cubase 4 and Reason 4, I currently use a really old Dell desktop with 1gig of ram, and 80gb hard drive and 1.86ghz proccesser. I came across this deal on eBay and I though I would seek advice on whether this computer would be suitable for my needs, my setup is basic with just an Akai LPK25, a pair of small monitors, and I don't use a lot of VSTs at one time or use loads of tracks in my DAW's, any opinions would be appreciated, thanks!

---------- Post added at 02:59 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:56 PM ----------

Sorry, the site won't let me post the link, it is a Dell Optiplex Gx620 with 4gb DDR3 ram, a 250gb (I have an external one aswell), a Intel Pentium HT 2 x 3ghz processer, and comes with Windows XP SP3 installed.
 
nah.. u can do better. MUCH MUCH better lol

What's your budget? I can build you a new quad core computer w/ the same 4GB of RAM and 300GB for the same price that old Dell Optiplex is going for on eBay's buy it now. Shoot me your budget either here or in a PM and i'll send you an eBay link. I could ship it out as fast as tomorrow.

---------- Post added at 09:09 AM ---------- Previous post was at 07:26 AM ----------

Here's a link as an example. it's available on eBay.

Custom Computer Brand New AMD FX 4100 3 6GHz 4 GB RAM 300GB Hard Drive | eBay

Multiple units are available in case anyone else reading this is looking for an expensive solid system.
 
Hello, thanks for the feedback but I forgot to mention that the Dell is refurbished so comes pretty much as new and is only 88 pounds here in the U.K, I wasn't looking at spending over 150 pounds as I am strapped for cash, I know it may sound a bit unrealistic, also shipping rates and tax from the USA would be extortionate!
 
£150 GBP converters to $232 USD using current exchanges rates (OANDA - Forex Trading and Exchange Rates Services | OANDA).

Give me 10 mins... lemme see if I can make something in your budget that would still outperform that.

I know you don't have a lot of money.. but I learned about a year ago that your money can go much further than you think if you know how to spend it. Getting the Optiplex sounds like a short term solution to a long term problem.. and for the same money you might be able to get something that will last you longer.

Buy once! don't buy twice lol. w/ the optiplex you'll probably still want to upgrade after you get it.

10 mins.. i'll let u know if i can make something still better but within that budget.

---------- Post added at 02:26 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:11 PM ----------

Ahh man, sorry... i just checked the shipping prices to UK. That would take my build out of your budget. It's coming out to between $60-$80 just to ship.


Just so you can know what to expect though..
go to PassMark Software - CPU Benchmark Charts

Look up the AMD FX-4100 on the High CPU list. And then look up that pentium in the optiplex. It's not even on the same list... so have to go to the "low to mid range" CPU list on there. That essentially is what I mean by much higher quality CPU for the same ballpark budget. In this case though, the shipping cost would just be too great.

You may want to consider building your own computer... it's not terribly hard to do... just requires patience.
 
yeah I was considering building my own, it is a lot cheaper and obviously taylored for your needs but it's just finding the time, thanks for your feedback anyway it is much appreciated!
 
For £88, it's not bad. It uses LGA775 processors, but doesn't support any Core series processors. The best thing you could upgrade a GX620 to would be a fast Pentium-D (Pentium D 960) or fast Pentium4HT (Pentium 4 HT 672 or Pentium 4 HT 661).

For £110.99 w/VAT, you could cop this one: cheap dual core dell pc - optiplex 745 computer

The reasoning here is that it starts our with a true dual core processor, but you can upgrade it eventually to a Core 2 Duo (Conroe or Allendale based only) or a Core2 Quad (Kentsfield only). Your first order of business, however, would be to add RAM.
 
I know this never seems like the right answer at the time, but honestly I'd wait and save a little more...You don't want to spend the money you do have on something that won't work well for you, better off waiting 4sure
 
^agreed w/ all above.

you will definitely feel a need to upgrade sooner than later, probably sooner. at that point... the optiplex bcame a waste of money.

Trust me... I had an older Dell Inspiron laptop that was on the old Socket 479. I added Sonar 4 to my setup (via Rewire, I was using Reason for all music production at the time). I immediately noticed that my computer couldn't keep up at all. I added RAM so I was at a whopping 2 GBs of RAM (maxed out). I noticed it still wasn't up to par. I grabbed a firewire interface and noticed an improvement, but it still wasn't quite there. I upgraded the CPU on the laptop (which is a pain in the ass for laptops b/c you have to take the whole thing apart and put it back together.) I went to the 2nd highest CPU since the highest was too expensive and not worth the price (due to how rare it is... there's limited supply so the price skyrocketed)... which was a whopping 2.2 GHz single core pentium M if i remember correctly. I noticed a small improvement but it was enough to at least allow me to do music work with Sonar & Reason finally.... but.... it was just still soo limited. Eventually.. I ended up trying to do more in Sonar with VSTs and my hair started greying a little bit from trying to add more than 4 VST instruments lol.

So yeah... if you add up the RAM and the new CPU, i wasted about $110 bucks.. + time, headache, and stress.. which is invaluable. Granted I ultimately needed a better interface anyway so I don't include that in the "wasted money" column but if I decided to.. that would be another $250 bucks.

4 months later... I upgraded and built an AMD based system for around $600 total with the AMD Phenom II 955 chip. Nice setup, but still feel like i need more (so i just upgraded to an i7 3820 system)... but my point here is that when I bought the parts for my AMD system, that extra $110 bucks would've came in handy if I just remained patient for 4 extra months. It could've landed me a better Intel at the time, and I probably wouldn't have felt the need to upgrade again last month.
 
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