Desktop Computer Advice?

[Scott in Dallas]

I'm using Sonar X1 Essential with a Roland Quad-Capture on a AMD quad core 3.2GHz with 4 GB of ram. I'm running Win7 x64. I ran Sonar on my old machine which was a dual-core AMD, so pretty much any current machine will handle what you're wanting to do.

I like Sonar, and the price was right (upgrade from old old old version of Cakewalk), but it's a bit buggy for my taste. There's nothing worse than spending a half an hour getting everything set up, putting some tracks down and suddenly the program crashes and you have to reboot and start over. It's only happened a couple of times, but one is too many IMO.

If you decide on a Windows system, defragment your drive and delete temp files and you'll likely never have a problem. I probably spent less than 500 bucks on my system, and it would cost you at least twice that for an equivalent used Mac. Macs are absolutely awesome, but they are pricey.

[BulbousMoses]

Look at the Mac Mini. Lots of power and features at an affordable price.

[aasti3000]

Originally Posted by BulbousMoses

Look at the Mac Mini. Lots of power and features at an affordable price.

"The Force Is Strong With This One!"

[seamonkey]

For $500 you can get a killer desktop from a local Computer surplus shop.
You don't need this years MB, CPUs, or memory,
A couple of year old technology is fine, you'll easily get 4gb RAM which is plenty for what you want to do. Move that external drive to inside SATA bus and it will have great performance.
You don't need a super display, just don't buy a CRT

[Floyd Eye]

Originally Posted by Stick_Player

My advice: Don't advance money to the government.

I heard that.

[My name is Mudd]

Some general hardware comments from someone who owns both Mac and PC and has built custom hot-rod gaming PC's for side money since the early 90's...

- Macs are nice, but know that both Apple and almost any laptop, regardless of brand or OS, is essentially a closed-end system. In other words, they can't be upgraded down the road. Desktop PC's can be, for the most part (very low-end Big Box builds like Dell, HP, Gateway, etc theoretically can be modded but it usually isn't economically worth it). The big high-end G5 Macs do have some upgrade capacity, but the prices for those are approaching ridiculous IMO.

- Current OS's from both Microsoft and Apple are available with either a 32- bit or 64- bit version, but a 32-bit OS is limited to a max of 4 gigs RAM and can only utilize 3.25 gigs total. 64-bit OS's can utilize up to 16 gigs of RAM at least, but most applications won't know what to do with it all...8 gigs of RAM is a good way to start and will probably be enough for most tasks.

- Big Box Builders are usually cheaper overall, but a custom-built rig from a smaller builder can be config'd the way you want, will still be upgradable down the road, and most likely won't be loaded down with a bunch of pre-installed crapware that usually only takes up hard drive space (do you REALLY need five different greeting-card creator programs?).

- I agree on installing an M-Audio sound card, and Turtle Beach is another option. I'd stay away from Creative cards in general, as those are primarily built for gaming. Some 2nd-gen Audigy Z2's will work here, but it still wouldn't be my first choice. I'd also stay away from upper-mid to high-end graphics cards for the same reason...any lower-mid lvl card will be more than enough for a DAW system.

[nathan2013]

I prefer Dell Inspiron 660 Desktop. I recommend it because i've been using it for almost 1 year and it works very well. Some of the best desktop computer will be found here: http://www.squidoo.com/best-desktop-computer2