Blimey, why do lappy makers insist on fitting slow CPUs even to their gaming models? I'm not interested in Turbo mode, I just want a simple 4 or 6 core 4ghz base speed and core-i5 did that! However, later chips use less power which is good for a lappy r.e. heat and batteries. In reality it seems AMD CPUs use a LOT more power and consequently get hotter. I'd build one but I can't find a barebones laptop with a fast enough chip. I know a desktop = twice as fast for the money but they use 4x the power and are mahoosive. A couple of desktops and a fridge I think we'd struggle in the future with solar and even LiPo batteries so I'd prefer the laptop. Or maybe I should put the extra £1k into Lithium batteries/panels and go desktop. Some of the above is no doubt poor reasoning after just a day of reading on the net. I'm trying to supply myself with a music computer. Music production that uses a mixture of virtual instruments and effects and recorded audio sound wants it all - fastest processor, lots of cores though speed is as or more important than cores past 4-6 cores, bags of ram and probably a bigger screen (17.2") than I had (15.5"). I don't need fast graphics. The fast processor seems to be the stumbling block unless I get out an extra £1k and accept an unneccessarily stonking graphics card in the deal. Even then, the core speeds on offer are slow! Does anyone know about these things?
All i know us for the creation of media. Music etc most pros go for apple laptops as they seem to process a lot faster than miscrosoft based machines and yes I am aware they now use Intel chipsets but they still process faster, the key also is to have a SSD and lots of ram Sent from my SM-G975F using Tapatalk
I know nothing. But for a desktop have a look at smf - small factor form. I’ve got one and it’s fairly small compared to a normal desktop. To give you an idea. That’s an a4 sheet of paper. It’s approx 300x290x90mm.
https://ao.com/product/mxk52ba-appl...rm=brand|MXK52BA&utm_content=pla-914704135919 Sent from my SM-G975F using Tapatalk
Seconded for MacBook Pro if you really need a mobile music workstation. If you really want to game (I think that was not your intention), I’ve just recommended an ASUS TUF with an AMD 4000 series cpu in it to a friend. He’s over the moon with it, he’s playing games.
No gaming at all here. I hear the apple thing but sorry, they've been caught up and a £2k+ macbook pro is ok, but no great shakes these days plus they don't break and you can't upgrade them so you really have to splash out to future proof yourself.
So have apple with prices, now 1500 don't buy the argument, mac books are very good for professional media Sent from my SM-G975F using Tapatalk
This ^ The cpu speed is kind of secondary to having plenty of RAM. The main thing the cpu does in music production is applying effects in real time. Once you're happy with the effects on a particular track you can always "cut" it to a new track to free up the processing time A solid state drive will do wonders for your performance. It makes hard disk performance similar to that of RAM A lot of people use Apples for music production. If you want to avoid the "logo tax" you can get just as good results with a Windows laptop running Reaper, unless you're particularly hung on using GarageBand or something You'll want a decent interface, and they don't come much better than Focusrite. The later v3 ones are best. I have a Scarlett 4i4, which includes midi interface. Nice low latency!
I have the software and interface, I'm decades into this but my previous i5 2-core 8 ram saddo lappy pegged out. I bought it just to see how it coped. I do need speed and cores and ram, I know this though thanks for the advice. 10 years ago I had a hacked cubase amd about £10k of hacked vst plugins on the fastest pc money could buy (for cad) plus a £350 sound card and a pukka 62 Fender Now I'm reduced to a cheapy Presonus Audiobox iTwo, Studio One Artist, a newish fender and a £40 stomp box, but I have tinitus anyway so it's more about playing than producing...but...yes there are cunning eays to mess with the setting to get usable recording latency even with my old lappy, but it would be nice not to have to keep switching between mixing and recording settings, I'd pay handsomely-ish to get over that and stop having to mix down edited audio tracks etc.
It might be worth looking at Dell if you're after a Windows laptop. My work one is pretty stonking for software development. i8 cpu, 16 MB RAM (I think, might be 32 MB), 1TB SSD While laptops are nice and compact, if you're after being able to upgrade you can't beat a desktop. As you've mentioned, they are a lot cheaper too for the performance. A few years ago there were quite a few low power, low noise, mainly solid state "desktops" aimed at the home media server market. It might be worth investigating if they are still being made, as they could be a halfway house between laptop and desktop, and allow you to have a decent sized monitor
Have a look at the PC Specialist site. They do a range of mini PCs that you can configure to your spec and budget
Another reserved vote for Dell Precision laptops, you can get 32GB and a i7 processor in them, at a price. I have had hardware failures before the 3 year lease cycle is up on the Dells. But, having said that, the failure rate was no worse with their HP equivalents. For audio, would you get better latency figures on a desktop, would it matter, manufacturers do seem to use faster chipsets on desktop machines.
I use Studio One software on and old Dell Precision from Ebay. It's runs a naked version of Windows 7 so no bloatware and runs very fast. I've edited up to 16 tracks of audio/MIDI with tons of plug ins running and it handles it effortlessly.
I am using a recent AMD Ryzen 4500 based HP Envy X360-15, as a replacement for a 10 year old 18 inch screen huge, too-hot-to-touch (one part of the case would hit 60+C, ran the CPU at 100C all the time.. ) heavy (5kg) Acer Aspire 8943G which had one of the first mobile i7 processors, and cost £1600 in 2010. The HP was £850 in Argos of all places - uses one of the latest AMD processors (this one is 6 core at up to 4.2GHz) which are better at low power than the latest Intel. And cheaper - the Intel I7 version of the same machine is £200 more. Battery life is realistically 6 hours down to about 3 if you hammer it hard. It is NOT a hardcore gaming machine - but it does have expandable RAM and disk. This one comes with 8GB of RAM , expandable to 64GB , 512GB SSD. It has a GPU so for instance World of Warcraft will run at 100FPS. Its basically 3 to 10 times quicker than my old machine. And by the way, Windows 10 is probably faster than Windows 7 on the same machine , a lot of performance improvements happened for Windows 8 . And in this day of global hacking, I would rather expose a PC with the latest Windows to the Internet than something running now-unsupported Windows 7.
I appreciate a high spec system is better for audio, but I’m not convinced you need to go too mad for what it sounds like you want to run on it. my Dell is well old, inspiron 1545 I think, quad core, 8 meg of ram, and with a fairly clean windows 10 instal, it runs cubase, ableton, reason, guitar rig, with enough effects and virtual synths, without having to bounce down effects tracks. Obviously you can get a lot better these days for not too silly money. I would be tempted to get a 15 inch, and run a second monitor, rather than one big screen, although I guess it depends how your using it.
They are the best at this by a mile as far as I can see. I spent a few hours configuring pcs and laptops. Then I checked all the component prices on a mini pc and they're more or less building it for nothing. Ray, the skinny ones I could see required clearance for ventilation each side?
