Hi, guys. My Pentium 4 has been struggling with big projects and dual screens for quite a while and, since one of my screens has just packed up, I've decided to get a new pc.
I've been searching a lot lately but have only seen threads about custom built machines. I'd like some advice on a new pre-built i5/i7 pc.

Does anyone know of any good deals on a new pc?
At the moment I'm looking at an i5 for £680, and an i7 for £800.

Should I be concerned about latency with new computers? It is noticeable on my P4, but maybe it's not such an issue 6 years later?

Thanks for any advice you may have.

Michael

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therattlerproductions.co.uk

If you mean audio latency, that's about your soundcard and its drivers, though overall computer power will affect how low you can set it without dropouts and glitching. If you mean DPC latency, that's more about the computer hardware.

Quote Exalted Wombat:

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If you mean audio latency, that's about your soundcard and its drivers, though overall computer power will affect how low you can set it without dropouts and glitching. If you mean DPC latency, that's more about the computer hardware.

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I have a Saffire Pro 40 but i've never been able to use a buffer size less than 512. If i set it higher, it pretty much makes my midi controller unusable.
I'm wondering if most new PCs will improve on this. Thanks.

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therattlerproductions.co.uk

Quote The Rattler:

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I have a Saffire Pro 40 but i've never been able to use a buffer size less than 512. If i set it higher, it pretty much makes my midi controller unusable.
I'm wondering if most new PCs will improve on this. Thanks.

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Before i built my sandybridge i7 desktop a couple of weeks ago, my old athlon 2600 struggled to play a 4 note chord in the Arturia Jupiter-8V2 vst synth.

Even setting the buffer size on my Emu 0404usb interface to something ridiculous (like 200 ms) only improved things slightly.

Huge difference with this new pc. I can run a couple of instances of the same vst along with other plug ins in a track with my buffer size set at 5 ms /24 bit. The asio performance in cubase doesnt even reach a quarter up the scale.

My experience has been that my new build has made one hell of a difference.

Quote The Rattler:

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Quote Exalted Wombat:

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If you mean audio latency, that's about your soundcard and its drivers, though overall computer power will affect how low you can set it without dropouts and glitching. If you mean DPC latency, that's more about the computer hardware.

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I have a Saffire Pro 40 but i've never been able to use a buffer size less than 512. If i set it higher, it pretty much makes my midi controller unusable.
I'm wondering if most new PCs will improve on this. Thanks.

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I would say definitely yes. But how much of this will be down to a nice new Windows installation, how much down to faster hardware is open to question. I was getting pretty good performance from my Fireface 800 on a P4 machine and Windows XP not all that long ago. But it's always easy to add a few more tracks (or, more likely, a few more plugins) and make ANY system grind to a halt!

Hi Michael, I recently swapped my aging P4 based for a Carillon tower system & the difference is like night and day. However, I record mostly audio with only the odd soft-synth thrown in, so having a quiet system was more of a priority issue for me than latency. But I can now run noticably more insert effects, even multiple incidents of reknowned CPU hogs like Nebular before it stutters. They have systems available well within your budget.

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Not much in life worth running for. Or from.

Quote mick.n:

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Before i built my sandybridge i7 desktop a couple of weeks ago, my old athlon 2600 struggled to play a 4 note chord in the Arturia Jupiter-8V2 vst synth.

Even setting the buffer size on my Emu 0404usb interface to something ridiculous (like 200 ms) only improved things slightly.

Huge difference with this new pc. I can run a couple of instances of the same vst along with other plug ins in a track with my buffer size set at 5 ms /24 bit. The asio performance in cubase doesnt even reach a quarter up the scale.

My experience has been that my new build has made one hell of a difference.

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sounds like Heaven, mick.n.
i'll have to look into putting together a PC next time. cheers.

Quote Exalted Wombat:

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I would say definitely yes. But how much of this will be down to a nice new Windows installation, how much down to faster hardware is open to question. I was getting pretty good performance from my Fireface 800 on a P4 machine and Windows XP not all that long ago. But it's always easy to add a few more tracks (or, more likely, a few more plugins) and make ANY system grind to a halt!

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yes, it's always easy to add a few more tracks but in the last 6 years i've been quite impressed at the amount of tracks i can use. it's when i start using VSTis, any zooming causes crackles in the audio.
the poor old thing isn't really cut out for dual screens. that and the latency when using the keyboard are my only issues. other than that i really like Dell's product (not their call centres, obviously).
thanks again, Exalted Wombat.

Quote Dynamic Mike:

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Hi Michael, I recently swapped my aging P4 based for a Carillon tower system & the difference is like night and day. However, I record mostly audio with only the odd soft-synth thrown in, so having a quiet system was more of a priority issue for me than latency. But I can now run noticably more insert effects, even multiple incidents of reknowned CPU hogs like Nebular before it stutters. They have systems available well within your budget.

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hi, Mike. thanks very much for mentioning Carillon. appreciated.

i guess many soundonsound readers put together their own PCs. oh well, thanks again for your help everyone.

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therattlerproductions.co.uk