I’m considering getting a DELL XPS8500 with the following specs:
3rd Generation Intel® Core™ i5-3450 processor 3.10 GHz with Turbo Boost 2.0 up to 3.50 GHz
8GB Dual Channel DDR3 1600MHz - 2 DIMMs
1TB 7200 RPM SATA Hard Drive 6.0 Gb/s
AMD Radeon™ HD 7570 1GB GDDR5
I plan on adding an SSD to run Windows 7 and Cubase 6 Artist.
I do not use sample libraries or VSTi’s. I mostly work with “organic” recordings of instruments with occasional mechanical drum tracks, though I am a pretty heavy user of effects, compression and equalization plug-ins. And, generally speaking, my projects each use fewer than 30 tracks.
Will this computer be powerful enough for my needs? I’ve also considered getting an iMac. Would a Mac be better performance wise? However, I’m waiting on the most current model iMac and there’s no way of knowing if or when it will be released this year, and I’m getting antsy to the point that I’m thinking of just getting a fairly powerful Windows machine that will suit my needs.
DO NOT turn off turbo boost on newer processors. thats old school at this point.
Why or what is old (2years now) my i7 3.2ghz was causing asiopeaks as long tubov and stuff was activated in the bios
Since its always at max speed no Problems.
Also, do you guys think Windows will remain the best OS, or at least as good to use as OS X, for Cubase 7, whenever that comes out? I’m thinking long term here. I don’t wanna invest in Windows only to find out that the next version of Cubase is optimized for Mac because the developers started favoring Apple.
for those of you with two hard drives, an SSD and an HDD, do you install Cubase on the same drive as your OS? also, do you have your project folders on that drive, or a separate drive? how about plug-ins? thanks again for any info.
Many have more than two hard drives. I’m using four currently. I have an 80GB SSD for my operating system, programs, general plugin installs, etc. (Cubase installed on this drive with all default locations).
Second drive is dedicated to Cubase project files. Nothing else goes here.
Third is for plugin sample content.
Forth is for general file storage. Cubase project backups, mixdowns, Media Player searches here to display it’s content, file backups from my laptop and netbook, silly pictures, etc.
Oh, yeah … I almost forgot about number five - an external drive for system images, another Cubase projects backup, documents backup, etc. (a lot of “etc.s” going on, I guess).
As far as working with two drives goes, I would say it depends on the specs of the drives and your methods of operation. From what I understand, streaming sample content is the best single use for SSD in a DAW environment.
I have a 128 GB Samsung SSD and I will be installing it on an XPS 8500 with i5 intel 3rd gen., 8 GB RAM, and a 1 TB HDD.
Would you recommend installing the OS, Cubase, and plug-ins on the SSD, and having my project files go onto the HDD? I know it’s not optimal, but I will have a few other programs on this computer, as I will not be using it solely for Cubase. Would you recommend putting those on the SSD as well? For instance, where should anti-virus, browser and random programs like a CD burner go?
So you own this computer already? Is the 1TB HDD the factory installed drive with pre-installed OS plus gobs of crapware? Do you own a copy of Windows 7 you can do a clean install from or are you relying on the Dell factory image?
If you are looking to migrate to the SSD for OS drive how are you planning on going about the transition?
The SSD as OS/programs drive and the 7200 RPM HDD as recording drive/general storage would probably be the way to go for your purposes, but to convert a factory image from HDD to SSD is potentially risky.
Ideally, you would want a clean Windows 7 install on a formatted SSD. All your programs/apps would be installed to this drive as usual.
If you don’t own this computer already, don’t buy it. Build yourself a lean and mean machine from parts and have exactly what you want/need and nothing more.
Are you a gamer? If not, you probably don’t even need a dedicated video card with the current Intel CPU integrated graphics.
I already bought it. It hasn’t arrived yet but it’s on its way.
I was gonna make a recovery disc, take out the HDD, put in the SSD, do a clean install of the OS onto the SSD with the recovery disc, then re-attach and wipe clean the HDD. Would that work? Someone told me on another forum that if I do it that way, Windows 7 would automatically detect the SSD and do the proper install with the right alignment and whatnot. I’ll have to go through the tedious process of removing the crapware manually, but I was hoping this machine will be okay for my purposes.
it’s less than ideal, I suppose. but I didn’t wanna go through the building process and this was one of the better options in my budget. fingers crossed that it works.
Build it yourself! My PC is a 3.6ghz AMD 8 core PC with 16gb ram and cost only 1000dollars in Norway! For all parts! On this PC I can have up to 100 tracks or more of 24 bit 44.1khz!
