I’m trying to give my poor old back a break and buy a lighter, cheaper laptop to use when I’m teaching. In that capacity, Dorico would be opening projects with a few flows that are very short, 1-2 instruments, and no VST playback. No other pro application will be running, just email, browser, word processing, etc.
Will a 4gb machine run reasonably well with projects of that sort? In the trade-off between processor speed and RAM, which would be more important? Is a 2.0ghz processor with 4gm ram preferable to a 1.6ghz processor with 8gb ram or the other way around? Anyone running Dorico with similar specs?
I would prioritise CPU cores over speed and over RAM; if you’re only working with short flows and you’re going to use lightweight sounds (e.g. NotePerformer), then 4GB RAM should be sufficient.
If you can get 8GB for a reasonable increase, make the jump. Laptops are difficult (i.e., impossible) to add more memory later. And too much memory is never a bad thing.
I always like the analogy of a computer as a kitchen where cakes are made.
The disk storage is the cupboards. The RAM is the work surface.
Cores are the number of chefs; clock speed is how fast they can work.
More chefs are better**, and a faster chef will always be a faster chef; but if there isn’t enough workspace, then they have to stop what they’re doing to get stuff from, or put stuff back in, the cupboards.
** In this analogy, the chef-to-broth-quality ratio is a constant.
Thanks, all. I’m gunning for 8gb, but I’m also trying to keep a decent budget. This will not be my main work laptop, which has 16gb, SSD drive and all the other goodies. I like the kitchen analogy, Benwiggy.
