Would like to ask if anyone here can give his/her views on using the Dell PC (Pentium 4, 3Ghz, 80Gig HD) for running softsynth, like Reason, etc?
Any latency?
Is this a "usable" PC for music?
Thanks!
What the speed of the HD (although that will not matter much with softsynths)?
Specs should be OK. Latency also depends on how optimised your system is, your soundcard and midi interface.
I usually just build my own PC. Gives me more control over selection of hardware. You can research for a number of things. For example, different brands of RAM will have different speed; same for hard-drive (different brands will have different seek-times even though they are said to have the same rpm). Some hard-drives are noisier than others. Some motherboards are more stable than others.
Bro,latency depends very much on your sound card,not so much on your computer. Your cpu with 3ghz should run even Reaktor smoothly. If you can get M audio 410 or Quatafire 610. Try using firewire instead of USB interface for soundcard. Don't try saving on the soundcard,it is the main thing that makes your music flows.... cheers!
Had a dell once but when it broke down i had to replace majority of the parts cause the old ones were specific to dell computers only ie u cannot get them at sim lim
Well, for a start, Dell PCs are recommended in Digidesign's Pro-Tools compatability list.
A P4 3ghz PC should be alright for handling softsynths, but there are other factors to consider too for a Digital Audio Workstation. Also, a decent audio card is definitely a must.