Dell computers - thoughts ...

[Epicus Furor]

Does anyone here use dell computers for recording? What are the best models for recording purposes and how do they rate compared to Imacs and the like .. How much gig should one have for it to be suitbale for recording devices such a pro tools, cubase, battery e.t.c

[jimmyfingersminion]

the school in which i work uses dell computers exclusively, and for what they are they're great. cheap and easy to maintain. though they aren't the greatest pcs-but what are?

a dell with 2 gb of ram and a decent (2.4gb plus) processor should be fine for recording, say, eight simultaneous channels of audio. more than that and you're talking about spending extra cash on upgrades. their customer service can range from excellent to poor. i have had no problems with them, but know people who have had terrible problems with them.

for good solid audio production, i use a powermac g5 (pre-intel) with 2 gig of ram and dual 2.3 gig processor. i have used this to record 10 channels of simultaneous recording with very very low latency using cubase sx. unfortunately, it'd cost you about three times what your average dell would.

hope that helps

[Epicus Furor]

Thanks Jimmy, could you reccomend any good models that would be suitable for recording? I've been lookin on e-bay and have found some pretty cheap dells but am unsure how MUCH Ghz and RAM I need to be honest.

http://cgi.****.co.uk/Dell-Dimension...QQcmdZViewItem

... would this be good enough or do would you reccomend something more powerful?

Cheers, Andy

[Epicus Furor]

http://cgi.****.co.uk/ws/****ISAPI.d..._BIN_Stores_IT

maybe this would be better?

[jimmyfingersminion]

the second one looks better. a bit of extra ram and a decent sound card and that should do you fine for a home studio, oh and probably a hard drive upgrade to about 200gB or so.

[Epicus Furor]

are you suggesting to upgrade the sound card and extra ram or is that good enough as it is? How much would the mod's cost to get it up to a good standard? Would it be fully functional to just use it as it is or are these mods essential?

[rty13ibz98]

do you own a dell now? if not DO NOT GET ONE FOR AUDIO!!! they are VERY limited on expandability. you would be better off build one for yourself. sure dells are cheap, but you get what you pay for. dells are desktop and workstation pcs. they have 2 pci slots, 2 ram slots and are weak in the audio department. for audio, you really need a smoking audio i/o interface and a good bit of ram.


rich

[jemsite]

Dell (or any cheapie pc like emachines) is fine if you factor the free PCI slots, free HDD/external bays and how much RAM you want. You need to determine what you want to do (what soundcard, HDD, optical drives) and what software you're looking at before buying a PC... glen

[Ozzdoc]

if your going to get a dell go for the XPS600 hehe

Why not build your own computer out of the one you have now?

Just buy the parts online, right now I'm getting a asus motherboard for 150 specs are 2 pci-E slots 4 pci slots, 939 socket for AMD athlon 64 up etc..and then buy your soundcard and your graphics card and if you dont have the right processer buy a AMD athlon 64 for bout 150..use your harddrive you have now and then just buy some ram.

It's pretty cheap then getting a whole new computer that is ****ter then what you could build.

[Epicus Furor]

To be honest I don't know much when it comes to the comupter department, so i wouldn't know where to start if i wanted to build my own. I'm sure it is more efficient to buy all the seperate parts and stuff but is there any p.c's out there straight out of the box that are great for recording? My budget is around £500 - 600

[Epicus Furor]

BTW at the moment i have a Dell Dimension 4100 but haven't used it for recording yet/nor would i dare try as it is so damm slowwwwww. I don't know the specs of it but it is pretty crappy, and no doubt useless for recording ..

[JESTER700]

Most stock Dells that I've seen were "deals" that had some issues associated with cheapness: integrated audio & video, few PCI slots, one shared (often slower) drive. And LOTS of shovelware. These things slow you down and make you sound crappy.

But cleaning out the crapware and unused programs & services, using a real graphic card to take the load off shared RAM, replacing the sound card with something better than "caca", and getting a second 7200 RPM drive can usually make these fine DAW machines. Of course, all the better if you can order/build it that way to begin with.

[nickcoumbe]

Try www.overclockers.co.uk

Mainly gaming machines, but high spec for reasonable prices

[Epicus Furor]

http://cgi.****.co.uk/DELL-DIMENSION...QQcmdZViewItem

What do you guys think of this? Would it be powerful enough for recording?

[klp2332]

noooo. not dells. dont fall into the trap.

They use dell configured motherboards, e.g. diffrent sockets, diffrent case mounting etc. If you want to upgrade later you wont be able too. Yes there cheap, but if your going pc, there are alot of options.
-www.ibuypower.com - they use alot of taiwan stuff, but besides from that everything is ok.
-build your self? - time consuming - quality might not be as good(but range from others shouldnt be too far)

I personally think for audio proccessing, that much ram isnt needed. 1GB would be already good, although todays average PC ram is 1GB. Audio doesnt take up too much ram. What are they?
OS = 256 Drivers = 20? Ultilities = 50? Misc = 50? Files = 5, 6MB per file + diffrent channels?. But 2GB is always better.


If your budget is more then enough. Then I say buy with these specs.

(partly quoted from my head, not accurate)
Intel Pentium D 940 Presler 800MHz FSB LGA 775 Dual Core, - 300 USD Go Intel forget AMD, AMD is never good with sound proccessing.
1GB DDR2 533MHZ - 80USD?? I say kingston on this one.
ASUS P5N32-SLI Deluxe Socket T (LGA 775) NVIDIA nForce4 SLI ATX Intel Motherboard - 200 USD
MSI NX7600GT-T2D256E Geforce 7600GT 256MB GDDR3 PCI-E - 180USD
Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeMusic Sound Card - Retail - 110USD
M-AUDIO FireWire 410 7.1 Channels Mobile Recording Interface - 400USD
Monitor 17inch - 180 USD??
Case + Fans + Mouse + Keyboard + etc 100

I assume you have headphones and other misc sound hardware

Total = 1550 USD (These prices are most likely higher)