New PC Suggestions

[Coul10]

Hey everyone. It's time for me to pick up a new PC. I was looking at the Dell Studio Hybrid but I'm scared of it's performance. Has anyone checked one of these out? I want a computer that I can use RiffWorks without any problems. If anyone has a suggestion on what to purchase would be greatly appreciated.

Bill

[Les]

Do you mean this? http://www.dell.com/hybrid?ST=yssp_feed&dgc=ST&cid=35219&lid=885461

[Coul10]

Yepper. That's the one. I like the look of it and the idea of saving space but I want it to be able to perform when I'm recording. Do you know anything about it or do you have any suggestions on what I should get?

[28if]

I agree it looks nice, but I would be concerned if down the road I wanted/needed to upgrade a component or add storage. But that is just me. If you are up to the task have you looked into building your own system. The process is very simple and you normally get more bang for the buck. Check out TigerDirect or Newegg - you can put together a box that will run circles around that Dell for for around 1/2 the price?

[samiller]

Do you mean this? http://www.dell.com/hybrid?ST=yssp_feed&dgc=ST&cid=35219&lid=885461

Eeek.. no.. look at the picture of the back of that thing. I don't think it would be very good as a DAW. Plus the other point made, if you wanted to upgrade there is no room for it. I just got a new Dell Inspiron. http://www.dell.com/content/products/productdetails.aspx/inspndt_530s?c=us&l=en&s=dhs&cs=19&~oid=us~en~29~inspndt_530s_anav1~~

It does a good job for me. It is not the BEST you can get, but for the price it is nice.

[Rotund]

I would go to some place like Fry's Electronics and build my own. If you already have a fairly recent case with 300 ( I think the standard now is 400 or 500) watts or more in the power supply upgrading the system board to ASUS w an Intel Core 2 min - check the FSB speed 1066 to 1600 min. and a min of 2GB of Ram. You can then build out storage in several different ways and afford a 21in or greater monitor ( should be less than 1G. If you already have a monitor and storage just make sure the board you get is compatable with SATA or IDE (depends on the Drives you have) and the video card and monitor need to match ( also you may not be able to reuse your RAM.) I started this way for less than $350.00 on the PC. I have upgraded several times over the years based on storage needed and speed required for the number of applications I am using at one time and it has cost me less of the last 5 years this way vs having to buy a whold new PC each time I don't get enough juice to drive my applications. (i.e. in two years you just change out basic systems for 1/3 of the total to buy a new one.)
If you already have an OS on your existing computer (XP) or greater then you can transfer the data at time of installation to your new storage. I have apprx 1.5 TB at this point. If replacing your existing is not an option you can still build from scratch and get what you want for less because you pick just what you need. There are usually a few people in the systems area that are fairly knowledgeable and any research you have to do in advance is better knowledge than comparing feature sets betweeen Dell and HP etc etc. Once you have built one you aare set as you can now expand as you need and not have to rely on the f..... big biz guys. If you have the cash and don't want the tech knowledge in regards to support then go with HP(compaq) has good quality and so does Dell and they will be in business to support their stuff for a while. Can't speak for quality of support as I do all of my own.

[pooterpatty]

I'm gonna get me one of these

[ShredRex]

I'm gonna get me one of these

OMG that was funny.......I will buy almost anything if is shiny and made by apple.........lol

Featuring the hummingbird battery........love it

[vad1er]

Hey everyone. It's time for me to pick up a new PC. I was looking at the Dell Studio Hybrid but I'm scared of it's performance. Has anyone checked one of these out? I want a computer that I can use RiffWorks without any problems. If anyone has a suggestion on what to purchase would be greatly appreciated.

Bill

LISTEN!!!! DON't BUY A DELL!!! THEY ARE CRAP!! I use to work for them.. Almost everything on them is pripritary-meaning only works with there stuff-
Go with Gatway, IBM, Sony ect...

Do what you want but I am sorry for you if you buy flimsey dell junk....

Check out computer geeks.com they have a quadcore Xeon on special for 1,500.00
4 gigs of ram 2 ssci 10,000 rpm harddrives... This is a music PC... Unless you are a video gammer(graphics cards for servers bite) this is a bad to the bone deal...

[ShredRex]

I happen to like my Dell XPS.....lol

[Alex003]

hahaha that was funny pooter

[pooterpatty]

I used to have a guy build all my graphics workstations. I'd just call with a laundry list of parts and he'd build it, usually for half of what I'd pay in the stores buying from one of the "big guys" (Dell, Gateway, etc). There are system builders online who will do the same thing now.

When I last called my buddy to have him build another machine for me, he'd said he'd gone out of business because these system builders were undercutting him on price by so much, so that may be an option. The best part is you can select only what parts you want.

Sure there's lots of people who are happy with their Dells and Gateways. But my experience with them mirrors vader's. Lots of crap you don't need, proprietary parts, and little room for upgrades. Not to mention customer service from Bangladesh

[Les]

I need more horsepower,gotta get this.

[Charvelguy]

Apple reinvents the wheel..., the Macnano was a good skit too but not as well done as the wheel.


Dell 'used' to more be proprietary.. tho more recently have gone away from that on towers. Nowadays, they are using boards and power supplies that are swappable with aftermarket manufacturers...and actually, in defense of them, with substancial coupon discounts in terms of instant and 'double up's', on a system costing over a grand you can knock off close to half.
I found Gateway to be far more proprietary than Dell, especially in concern to Windows software.

Where Dell can easily excel in a package deal is they get their product from MS on a mass discount. So your operating systems when they are on special are a pretty good deal as opposed to outright buying new OS software. Monitors too don't cost Dell that much to manufacture and they can offer great reductions on setups.

If you don't feel like putting a computer together, I would use an XPS - no problem.

That being said, to answer Bill's query, all will run RW. I personally would prefer the T5800 or T8100 (two most right options)
This form factor is now like the mini mac desktops...and not to far derived from the small desktops People who want to mod the mini macs with their (like a simple ram upgrade) own upgrades are swearing at Apple when they try to pry it apart..
I imagine it would be much the same with this.
I imagine it would perform much the same as a laptop with similar specs.
Course...you may also run into some heat issues.

Personally, for Dell, I shop Techbargains.com for their latest offerings. They have had some great deals in the past 6 months....especially with double up on coupons. HP too had some great deals....though, I'm not a big fan of HP.
With the way tech is advancing, USB 3.0 will be out in less than two years..and hi buck DDR3 will be the new inexpensive ram by then.
The value on a little desktop like this will drop a lot in a very short time.
In fact most technology is really devalued within 6 - 12 months as far as demanding prices.

I can set you up with a parts list though Bill if you want to build your own...its really not hard at all. If I can, you can too.

I have a few things the thing in mind and it would be energy conservative as well as great performing PC in a mini tower or mini desktop form factor.
Most expensive things out there are the intel processors nowadays.
170 for a Q6600.
Lower end dual cores are very affordable. Allendales up to 2.3ghz going for 65.

Most bargain motherboards that will be mini ATX are well under 60.
Some are with decent onboard video.. so no cost of a vid card.
Zotac has a really good one with onboard vid and decent onboard audio.
Power supply.. a green 420w or even 380w Antec capable of powering a sole 8800...another 30-50 for the PS
Some 'now outdated' 256-512 8800 GS or GTS are now 75.00 or less.
Case.. easily 30-50...with 1394 firewire hookup.
Ram...2-4gb DDr2 800 with 1000mhz or more... 30-70
Hard drive, I just bought a 640gb 32mb cache 7200 rpm sata 3.0 drive for 65.00...more than enough space and speed.
DVD writer 2.0, with software...25.00
Windows Vista OS... 80 on sale.

These are all recent Newegg prices. So, a relative good functional bare minimum without additional audio card or video (using onboard) 350-400.
A shuttle with a lower end 945G (older, but still a good one tho)... you could get a nice little system running a 2.1 allendale, 2gb ram and Vista for a little over 250.00.

Some places like Tiger Direct offer very nice bulk packages selling motherboards, & processor, as well some offering ram, and PS or case at greatly reduced prices.

[GuitarSlinger]

Just make sure whatever you get will run the Line6 stuff or whatever your using for sound. Riffworks likes memory and Vista LOVES lots of memory. But really your just ercording one track at a time, so you dont need alot.

I paid $3,000 for a high end gaming computer about 5 to 6 years ago, all aftermarket products, upgradability, yada yada yada. But right after I got it, everything changed to PCIE and Dual Cores and faster cards, kinda of a pisser, the only thing I can really keep when I upgrade is the case.