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Thread Computer Upgrade Dilemma

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1 Computer Upgrade Dilemma
Hi everyone,

The hard drive of my Dell desktop computer computer crashed the other day and i lost all the music i've ever made! This is not such a problem, as i'm confident that my greatest works are yet to come, however it leaves me with a dilemma.

The machine i was working on was a small dell desktop with a celeron processor and 1 gig of RAM. This was absolutely awful to produce music on in the first place, and I have been looking to upgrade for a while, now i guess i'm forced to! I was running Cubase SX 3.0 and mainly use their A1 Synth with Stylus RMX, Battery VST v 2.0 and Native Instruments Absynth (although there was no chance of using this after i'd inserted about 10 fx plugins as it just sucked up too much memory). Most of my effects plugins come from the Waves Diamond bundle. I also recently purchased an Alesis IO/2 Portable USB Audio Interface that i am going to use when i get this mess sorted.

So i took it to a local shop to ask if i could upgrade the processor and RAM (and to get the corrupted hard drive replaced, obviously). The guy at the shop told me i could upgrade the processor to an Intel Pentium 4 2.8 dual core processor and the the Ram to 4gig, together with a new 160gig hard drive for around £160, although he said it wasn't worth it, and he would recommend i get a NEWmachine with:

AMD Athlon 4200x2 Dual core
2gb ddr2 memory
320gb SATA hard disk drive
ATi 256mb video card
WIndows XP-Pro

for £ 225. This is where i was presented with my dilemma. First of all, which of the processors would be better for the programs i am going to run? Obviously i am tempted to upgrade my old machine to the Intel dual core processor as it's cheaper and i could also get twice as much RAM for a much better price.

I've researched both processors and i can't really work out which is better as they're both pretty old, and i'm not really sure whether it's the processor or more RAM that's more important in getting CUbase SX to run without any bleeps and glitches.

I'm now wondering whether i should just get a new computer with an up to date processor, but that will obviously cost a lot more (my budget is around £250), and it is quite possible that either of those processors, together with a lot or RAM, may be able to run Cubase and the VSTs i use pretty smoothly.

Does anyone know what i should do?

Thanks for your help in advance
2
Personally, i would go with a slightly older machine with lots of ram. I've noticed that you don't necessarily get so much better results with a faster cpu. and plus, cubase sx 3 isn't so new either... it should work fine. I myself took that option (slightly older cpu with a lot of ram) and i haven't regretted it. (but i don't use cubase, i use sonar)
3
Hi,
I don't know if you've bought your new computer yet, but I was in a similar situation, in that my old computer had to go and so I researched what was the best value for money to replace it.

I know that for most recording you will do on computer the best Windows operating system is XP, and which is also best for most DAWs, and other digital input/ musical equipment.

I got an AMD dual core with very similar specifications to what you described, for just under £250 and I have not regretted it. For recording you need loads of 'floating' (RAM) memory - that is the key thing...

Best of luck with your future projects!

Ajna. :D: