upgrading

Hi all,

I have just about raked enough money together to upgrade an old pc I own.
I am writing dance tracks on fruity loops on an average laptop but the cpu keeps on overloading when using multiple vsts.
Could anyone let me know what the most important parts are when creating a music desktop?
Im thinking a descent soundcard- sugest a certain spec?
alot of ram
fast processor.

I dont think I can afford all these at top spec so which are the most important?

thanks to all replys

 

Soundcard wise I would go for a creative X-fi Xtreme Audio. These are some of the best cards on the market.

 

You will need a dual-core CPU with 2GB RAM for sure. As pre-built systems are quite inexpensive ATM you should be able to get a good deal. Also, you will be getting Windows 7 pre-installed so make sure your software has upgrades($) for that. I'll leave the sound card out so that someone more experienced than I can answer. A very decent one the SoundBlaster X-Fi but that's just a regular sound card and you might need something more.

 

Thanks for your comments guys
What do i need with the motherboard? I.e cpu and processor
and does the hard drive make any difference as I was thinking of putting the old 40gig one out of my old pc (about 9 years old)?

cheers

 

Hard drive wise:
1. 40GB is nothing these days.
2. A 9 year old hard drive is very very likely to fail sometime soon as the average life expectancy of a drive is 5 years.
3. a hard drive that old is likely to be IDE, and most modern hard drives have the newer and faster SATA interface, also most modern motherboards only have 1 IDE connector supporting 2 IDE devices.

As for the motherboard, I would personally go for something like this: http://www.ebuyer.com/product/167782

Please note I do not recommend that particular board, I was just giving a suggestion of the kind of things to look for.

As for the processor, get the best one you can afford, but make sure the socket type matches the motherboard you have chosen. Post a link to both back here if you are unsure and someone will check if they are comaptible for you.

For your information, a CPU is a processor. CPU is short for Central Processing Unit