Help spec me a compact and quiet pc for use with Cubase

Salsa · 24 Jul 2013 at 13:00

My brother has asked me to build him a small desktop machine to replace his ageing and frankly monolithic Mesh machine.

He uses his machine for light surfing/word processing as well as watching the occasional movie. In addition he has recently been getting back into his music and wants to be able to use the machine with hic Cubase software package.

His current machine is running windows vista with an old Audigy card and the results in Cubase are just awful.

My plan was to do a prodigy build based on an i3 or FM2 platform but I have no idea on soundcards. Am I better off with a dedicated card or is onboard audio pretty good these days?

Does anyone have any suggestions for a build?

Thanks in advance

/Salsa

Salsa · 24 Jul 2013 at 13:43

Just looking for the base unit as I have an OS and he will re-use his current peripherals.

With regards to budget probably around the £500 mark which I think should be doable?

/Salsa

Salsa · 24 Jul 2013 at 14:10

My understanding is he mainly does composition using inputs from his midi kb using synths, midi etc as well as some recording from his electric guitar. No idea how many audio tracks concurrently unfortunately.

/Salsa

Salsa · 24 Jul 2013 at 19:57

Thinking an Intel quad will push the price up quite a bit? Going for an AMD quad would be similar performance to an Intel i3?

He doesn't do a whole lot of recording so I think an i3 would be ok, at least for now.

More looking for advice on a decent sound card for use with Cubase that doesn't cost £200+. Xonar or Creative?

/Salsa