Music Production PC

[AgedIdiot]

Have a friend who has asked for assistance in building a new pc - basically what he likes to do is make and record music. (internet+emails and a very occasional game)
The 'new' machine he linked me to was one with basic spec of i5 6400 cpu , no graphics card , Asus Micro atx Z170M motherboard , 4gb ddr 2400 ram, 60gb ssd case , windows 10- 64 bit + be quiet 450 psu.
He asked if I could spec him a similar machine but cheaper. I mentioned that I could sell him my 'old' but fully functioning box and he has said he would like to do so - I do NOT want to rip him off so just wanted to check if my belief that my machine would do the job and is better than the one he linked me to is correct. (and that 'my thinking ref windows is correct)
To mention that the price I have quoted is approx 35% of what the new one would cost him.
Cheap Silverstone case with front and rear 120mm fans
Antec 550w modular psu
MSI P67A- GD65 Board
i5 2500K (currently clocked at 4ghz)
8gb Gskill DDR3 1600 ram (4 x 2GB)
Either 128gb Samsung 830 or 256 Samsung Evo 240 (I mentioned the former but remembered that I also have the latter - spare)
750 gb WD Black HD
His Ice Q X Turbo - 6950 2gb (running at standard His clocks)

I am cooling the cpu with an old Corsair H60 and would be happy to include it BUT I have doubts that he will maintain properly so am thinking of buying a simple (QUIET!!) , cheap Air cooler - any recommendations?

O.S. - I have windows 10 on the machine at the moment - it was a free upgrade from windows 7. Friend wants windows 7 and my thought is that I could do a clean install of the windows 7 disc that was originally installed which should both clean my ssd (I am very concerned that my 'details' are cleaned off and could not be retrieved and assume that a fresh install will give this result - correct?) and give him the windows 7 64bit system he is looking for - again, correct ?

Thoughts very much appreciated

n.b. he has mentioned that it has to be asios (or something like that- something to do with sound recordings/music production?) compliant

 

[robfosters]

If he's using recording multiple audio tracks or using lots of VST's, it may be worth him spending a bit extra for an i7.

To be honest, your spec is well adequate for music production. Maybe he could buy everything apart from the CPU and grab an i7 2600 second hand?

ASIO is not a problem. Any decent USB audio interface or sound card will have ASIO compatible drivers.

 

[Cern]

His new spec PC needs at least 8GB ram to be viable and the 60GB SSD is too small for Windows + apps (sound software often has a lot of libraries). Also there's no additional storage which will rapidly become an issue when recording sound files.

Your system looks much better balanced and will definitely get your friend up and running. He just needs to add a USB audio interface (or sound card) which will give him the ASIO support he needs.

I had an old Q6600 8GB system which ran sound software just fine. To be frank, my new 6700k 32GB system doesn't do things that much better. A bit, but not significantly so, at least not until I start layering up a very large number of tracks or using a large number of plugins etc. But in sensible usage, the Q6600 did just fine.

In my experience, much of how well any given system handles sound recording is down to the USB audio interface (or sound card) and the latency it allows and how good the driver support is for ASIO etc.