Spec me a 'Cubase' Box

AgedIdiot

AgedIdiot

AgedIdiot

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Been asked by a friend for advise as to suitable hardware to run the music program 'Cubase'

As I build for general use /fun/gaming , I have no idea what to recommend.:(

Thoughts of anyone who uses the program?

BTW my friend is not into gaming and would look to keep costs down.:)
 
Not sure about budget .

To me it boils down to choices :-

AMD or Intel - for gaming I would go for the latter but AMD might be as good/better for what he is looking to use it for ? AND it would be cheaper :)

GPU - for what he intends to use it for would not on-board be good enough?

(As a starter what about an A10 Apu ? - powerful enough + semi decent graphics ?)

Best motherboard - to be thought about after deciding on cpu/apu

N.B. he will not be clocking

RAM - would 8 gb be enough or much better with 16 or better again with 32gb - best compromise of speed increase and quantity ?

HD - any major advantage in going ssd? Again best compromise ref speed/size/cost (Hybrid a good cheaper choice for him?)

Windows 7 or 8 - any partic. variety ?

And , last, a link to a pre-built system that would cope would help; if such exists

Sorry to be asking so many ?'s - I thought I'd finished with the basic ?'s after I had completed my 3rd (approx) build :o
 
swiftmetal said:
cubase does not take up too many systems resorces maybe get more ram than usual and get a good sounds card and some good speakers.
Click to expand...

Souncard - Asus or Creative ? best compromise of performance and cost?



Speakers - Edifier R1600T ? - best compromise of performance and cost ?
 
Most plugins on Cubase (and other music producing software) eat CPU & RAM, so get the fastest and most you can within budget.

Not too sure about threading (would depend on version he's using) so quad core should be enough...
 
Iv just build my cusion a pc for cuebase use.
Depending how much effexts and editing hes goingnto be doing he will need a lot of ram and cpu power.

This is the system i built.
Amd 8320
12gb ddr3 1600 ram
Asus m5a97 board (needs bios update for fx chip)
Seagate 7200rpm 750gb hdd (songs are 20gb+ once rendered)

Once hea got a song open hes recording. And all the effecta on and mixingnetc etc its using about 90% cpu and 70% ram.

With this system he can now recors with all the effects on. When before on a dual core with 4gb of ram he couldnt. He had to record it plain. Then apply all the effecta etc etc.

Hope this helps.
 
AgedIdiot said:
Souncard - Asus or Creative ? best compromise of performance and cost?



Speakers - Edifier R1600T ? - best compromise of performance and cost ?
Click to expand...

My cusion is using an old creative sb audigy 2 with the drive input box.

And it works perfectly.

You can pick them up on ebay for about 30 quid which is peanuts.
 
look at this for an entry level spec

YOUR BASKET
1 x AMD A8-6600K 3.90GHz (Socket FM2) APU Richland Quad Core Processor (AD660KWOHLBOX) £99.95
1 x Gigabyte F2A85XM-D3H AMD A85X Chipset (Socket FM2) DDR3 micro ATX Motherboard £61.99
1 x Seagate Barracuda 7200RPM 1TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (ST1000DM003) HDD £47.99
1 x TeamGroup Elite 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C11 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (TED38GM1600HC11DC01) £47.99
1 x OcUK Crusade 550W Dual-Rail High Efficiency '80 Plus' Power Supply £43.99
1 x Asus Xonar DS 7.1 PCI Sound Card £39.98
1 x Xigmatek Asgard Midi Tower Case - Black £28.99
1 x OcUK 20x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £16.99
Total : £401.98 (includes shipping : £11.75).



it is entry level but could do the job and i have gone for the apu series chips which means that there is no need for a graphics card.

the best improvements if cost allows would come from better processor the A 10 possible for faster performance and also 16gb of ram for the extra filters that will need to be applied.

An ssd for faster data manipulation and access times a 60 gb one would be ok at a push but would recommend 120gb models to be on the safe side and then you could transfer the finished data to the hdd.

But this spec does include A good sound card which would improve the quality of the audio output if your friend is more of a purist.

To be noted that you would need the added expense of and operating system and any speakers that you would need and the like but this was just to show you the very entry level spec of a system that would cope with cubase.

Hope that this helps.
 
Friend advised that he hoped to use his existing laptop but:-

Would involve a ram 'upgrade' from 4gb 667 DDR 2 to 8gb of same - having scanned a little it does appear that 4gb sticks are not numerous and are expensive + as I have not been able to find any 8gb kits there is a ? as to wether 2 sticks from same manufacturer will play together (should , I know but....)

and

He has been recommended a M-Audio 1010LT pci card - which will NOT fit in a laptop - Am I missing something? or is it a simple mismatch ?

Alternative's ?
 
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