Seeking advice for buying a PC

[drolo]

I have been using the same imac since 2006 and have always been pretty happy with its performance but in the last year or so it has really begun to feel outdated. For one thing bloody apple wont allow upgrading the OS and no further updates are offered anymore, which is a shame, as the machine itself is still doing ok... lots of software is not supporting the OS I'm stuck with any longer (java for example)

So now I am looking into replacing it, after much thought I am set on getting a desktop PC. But not having paid ANY attention to what came and went to the computer market since 2006 ... I guess my knowledge is as outdated as my poor imac .. :-)

I would rather remain under the 400-500 Euro-ish for the budget.
So what would be the best options for a PC that will serve for music production (I don't use too many VST's), occasional video editing and the usual web and office based stuff?

Ideally I would like something that I could upgrade easily as time goes by and not be stuck like I am at the moment with the imac.

I keep reading quite contradictory opinions on various forums (surprise ...) about whether to get an i5 or i7. So I'm not too sure if it's worth getting something more expensive with an i7 or if I will be more prone to need upgrading if I go with an i5. Right now in my head I am sounding like an angry old scotsman shouting "arrhhh me eyes are burning, will you people come to an agreement or I'll give you a slap on the ear!!!"

I know my requirements are quite vague (and possibly unrealistic?), but I guess I just need some kind of starting point :-)

[gtr2]

Either build a PC or buy another mac used....  I just upgraded my 2011 iMac with a SSD and a HDD and I couldn't be happier.  In my experience they are hard to kill and the hard drives have always been the week link.

[Jabulani Jonny]

Said before and I'll say again, why choose?  Hackintosh

Mine has been rock solid since 2011 and I'm getting ready to update parts & OS.  This is something that deserves consideration. 

[matmosphere]

The Mac has lasted nearly ten years, I don't think you'll get that kind of lifetime out of any pc. I know it's frustrating to see it become outdated, but there's a lot of value in a computer that can hold up for that long. Too be fair, I haven't used an pc in many years so maybe things have changed a bit.

[HamSandwich]

I finished my first PC build a few months ago. Besides some OP problems, I couldn't be happier, but that's a whole rabbit hole you might not want to get in to.

I have used and had heard and seen quite a few good reviews of IBUYPOWER PC's, however; whether they are available in Europe, I am unsure. They are sold at quite a few places - newegg.com being on of them.

As far as what you missed, I'm not a huge computer affcianado, but I think AMD is getting close to going Mano a mano with Intel, especially when you factor in price. Based on using the same system for 8 years, it doesn't sound like you're big on upgrading things, which I believe is AMD's current biggest problem. Something about certain lines being not-future proof as far as upgrading only the CPU.

[Martan]

Might still be more than you want to spend, but a mac mini running windows could work well.

[drolo]

thanks for all the suggestions :-)
Buiding it myself looks tempting. Obviously selecting good stuff can end up with a killer config but it's also more than what I was planning on spending.

Hackintosh are cool too but I think I could live without using a mac altogether.

At the moment I think I will be looking into second hand stuff, could be a PC but why not a mac ...

I just saw this one:
http://www.befr.ebay.be/itm/Apple-Mac-Mini-Server-2-53GHZ-Intel-Core-2-Duo-4GB-1TB-A1283-MC408-Late-2009-/121875652412?hash=item1c605adf3c:g:GgMAAOSwl9BWM3L9

would you reckon this could be an OK config?
The price seems ok

[m-Kresol]

I'm a mac user myself atm and have a windows PC at work. It think both sides have their pros and cons. Obviously, the price on macs is outrageous, but I found them to be more userfriendly as software and hardware are better matched to each other. Downside again, you won't find all of the software you need, but that depends of course on what you're intending to do with it.
anyways, I think my next pc will be linux based. I only use my private pc for web browsing, graphics design in gimp and little bit of office, so I can do everything of that without apple pricing and nerve wrecking MS office (not that iWorks is any better fwiw)

[EBRAddict]

Unless you are into multi-threaded computing (like crunching prime numbers) or keeping large # of windows open at once, the i7 isn't worth the extra money vs. i5. I still have an i5-750 from 2008 and its still a good machine.

Unless you are gaming don't overspend on a video card. Most non-gaming apps don't require expensive video. I use a couple USB video cards from Pluggable at work for extra screens and I can even watch some OpenGL simulations on those. The built-in Intel HD3000/HD4000 video on most of the new chips is pretty good for all-around graphics.

[gtr2]

Mac mini is one of the better deals out there.  I bought a used one for my work for a certain application.

[peAk]

I have been building hi-end PC DAWs for over a decade now and I can tell you this: You are going to get more opinions on this topic than you will ever be able to process.... so I will keep mine simple.

Whether or not you decide on a i5 or i7, it's not that important because you will work within your limits and most DAW software now a days have ways to cope with power (freeze, render to audio, etc.)

1. Go with SSD for you main operating system drive. This makes all the difference in the world. Have another disk (or two!) for everything else. SATA is fine for your storage, read/write, ...just make sure it's a fast drive. Personally I like Western Digital Blacks for my large disks but they are pricey.

2. Personally, I wouldn't go with anything less than 16gb of ram. Less might be fine but if you are using large sample libraries in samplers like Kontakt, you will want more. 

3. Make sure that whatever audio interface you go with has solid drivers. Read as many reviews on this as possible. Can't get anything done with sh!tty drivers.

4. Don't overthink it. Whatever you buy will be outdated tomorrow. Chances are you will be happy with anything so long as it's stable.


and contrary to what Matmosphere said (hehe), I have PC daws that are still running after 15 years!! I am a fan of PC because YOU CAN upgrade unlike mac. It's always surprises me to see DIY guys that like macs. 

[matmosphere]

I'm sure there are some PCs that can hold up like that, but I don't think the average one would by any means. At least they didn't used to. Macs age fairly gracefully. I had a Sony laptop running xp and it was almost completely unusable by the five year mark. Same with my wife's old xp laptop. Those were l5 last experiences with pcs though.

I don't get the whole Macs aren't upgradeable thing. I've had several. The memory on my MacBook pro was extremely easy to upgrade as was the hard drive. Their towers are designed to be easily upgraded. The first version of the Mac mini, like the one David was looking at, is fairly easy to do memory and hard drive upgrade.

The new Mac mini is a total pain to upgrade. Then there are the IMacs, they aren't easy to get into (it's a total pain) but on most if you can get in there you can swap stuff out.

I think part of the appeal of Macs is osx. It's incredibly stable.

I should say, I don't have anything against pcs, I've just had better luck with the Macs I've owned. As long as it does what I need it to do I wouldn't care where it came from. It's not like the question of Fender vs Gibson or anything.   

[peAk]

Oh yeah, I think for buying a ready to go computer, nothing beats a Mac.

That said, you don't build a Mac from the ground up. The other thing that bothers me about Mac is that they are overpriced. You can usually buy a much more powerful pc for what you pay for a Mac.

What I do like about Macs is that the configurations are few so the stability is great. This used to be more important when Windows sucked really bad but it's not as big of an issue since XP and beyond.

[kgull]

As a suggestion, try linux on your old mac. Ubuntu is a great linux distro if you've never used linux before. Might help breathe a bit of new life into an old machine.

[Jabulani Jonny]

It's always surprises me to see DIY guys that like macs. 

Doubly so, it surprises me that more DIY guys don't get their hands dirty with Hackintosh's.  You get the power of a Mac Pro, the ease of use of OSX, but the price of a PC.  I mean, that's pretty much all I'm ever looking for. 

I have nothing against Windows and even thought about just going back to PC, but I use Logic just about exclusively for DAW and Final Cut X for video stuff.  I could go with Pro Tools, but I really am just not up for making that switch right now. 

I have a Hack that I built in 2011, built on a Gigabyte X58 board with an i7 950.  I have two SSD's for OS, and 3 1TB drives in RAID for storage.  Admittedly I'm still running Mavericks, but this thing has been solid through several upgrades and it still churns through projects.

Like peAk said, you'll get a bunch of opinions on this.  Building a PC (Hack) isn't difficult, seriously.  The Hackintosh community has gotten this down to a science.  You just take it slow, follow their guides and you can get it going. 

Just my .02