Refurbished Windows 10 Laptop Spec for DAW??

[MikeN]

1. Have been recommended i7 quad core (even as far back as 2nd generation) as being good for DAW purposes (Dell Precision 4600)...with 8Gb RAm (minimum). I'd go for at least 16Gb RAM. Also Definitely SSD (not HDD)

2. Would this be better or worse or about the same if I was to consider an i5 (4th generation or 5th generation) with 16Gb of RAM and SSD.
Even if this was worse than the i7 quad core 2nd generation -
would i5 (4th generation or 5th generation) with 16Gb of RAM and SSD be a decent platform for DAW purposes ??
(Dell Latitude OR HP Elitebook (or Probook) OR Lenovo Thinkpad T400 or T500 range)

Likely to be using Reaper for recording mixing indie/guitar-based music - probably up to around 24-ish tracks (maybe a few more)...

Very keen to know about the machine spec in point 2 above!!!

Big thanks

Mike N

[John Egan]

[quote="MikeN"]

Likely to be using Reaper for recording mixing indie/guitar-based music - probably up to around 24-ish tracks (maybe a few more)... [quote]

I would seriously doubt that an i5 would handle a 24 track mix with plugins and effects.

Hopefully, some of the more knowledgable people here will be along to advise you.

Regards, John

[James Perrett]

I can do a 24 track mix on my ancient 2004 vintage Acer Sempron based laptop if I stick to Reaper's own effects and avoid convolution reverbs. The i5 will probably be fine for basic mixes but you may need something with more power if you are using processor hungry effects at high sample rates.

[MikeN]

I can do a 24 track mix on my ancient 2004 vintage Acer Sempron based laptop if I stick to Reaper's own effects and avoid convolution reverbs. The i5 will probably be fine for basic mixes but you may need something with more power if you are using processor hungry effects at high sample rates.

Assuming I stick to 16Gb of RAM as a minimum and stick to SSD drives :

What is the minimum spec Intel processor (the "i" number PLUS the generation number please)...that I could reliably use to allow a 24 track mix and not to worry too much about how hungry the effects are I would want to use.
But I obviously wouldn't go totally crazy/mad with very hungry effects either......

Thanks again!

Mike N

[ef37a]

Mike N is the price putting you off an i7? If so you could perhaps economize on the SSD?
240G would surely be big enough for a music only machine? An external 1TB USB 3.0 can be used to keep the internal drive clear, you should be backing up stuff regularly anyway.

I remember reading a technical roundup of people in the digital audio industry and they all agreed that a fast processor was the main requiement for glitch free audio.

Choice of AI is important too, few AIs are as CPU efficient as RMEs (though my KA6 seems pretty good)

Dave.

[manwilde]

FWIW, I´ve been running Reaper on a win7 i5 8Gb RAM + RME UFX or Babyface for the past 8 years or so with no problems at all. 20-40 tracks, but I don´t use fancy plugins for the most part. If the session is very crowded with FX I might have to freeze EZDrummer or print a convolution reverb, but normally just increasing the buffer size reliefs the stress.

[MikeN]

All

Big thanks for info so far....

I am on a bit of a budget...around £400....maybe a tad more....
So l'm looking at re-furbished machines to get a spec that I think is going to be ok.

So that's why I asked my question.....
(Obviously if the minimum spec I need is costs less than my budget - I can improve on the spec...and spend a little more! )

"Assuming I stick to 16Gb of RAM as a minimum and stick to SSD drives :
What is the minimum spec Intel processor (the "i" number PLUS the generation number please)...that I could reliably use to allow a 24 track mix and not to worry too much about how hungry the effects are I would want to use.
But I obviously wouldn't go totally crazy/mad with very hungry effects either......"

Thanks again !!

Mike N

[James Perrett]

It is really difficult to answer unless we know what plug-ins you are planning on using. If you stick to Reaper's plug-ins then virtually anything that can run Windows 10 will be sufficient. Do you need to run amp models or virtual instruments in real time? If so, you probably ought to focus on which machines will give you low latency.

[MikeN]

It is really difficult to answer unless we know what plug-ins you are planning on using. If you stick to Reaper's plug-ins then virtually anything that can run Windows 10 will be sufficient. Do you need to run amp models or virtual instruments in real time? If so, you probably ought to focus on which machines will give you low latency.

Hi James

I have never done recording/mixing on a computer before - so don't know what amp models or virtual instruments I would be using.
OR if I would use them in real time or not.

Let's say I wanted to run amp models for electric guitar in real time. And would want to play say a virtual piano or fender rhodes or hammond organ in real time....
Would also want to use some kind of virtual drums and the odd bit of percussion...

Assuming I'm looking at around 24 tracks for the above with lead vocals and some backing vocals/harmonies in places...

In this kind of scenario - would the following laptop spec cope ok without too much trouble....i7-4810MQ (2.80GHz) and 16gb of RAM??

Thanks

Mike N

[James Perrett]

In this kind of scenario - would the following laptop spec cope ok without too much trouble....i7-4810MQ (2.80GHz) and 16gb of RAM??

I would have said that would be plenty of power - certainly faster than the system that I use here.

[ef37a]

But! "Circumstances alter cases"

I can no longer remember the number of posts I have read of people having problems with their computers, even though they were far better paper spec' than the one I used.

That was an i3 HP g6 laptop with 8G ram and a 360G 5400rpm HDD. That would run 20 tracks of Cubase without a glitch with my KA6. Ok I did not have loads of plugs running but still, not bad for an old i3? Win 7 64 btw.

If you are buying a refurb' you are going to get W10 and all the junk. I am not confident enough to clear that all out of this Lenovo T510 (I have removed the 'free' anti V and just use Ms SE and a sweep with Malwarebytes free about once a month) You should do that if you want the best performance I think.

Dave.

[CS70]

2. Would this be better or worse or about the same if I was to consider an i5 (4th generation or 5th generation) with 16Gb of RAM and SSD.

It's hard to say in general terms, because it's like asking if a car with a 2500cc engine would be able to track Monza in less than 2:15, vs a car with a 1800cc. It depends on a lot of other stuff.

As main music computer I have an i5 49005 with SSD and 16Gb RAM and I can run 40-50 track mixes with loads of plugins with no problems and record with a 32 samples buffer and 4ms roundtrip latency if I so wish. It is well optimized but otherwise a relatively run of the mill machine.

So in principles there is no problem, but a different computer, especially a laptop, might behave a bit differently. When I make demos I have usually four or five sample-based soft synths playing back at the same time without any problem.

Obviously resource hogs may occasionally force a freeze on large project (say over 30-35 tracks, stuff like Ozone 5 and anything by Acustica for example, but it's the rare occasion.

I think you start needing more firepower when you get up to 100 tracks or, so, which means saving everything and their sister in the session. At that point also the DAW you use, I guess, starts to make a difference but it's not a common occurrence for me.

[DanR]

would i5 (4th generation or 5th generation) with 16Gb of RAM and SSD be a decent platform for DAW purposes ??

Yes, should do fine. I use an Acer i5 with 8gb ram for Cubase and occasionally Reaper.
Mostly VSTi recording with Halion Sonic 3 and EZ Drummer 2.

[uselessoldman]

if someone was to ask me whats the most important spec for DAW/Audio recording its a case of now and if you plan on using and installing vst/kontakt libraries.

Seriously I would recommend an old surface pro, touch screen yummy !! Try and get a laptop with the highest resolution possible, connecting to a 4k screen with a GPU with 4k drivers gets you 4k, EVEN if the monitor/TV is supposed to only be 1080i it will almost always go to 4k over HDMI. Many lap[top screen are lower resolution than the actual gpu inside will go to so connecting to an external monitor will give you higher resolution

nvme/SSD is certainly nice to have and highly recommended but not critical

as much ram as you can fit in, Audio recording just loves RAM more so than CPU raw power

extra hard drives??? good question cos sound banks libraries etc can eat up a lot of memory/hard drive space.

[ef37a]

Caution! Old amp, valvejockey about to opine...

A feature in a top magazine (!) a few years ago of 1/2 doz top people in music/computer tech gave the opinion that a fast processor was THE most vital component in a music PC.

Doubtful if you need more than 16G of ram and 8 will probably be fine unless you have massive projects or want to do 4k video. Do not forget, extra ram makes things run hotter (and thus can throttle the CPU) eating into battery time. Note too that ram SPEED can be AS important as quantity. I can run the demo tracks in AA1.5 or Samplitude ProX5 or 20+ tracks of Cubase on an i3 HP with 8G of ram and that hits about 60% ram usage.

I would consider an SSD as vital, especially for Win 10 as the OS 'expects' the HDD to be SS. SSDs also help with memory as they are so fast. Low power draw and dead silent.

Dave.

[ajay_m]

Mobile core I7 devices are fairly heavily thermally throttled because the power and cooling budget in mobile devices is pretty tight. As a consequence they do not offer a huge performance jump from the i5 devices, typically 20% more.
[core i7 devices were offered by vendors in many cases so that senior people in an organisation could purchase a 'top spec' laptop even though they only surf the net].

However core count is probably more important. Some Core i5 mobile devices have only two physical cores and Windows along with its applications runs optimally with 4 cores or more (there are internal Windows subsystems like DirectDraw which do not work optimally with 2 cores).
This chart https://www.intel.com/content/dam/suppo ... -Chart.pdf can be useful to compare the various Intel mobile processors.

I would therefore think a four physical core i5 would not be a bad option to be honest. 8G of RAM is adequate but a lot of modern sample libraries are happy to chew up a lot of memory, so 16G is certainly worth considering.
Windows uses unused memory for file caching, so extra memory can be beneficial in many ways, Memory is also very cheap - I just upgraded my Acer v3-571 to 16G (2 X 8g sticks) for only £60 - you have to check of course that the laptop supports this much memory first.

Most laptops with an accessible HDD can easily have this replaced with an SSD. It is easiest to replace like with like e.g a 1T HDD -> 1T SSD. The free Macrium Reflect software will clone the HDD so that you can just replace it with the SATA SSD and reboot.

Be aware though that currently used laptops command premium prices due to the pandemic, so older machines are not the bargain they were 18 months ago. However, older machines often support removable batteries, removable hard drives and upgradeable memory, which makes them a good choice for this application.

[ef37a]

Getting on a bit but I have a refurbed Lenovo T510 i7 with 8 G ram and SSD Win 10. Set me back just short of £400.

Very solidly built machine but then I did not want anything portable.

Oops! Will take 16G max.

Dave.

[ajay_m]

I see that someone recommends a used Surface Pro. I do have one of these (core i5, 8G, 256G SSD) and it is capable of pretty decent performance running Reaper though I haven't loaded it up with 24 tracks). However I did find I needed to hack around in the registry to enable a power plan that didn't allow the CPU down to its minimum clock speed (0.9GHz). With all the power-saving malarkey enabled I had glitches and pops galore. And out of the box the more advanced power options were hidden, hence the registry hacking.

The main studio machine is an Acer v3-571g laptop and this has done sterling service (core i7, now updated to 16G with a 1T Samsung SSD replacing the stock HDD) for many years. It should be possible to have 4 or so tracks with virtual instruments and plugins and then the rest as just audio tracks, people were routinely mixing down more than 24 tracks of audio on much slower CPUs years ago. You can always freeze tracks, as you said, to get the CPU down.

[CS70]

Just for simplicity, one can use the free ParkControl utility to do these config changes, same job but feels less hacking. https://bitsum.com/parkcontrol/

As for memory, it depends on whether or not you use synths. One mix I just did needed three or four synths - drum reinforcement, bass reinforcement, backing vocals, and the session alone when running is around 8Gb

More memory is always good if you are mixing on the same machine you record on.