Tír Na HiFi

Thanks Dave, the 32' option might need to wait until I by my millionaire countryside pad. Like Ivor...

The problem I'm having now is trying to figure out what I actually need. It's really quite difficult to figure out what's "good enough" and while I'm not *too* price sensitive and want to future-proof myself as best I can, I don't want to throw good money after bad. The problem really is that the answer to what's necessary really depends on which organ you want to load and play, and at the moment I don't really know. For example, I've downloaded a trial version of the software which comes with a free organ sample set installed. It works absolutely fine on my ancient laptop, and that is a really really tired machine. That's made me wonder.

Can I ask a generic question without putting anyone on the spot: how much would you expect a "good" PC to cost. I know that's as bad as asking how much a hifi should cost, but for example I put a spec together on the Dell site for just under 2k Euro that I'm pretty sure would work fine (12th gen i5, 64GB RAM with 2 extra slots free, without screen), and while my budget would allow that, I don't know if it's mental money, normal money, whatever. If it's the kind of thing where I could save 200 Euro by putting it together myself, well, I'm not too bothered. If it's the kind of thing that screams "you don't need that much firepower, you could do this for a grand" then that's different. On the flip side, if you're thinking "hmmm, are you sure you don't want i7" or whatever, then ok. I know Dell is probably not the cheapest place to do this, but at least I can be sure that it will work! So yeah, a bit daunting is right.

Off the top of my head, 2k seems a lot but I dont know what exactly you need here. I take it you don't need a powerful GPU so I'm guessing an integrated CPU/GPU would do?
How many PCI-E lanes on the motherboard do you need?
I used to get a lot of my parts from overclockers.co.uk but Brexit put an end to that so I've used caseking.de since then.

So:
1. Motherboard
2. CPU
3. 65GB RAM
4. Power Supply (dont skimp here)
5. Tower case?

How CPU intensive is this SW you'll be running? In other words does it tax the CPU hard? If so, you might need an aftermarket cooler if it heats up the CPU a lot. The stock cooler (if it comes with one) tend to have limited capacity for cooling.
Does the PC need to run silently? (Would fans whirring away be an issue?)
Does it have to be Intel? AMD have been giving them a beating in recent years especially in some multi-core/multi-threaded apps so worth considering them. They tend to offer better value too.

I've probably added more confusion to your quest.

Diapason wrote: ↑Wed Jul 27, 2022 12:33 pm Thanks Dave, the 32' option might need to wait until I by my millionaire countryside pad. Like Ivor...

I will rent space in the far field if you're stuck. I like to call it my "small holding" and try to look ironic as I say it.

I'm appalled at my typo, je m'excuse. I don't deserve a country pile. Maybe just piles.

Dave you haven't added more confusion at all, quite the contrary. Maybe I'll contact you directly for further discussion tomorrow!

I always assemble my own PCs from off-the-shelf parts, so if you need any assistance, please feel free to contact me!