New PC Recommendation

[lami]

It's time to buy a new PC! My 6-year-old, 2GHz P4 is ready for the retirement. My head is spinning trying to make sense of all the flavors of processors available now - Intel vs. AMD, and all the variants within ( Athlon, Phenom, dual-core, quad-core, etc.). Obviously, anything I buy today will be a vast performance improvement over my existing machine! I am not a gamer, but do have some requirements for good performance for image/video editing, and more specifically as a Digital Audio Workstation (DAW). I use FL Studio quite heavily. I want to get a brand-name machine for < $700. I built my last PC from components, but don't see any significant advantage to that now, especially at my price-point. Any suggestions? It seems that you would pay an slight premium for Intel, but it is worth it? I don't want to start an AMD vs Intel ware, just some pragmatic advice, please.

Thanks,

 

[p1n3apqlexpr3ss]

For digital audio stuff, the athlon quad series would be great for you and is pretty cheap as well, 100$

 

[enzo matrix]

I agree. An Athlon IIx3 series would serve you well also for $86 for the 3.0GHz version. I would recommend that along with a motherboard containing radeon 3200 or 4200 graphics. 4GB of memory. A decent WD black hard drive or samsung spinpoint F3. 400W corsair, antec earthwatts or OCZ power supply would serve you well. If you find you need more graphics power, you can upgrade the system with a radeon 4670 or 5670. Should come to less than $600 with a case and including the graphics card.

 

[obsidian86]

SAMSUNG Spinpoint F3 HD103SJ 1TB 7200 RPM

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822152185

SAPPHIRE 100287VGAL Radeon HD 5670

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102871

Antec Sonata III 500 Black 0.8mm cold rolled steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case 500W Power Supply

Sony Optiarc 24X DVD/CD Rewritable Drive Black SATA Model AD-7240S-0B - OEM

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.343567

Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit 1-Pack for System Builders

ASUS M4A77TD AM3 AMD 770 ATX AMD Motherboard

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.333259

OCZ Gold 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666) Desktop Memory Model

AMD Athlon II X4 620 Propus 2.6GHz Socket AM3 95W Quad-Core Processor Model ADX620WFGIBOX

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.326771

$657.92

 

[lami]

Thank you.