KVR Audio

Trevor Jackson · Post by **Trevor Jackson** » Thu Dec 06, 2012 9:21 am

For instance, How does this look? What would I be missing?

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/SAMSUNG-QUAD ... 213wt_1137

Quick Spec:
Ø Intel 2nd Generation Core i7-2670QM processor (2.2 GHz with Turbo Boost up to 3.1GHz, 6MB L3 cache)

Ø Genuine Microsoft® Windows® 7 Home Premium 64 bit

add $49 upgrade to Windows 8 Pro
Ø 8GB Fast DDR3 RAM (upgraded from Factory fit 4GB)

Ø Huge 750 GB Hard Drive

Ø Nvidia GT520 with 1GB of dedicated DDR3 VRAM

Ø 15.6" LED widescreen, 1366 x 768 pixel resolution.

Ø Super Multi DVD+/-RW

Ø Built-In Webcam

Ø HDMI™ port with HDCP support

Ø BlueTooth 3.0 built-in, 802.11a/b/g/N Wireless Lan,

Ø 1 years Samsung pickup repair and return Warranty.

re*MD9@3!Tm^ · Post by **re*MD9@3!Tm^** » Thu Dec 06, 2012 10:17 am

My reasons not to buy that:

- Bright screen
- Only USB 2.0, only 3 ports (I have lots of gear to connect, even with a hub), USB 3 is ten times faster (e.g. for External Sample Libraries)
- No SSD.
- Dedicated grafics (would not waste my money on that for a DAW notebook).

chrisby · Post by **chrisby** » Thu Dec 06, 2012 10:27 am

Slickdeals.net go to the hot deals forum... Often better deals than anything on ebay unless you're looking for old hw.

Trevor Jackson · Post by **Trevor Jackson** » Thu Dec 06, 2012 11:19 am

Thanks for the responses. I didn't notice the USB 3 omission. How do you know the screen is too bright? What are dedicated graphics and how do I avoid? How does a DAW use SSD? I'll take a look at Slickdeals but I live down under in OZ which is a factor.

deleted · Post by **deleted** » Thu Dec 06, 2012 11:25 am

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Trevor Jackson · Post by **Trevor Jackson** » Thu Dec 06, 2012 11:59 am

How about this beast?

http://www.gumtree.com.au/s-ad/rosebery ... 1008514356

or this --

http://www.gumtree.com.au/s-ad/sydney-c ... 1008469784

re*MD9@3!Tm^ · Post by **re*MD9@3!Tm^** » Thu Dec 06, 2012 3:00 pm

Trevor Jackson wrote:Thanks for the responses. I didn't notice the USB 3 omission. How do you know the screen is too bright? What are dedicated graphics and how do I avoid? How does a DAW use SSD? I'll take a look at Slickdeals but I live down under in OZ which is a factor.

Well, I don't mean "bright" but "non-reflecting" - I hate to see myself in my laptop when sitting in front of it. You cannot use such machines outside when the sun is shining. For purely indoor use it's ok though if you like seeing yourself while producing.

You could look after a machine with on board grafic, a DAW (Digital AUDIO workstation) obviously does not need a dedicated GRAFIC card unless you also want to play 3d games with it. I would invest my money elsewhere, simple as that.

SSDs speed up the machine drastically when opening files, bouncing, accessing samples etc.

Sorry not a native speaker, but I guess you know what I mean.

Dreamw · Post by **Dreamw** » Thu Dec 06, 2012 3:19 pm

You could go for specs - or you could go for durability

deleted · Post by **deleted** » Thu Dec 06, 2012 6:11 pm

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chrisby · Post by **chrisby** » Fri Dec 07, 2012 5:54 am

Trevor Jackson wrote:Thanks for the responses. I didn't notice the USB 3 omission. How do you know the screen is too bright? What are dedicated graphics and how do I avoid? How does a DAW use SSD? I'll take a look at Slickdeals but I live down under in OZ which is a factor.

Ahh yes, sorry I didn't catch the .com.au (the Lucky Country). That said the notebook you posted doesn't look bad but two things I would caution about (in general, not specific to that machine)... 1) get a 7200rpm drive (SSD is better but big jump in $$), 2) try to find a machine that you can see in forums that other people are using successfully for DAW work. Long story short, while it not really all that common (depending on who you speak to) some laptops will suffer from dpc latency where you will get latency spikes that can result in stuttering or dropped audio. This is just the first thread I found on it but generally if you google the model you can usually find someone using or complaining about it one way or another (providing the model has been out a bit) -

http://www.gearslutz.com/board/music-co ... tency.html

Good luck regardless....

EnGee · Post by **EnGee** » Fri Dec 07, 2012 7:15 am

Trevor Jackson wrote:
Ø 15.6" LED widescreen, 1366 x 768 pixel resolution.

Which DAW will you be using?

I have this resolution and it is problematic with some DAWs like FL Studio and some plugins like Z3ta+2 or Largo. They don't fit, so big for the host.

If I were you, I would look for the new generation of notebooks that have Full HD resolution but might be 17" and not 15.6".

Kaboom75 · Post by **Kaboom75** » Fri Dec 07, 2012 2:33 pm

The GPU on that is very low the second number being low means many of the GPUs cores failed and are disabled. But you don't need a good one for 2D graphics.

Ableton Live has a resizable GUI you can resize it and the text to anything. A gaming GPU is not needed to run simple 2d. Fabfliter now have GPU accelerated gui plugins to free up some CPU but a small amount is being saved.

Get an i7 if you can or an i5 quad core. Ableton Live will use upto 5 cores.
The turbo boost speed does not count as it only does the boost if only one core is in use. Ableton Live runs each track on its own core or thread.

Ableton Live uses a little less CPU on Windows 8 64bit than Win 7 64bit.

You can now get an i7 CPU with a GPU on the CPU chip which saves on power and price.

Trevor Jackson · Post by **Trevor Jackson** » Sat Dec 08, 2012 1:45 pm

Buy it now is $1,075 on this. I could make an offer, as well. It looks like a lot of DAW for a thousand bucks.

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/HP-DV7-6100- ... 041wt_1710

I want to buy a factory laptop off of Ebay to run Ableton and to record. Suggestions?