Need advice for a good, old desktop for my setup

[Kineshewa]

So I basically have decided that in order to avoid latency issues as much as possible, I'd like to get a PCI card as my audio interface, possibly an E-mu 1820m. I also want to use a dedicated desktop. This is where I need help.

At the moment I have an old Dell Dimension 8200 desktop with 1.7 GHz Pentium 4, 256 MB RD RAM and Windows XP. Not much at all, and I can recall last using it that FL Studio would start crackling when i already had like 5 VSTs open at one time. I can maybe update the RAM to XP's limit of 4GB, but I'm not sure if that will be enough?

I'm wondering if anyone has any good suggestions for an old desktop that would be more than capable of zero latency/crackling issues with a PCI card. Something that's more around 3.0ghz I imagine would be better than 1.7, and over 4gb RAM I guess.

I mainly want to cut down on costs, and old desktops that I imagine are more than good enough go for only $100 or so these days it seems like, so it's an option I'm considering.

Any thoughts appreciated.

[Astralv]

TigerDirect.com, newegg.com.

[chk071]

Just wondering, but, why are you asking for an old deskop PC? There are PCIe interfaces too, and latency shouldn't really be worse than PCI (at least that would be new to me).

[Zombie Queen]

Look for second generation i5 quad core: i5 2400 or i5 2500. You will get enough power and graphics integrated in CPU. I had a brief look at e-bay and it looks, like you can find a ready-made desktop for about $100, including 4GB RAM. It would be better to get parts, but it would likely cost much more. Research and make sure it has both PCI and PCIe slots.

[ford442]

Newegg or Dell

[vitocorleone123]

Are you able to put a computer together yourself? That's the way I'd recommend if you want the best for the money. Otherwise.... make sure you get a PC that either comes with Windows 10 or you have your own copy so that you can install it 100% fresh from scratch (a lot of instability etc. comes from Windows and drivers etc.).

An i5 is a good bet, and I'd suggest a minimum of 8 GB RAM. Integrated graphics is plenty good.

[Zombie Queen]

Are you able to put a computer together yourself? That's the way I'd recommend if you want the best for the money.

Works for relatively new hardware, in the area OP is asking for, the best bet (dirt cheap and relatively usable), is decommissioned office desktop. Usually, all you need to do is to dust it off, replace hard drive and fans and you're good to go. Worse if PSU is failing, as it can turn out, it's not replaceable by generic one.

[Kineshewa]

Thanks for the recommendations guys. When I finally have the majority of equipment needed to actually start using my hardware I'll see how this old desktop works out, probably buy some cheap ram cards to upgrade it to it's apparent limit of 2gb to see if that helps anyway, and from there decide if I feel I need a new desktop (probably will).

[Zombie Queen]

Seriously, it's not worth investing anything in your P4 board. Just look at passmark figures (http://www.cpubenchmark.net), P4 1.7 = 160, i5-2400 = 5880, 36x faster. This P4 is even almost 3 times slower, than my old Athlon XP, I abandoned 7 years ago... I still have it in a box.

[T-CM11]

I'm wondering if anyone has any good suggestions for an old desktop that would be more than capable of zero latency/crackling issues with a PCI card. Something that's more around 3.0ghz I imagine would be better than 1.7, and over 4gb RAM I guess.

I can relate! My computer, made somewhere between 1980 and 1999, crashes when I try to run a vague amount of undisclosed VSTs. Should I add a serial parallel memory port, or just add some quadruple buffered isolinear megagigaherzes?

Or maybe I could google an article about audio latency and how it relates to CPU power... but nah! ignorance is cool!

[ZapAxe]

I still have and use my Win XP quad core/4 GB ram PC's as slaves, even though I have a 12 core/48 GB ram Win 7 64 bit system. I can do quite a bit with mt Win XP machines, audio tracks, VSTi's etc..pretty much able to work an entire song on it, though by the end I would have to raise the latency.

Even though I've always built my own DAW PC's I bought my 12 core system as an off-lease PC from ebay. It's a work station class PC, not your average home unit. It came with 48 GB ram, two 7200 RPM HDD's, and Win 7 64 bit included. Mine is a Lenovo ThinkStation D-20, but I was also looking at HP Z800 series, and Dell Precision T5500, also work station class PC. These things have plenty of power, though they're slightly older. These workstations originally cost a few thousand new, so they are still nothing to snease at when saving thousands.
Mine cost about $600, but they also have PC's with far less resources than 12 cores & 48 GB ram. You can get a 4,6,8 core, with anywhere from 8 GB ram on up for really cheap! They'd be far more powerful. If they come with an OS (typical they do) you can get it with either Win 7 64bit or Win 10 64 bit.

Just another option to get a power house system for cheap.

[bmrzycki]

The prebuilt PC market is dying with companies like Dell moving to the tiny form factors and laptops. The "gaming enthusiast" market still thrives but I think most gaming site builders charge a hefty premium.

I recommend building yourself. Here's a list of parts (minus a case) that includes a decent low-end setup with a PCI slot for about $350. It will give you 16GB of RAM, 250GB SSD, and you can re-use your E-MU card.

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/VJkVTH

[metamorphosis]

I'm wondering if anyone has any good suggestions for an old desktop that would be more than capable of zero latency/crackling issues with a PCI card. Something that's more around 3.0ghz I imagine would be better than 1.7, and over 4gb RAM I guess.

I can relate! My computer, made somewhere between 1980 and 1999, crashes when I try to run a vague amount of undisclosed VSTs. Should I add a serial parallel memory port, or just add some quadruple buffered isolinear megagigaherzes?

Or maybe I could google an article about audio latency and how it relates to CPU power... but nah! ignorance is cool!

Not really helpful.
Kineshewa, I recommend going with a i5 at minimal, 8-16GB ram, and frankly any USB or PCIe interface will do. No need to insist on PCI for low latency.

[Kineshewa]

Just checking in here again since I'm finally getting into setting everything up. Didn't notice T-CM11's reply until now. I guess it's fun to mock someone as ignorant rather than informing them exactly what they got wrong. It was pretty obvious I'm a newbie, I thought? Ah well...

I ended up getting an RME Multiface 1 a couple months back, mainly because out of all interfaces out there it seemed to be one of the cheapest with a good reputation, so I'm going to be sticking with that for now. Everything else is so expensive, I can worry about upgrading later.

But anyway, yeah, that sort of puts me in a position to stick with getting something that has PCI ports. I'm seeing bmrzycki's post and that looks pretty good, I'll have to learn exactly how putting all of this in a case works since I've never done this before, but it sounds like an intriguing option. Thanks for taking the time out to put that together, bmrzycki!

In any case, I'll be experimenting with my weak Dell 8200 for at least a couple weeks before I decide to make the plunge. I'm just bumping this to make sure the help you guys have given doesn't look like it went unnoticed. I've been slowly researching and building up to finally making this amateur "studio" if you even wanna call it that for about three months now, and it's nice to see I'm at least just about there (just lacking a computer that isn't a dinosaur ).

Thanks guys!

[Zexila]

Look for second generation i5 quad core: i5 2400 or i5 2500. You will get enough power and graphics integrated in CPU. I had a brief look at e-bay and it looks, like you can find a ready-made desktop for about $100, including 4GB RAM.

That's what I recommend to all newcomers these days, so cheap you don't feel guilty and enough power to get by when there's more money to spend.