Tips for a really low budget system?

[Nicky_Dee]

I was quite shocked by the prices of the system that are adviced here. I wanted to buy a new (used) PC and spend at most 200€.
I am doing music using FL-Studio on Windows.
I am used to not always be able to use all the plugins I want as often as I want. For years I have been buying 50€ PCs or take old ones of my mother and grandmother, doing fine. But now all I got is a used Laptop Ibought for 50€ and it's a nightmare most of the time.

[BertKoor]

now all I got is a used Laptop Ibought for 50€ and it's a nightmare most of the time.

You're not being very specific, so we cannot give specific advice.
Bottlenecks can be:
* Disk speed (get SSD if you can)
* RAM amount and speed
* CPU generation, speed and core count

Just get something better you find on your path.

[mjolnir]

If you get a laptop, be sure that the storage capacity is enough GiB for more than just the OS.
you could get a new laptop for about the price of an elektron model:samples or less. 300 USD, that is.
if it's on sale, it could be less.

[vstdls]

Since you haven't listed the specs of what you have, nobody can make an accurate suggestion of what you should invest sub 200euro into.

[Nicky_Dee]

I got a laptop now but I don't want to upgrade. I rather want a desktop PC now. Here's what I got:

Processor: Intel(R) Celeron(R) CPU N3150 @ 1.60GHz 1.60 GHz
RAM: 4,00 GB (I think 250MB are used by the GPU)
HD: 500GB SSD

I also thought that RAM and SSD would be most important. What should I be looking for there besides size? What's important when choosing the CPU? I got no idea how you much influence cores/threads/Hz got. Is GPU important? I read years ago that there were plugins beginning to utilize it. Is it important in general or are that just certain plugins? I know that I will probably buy used and maybe have to pay more.
Also: Any advice on what plugins to use? I mostly use pretty old VSTs. Some stopped working under FL now. Are old ones generally faster or are there newer ones that are better programmed or sth, that run faster?

Thanks for your help!
Nick

[fedexnman]

Goggle PC 16 GB ram 1 TB SSD and you might find something in that price range , it won't be the latest processor most likely , probably no GPU . You'll have a cpu that'll do the graphics processing .

[ere2learn]

What's important when choosing the CPU?

I just use the score off of cpubenchmark, compare what your looking vs that score, then look for amount of ram , as you can see below the thinkpad is 4 times faster than what you currently have & has 4x the ram amount

your current cpu

Screenshot 2024-10-18 100843.png

-

£200 - Lenovo ThinkPad T480 Windows 11 Ultrabook - 14" Full HD Quad Core i5-8350U 16GB ram 256GB ssd

Screenshot 2024-10-18 100947.png

[lfm]

I don't know FL Studio and how the freeze options are.

But having really smooth freeze options you can get away with just about any pc or processor.
IMO nothing conquers Sonar/Cakewalk in this regard
- one click freeze and one click unfreeze
- and it free the resources and everything with it
- and you get audio everywhere on tracks

There is almost no effort to run just audio tracks.

StudioOne you have to free resources manually by disabling the VST instrument.
Reaper was not all automatic as I recall either.
Cubase you don't get visible audio from a freeze on tracks(ran until 2018 if that is different)
- as I recall render in place does not free anything in resources for you
Samplitude you can only unfreeze the last freeze you did, so a bit convoluted in my view.
- after freeze you can only edit some of freeze not fully restore

Celeron processors are really weak, but combine look for daw that suits you and a newer desktop computer.

[donkey tugger]

For about that money you could get a refurbished 8th generation desktop, e.g.

i7 8700

Pretty good specs there - 32gb ram, fast SSD etc.

The CPU rank is as follows;


https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cp ... Hz&id=3099

8700.jpg

[uOpt]

Don't get any decaf CPUs like celerons.

[vstdls]

See example below. 8th gen i7, 16GB ram, 500gig SSD, under budget. Youll spend another $10 on displayport to HDMI adapters to connect 1-3 screens to it. It's not the best machine in 2024, but will literally annihilate your current setup in regards to performance.

I'm a big fan of corporate-off-lease Elitedesks for power to price value.


https://www.ebay.com/itm/155831465752?m ... media=COPY