my personal recommendation: do NOT, i repeat, do NOT buy a laptop with desktop CPU.
many people around me made that choice, and almost all of them consider it a mistake by now.
laptops with desktop CPUs are loud, battery life is ridiculous, and, most importantly, due to the heat design that is always on the edge, they even tend to be unstable.
and, while a new laptop with desktop CPU might not be all that loud, just wait a while. computers tend to become louder over time, dirt in the fans, dirt inside the laptop (making it necessary to turn on the fans more often), the fans not being perfect anymore...it all adds up. my friends laptop started out with being, erm, "tolerable", now one year later its almost impossible to work with that thing without getting a headache. not only is it reaaally loud, on top of that, a notebook aint a desktop, its not under the table, its right in front of you. that noise quickly gets very annoying.
but thats still not all: the other, if not most important point is, dont be fooled by the GHZ numbers. with one new CPU design after another, it has become more and more apparent how unimportant that number really is, first the athlon XPs, then the G5, then the opterons, now the dothan.
just to give you an idea, i have a 2 GHZ dothan right here (in a dell inspiron 8600), and a nice good desktop with SATA drives, 2,8 GHZ P4, fastest ram etc. one would think that the desktop has several advantages, what with the faster HDs (important in a laptop too if youre diskstreaming samples) and especially faster ram, and of course the higher GHZ number.
but, lo and behold, the 2 GHZ dothan is faster. from what i saw in that comparison with the 2,8 GHZ P4, id estimate its more like a 3,2 GHZ pentium. i havent done "official" benchmarks like sandra and whatnot, but just a mortal musicians benchmark by testing how many plugins of this type or that type i could run in nuendo - which is what matters after all IMO :-)
the dothan was *always* faster.
so there you have it. just ignore the GHZ spec. this thing is the equivalent of a 3 GHZ+ CPU, only difference being, its a notebook processor, meaning less noise (next to none, since the fan almost never turns itself on), longer battery life (think 5 hours instead of 2), and most importantly, more stability.
i dont wanna influence you in your personal decision but DONT GET A DESKTOP CPU DAMNIT YOURE MAKING A BIG MISTAKE ;-)
Laptop for live use
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- KVRist
- 204 posts since 7 Jun, 2001
oh and one more thing about the soundcard: there are many choices that make a lot of sense, but one is a must in a laptop IMO:
do a google search for "asio4all" and download that (latest version is 1.8 i think).
its a generic low latency asio driver that works with most (if not all) laptop soundcards, allowing you to use the onboard laptop soundcard with low latencies.
that used to be a pain in the a**, the generic drivers most programs had could barely make it under 23 ms latency and then the crackling started at about 40% CPU load. this used to be the big disadvantage of pc laptops, that they werent able to do low latency with the internal soundcard (compared to apples powerbooks). with the asio4all driver thats a thing of the past. latencies of 5 ms or lower arent a problem, and that works even under really high processor loads.
of course one wouldnt want to ever use onboard soundcards because, in terms of audio quality, they cant touch even cheap "real" audio interfaces (thats true for both platforms). but still, being a live musician myself, its good to have this as "backup". like, youre on stage and you just noticed that you forgot that special power cable for your audio interface...in such cases, its good to have a plan B
do a google search for "asio4all" and download that (latest version is 1.8 i think).
its a generic low latency asio driver that works with most (if not all) laptop soundcards, allowing you to use the onboard laptop soundcard with low latencies.
that used to be a pain in the a**, the generic drivers most programs had could barely make it under 23 ms latency and then the crackling started at about 40% CPU load. this used to be the big disadvantage of pc laptops, that they werent able to do low latency with the internal soundcard (compared to apples powerbooks). with the asio4all driver thats a thing of the past. latencies of 5 ms or lower arent a problem, and that works even under really high processor loads.
of course one wouldnt want to ever use onboard soundcards because, in terms of audio quality, they cant touch even cheap "real" audio interfaces (thats true for both platforms). but still, being a live musician myself, its good to have this as "backup". like, youre on stage and you just noticed that you forgot that special power cable for your audio interface...in such cases, its good to have a plan B
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- KVRist
- 149 posts since 4 Jul, 2002 from Far reaching galaxies
WHAT?????
Your penis is a weapon. protect it and keep it dry.
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- KVRist
- 31 posts since 22 Nov, 2002
Another vote for Centrino here. I have a dell Inspiron 8600 with a 1.4 P-M, and I LOVE it. It's handled everything I've thrown at it without breaking a sweat. (multiple instances of Vanguard, sfz+, Sytrus and loads of fx)
Centrino machines are quieter, cooler, and, surprisingly, better performing (IMO) than their P4 counterparts. If you want blazing performance, get a 2GHz Dothan. That can easily compete with the fastest P4s. Centrino was designed to be mobile, the P4 never was.
As far as issues specific to the 8600, The plastic case feels a bit, well, plasticky sometimes, but nothing's broken on me yet, and you can get extended and accident warranty protection (Mine has 3 years extended warranty).
One piece of advice for the 8600, though: WIPE IT ASAP! Dell installs so much crud.... ugh...
Also, listen to the advice about ASIO4ALL. I'm using the onboard sound drivers with a latency of 1ms (!). That's better than I get with my Delta card on my desktop! Granted, the sample rate choices are limited, and the quality isn't "The Best", but it more than suffices for general music work, and would certainly work for a live situation.
Hope this helps,
Centrino machines are quieter, cooler, and, surprisingly, better performing (IMO) than their P4 counterparts. If you want blazing performance, get a 2GHz Dothan. That can easily compete with the fastest P4s. Centrino was designed to be mobile, the P4 never was.
As far as issues specific to the 8600, The plastic case feels a bit, well, plasticky sometimes, but nothing's broken on me yet, and you can get extended and accident warranty protection (Mine has 3 years extended warranty).
One piece of advice for the 8600, though: WIPE IT ASAP! Dell installs so much crud.... ugh...
Also, listen to the advice about ASIO4ALL. I'm using the onboard sound drivers with a latency of 1ms (!). That's better than I get with my Delta card on my desktop! Granted, the sample rate choices are limited, and the quality isn't "The Best", but it more than suffices for general music work, and would certainly work for a live situation.
Hope this helps,
-RLabz-
the job of the artist, is to always, is to deepen the mystery
the job of the artist, is to always, is to deepen the mystery
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- KVRian
- 609 posts since 29 Jan, 2004
Have you concidered the acer aspire 1500 line of laptops.
I just bought one and couldn't be more pleased.
http://www.acernotebooks.co.uk/acersite ... or=&PT_ID=
Specs are:
# AMD Athlon 3000+ 64bit processor
# 1MB Level 2 cache
# 512MB DDR
# 40GB hard drive
# CD-RW/DVD combo drive
# No floppy drive Optional external drive available
# 15" TFT display
# 64MB ATI Radeon 9600
# Internal 56k modem
# Wired LAN 10/100/1000
# Li-ion battery
This thing moves like sh*t off a shovel and you can buy them new for less then 800 quid.
Incredible.
I just bought one and couldn't be more pleased.
http://www.acernotebooks.co.uk/acersite ... or=&PT_ID=
Specs are:
# AMD Athlon 3000+ 64bit processor
# 1MB Level 2 cache
# 512MB DDR
# 40GB hard drive
# CD-RW/DVD combo drive
# No floppy drive Optional external drive available
# 15" TFT display
# 64MB ATI Radeon 9600
# Internal 56k modem
# Wired LAN 10/100/1000
# Li-ion battery
This thing moves like sh*t off a shovel and you can buy them new for less then 800 quid.
Incredible.
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- KVRist
- 204 posts since 7 Jun, 2001
re: the 93746982376498764 programs dell preinstalls on its inspiron laptops-
to be honest i havent uninstalled much on mine. i uninstalled all the test-me-now-buy-me-later stuff, but left the rest as it was. its not my first dell laptop and usually (as with all win XP systems), i dont really feel the need to "optimize" anything on them. i once tried, benchmarked a little under nuendo before and after uninstalling as much as i could, and surprise surprise, there wasnt the slightest difference. all you get is a little more disk space.
mine is a 2 GHZ dothan, 80 GB HD, 8X DVD burner, 16:9 widescreen display, WLAN, bluetooth, graphics card has the mighty name "128 MB ati 9600 pro turbo" (egoshooters look cool on this thing ;-), and of course all the standards, LAN, modem, TV and monitor out bla bla bla. great stuff, i love it. id never change it for a desktop CPU laptop (like i.e. the inspiron 9100 with desktop CPU), not even if you gave me $1000 extra.
but, as i said, i dont wanna influence you :-)
DONT BUY A LAPTOP WITH DESKTOP CPU! DONT DO IT! YOU WILL RUIN YOUR LIFE FOREVER! PEOPLE WILL POINT AT YOU SAYING "THATS THE GUY WHO BOUGHT A LAPTOPWITHDESKTOPCPU, IS THAT STUPID OR WHAT", ALL YOUR FRIENDS WILL HATE YOU! AND THE MUSIC YOU MAKE WITH IT WILL SOUND AWFUL! ;-)
no, really, its just...wrong. but as i said, noone wants to influence you here DONT! oops :-)
to be honest i havent uninstalled much on mine. i uninstalled all the test-me-now-buy-me-later stuff, but left the rest as it was. its not my first dell laptop and usually (as with all win XP systems), i dont really feel the need to "optimize" anything on them. i once tried, benchmarked a little under nuendo before and after uninstalling as much as i could, and surprise surprise, there wasnt the slightest difference. all you get is a little more disk space.
mine is a 2 GHZ dothan, 80 GB HD, 8X DVD burner, 16:9 widescreen display, WLAN, bluetooth, graphics card has the mighty name "128 MB ati 9600 pro turbo" (egoshooters look cool on this thing ;-), and of course all the standards, LAN, modem, TV and monitor out bla bla bla. great stuff, i love it. id never change it for a desktop CPU laptop (like i.e. the inspiron 9100 with desktop CPU), not even if you gave me $1000 extra.
but, as i said, i dont wanna influence you :-)
DONT BUY A LAPTOP WITH DESKTOP CPU! DONT DO IT! YOU WILL RUIN YOUR LIFE FOREVER! PEOPLE WILL POINT AT YOU SAYING "THATS THE GUY WHO BOUGHT A LAPTOPWITHDESKTOPCPU, IS THAT STUPID OR WHAT", ALL YOUR FRIENDS WILL HATE YOU! AND THE MUSIC YOU MAKE WITH IT WILL SOUND AWFUL! ;-)
no, really, its just...wrong. but as i said, noone wants to influence you here DONT! oops :-)
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- KVRist
- 149 posts since 4 Jul, 2002 from Far reaching galaxies
WHAT?????
Your penis is a weapon. protect it and keep it dry.
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- KVRist
- 308 posts since 11 Feb, 2004 from Sydney
derek, rlabz or anyone else...
How good is the onboard sound card of the Dell laptops? I mean, could you really use it live? How long can you stand listening to the onboard sound through headphones? Is the computer buzz soft enough??
I'm thinking of getting rid of my desktop and getting a laptop, and I only want to use it live with audio out...
How good is the onboard sound card of the Dell laptops? I mean, could you really use it live? How long can you stand listening to the onboard sound through headphones? Is the computer buzz soft enough??
I'm thinking of getting rid of my desktop and getting a laptop, and I only want to use it live with audio out...
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- KVRist
- 34 posts since 7 Dec, 2003
Any chance you are a Sonar user?derek wrote: just to give you an idea, i have a 2 GHZ dothan right here (in a dell inspiron 8600), and a nice good desktop with SATA drives, 2,8 GHZ P4, fastest ram etc. one would think that the desktop has several advantages, what with the faster HDs (important in a laptop too if youre diskstreaming samples) and especially faster ram, and of course the higher GHZ number.
but, lo and behold, the 2 GHZ dothan is faster. from what i saw in that comparison with the 2,8 GHZ P4, id estimate its more like a 3,2 GHZ pentium. i havent done "official" benchmarks like sandra and whatnot, but just a mortal musicians benchmark by testing how many plugins of this type or that type i could run in nuendo - which is what matters after all IMO
the dothan was *always* faster.
It would be nice to see a Dothan number on this test
http://www.cakewalk.com/forum/tm.asp?m=34827
SuperPi numbers:
1.7 Banias gets around 2.28 minutes versus 1.7 Dothans 1.59 minutes.
1.8 Dothan gets 1.48 minutes and AMD 64 3200+ 1.47 minutes.
So the 2.0 Dothan should be rippin!
I have heard that this SuperPi would be a pretty good test for VST performance as well, intense mathematical calculations, i am not sure so educate me
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- KVRer
- Topic Starter
- 26 posts since 20 Jun, 2004 from Norway
OK, I see your points.
But my problem is to find a model with all the following specs in one package:
2 GHz Dothan processor
1024 MB RAM
Graphics card with dedicated memory
7200 RPM hard drive
But my problem is to find a model with all the following specs in one package:
2 GHz Dothan processor
1024 MB RAM
Graphics card with dedicated memory
7200 RPM hard drive
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- KVRist
- 204 posts since 7 Jun, 2001
@jamesb:
well, the AV is nothing you would use for mastering obviously ;-) other than that, its ok. definetly better than older laptops outputs to my ears. but theres a catch: depending on the power situation, you might or might not get a little hum on that output. you never get it when running on battery, but sometimes when you run on power.
so, id say, with battery use, the output is absolutely ok. with power, it depends. either youre lucky and its a location where you dont get the hum, or you have to sit down and find some ground-lift-ish solution (which of course is no big deal and never a bad idea :-)
@120mg:
no im not a sonar user, sorry. is that benchmark part of the sonar program, or is it a separate app?
@lord choc ice:
the only thing unusual here would be the harddrive, which, most of the time, is just a 5400 rpm one. everything else is pretty much standard (i doubt you will find anyone who has the balls to offer a nonsense unit that combines a 2 GHZ dothan with shared memory graphics, thats like putting a porsche engine into a citroen 2cv ;-)
you could i.e. get this at dell too - afaik, the 80 GB HDs are 5400, but there must be at least one 7200 drive with 60 GB. see this link, its in german, but the hardware list should be readable:
http://www.hardwareluxx.de/ubb/8/000060/2
thats exactly what youre looking for i think. and, for the record, im sure there are several other distributors that have something like that in their product line too (ibm, toshiba, sony, panasonic, acer...all worth a look IMO)
well, the AV is nothing you would use for mastering obviously ;-) other than that, its ok. definetly better than older laptops outputs to my ears. but theres a catch: depending on the power situation, you might or might not get a little hum on that output. you never get it when running on battery, but sometimes when you run on power.
so, id say, with battery use, the output is absolutely ok. with power, it depends. either youre lucky and its a location where you dont get the hum, or you have to sit down and find some ground-lift-ish solution (which of course is no big deal and never a bad idea :-)
@120mg:
no im not a sonar user, sorry. is that benchmark part of the sonar program, or is it a separate app?
@lord choc ice:
the only thing unusual here would be the harddrive, which, most of the time, is just a 5400 rpm one. everything else is pretty much standard (i doubt you will find anyone who has the balls to offer a nonsense unit that combines a 2 GHZ dothan with shared memory graphics, thats like putting a porsche engine into a citroen 2cv ;-)
you could i.e. get this at dell too - afaik, the 80 GB HDs are 5400, but there must be at least one 7200 drive with 60 GB. see this link, its in german, but the hardware list should be readable:
http://www.hardwareluxx.de/ubb/8/000060/2
thats exactly what youre looking for i think. and, for the record, im sure there are several other distributors that have something like that in their product line too (ibm, toshiba, sony, panasonic, acer...all worth a look IMO)
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- KVRer
- Topic Starter
- 26 posts since 20 Jun, 2004 from Norway
One thing that might be a problem is the lack of USB ports. They are there, but I need more than two of them.
Is it possible to use a USB hub for USB-bus-powered units, like the M-Audio Keystation 88 Pro and the Evolution line of MIDI controllers?
Is it possible to use a USB hub for USB-bus-powered units, like the M-Audio Keystation 88 Pro and the Evolution line of MIDI controllers?
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- KVRist
- 34 posts since 7 Dec, 2003
Too badderek wrote: @120mg:
no im not a sonar user, sorry. is that benchmark part of the sonar program, or is it a separate app?
It's basically a project loaded with stuff that comes with Sonar 3 PE. And by observing the CPU meter you can compare systems at different latencies.If you have the time, please check this out :
http://www.notebookreview.com/forums/to ... IC_ID=2657
This could be fun and informative, just download this free program to calculate pi (windows based only).
ftp://pi.super-computing.org/windows/super_pi.zip
Then run the program to measure the time it takes to calculate pi to 2 million digits.
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- KVRist
- 38 posts since 22 Jun, 2004 from Maine
any one have any opinions about these two set ups vs. each other?
dell inspiron 8600 http://configure.us.dell.com/dellstore/ ... 0SAP&s=dhs
vs.
gate way 450 xl
http://products.gateway.com/products/GC ... 0xl&seg=hm
i think the only real difference is the screen, as the dell has the wuxga and the gateway has a uxga tft active matrix. i think the dell screen is better? right, i dont know how screens are rated.
i can get a 10%discount from gateway from where i work, so i think im going to get that, that screens not too bad right?
dell inspiron 8600 http://configure.us.dell.com/dellstore/ ... 0SAP&s=dhs
vs.
gate way 450 xl
http://products.gateway.com/products/GC ... 0xl&seg=hm
i think the only real difference is the screen, as the dell has the wuxga and the gateway has a uxga tft active matrix. i think the dell screen is better? right, i dont know how screens are rated.
i can get a 10%discount from gateway from where i work, so i think im going to get that, that screens not too bad right?
Tikwando-www.tfcmusic.com