System Upgrade - Advice Needed :/

[ross-alexander]

Hi Guys,

I need to upgrade my system this year, and am wondering what to do. Currently I have a redundant knackered old pc, and a macbook pro that is 3 years old and causing me a lot of pain (as it has over the 3 years I have been using it).

I am really reluctant to pay for another mac, I have had corrupted hard drives, battery gone, clock battery gone, and finally trackpad gone. Although I have only been doing music work over the course of this time, I have been heavily using computers for 10 years or so and have never experienced so many problems as I have with the mac.

For the spec I am looking for its probably going to be best part of two grand for a macbook pro and seeing as the only mac only software I use is logic (about 50/50 with ableton), is it really worth it??.

Does anybody recommend I switch back to pc? Don't give it the I have never had any problems with my mac etc, because its obvious to me every day that many mac users experience a multitude of failures. Am I going to see any real difference? I dont gig much so that's not an issue, and I suppose I could easily forego logic.

what does anybody think, it's driven me mad this computer......?

[Críoch]

I dunno Mate.. if you are happy with the result of making an entire track in Ableton, then you've probably answered your own question.

Doesn't matter PC / Mac. Just the music. I think y'd miss one or 2 things from Logic though haha

[ross-alexander]

aye not worth spending 2k tho mate, not sure how much this would cost me to fix, its a pain in the rear

[rktic]

Choose your maschine to fit your needs the best way! While you can probably get a totally insane PC setup for 2000 bucks that outguns the Macbook, on the other hand the Macbook is a rugged, mobile device. And mind you, there won't be any trouble configuring it. Finding the right mainboard/ram/soundcard combination in the PC world is still a strugglesome task...

[madATme]

Well I use Mac now since i use a computer. For me the option of switching to pc never had been there. I my office i use pc's i programm on them an suport them.
I have a mid 2010 laptop und its getting hard to work on it. So i tought i could buy a mac pro but it's way to expecive and outdated as well.
The solution for me was tu build a hackingtosh for aroud 2500$i got a beast and its running very nice.
If building a computer is a option for you feel free to pm me.

[ross-alexander]

Yeah building is definately the way I'm looking mate, I bet its top draw cheerser if you spent that, my mate runs one in his studio and its an amazing system!

[madATme]

check this out then
http://tonymacx86.com/viewforum.php?f=264

[Mslwte]

I would move back to pc.. Get someone to build you a super fast gaming pc.. That's what I did 3 years ago and I still don't need to upgrade. I just have to maintain it every now and then. I7 processor FTW

[Surfmaan]

Tuned MacbookPro - best of the best!!! ))) PC is a nightmare now !

[ross-alexander]

For a macbook pro with decent enough processor, ram, hardrive etc 2k plus nah not happening, not.worth it not if they only last 2 and a half to 3 years. 100 quid plus a month to be a brainwashed hipster nah.

Everyone keeps telling me theirs is great, but I need.a workhorse not something to sit on a table with a book on banksy

[ARiFF]

Well imo if you need a workhorse, which is designed to suit your exact needs, than a custom pc should be the only way to go as you're totally free to add or leave out whatever you want... So dont go for the prefab Dell / Acer / Asus stuff, but pickout the parts you want yourself, thoroughly check them out for compatibility issues, or ask someone to help you out with that and have a blast To give you an idea, i have built dozens ( probably even hundreds ) of custom pc's for customers, company's and offcourse private use over the years, if they consist of matched parts, fully compatible and decent materials, nothing can beat your pc in terms of performance and stability. By that i'm not claiming that Mac's arent good, but lately i kinda feel them to be more of a status symbol than the rock stable mac's they used to make a few years ago. If you need a hand picking parts, or chatting about hardware feel free to leave me a line aswell.

[ross-alexander]

Thanks very much guys.. I heard about these rock solid macs as well but seriously I have had so much heartache with this one, I refuse to buy another

[sam]

Interesting experiences Ross. I know you said you don't want to hear what I'm about to say so forgive me

I've gone through several laptops over the years, Toshiba Satellite, Acer Ferrari, Dell 430, and 630, HP Elitebook 6510b and 6930p, and the one I use the most at the moment is a mid 2010 13 inch Macbook Pro. I think I've been lucky because the only problem I've had with any of them is the power supply breaking.

I think the main reason I get along with the MacBook is because I don't really know a lot about OS X, but I'm overly familiar with the Windows operating systems and tend to over think and overdo the performance tweaking. With Windows, if it doesn't do something I want then I'll basically force it to wether it likes it or not which eventually leads to instability, but with Mac OS X I just learn to live with the limitations.

Anyway, back to your issues, I think some basic and general advice regarding any kind of hardware upgrade is to buy the newest revision of the last generation you can afford. You won't be getting the fasted hardware on the planet, but you will get the most mature and stable (generally) and usually the most stable drivers because they would've been in development long enough to go through several years of bug fixes (hopefully).

There are some really good offers in this thread too and if you're unsure definitely post more and send some PMs and you'll get some expert help

[Patriek]

I use both platforms. Windows and Mac. Both have their pro's and con's.
Have you looked at http://www.frostacm.com/product_info.ph ... ucts_id=21 ? Seems solid stuff to me and nice specs. From what i heard, these laptops are created for using multimedia with Windows as your main OS.

[madATme]

For Laptops i'd never go to pc

[Esh]

For Laptops i'd never go to pc

I would generally agree, but the fact that macs cost a fortune, and in my opinion are only really worth it for the build quality, really puts me off.

You can argue the audio interface is better on the apples, but i dont know many people that would ask the questions you are asking without having, or looking to buy, a decent audio interface anyway.