Computer Recording Setup Questions

So I'm looking on HP's site and came across this one:

HP Slim Desktop S01-pF2130st, Windows 11 Home, Intel® Core™ i3, 8GB RAM, 256GB SSD, 1TB HDD

https://www.hp.com/us-en/shop/pdp/hp-slim-desktop-s01-pf2130st-bundle-pc

Any thoughts? I kinda like that it has a 1 TB HDD storage; 256 GB SSD storage
That's decent specs and not bad performance to $$$ ratio for prebuilt. The i3(although that one is 2 gens back at this point) of today is equal to or substantially better than the i7 of yesteryear, and generally more powerful than most laptop level i5 and i7 of today. I was actually going to recommend using your old hard drive in either an external bay or internally if you had room in a new desktop. That particular PC isn't going to be great for future upgrades like GPUs and CPUs given it's tower constraints and power supply, but more than sufficient for your needs. If you run a lot of programs/windows/tasks/plugins at once, you may want to up your pick to an i5 or Ryzen 5 and 16gb ram. Or at least bump up the ram.

Newegg, and to a lesser degree Bestbuy have the best deals on prebuilts, imo. Though, If you live near a microcenter than that's the direction I would send you. That all said, the one you found isn't terrible and you would likely be very happy compared to your current setup. If you're comfortable with building one, you may find yourself in a better position at the start for around the same $ and with decent upgrade paths.
 
That's decent specs and not bad performance to $$$ ratio for prebuilt. The i3(although that one is 2 gens back at this point) of today is equal to or substantially better than the i7 of yesteryear, and generally more powerful than most laptop level i5 and i7 of today. I was actually going to recommend using your old hard drive in either an external bay or internally if you had room in a new desktop. That particular PC isn't going to be great for future upgrades like GPUs and CPUs given it's tower constraints and power supply, but more than sufficient for your needs. If you run a lot of programs/windows/tasks/plugins at once, you may want to up your pick to an i5 or Ryzen 5 and 16gb ram. Or at least bump up the ram.

Newegg, and to a lesser degree Bestbuy have the best deals on prebuilts, imo. Though, If you live near a microcenter than that's the direction I would send you. That all said, the one you found isn't terrible and you would likely be very happy compared to your current setup. If you're comfortable with building one, you may find yourself in a better position at the start for around the same $ and with decent upgrade paths.
In this day and age, I'd venture to say you could build a modest digital home recording system for under $2,500

ymmv
 
If you're not afraid to dip your toes the below build is going to be more powerful and have substantially more space around the same price, though you'll want to get an Windows 10 OS off of kinguin for under $20 which can be upgraded to win 11 if wanted. I would go this route.

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 5600G 3.9 GHz 6-Core Processor ($124.00 @ Amazon)
Motherboard: Gigabyte B450M DS3H WIFI Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard ($79.98 @ Amazon)
Memory: Silicon Power GAMING 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3200 CL16 Memory ($33.97 @ Amazon)
Storage: Patriot P300 512 GB M.2-2280 PCIe 3.0 X4 NVME Solid State Drive ($32.99 @ Newegg Sellers)
Storage: Western Digital Blue 3 TB 3.5" 5400 RPM Internal Hard Drive ($54.99 @ Western Digital)
Case: Cooler Master MasterBox Q300L MicroATX Mini Tower Case ($44.94 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: SeaSonic S12III 500 W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply ($65.44 @ Amazon)
Total: $436.31
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2024-01-27 17:51 EST-0500
 
I think our pal is on a budget..
That's cool. You are right about that. My son swears on building your own. You can get 2wice the amount of PC going that route. But I'm no PC expert so I'll bow out now. Cheers

The i3(although that one is 2 gens back at this point) of today is equal to or substantially better than the i7 of yesteryear, and generally more powerful than most laptop level i5 and i7 of today.
Wait. What?

i7 has 4 cores, more onboard cache, turbo boost, hyper-threading and improved 3D graphis :dunno:

"Core i7 is the latest generation of Intel’s mainstream “Core” processors among the three. These processors are designed for use in laptop and desktop computers, with Intel’s current naming convention for these chips being an indication of their relative performance level compared to previous-generation counterparts such as i3 and i5."
 
That's cool. You are right about that. My son swears on building your own. You can get 2wice the amount of PC going that route. But I'm no PC expert so I'll bow out now. Cheers


Wait. What?

i7 has 4 cores, more onboard cache, turbo boost, hyper-threading and improved 3D graphis :dunno:

"Core i7 is the latest generation of Intel’s mainstream “Core” processors among the three. These processors are designed for use in laptop and desktop computers, with Intel’s current naming convention for these chips being an indication of their relative performance level compared to previous-generation counterparts such as i3 and i5."
The i3 of today has 4 cores and 8 threads, substantially better ipc (instructions per clock cycle) than yesteryears i7s. The ipc of both processors are nearly the same on today's models, whereas the i7 has more cores. If the software runs 4 threads or less (most only use one) they will have equal performance. Where the i7 and ryzen 7+ shines is in gaming that requires multithread like strategy games or video encoding, etc... that show where more cores/threadcount start to come into play.

Here's an example of the i3 in the prebuilt charvel75 had vs an i7 from 2 generations earlier:
https://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Intel-Core-i3-12100-vs-Intel-Core-i7-10700/4126vs4077

Today's i7s have way more cores (8 desktop power level cores + 12 "energy efficient aka smartphone cores for the 14th gen) to process multiple tasks than the i3, but when doing tasks that don't require heavy core count the i3 should perform nearly the same in most cases.
 
If you're not afraid to dip your toes the below build is going to be more powerful and have substantially more space around the same price, though you'll want to get an Windows 10 OS off of kinguin for under $20 which can be upgraded to win 11 if wanted. I would go this route.
Yep. When my mobo failed in my Dell, I went online and found a refurbished Dell (exact same desktop model).

Cleared off the dining room table, and disassembled both PCs, then rebuilt a working system and tossed the failed motherboard.

(y)
 
You can get a 2012 MacBook Pro 15” retina with 8gb ram, 256gb SSD and Quad i7 for $250 bux and be set. Run Linux Mint on it if you want newer OS than what Apple will let you have or crack it.
 
Yep. When my mobo failed in my Dell, I went online and found a refurbished Dell (exact same desktop model).

Cleared off the dining room table, and disassembled both PCs, then rebuilt a working system and tossed the failed motherboard.

(y)
Another consideration when going the two routes is that the HP that the OP posted is like a squier bullet (parts quality) with USA pickups, where the diy build I posted is like a USA standard/leaning into custom shop(parts quality) with USA pickups.
 
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