RE: Which Aspire Desktop is best for Music Recording ? -Aspire TC-780, TC-855, TC-895-EB11 ? -cont.;

Thrip

Hello Community.acer.com,

Sent this 2nd q.thread,(re Which Acer Aspire Desktop is best for music production and and recording ? -April 17)   because I ran into technical difficulties sending thread replies normally to, ttttt, and billsey,  -a red ban comes onto the top of the Leave a Comment box. when I attempt sending, that says, Body is 9 characters too short, (?)

-However, here are ttttt and billsey's replies and my replies.

billsey said: April 18th;
It looks like the TC-895-EB11 is a Canadian model? If we knew where you are located we could perhaps give some additional insight into what's available in your locale.
With the TC-895-EB11 model you'd likely want to upgrade it by adding the SSD to it, using an M.2 NVMe SSD.
The i5-10400 processor will likely be just fine, the 3.0GHz spec they are referencing is for an older generation of CPUs.
The real question was touched upon before: what are you planning on using as audio hardware? A box like one of the Behringer or Roland or an internal card, or ???

Thanks for the reply bilsey,
-the TC-895-EB11 is an Acer Aspire model I found on the BestBuy website -in Canada. Im glad to read that the specs for the TC-895-EB11 are OK for my music prod. purposes -other than the needed M.2 NVMe SSD upgrade. - ttttt has also said that, pairing up or upgrading with M.2 NVMe SSD will make you feel the PC is faster. -He even advises upgrade ideas such as swapping the x2 M.2 NVMe SSD upgrade idea -with a x4 M.2 NVMe SSD model, so as to fully utilize the speed of the PC.

As to the audio hardware that Im planning to use, I can only say that Im currently in the process of leaving my old recording platform etc. -entirely, (-at least never to rely upon it again-) -Im coming out of a bad experience with a breaking down old Radar 24 (made 2005). I may be able to use the great Nyquist converters in it in the future, I may even be able to do some other things with this old machine -but I simply cannot depend upon it any longer.
So I havent really had any major experience with DAW recording and PC computers.
-Because I do need to become fully independent from the unreliable Radar 24, I realize that I may be looking at various other recording platforms such as Babyface Pro or MUTU -actually MUTU may have a bare-bones package thats affordable for me now.
-I already possess a Sonar Calkwalking DAW program that came with an Allen & Heath performance mixing board -but if I were to go with MUTU I believe they include some sort of simple DAW sw program. 

-The thing is, -right now, Ide really like to stay open to new ideas about it -so if you have any suggestions with those regards I would also be very interested.


ttttt said: April 18th;

Even my i3-9100 PC (should be considered low end new PC nowadays) has 4-cores and will run as high as 4.0 GHz (self controlled) from its 2.4GHz base speed. That's why I assume all 9th, 10th and 11th generation new Acer desktops should have exceeded your expectation. Pairing up with M.2 NVMe SSD will make you feel the PC is fast if you upgraded from a PC with traditional spinning HDD.

For the reason of attractive price and the feeling of higher storage capacity, those 1 TB (or even 2 TB) HDDs that come with the PC must be spinning HDD for entry level PCs. 

My TC-885-UA91 PC came with WD SN520  500GB  PCIe 3.0 x2 M.2 NVMe SSD. 

This x2 model is like half the speed of x4 models but the speed is still like 11+ times faster than spinning HDD. Acer could lower the price by $20-$30 by giving us the x2 model.
I have swapped this x2 M.2 NVMe SSD with a x4 M.2 NVMe SSD model, thus fully utilizing the speed of my PC.

If you don't mind wasting a little bit of money you can go ahead and get the PC with 1 TB HDD and then swap to M.2NVMe SSD with Windows 10 on it. The original 1TB HDD can be formatted for data only and for your future sound collections.

One thing I would like to mention is that hopefully you won't want to add a really powerful graphics card  that would need more than 550W power to the TC-895-EB11. Currently it is hard to find 12 Volt Only power supply of more than  500W from the outside market other than Acer (Acer has a 500W one). This 12 Volt only power supply is used in TC-895 models.

So the answer is "YES" to almost all new Acer Desktops, they are all capable if you don't mind doing some upgrades (such as adding memory) or change of configuration (such as swapping to a x4 M.2 NVMe SSD).

Thanks for the reply ttttt,
-From shopping around on the web and what you are saying I am getting the idea that most of the computers that I will find for sale around my price point will need a x4 M.2 NVMe SSD upgrade.
-So I guess the Acer Aspire TC-895-EB11 that I found for sale would be adequate, -so long as I swap the HDD for an x4 M.2 NVMe SSD ?

I thought that I should mention that I also found a strong recommendation on the web for the Acer Aspire Desktop TC-885 as being a very good choice for audio recording.
-The trouble is -I dont find the TC-885 for sale anywhere -what I find is the TC-885-ua92.
The Acer Aspire TC-885 is suppose to have 16GB RAM and Intel Core i7 - (no wonder its so good for music) -but the 9th generation TC-885-ua92 specs are a bit different,-it only has 12GB RAM and Intel Core i5
Though one may say that Intel Core i5 and 12GB RAM -is enough for the job, the thing is -am I any better off than with the Aspire TC-895-EB11 that I found for sale, -the Aspire TC-895-EB11 that I found for sale is some $300 cheaper than the Aspire TC-885-ua92  -how much will the needed x4 M.2 NVMe SSD  upgrade cost me ???  -Maybe I am  better off getting the the Aspire Desktop TC-895-EB11 -and getting the  M.2 NVMe SSD  upgrade ?

 

ttttt

@Thrip

Yes, the key is getting a x4 drive. A PC with a very fast CPU will still be felt slow if paired with a 5400 RPM spinning HDD.

If you can wait another half year or so, I'll bet there will be some 11th generation CPU bargain PCs. Every time Intel push for a new generation there will be 10%-30% performance increase from the previous generation similar models.

For then mean time 10th generation models are usually better than 9th generation.

I am planning to build my own 11th generation PC now.

Thrip

ttttt said:

@Thrip

Yes, the key is getting a x4 drive. A PC with a very fast CPU will still be felt slow if paired with a 5400 RPM spinning HDD.

If you can wait another half year or so, I'll bet there will be some 11th generation CPU bargain PCs. Every time Intel push for a new generation there will be 10%-30% performance increase from the previous generation similar models.

For then mean time 10th generation models are usually better than 9th generation.

I am planning to build my own 11th generation PC now.

-Well, I just can't wait,...- I'm starting to strongly consider the Aspire Desktop TC-895-EB11 -and getting the  X4 M.2 NVMe SSD  upgrade, -I've found both items at prices that aren't too bad.

-Just for curiosity can you tell me the "Generation" of this TC-895-EB11 ?
-Earlier on I recall that you mentioned that pretty well all of the Acer Aspire Desktops from 9th, 10, 11th generations on would be good for music recording (with the x4SSD upgrade).

Interestingly when asking into what "Generation" this TC-895-EB11 Acer Aspire Desktop was the tech.support guy in the store I was shopping said, "Unfortunately Acer does not label there products "generationally", as lets say Apple does, but it is the newest model" (-referring to the TC-895-EB11 ???? )

ttttt

@Thrip

It is easy to tell. What the "Generation" that I referred to is the generation of Intel processor being used. Actually I have told you already with other message. 

Say, the TC-895-EB11 has the i5-10400 CPU. That leading numbers of the CPU model identifies the "Generation ". In this case it is "10", so it is a 10th generation processor. This processor having a benchmark almost doubling to that of my i3-9100 PC, so it is rather fast.

 While using my i3-9100 PC now, I have the impression there is a little bit of overkill by using it for internet surfing, paying bills ,E-mails...etc. For experimental purpose, I compiled some 1920 x 1080 videos with the original configuration ( 8GB RAM, x2 NVMe SSD), I could expect 1/3 of the video length time for composing it. With the new configuration ( 16 GB RAM, x4 SSD), I can expect 1/4 of the video length for composing time.

A couple weeks ago , I had the first 4K streaming from Youtube, and I was happy with the performance, it was a smooth streaming.

Since the amount of data to be handled for music is just no match to videos in general (for the same length), that is why I am confident that even i3-9100 CPU PC can handle your music productions.

Likewise, for motherboards. If you see PCIe 4.0, then you know it is a more advanced generation motherboard than PCIe 3.0 and PCIe 2.0 motherboards.

billsey

There are also other models of the TC-895 other than the EB11 that will come with the NVMe drive already installed...

ttttt

@Thrip
Yeah, like @Billsy said, there must be some with NVMe already. Keep looking.

ttttt

@Thrip,

Oh, if you do not insist on Acer Aspire you can try Dell Inspiron, I know they have some with NVMe.

billsey

Weird... When I go to the UK site and click on the All Models button for the TCs it gives me a quick glimpse of four or more models, then refreshes to only show the one. I wonder if that just means they are out of stock on some of them? In the US I also get just one TC-895, but it has the 512GB SSD in it.

ttttt

@thrip

If you can find this Acer Aspire TC-390-UA92 in your country that will do it. It comes with an AMD Ryzen 5 3400G CPU, also a capable processor , and 500 GB NVMe drive.