# New Pc vs old - which one to be main daw



## polyfonic (Jan 25, 2018)

I have two PCs - one new and one old. One is going to the main and the other one the slave. Which one should be set up as the main DAW?

The new pc has the following specs:
I7 7700k
32gb ram
512 gb Samsung evo ssd

The old one is a 5 yr old i5 w 16gb ram and 2x512 gb Samsung evo ssd

I run cubase w VEPro 6 and orchestral libraries.


----------



## trumpoz (Jan 26, 2018)

The idea of a slave computer is that it does the heavy lifting of samples/synths. Ideally the more powerful PC will be the slave pc.


----------



## lucor (Jan 26, 2018)

Why not just throw the 2 SSDs and the 16GBs of RAM into your new computer and work with a single PC? I feel that with a setup like this, the hassle (and additional power usage) of using 2 PC's isn't worthwhile.
Otherwise, I think it would depend on how much additional processing you're usually doing on your main machine when mixing etc. because in that case your old i5 will of course run into problems much quicker than your i7.


----------



## JohnG (Jan 26, 2018)

I have found that slave PCs hosting the newer string libraries need the fastest processor I can throw at them. You didn't post the precise speed of the processors, but I find I need a 4.0 GHz or higher speed processor to get through dense string passages, even though that computer handles _only_ strings. 

As a separate thought, even though it may seem nuts to put any money into an old PC, if you could double your RAM I would consider it. Sometimes the RAM for older mobos is very cheap, provided it's available and that your mobo and OS can accommodate it.


----------



## Jeremy Spencer (Jan 26, 2018)

lucor said:


> Why not just throw the 2 SSDs and the 16GBs of RAM into your new computer and work with a single PC?



The old Ram won't work with the new mobo.


----------



## polyfonic (Jan 29, 2018)

JohnG said:


> I have found that slave PCs hosting the newer string libraries need the fastest processor I can throw at them. You didn't post the precise speed of the processors, but I find I need a 4.0 GHz or higher speed processor to get through dense string passages, even though that computer handles _only_ strings.
> 
> As a separate thought, even though it may seem nuts to put any money into an old PC, if you could double your RAM I would consider it. Sometimes the RAM for older mobos is very cheap, provided it's available and that your mobo and OS can accommodate it.



Thanks for the answers everybody.

To be more spesific, it's a i7 7700k 4,2 ghz.
I have tested it as a slave for a couple of days, and with my Adagio strings and Cinebrass Core+Pro it works perfect. It hardly moves on the cpu-indicator. It must be said, that I did buy an extra Samsung SSD 850 evo 500 gb.

Something I've noticed is that NI Reaktor-patches are much more heavier on the cpu than the orchestral patches.

I will surely look for more RAMs for my old pc.


----------

