Hi, I just bought 2014 version and plan to buy a 17" laptop just for DAW. Does anyone have specific experiences for BIAB that will affect my laptop choice
1. SSD benefit over HDD
2. 16GB vs 8GB
3. Quad Core i7 vs Dual Core i7/i5

BIab will play on almost any modern laptop. SSD Drives are significantly faster overall, but you really don't need this for BIAB. BIAB is 32 so it wont access more than about 3.5 gig of your RAM. A lot of us are waiting for 64 bit but don't hold your breath on that one.

I don't think that BIAB accesses more than one core, though I could be wrong.

Frankly much of the coding is ancient however, it's still a fantastic program.

Personally I would go for the fastest CPU however, I have a quad core laptop and it does drain the battery quick


Z

Ahfei, the real question you must answer is what else are you going to put on the computer?

For instance if you are going to put a high powered DAW like Sonar along with some high ram using softsynths then I would suggest the most powerful computer you can buy that has two 7200 HDs. I would suggest a Quad core i7 with 16 gigs of ram.

If you are going to use BiaB and RealBand exclusively then you can get the dual core i5 and one 7200 rpm HD, however two HDs are still better. BiaB and RB do not need the most powerful computers.

A SSD HD, Drive C:/, would be nice in both scenarios however not absolutely necessary.

In either case if possible get an external HD for data backup. It is not a question of will my HD crash; it is when will it crash. Having backups can save the day.

Buying a computer where the ram can be updated may also be important. I could only afford an 8 gig of ram but at a later date I upgraded it to 16 gig.

These are just my ideas. YMMV.

Good points above.

I think of the choices you give that the SSD is the one I would do. I have SSD boot drives on all my machines, and I would never go back. I also have BIAB on the SSD. This is the only application program I feel makes a significant difference with an SSD. Of course, I back up the song data regularly.

One nice feature of my machines with an SSD is that they do not crash anywhere near as often. When they lose power, they don't lose data, and I think that makes then more stable than hard drives.

Either CPU you mentioned would be great (and far better than mine, which runs BIAB just fine).

The RAM over 4 GB is unnecessary for BIAB at this time.

Yeah, I agree. Most modern laptops will work just fine and give great performance.

One thing I would recommend that you do consider..... get a USB external interface that runs ASIO drivers and has all the other features you may need. The laptop's factory sound card chip isn't really very good for running music programs like we use.

This assumes you don't already have an interface. Get M-Audio, Presonus, Focusrite and the performance of Real Band and BB with midi synths will be flawless.