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Best laptop to use for serato

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  • September 24, 2014 at 7:36 pm #2062671
    DJ Vintage
    Moderator

    Minimum specs for an i3 are 1.0 GHz, so the 2.19 is double that. Unfortunately it’s not all as easy as comparing specs. OS plays a part. As does the amount of fine-tuning you are able to do. Having an SSD makes a difference, as does the amount of RAM. Also if you plan on doing a lot of FX and or big BPM changes that comes into the equation. Will you go the Serato Video way and/or use Pitch N Time?

    As you can see, not a very easy question. I hope someone with a laptop with comparable specs can give you an eyewitness report.

    The 2.0 GHz minimum is for DUAL-core CPU’s. The one you are talking about is QUAD. I am not sure if Serato utilizes all the cores though. If it does, a quad core 2.5 will be faster than a comparable speed dual core.

    I have a dual-core i5 MacBook Pro from mid-2011 and it does great with 4 GB of RAM. I am not a very big FX guy so that might help. But I have run Traktor, Serato and Mixvibes Cross on it without any problems.

    September 24, 2014 at 9:06 pm #2062761
    david stead
    Participant

    I won’t be using serato video so hopefully it will be good!..I haven’t got the funds for a MacBook so I think I will just buy and try, thanks for your help. these are the specs if anyone else has some input before I buy!..Intel Pentium N3530 with Intel HD Graphics (2.58 GHz, 2 MB cache, 4 cores)
    Memory
    4 GB 1600 MHz DDR3L SDRAM (1 x 4 GB)
    Video Graphics
    Intel HD Graphics
    Hard Drive
    1 TB 5400 rpm SATA. These are the specs if anyone can help!.

    September 24, 2014 at 9:08 pm #2062771
    david stead
    Participant

    I won’t be using serato video so hopefully it will be good!..I haven’t got the funds for a MacBook so I think I will just buy and try, thanks for your help. these are the specs if anyone else has some input before I buy!..Intel Pentium N3530 with Intel HD Graphics (2.58 GHz, 2 MB cache, 4 cores)
    Memory
    4 GB 1600 MHz DDR3L SDRAM (1 x 4 GB)
    Video Graphics
    Intel HD Graphics
    Hard Drive
    1 TB 5400 rpm SATA. These are the specs if anyone can help!.

    September 24, 2014 at 9:13 pm #2062781
    DJ Vintage
    Moderator

    If you can scrape together a few extra $$$, try swapping the 1TB HD (who needs 1TB for DJ-ing anyway, right?) for a 256GB SSD (Samsung 840 Pro is currently one of the best). It’s THE most significant speed boost you can give any laptop (or PC for that matter).

    Just my opinion of course, any seconds?

    September 24, 2014 at 9:27 pm #2062801
    david stead
    Participant

    Thanks for the advice!.. I just looked there around £120 do you think it would make a difference buying an i3 with the extra £120 or just sticking with the quad pentium and buying the ssd?. In your opinion?…

    September 24, 2014 at 11:54 pm #2062981
    DJ Vintage
    Moderator

    You can have an IT person advice you, there are some SSDs in a slightly lower price bracket that are reasonably comparable to the Samsung and good enough for the purpose. I’d have to see benchmarks on both PCs to tell you if it’s an even trade (i3 or SSD), but in general I’d say SSD is always a great move.

    One of the extra advantages is that they have NO moving parts. And while a regular harddisk is pretty sturdy when it’s off (parked heads), it is still pretty fragile when the disk is actually spinning. This is no issue with an SSD.

    Alternatively you can get the i3 and upgrade the SSD when you’ve saved up some more.

    September 25, 2014 at 9:32 am #2063271
    deathy
    Participant

    Generally speaking, DJing is a very disk intensive task so a lot of the time, you will find your disk is going to be a bigger bottleneck than your CPU. I would definitely think that an SSD is going to give you more bang for your buck than the difference between the CPUs you are picking between. The CPU you were already looking at is plenty decent enough.

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