Suggestions for a new, inexpensive system?

I can't answer your questions directly, except to say that I am also quite involved in photography, and on a very knowledgeable photo forum (quite a few are professional photogs) the consensus is that quad core will be the future, and likely necessary with the upcoming operating systems.

64 bit will become standard (according to them), as will the quad core "i7" generation of computer (assuming we're talking about PC's here).

If I was thinking about buying right now, I'd still wait for at least a few months for Windows 7 to be released (with the bugs ironed out), and I'd be looking for the "i7" processor.

Glenn

What is already standard or not, I think that is related with the money you want to spend and the use of the new PC.

I should say that quad cores are standard now. And of course Intel.

The question is I think, old or new quad cores.

The old Q6600 is probably the best you can get for the money because of overclocking. If you want to expend more, then a Q9xx as EvilDragon said, can be overclocked too. They use DDR2. But you will not be able to update them with new processors, as this line is over with the new i7, that uses different RAM and motherboard

The new Intel i7s are expensive, but on the long term perhaps is a better idea. In fact the model 720 is not much more expensive than the "old" quad cores. What is expensive are the new DDR3 RAM and motherboard. Note too that in these processors Intel has resurrected Hyperthreading, so your i7 is in fact 4+4. 4 real cores and 4 virtual ones. This is supposed to improve the performance in some applications, but not in all, even in some the performance can be damaged (example in computer chess). No idea about Pianoteq or computer music programs performance with HT enabled. Anyway it can be disabled in the bios, so you have 4 cores

64 bits is IMHO a must too. Pianoteq developers reported some improvement with it, look at the 64 bits thread. But what is more important, you need a x64 windows version to use properly more than 3GB RAM, that is standar too right now for a new computer. And it is the future, well not, the present All the processors sold right now are x64 capable

The speed is for each core, in fatct they are only 1 processor but with 2 or 4 cores, 4+4 for i7 (8 threads)

E5200 is a dual core processor

Intel Core 2 (duo, quad) is an improvemen over the original core, most if not all the processors sold right now are core 2 or the new i7

So IMHO

You want to buy now, somewhat cheap and updating is not important, Q6600

More money available and want a new and upgradeable system, i7 920

Hope this helps

Jake have you seen the benchmarks for the i7 yet?
It's very impressive, and shows equal power and even extra when compared to the Dual Xeons.
I have used Conroe's since hey came out and the E8600 was the latest.
But the i7 920 or 940 will have a long life on the LGA1366.
They are cheap and the upgrade path looks impressive.
I am happy with what I am using now, but AMD and Intel are fighting it out right now during tough economic times.
Personally I would wait until summer and then leap in head first w/ an NVidia based AMD, or an i7.
6GB's upgradable to 12GB's later for fairly cheap.

Pianoteq actually has 5.0 sound, as there's no dedicated LF processing channel.

If you are looking for an inexpensive system, I recently upgraded my whole pc for under 300$ (video card, hardrive, cpu and motherboard, power supply, RAM) and its able to play the system intensive game Crysis at full speed, its able to run a ton of VSTs at the same time, and of course is able to run Pianoteq 3.0 at 5.0 milliseconds with no artifacts (rolling my hand along the whole keyboard sustained for max polyphony).

1) Get a cheap AMD motherboard + CPU combo from somewhere like Fry's. I picked up a motherboard with a Dual Core 3.1 GHz (second fastest for the dual cores). By now, the quad cores are a lot cheaper so its up to you. You could always buy a dual core and drop in a quad core on an AMD motherboard until its cheaper and programs start using it as standard. Since you said cheap I mentioned AMD. Better dollar to speed ratio.

2) All CPUs sold currently are 64 bit. Its worth it to have a 64 bit operating system but don't remove your 32 bit OS yet. You can find out if everything you need right now is supported by the 64 bit OS and if it fits your needs. 64 bit allows you to have more than 4 gigs of ram.

3) Answered already, each core will run at 2 ghz.

4) The e5200 is OK, but I don't know if you're going to be able to drop in the newer and more powerful CPUs that are coming out.

5) Core-2 is the designation given to the line of Intel's newer CPUs like Core-2 Duo, Core-2 Quad.  The newest line, the Core i7s are something worthy of consideration if you want to upgrade.

I'd mused something along these lines myself but basically just to beautify what is really a midi controller on metal legs with a pair of headphones, not a real piano body.

I think you're right with your assertion that 5.0/1 audio isn't going to give an accurate representation of an acoustic grand.  Even trying to recreate a piano in an acoustic through a 5.1 system in a room is problematic and I would say that sitting at a keyboard in the middle of such a room would be very disconcerting. 

I think the results would be far more realistic using 5 or more speakers of *mono* sound spaced around the "soundboard".  Whilst this won't be perfect, as a loudspeaker is extremely very directional at frequencies with wavelength < diameter of the cone, if the speakers pointed upwards at, say, a lid, the sound should be pretty diffuse.

Best//Neil

It can handle even more than that, it's 64-bit so it can handle up to 16 million gigabytes of RAM. It's all dependant on the motherboard, still. So, if motherboard supports 32 GB of RAM, that's what the CPU will use.

Of course, you're right, the theoretical limits are ridiculous, but motherboards available now have 2x3-slot memory banks and 8GB RAM sticks are hideously expensive and actually aren't truly 8GB, rather 2 x 4GB "pretending" to be 8GB, so currently the practical limit is 12GB.  At least this was true a few months ago.

Best//Neil

After I made this post, I went to see my friend the piano restorer, and we did a crude test to check the stereo separation while sitting at the piano.  One of us would alternately strike a low bass note and a high treble note, while the other would move around poking his head under the lid to try to determine where the sound seemed to be coming from.

His ears are better than mine (he's 30 years younger) and he concluded that there might be a 10 to 15 percent stereo separation between left/bass and right/treble.  That's for the pianist.

The separation for someone fifteen feet/5 metres away is basically zero.

As for the point source comment, the soundboard is certainly large enough to not be a point source if one is close to the piano, but back up six meters (20 feet) and it's essentially a point source with no frequency separation at all.

As for the complex interaction of sound from the board, I would totally agree - changing the angle of the lid on an acoustic grand changes the sound quite a bit.

Glenn

The bridge is quite a stiff piece of wood (it's not spruce as is the soundboard) so that string vibration would be transferred almost instantly to the soundboard (2 ms maybe?).  From my structural engineering background, I would suspect that the bridge is much stiffer than the soundboard which means that the bridge would transmit its vibrations along at least 24 inches (610 mm) of  the bridge.

This is close to 1/2 the width of the 52 inches wide (1.32 m) soundboard - which would dilute any positioning of the sound from left to right.

My personal bias is that a strong observance of the bass coming from my left side is mostly a preconceived perception based on where the strings are, but I would gladly bow to any comments from the Pianoteq gurus (Edit - actually Guillaume has already commented on this).

The following video is interesting - starting a bit into the video it says "Note 70" which is fairly high up in the treble.  Even when the piano shape is changed radically, this high note always starts at the far/small end of the soundboard, and doesn't seem to propagate to the right side where it should if the high pitch sounds come from the right side.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GL5f-EcqPOc

Glenn