Building a PC for writing music.

Already posted on Tested but just wondered if anyone here had any input.
 
Here's the back story my laptop just can't handle playback of multiple channels on Reason and I'm forced to write sparse tracks to keep under the CPU limit. What I want to do is build a PC that is built just for the purpose of running programs like Reason and Reaper well, so I don't have to worry about hitting the CPU limiter anymore. I intend to keep using my laptop for normal use so this PC hasn't got to do much else other than to run power hungry music software.
 
The max I can go money wise is £500-700.
 
Don't need monitor, keyboard, mouse, large hard drive, speakers, high end graphics card for games. 
 
This below is pretty much the final specs so any last minute suggests let me know. 


 

I do not know much about the programs you're talking about, but I can vouch for i7s being worth the extra cost over the i5s.

An ASIO sound card goes a long way in taking some of the pressure off of your processor, but is only required if you're recording live instruments.  
I use Reaper, which I love outside of some stability issues, and it runs on pretty low end PC's. Reason, on the other hand, is a beast.  
I've listened to your stuff, and would ask - are the effects what's using using up your CPU?  I've recorded four live tracks at once on an old Intel Celeron D with no problems (ASIO card used), but if you throw a VST reverb on one of them it goes batshit. 
 
If that's the case, do you now how to master single tracks in Reason? You would put all of your effects on a track and balance them the best you can. Then, that track gets mixed down into a .wav file and that file takes the place of the track - removing those effects from your CPU.   
If you're not doing this already, give it a shot, and it'll squeeze some life out of your laptop. 
 
Most professional music mixed on computers currently use the UAD range of effects, which has its own processor - but costs as much as a new computer. 
 
Let me know how it goes.....

Ive been producing music at my buddies house for a while now with an older version of cubase on a not very fast machine, i think the process is helped immensly by the additional soundboards and equipment he has in addition to the computer. sorry but i dont know specifics about the boards

It seems odd that you would leave out the soundcard, perhaps the most important part of making and recording music on a PC.  Are you using Reaper solely to ReWire into Reason and add VST effects or do you plan on using it to multitrack record?  Either way, a decent soundcard would be nice.  Everything else on your list seems solid though.  You might want to opt for a second hard drive with one being where your raw programs are installed to and the other for sample/audio storage.

Try and get the sata 3 version of that HDD, might help with accessing the music on it, I dunno.

Also try overclockers.co.uk as you may get better prices. I dunno.

It seems odd that you would leave out the soundcard, perhaps the most important part of making and recording music on a PC.  Are you using Reaper solely to ReWire into Reason and add VST effects or do you plan on using it to multitrack record?  Either way, a decent soundcard would be nice.  Everything else on your list seems solid though.  You might want to opt for a second hard drive with one being where your raw programs are installed to and the other for sample/audio storage.

• Will get a soundcard when I have more money but this build will wipe me out for a while.
• Only just starting to learn Reaper and it wont be for live recording, just using sound libraries for now. Mainly use Reason and rewire to Tracktion when I'm writing music for a video and want the synced video playback.
  
• Will stick with one hard drive for now. If it was my perfect build it would have a SSD 128GB for prime but I need to rob a bank for that.

Also try overclockers.co.uk as you may get better prices. I dunno.

@X19: I've got all of my stuff from them and it has always been cheaper than anywhere, all apart from when I bought my HDD which was cheaper from Amazon.