Get something cheap so you can get more RAM…processing power isn’t really necessary unless you’re a VST whore. I’m running ReNoise comfortably topping out at 30% on my most intensive realtime vst usage on a 1.45 Ghz Celeron M with 1 Gig of ram and using the internal sound card…
Unless the next version of renoise suddenly spikes it’s CPU usage, I’d say anywhere between 1ghz and 2ghz should suit you fine for a while. More RAM makes it load faster and allow more/larger samples without problems, so I’d get ram, personally…
The only reason I’d see to get a top of the line compy for renoise is if you’re running 20 instances of Crystal.
I’d recommend a used IBM (pre-lenovo takeover) Thinkpad T40 from eBay.
I got one last year for around £250 ($500) with 2gHz Pentium M CPU and 1gig of Ram and it handles renoise brilliantly. They’ll be much cheaper now.
They are probably the most reliable PC laptops available in that price range, you could probably throw this thing down a flight of stairs and it would be fine.
The only downsides are the slightly lo-res screen (1024-768) and USB v1 ports but that doesn’t bother me too much.
im not start a mac vs. pc thread here, but i use a 15 inch powerbook G4 with a 1.33 Ghz processor and renoise handles everything i throw at it. Its hyper-efficient compared to cubase sx3. you definitely dont need a top of the line computer.