# Are windows updates as tricky as recent Mac OS updates with software/device compatibility?



## nickp (Jun 5, 2020)

So iv been on the verge of getting a new MacBook. But, getting up to date with software security bugs and what compatibility issues there are with certain plugins and devices has made me hesitant in terms of possible headaches. IV seen certain companies recommend not upgrading OS on Mac here and there at times. Iv seen people have issues with their logic projects when upgrading OS and logic. Iv seen recording glitches with the new 16 inch MacBook Pros at 44khz and changing the khz to fix it temporarily and then it comes back regardless. It seems the more security updates Mac OS installs, the harder it is to use your own programs and devices freely and I feel that is the companies future, only apple products working best with other apple products. And even so, apple OS seems to get in the way of apple software sometimes...

My question is for windows users, or users who have both Mac and Windows, is windows often less difficult to work with when it comes to their software updates? I havent used windows in a long time. Do they update as often as Mac and are their updates causing issues with DAWs, plugins and hardware as often as It seems to cause issues with Mac users? Are windows updates causing headaches and barriers as often?

I dont know if apple is as necessary or innovative as it once was. I rather go with an OS that doesnt make It harder to use my software In general and would rather take the easier route. But I havent used windows, maybe its as problematic as Mac OS is. I dont want to be in a situation where I have to wait months to use things I typically use ETC. I also dont like if something goes wrong with your hard rive on a T2 chip device, you cant actually get into it and its encrypted forever.I had that happen with an iPhone, I had over 1000 recordings that I cant access because of a faulty screen, it typed the wrong passcode in my pocket, and the phone encrypted. Those security measures apple takes I find too extreme and mostly unnecessary.

Does anyone out there find that Windows has been less obstructive in general in terms of Bugs/incompatiblity/plugins?


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## José Herring (Jun 5, 2020)

nickp said:


> So iv been on the verge of getting a new MacBook. But, getting up to date with software security bugs and what compatibility issues there are with certain plugins and devices has made me hesitant in terms of possible headaches. IV seen certain companies recommend not upgrading OS on Mac here and there at times. Iv seen people have issues with their logic projects when upgrading OS and logic. Iv seen recording glitches with the new 16 inch MacBook Pros at 44khz and changing the khz to fix it temporarily and then it comes back regardless. It seems the more security updates Mac OS installs, the harder it is to use your own programs and devices freely and I feel that is the companies future, only apple products working best with other apple products. And even so, apple OS seems to get in the way of apple software sometimes...
> 
> My question is for windows users, or users who have both Mac and Windows, is windows often less difficult to work with when it comes to their software updates? I havent used windows in a long time. Do they update as often as Mac and are their updates causing issues with DAWs, plugins and hardware as often as It seems to cause issues with Mac users? Are windows updates causing headaches and barriers as often?
> 
> ...


Windows has pretty seemless updates. No real issues. Every once in a while an update won't take but then you restart your computer and it pretty much handles it. 

Windows is also extremely backwards compatible. I have one W10 machine and one W7 machine and I can move most of my software between machines at will. Even some Windows 10 specific software will still work on Windows 7 though I probably wouldn't recommend doing that. 

My windows 10 machine has a driver that is from the XP days. Since I use it with VEPro I never needed to update my old aging audio card. I still use it for system audio though and that driver still works even though it hasn't been updated since 2010. I just kept moving the same driver from machine to machine for 10 years and the driver still works. In my move on this machine from W7 to W10 I didn't even bother to replace the driver. It just left it in place and when the update was over all the software sill worked, I didn't even have to install anything at all again. It was fairly remarkable.


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## VladK (Jun 5, 2020)

I cannot speak specifically about audio soft compatibility, but I am from a big team of software developers with close to 2/3 of us using Mac as main box for many years. I haven't heard from any of Mac users that they find MacOS upgrades piece of cake. Every upgrade is painful with a lot of enterprise software and critical utilities not working anymore, and sometimes for months. Probably, Apple does not provide enough information and/or time in advance to let software developers keep up to pace.
This hit especially hard those who buy a new laptop which always comes with latest MacOS and without rollback option.

My wife's laptop is still on High Sierra, and she is not willing to upgrade it as long as all her old apps work, and for all the new stuff she switched to Windows laptop a year ago.

Since Windows 7, all WIndows upgrades are mostly painless in my experience, there are bugs, of course, that hit some of us (and sometimes hard) rarely, but that's it.


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## VladK (Jun 5, 2020)

One tricky part with Windows upgrades I witnessed myself (with some old Canon drivers): when I upgraded my home file server from W7 to W10, everything worked fine, but some time later I decided to do a clean W10 install to get rid of all the bloatware that accumulated there over the years. And what happened was that while driver itself was working with W10, its (old) installation utility refused to finish installation and rolled it back because it failed to recognize W10 version. So I had to spend a lot of time tweaking and hacking this utility configuration files to get installation completed.
This was old Canon scanner that Canon did not support anymore, so there was no official WIndows 10 support ever expected.


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## nickp (Jun 5, 2020)

hmm yea thanks guys, im really considering switching, I just dont hear of a ton of windows issues but maybe i need to look much more, im trying to search and find common windows issues and I dont see alot yet. There always seems to be complaints about MAC os and im not seeing a benefit with Mac updates tbh. I often upgrade OS insantly because I find the older OS starts to run a bit buggy on my MacBook Pro, so I feel like I dont even have a choice. I like airdrop to share files from my phone to laptop but if I get an android I can easily use a sd card. I am starting to feel the Mac OS doesnt make anything easier. I just dont see benefits anymore, the only thing to make me stick with apple is if windows OS is just as annoying and risky as Mac OS is. I just dont feel OS updates should make me worry all the time haha


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## IFM (Jun 5, 2020)

Weird as I e always found Mac OS updates painless And Windows less so. I’m running 5 active macs at the moment, no issues.


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## jcrosby (Jun 6, 2020)

I've used macs for 14 years, the 1st 10 years were more or less painless, and updates didn't typically break anything. You might see the odd bug, but typically it was nothing more than a minor nuisance, and never once disrupted my ability to work. The past 4 years are pretty much the opposite, have gotten exponentially more frustrating, and I'm near the end of my rope with Apple...

I replaced my Mac pro with a hackintosh, which ironically is less prone to issues and easier to troubleshoot than my actual macs, these days at least... Once my current MBP starts to get on in its years though I don't see myself replacing it with another for all the reasons you've cited. (As a point of reference this is my *5th *MBP*. *These were my portable workhorses, and the model I most looked forward to when it got a significant refresh. Post T2 chip The MBP's been a ****show...)

I've had various security updates break major parts of the OS including audio, the only solution each time being to roll back from a clone... Each time Apple support was thoroughly clueless and I had to take matters into my own hands.. I avoid security updates altogether now which should say something about how disruptive they can be when they break something.

Can't speak to Windows since I left it 14 years ago for macos. That said I sure see a hell of a lot less complaints from Windows users on the forum these days, and friends of mine who do compose on Windows have no complaints..


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## yiph2 (Jun 6, 2020)

Well I don't know anything about Windows, but mac updates are not that bad for me. Just instal it on the mac app store and install it. However it does take quite a while. But generally, I don't update it unless I have to. For example I am on Mojave, I don't want to update to Catalina as it only supports 32bit


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## Brasart (Jun 6, 2020)

My personal experience is that macOS updates never broke anything for me, and I can actually keep my Macs from updating, whereas my Windows10 PC keeps updating itself and breaking things here and there (sound card drivers, video drivers... etc).
I've also locked both my Macs at 10.13.6, and I'm in no rush to update to the latest OS


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## vitocorleone123 (Jun 6, 2020)

Generally win10 updates are easier since this version of the OS. Keeping them from happening if you need to for work reasons is harder.

Both can be a major pain in the rear if things go sideways. One of the things that get mocked about Windows is stability ... but the fact it isn’t always stable with all hardware combinations, while unfortunate, is also something Apple purposefully avoided because it tries to control everything about your experience, whereas Windows does not. You have the freedom to use what you want, though it might screw things up for you, especially if you don’t know what you’re doing. Pros and cons to both.


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## nickp (Jun 6, 2020)

yeah im pretty stuck. Iv heard a few rare complaints about windows since iv looked, like drivers having to be reinstalled ETC and finding that windows is using other software as a priority causing latency when recording and having to figure out what is causing the latency in your entire system. I did see windows say that in windows ten their own apps have viruses etc. I saw an old article of when windows ten came out it took pro tools months to fully make it compatible with windows 10. 

I dont understand alot about drivers, from my experience, you get a device, if it you need to download a driver, you just go to the products website and download. I dont see how that can be an issue on windows but im not sure if there are multiple drivers needed other than the main ones from the products own. With Mac OS logic issues with recording and a people not being able to access logic projects seems common and the other things I mentioned.

I do wonder about how bad a virus can ruin something in windows, I mean, you can always get it recovered and salvaged if you lose files right? Cuz with new Macs if your ssd gets ruined,it encrypts and the data is never recoverable. And if I have to choose recovering from a virus and not recovering at all, well I want to be able to recover. Apple will start using ARM chips in their new laptops from what I know to make their own products run more smoothly but with apple I see them only concerned with their own internal compatibility, they dont seem to worry much about external compatibility where with windows I feel they have to worry about external compatibility .

So im stilll researching. Windows and drivers seems to be something to try and learn more about in general, viruses and how bad they can truly be. I did hear about windows updates deleting files ETC. Im not sure if windows is due to a big update soon, maybe that can be an issue, and maybe Catalina will sort itself out since its somewhat new. I just feel at this point apple is only going to get more exclusive, not inclusive. And to repair a Mac seems almost impossible in the near future outside of apple themselves. Iv been watching videos of a repair tech and he has enlightened me how much apple lies about internal computer problems and way overcharges for very cheap solutions. Youre kinda stuck with apple being a totalitarian company , I dont like that. Iv lost files due to band syncing with iTunes back in the day, and my phone being encrypted. I never had any virus do the much damage to me. 
Please keep experiences coming! 
I dont know how to build the right pc and right parts, so idk about hackintosh for me, I may be always stuck trying to figure out what I did wrong if I go that route. But pcs are just so much cheaper and seem usually fixable and salvageable.


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## Sunny Schramm (Jun 6, 2020)

Nope - I´ve upgraded via Online-Update from to Win7 to Win8.1 to Win10. Never lost any files, never had any compatiblity problems. Since XP SP3 Windows is really stable. Also Windows Defender is superb - so you dont need other antivirus-software which digs deep into the system. I check every day for updates and install them if available. Never had problems ❤


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## purple (Jun 6, 2020)

I don't know, but judging by how hard windows is trying to get me to stop putting off the newest update I'll be able to tell you soon!


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## wayne_rowley (Jun 7, 2020)

I know where you are coming from Nick. A security update did something nasty to my Mac Mini a couple of months ago. Managed to recover, but only by upgrading to Catalina (which fortunately I could - software and hardware is compatible). Apple hardware prices are getting higher, their design is getting more questionable, and with both OS and firmware updates the platform becomes more locked down and troublesome. But Mac OS is still lovely to use, Logic is great, everything runs efficiently and Core Audio still holds something over Windows I think.

On Windows there is better compatibility, better performance per price for the hardware, and the ability to be in full control of hardware and software. BUT, will that still be the case in six months/ a year/ 3 years etc.? The next update or release could begin to change all of this. Historically it seems that where Apple lead, the others follow.

It‘s a bit like living with noisy neighbours. It’s annoying, it causes some problems, but you can still live. Or you can move to a new house with quieter neighbours - but then a year later your neighbours move and guess what - new neighbours are also noisy!

Just work out what is important to you from your hardware or software, pick the platform that meets those needs the best and make it work.

Wayne


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## nickp (Jun 7, 2020)

More issues with the current 16 inch MacBook is with the T2 causing kernel panics often for people. Also the fans go up to about 50 Dbs which can easily ruin any microphone recording in the room, as well as on my monitors I tend to listen at about 70 ish Dbs, so 50 dbs of extra noise isnt the best. I tend to find people having these issues without trying to search for it with the new MacBook Pro. 

Thanks for the continuing input here from everybody , very very helpful.I had a studio tell me they switched from windows because of constant virus issues yet they hate catalina and it has made them have tons of compatibility issues but when it works its very stable, which is turn makes me wonder aside from viruses why would windows be so unstable for them, especially in relation to all those catalina problems they're having? lol. Do people find windows has audio drop outs often? I know pro tools can crash with not such a strong computer, but are the crashes as often with modern powerful setups aswell outside of CPU issues?

I would think once its setup your fine, but some people make it seem as if it constantly has random issues. But as some have stated here, no problems have arisen for them in windows.


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## Technostica (Jun 7, 2020)

My sense is that W10 has settled down a lot since first released and there are generally less issues.
Just make sure you delay installing any updates and upgrades and especially the major ones.
macOS has been through a difficult phase recently for sure.
It’s hard to say what the future holds but if Apple do move to ARM then that might be a pain!


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## MartinH. (Jun 7, 2020)

nickp said:


> I saw an old article of when windows ten came out it took pro tools months to fully make it compatible with windows 10.


The thing is, windows users had a _choice _to switch. I _still _use Windows 7. Anyone who is an early-adopter for a new windows version has only themselves to blame. They usually have a bunch of problems in the first months/years after release. I would put off switching till you have a good reason to switch. I didn't have one yet, so my windows 7 install is close to 10 years old. In that time my friend who uses Macs had to buy new hardware 2 times I think, because new versions of his mac software needed a newer version of the OS, which didn't run on his hardware. 




nickp said:


> I do wonder about how bad a virus can ruin something in windows, I mean, you can always get it recovered and salvaged if you lose files right? Cuz with new Macs if your ssd gets ruined,it encrypts and the data is never recoverable. And if I have to choose recovering from a virus and not recovering at all, well I want to be able to recover. Apple will start using ARM chips in their new laptops from what I know to make their own products run more smoothly but with apple I see them only concerned with their own internal compatibility, they dont seem to worry much about external compatibility where with windows I feel they have to worry about external compatibility .


You should make backups that aren't permanently connected to your computer. Offsite (online or bank-vault seems ideal) backups are preferable. There are viruses that encrypt your files to blackmail you to de-crypt them again. Those can only be recovered from backups, you can't break that encryption as far as I know. You do need anti-virus software on windows, but as long as you're following basic precautions the "threat" of viruses is wildly overblown imho. I remember having 1 virus in over 2 decades of windows use. And that didn't even cause any real harm, just a lot of time investment to get things in order again.



nickp said:


> And to repair a Mac seems almost impossible in the near future outside of apple themselves. Iv been watching videos of a repair tech and he has enlightened me how much apple lies about internal computer problems and way overcharges for very cheap solutions.


Yeah that's where apple is headed. Louis Rossmann's channel is very interesting. That's probably the one you're referring to. 
Come join us on the dark side and get a windows PC, I don't think you'll regret it.




nickp said:


> I had a studio tell me they switched from windows because of constant virus issues yet they hate catalina and it has made them have tons of compatibility issues but when it works its very stable, which is turn makes me wonder aside from viruses why would windows be so unstable for them, especially in relation to all those catalina problems they're having?


If they had "constant viruses" they were doing something very very wrong. If you have everything set up in a safe way, you should be able to get mails with viruses attached, surf on shady websites and run pirated software all the time without actually getting your system _infected _with a virus. Like when I get an email with no text and 10mb attachment from someone I don't know, that definitely is a virus, but your email program obviously should be set up not to auto-execute such attachements, you should be smart enough not to open them yourself, and your anti-virus software should be set up to still intercept it even if you click on it by accident.

Operating a windows system safely and smoothly may require a bit more active engagement, knowledge and tinkering on the part of the user, but imho you get rewarded with a _much _more compatible ecosystem that gives you more freedom and has you dealing with less incompatibilites from updates. 

I do know several cases where windows updates did completely fuck the system they were installed to, so I wouldn't say they are risk free at all. That's the reason why on win xp and win 7 I always chose to just not update windows ever (with a few exceptions) and put my full trust for virus protection in my anti-virus software (because skipping system updates means skipping a ton of security updates that plug security holes in the OS). On windows 10 you can't as easily choose not to do those updates, which is one of the reasons I held off on switching to windows 10 so far. 




nickp said:


> I would think once its setup your fine, but some people make it seem as if it constantly has random issues. But as some have stated here, no problems have arisen for them in windows.



You definitely _can _have random issues to deal with, because of the larger number of combinations of hard- and software that you can have on windows. But once those are ironed out, I would say most windows users will have a more stable longterm experience compared to most mac users that seem to have to deal constantly with old software being incompatible with new versions of the OS. On windows that's so rare, you're surprised when it happens, it's not an expected inevitable thing. E.g. I've been using the same calendar program for about 10 years and I expect to be able to keep using that even on windows 10 and possible future versions. Since windows doesn't control the users hardware, there won't be a situation where they e.g. choose to switch to ARM processors and none of your old stuff works anymore. 

I recommend joining us on the windows side of the OS-war, but come prepared with a bit of research on securing, maintaining and backing up your system, to ensure a safe and smooth experience.


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## IFM (Jun 7, 2020)

You are starting to get too much speculation. Why not just make a bootcamp partition and see how you get along? You might find things that were simple in OSX overly complicated in W10. Good luck!


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## vitocorleone123 (Jun 7, 2020)

Macs have viruses.
Macs should be backed up like windows.
Macs get stupid updates sometimes like windows.
Macs make some things easy and some things harder than they should be like Windows.
MacOS is just an OS like windows, not a way of life.
At first, you need to learn how to use a Mac just like you need to learn how to use Windows.
Mac essentially has drivers like windows but they’re built in and are limited in number because the number of possible Mac configurations are very very limited.

MacOS is a little more elegant than Windows with all the “bells and whistles” enabled.

MacOS doesn’t seem to need as much regular “grooming” as Windows - by this I mean file cleanup and deletion... Over the years, Windows seems to build up files like plaque. I use wise disk cleaner regularly.

The best experience with Windows is with one you build new yourself based on research. Next best is a pro custom build (but priced about the same as a Mac). If you have to, then something like Dell. If you don’t build it yourself, you can end up with hardware or software you didn’t want (esp from Dell etc).


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## ghobii (Jun 8, 2020)

I've switched teams several times over the years, started out on Amiga 
I just ordered parts last night for a new PC after using Macs as my main platform for the last 11 years. I had several motivations for making the switch again. 

First, I'm no longer tied to Mac by Logic, as I switched to Bitwig last year, which I'm extremely happy with. Another big factor was the fact that Mac doesn't offer Nvidia graphics cards. I do a lot of work in 3D/animation/video and there's been some huge advances using GPU acceleration, and most work only, or best with Nvidia cards. And the recent Mac upgrade fiascos and other audio issues have certainly played a part in some lost love for the platform.

I am a bit apprehensive about migrating my life to Windows and having to deal with a new set of issues, but I'm not really expecting it to be significantly better or worse then Mac, just a bit different. And I keep having this nagging feeling in the back of my head that I'm forgetting about some essential program that is Mac only


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## Pictus (Jun 8, 2020)

ghobii said:


> I've switched teams several times over the years, started out on Amiga
> I just ordered parts last night for a new PC after using Macs as my main platform for the last 11 years.



May help





Nvidia Driver, no latency anymore?


Hi all! We all know that AMD drivers have from far, less latency than Nvidia drivers, and for that reason we all recommand an AMD graphic card for audio working. But recently i have dealt with a new install on a PC with an Nvidia graphic card. And when i updated to the latest driver i saw an...




vi-control.net


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## ghobii (Jun 8, 2020)

Pictus said:


> May help
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Well, this is just the weird type of issue I was not expecting, that I expected to run into  Thanks for pointing this out as it will likely save me a ton of time and head scratching.


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## nickp (Jun 8, 2020)

Yea I dont want to over think it and over analyze, but I dont want to only think about it for 5 days either lol. Iv looked into many YouTube videos on pc builds for audio, quiet cases, fans, motherboards. It helps narrow down all the options. I just started lookin into companies that build laptops and desktops for audio specifically but as someone mentioned, it ends up being the price of a Mac anyways.
What iv seen that could be a pain is DPC latency. Some people have to turn off wifi, re install drivers, os, unplug things, and take alot of time to figure out what is causing issues. Im not sure how often that happens but that surely isnt ideal. There was a thread on another website and somone mentioned they had to reinstall drivers and try different drivers to fix an issue , multiple times and I believe there was a windows representative there and his basic response was "thats weird" lol. Noone knew what the real issue was, or what exactly fixed it. But atleast now im starting to feel like I have more of a grasp of all this.


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## Ben (Jun 8, 2020)

It seems scary at first, but most of the times you can avoid most issues:

- get a good mainboard with the top-of-the-line chipset. A good mainboard is not that expensive anymore, but stay away from the ~60€ ones and get one at ~90-150€
- If possible avoid the use of an additional graphics card. If not, install the studio drivers
- Get fast RAM. No need to overdo it, and it depends on your CPU. With AMD's new CPUs you should get at least a 3200MHz kit. With Intel don't go under 2900MHz.
- Avoid the use of WiFi and disable the device if any is included on the mainboard
- Use SSDs and for multi-mic libraries NVMe SSDs might give you an edge (it works great with our libraries at least)
- Disable all energy-saving options in Windows and use the high-performance energy profile. Make sure to disable USB and PCIe power savings. You might also want to disable hibernate.
- Disable all powersavings, C-step etc in thge BIOS. Disable the WiFi adapter if necessary. Also disabling the internal audio device could help lowering the DPC latency further. Enable RAM overclocking and choose an appropiate overclocking profile (Intel; not shure how AMD handles this)


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## nickp (Jun 8, 2020)

Ben said:


> It seems scary at first, but most of the times you can avoid most issues:
> 
> - get a good mainboard with the top-of-the-line chipset. A good mainboard is not that expensive anymore, but stay away from the ~60€ ones and get one at ~90-150€
> - If possible avoid the use of an additional graphics card. If not, install the studio drivers
> ...



Thanks yea, I have been seeing into this. So if I were to get a pc id try to go with an i9 intel , I saw some Asus motherboards were recommended. And some good RAM options.

I did start seeing companies who build computers all basically give you options for a drive specifically for os and then other SSDs for vsts and plugins and then other SSDs for storage. That did raise some new questions for me. I had read a drive for OS and VSTs separately, doesnt really make anything faster, and possible slower to communicate , but if thats the case, then why would separate drives be recommended? Is it indeed faster to operate like that? I did consider name m.2 drives. Not sure if I get a drive just for OS how big I should even go then, im assuming smallest drive possible.

I did see someone mention leaving cpu at 100 percent or something like that. I forget if thats totally related to this next point but that actually one doesn't necessarily want flunctuations in cpu usage in DAW which actually isnt always ideal, because consistent cpu power is more useful than fluctuating power. Even in terms of turbo boosting intel cpus


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## Ben (Jun 8, 2020)

On a good mainboard you have 2 NVMe ports and ~4-6 SATA ports. You can use all of them without much of a performance hit. I would really recommend to use an HDD only for mass-storage, but neither for samples nor the OS. Put the OS and the apps on a SATA SSD and if space is left you can also put stereo samples on it. You will not experience a significant performance improvement if you put the OS on a NVMe SSD; and because these are relativ expensive it's a waste of money.
Make sure if you get a NVMe SSD not simply to get a SATA M.2, but real NVMe ones. These perform no better then regular SATA SSDs.


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## Pictus (Jun 8, 2020)

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## Zero&One (Jun 8, 2020)

Microsoft push updates out the second Tuesday of each month aka patch Tuesday. So you can easily avoid them for a bit until reports are ok.


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## Nate Johnson (Jun 9, 2020)

This is exactly the type of thread I need right now. I'm finally working with a DAW thats not tied to an OS. One step closer to jumping the Apple ship.


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## vitocorleone123 (Jun 9, 2020)

Ben said:


> It seems scary at first, but most of the times you can avoid most issues:
> 
> - get a good mainboard with the top-of-the-line chipset. A good mainboard is not that expensive anymore, but stay away from the ~60€ ones and get one at ~90-150€
> - If possible avoid the use of an additional graphics card. If not, install the studio drivers
> ...



I build my own PCs...


Good mainboard: check
Nvidia 970GTX: check... I use the MSIUtil to enable that when updating the drivers
Fast enough RAM: check... Intel 9900K here so I went with 64GB DDR4 3000. AMD is much more sensitive to RAM speed
Wifi: gigabit ethernet or just give up already
SSD: nvme on board plus more
Energy savings: mostly disabled in Windows
BIOS: overclocked to 5Ghz here, all power savings enabled just fine, internal audio and wifi and bluetooth disabled
For the most part, just buy good stuff and don't worry about it unless you have to. If you're buying a new Windows PC and want the most performance for your money, go with a high-end AMD system. I'm sure Intel will reclaim the "crown", but AMD absolutely holds that now.


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## vitocorleone123 (Jun 9, 2020)

Zero&One said:


> Microsoft push updates out the second Tuesday of each month aka patch Tuesday. So you can easily avoid them for a bit until reports are ok.



I've not had any issues yet with a patch, but I know others have.

Backing up your computer (image) to a NAS, for example, daily - and before applying a patch, is recommended just in case. I'm a huge proponent of the paid version of Macrium Reflect, though free is OK (but it can't do incremental updates, for one). Set it and forget it. It's annoying to recover if you have to, but is only a few minutes to a few hours depending on lots of variables.


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## Dietz (Jun 9, 2020)

I know that I'm pushing my luck by writing this - but in about 30 years of using Windows-based PC's (and almost as many being online) my computer caught a virus once, around 1998, IIRC. So this shouldn't be an issue if you're not doing insane stuff. 8-)

... my Macs had no viruses at all, during the same period, but they gave me much more of a headache several times.


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## Zero&One (Jun 9, 2020)

My other Mac had the same (including upgrades) install on for over 8 years. Carbon Copied twice.
My gaming PC has been running for about 3 years. Acronis image restore once due to some crap game.

Neither have caused me any real issues that a 7 min restore didn't cure.
Times have truly changed in both camps.

Covid free on both.


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