# Getting a new computer - Is laptop viable as a studio computer? What to prioritise?



## Boberg (Jun 8, 2021)

Hi everyone,

My current studio computer is very old and it's therefore finally time for me to get a new one. However, I'm not very well-versed in the computer market and I'm honestly not even sure where to start. With the market updating so quickly (at least to my understanding), I find it hard to know where to read up about it, which is why I though some guidance from you would be very helpful

I'm a hobbyist and my needs are therefore not extreme, but I still wish to purchase a computer that I can work well with for a couple of years. I regularly run around 20-25 channels with VIs (most of them being orchestral libraries like CineBrass or synths like Omnisphere 2), with most of them having 1-5 patches loaded up or a larger keyswitch. 

I have a few thoughts:
-Could a laptop be reasonable idea or is that just silly? My idea is that I would plug it to all my regular studio equipment, but have the ability to easily bring it to my summerhouse or anywhere else I go. I've heard some talks that laptops are getting a lot better, and therefore thought it might be enough for a hobbyist like me. 
-What is important to prioritise? I know the CPU and RAM is important, as well as an SSD. 
-Does anyone have any suggestions as to where I should start looking?

If anyone knows of any good sources of information where I can read up on this, I'd be very thankful if you link it. I'd be happy to read up a bit more on it! 

Thanks in advance,
Boberg


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## Jeremy Spencer (Jun 8, 2021)

Windows or Mac?


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## shapeshifter00 (Jun 8, 2021)

If you go for windows and want it portable you can get a laptop with minimum 32 GB RAM (64 preferered) either Intel i7 or Ryzen 7 or 9 CPU. With 1-2 TB SSD and use external drives if you need more. Then get a USB docking station to connect external monitors for instance.

Or upgrade your current PC with new components like CPU,RAM and Motherboard and reuse the rest of what you have.

I prefer a desktop PC that I can upgrade when needed instead and it is cheaper in the long run. Both are viable options.


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## rgames (Jun 8, 2021)

Actually CPU is less important than a lot of other factors these days. Assuming you're getting a 6-8 core i7 or equivalent then SSDs are the more important factor. RAM is a close second but I'm assuming you'll get at least 32 GB (as noted above, 64 GB is more comfortable but not strictly necessary). Other than that, it doesn't really matter. Computers are good enough these days that you won't be limited by the computer. Once beyond 6-8 cores I haven't seen much benefit for DAW use. In the last 10 years I've had a six core, ten core and 14 core and they all perform the same. I also ran some benchmarks on my 14 core with different numbers of processors active and after 6-8 cores there was no change in performance.

On the desktop vs. laptop decision: you'll always get more performance from a desktop but laptops are perfectly workable these days and I work full orchestral setups from a laptop on a regular basis. From a practical standpoint they're equivalent assuming you're talking about Windows machines. I'm also assuming again that you're getting at least an i7 with 6-8 cores and at least 32 GB of RAM.

rgames


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## mscp (Jun 8, 2021)

rgames said:


> Actually CPU is less important than a lot of other factors these days. Assuming you're getting a 6-8 core i7 or equivalent then SSDs are the more important factor. RAM is a close second but I'm assuming you'll get at least 32 GB (as noted above, 64 GB is more comfortable but not strictly necessary). Other than that, it doesn't really matter. Computers are good enough these days that you won't be limited by the computer. Once beyond 6-8 cores I haven't seen much benefit for DAW use. In the last 10 years I've had a six core, ten core and 14 core and they all perform the same. I also ran some benchmarks on my 14 core with different numbers of processors active and after 6-8 cores there was no change in performance.
> 
> On the desktop vs. laptop decision: you'll always get more performance from a desktop but laptops are perfectly workable these days and I work full orchestral setups from a laptop on a regular basis. From a practical standpoint they're equivalent assuming you're talking about Windows machines. I'm also assuming again that you're getting at least an i7 with 6-8 cores and at least 32 GB of RAM.
> 
> rgames


Exactly.


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## JohnG (Jun 8, 2021)

agree with others recommending a minimum 32 GB of RAM. Personally, I'd want 128 but I'm piggy.


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## Boberg (Jun 8, 2021)

Very interersting. Thank you all for the replies! This is great information for me.

Firstly, sorry for not being clearer, but I'm thinking windows. I could go Mac (I am used to it as well) if it was deemed better, but as far as I am concerned you get better performance for your money if you go PC.

After reading your replies, the idea of using a laptop seems quite interesting after all. What would the big drawbacks of using a laptop be? I guess they may be more expensive for the performance you get, harder to cool down and impossible to upgrade. Am I right? Is the lifetime of a laptop shorter in general?

I'll try to get 64GB of RAM if I can fit it in my budget. Regarding CPU, is there any minimum speed I should try to get or should I just look at how many cores there are and get a minimum of 6-8? I'm definitely intending to get an i7.

Does anyone have any suggestions of what retailers I could look into buying from? Or should I just use a regular retailer in my city?

Thank you all in advance!


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## shapeshifter00 (Jun 8, 2021)

Try get a decent clock speed above 2GHz minimum. Laptops runs hotter so clock speed is lower then on desktops and can get more noisy. The price is a lot higher and I would say the risk of it going bad is higher especially when travelling around.

Hard to say where to get it from. Depends on your country of residence. You can configure your laptop at Dell for instance









Precision 7750 17 Inch Mobile Workstation Laptop with AR & VR | Dell USA


Introducing the world's most powerful 17\" mobile workstation with AI. Featuring Intel Core or Xeon processors, NVIDIA graphics and Dell Optimizer for Precision.



www.dell.com


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## Al Maurice (Jun 9, 2021)

Intel chips are notorious for overheating once the core count increases.

Ultimately once the chip becomes maxed out, that exhaherbates and the only option is to throttle back, at which point the performance starts to quickly fall off.

Some laptops and desktops handle this better than others. So that's something to consider.

Memory is arranged in banks requiring switching once the capacity increases, which can impact performance too.

It will be interesting to see what happens when the new M1 chips can address more RAM. Everything is included in the chip, requiring less reliance on competing bus architecture; meaning in principle they should be more performant. And unlike the Intel chips, they seem to produce less heat as performance increases.

So it might be worth waiting a while before you commit.


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## Buz (Jun 9, 2021)

Boberg said:


> After reading your replies, the idea of using a laptop seems quite interesting after all. What would the big drawbacks of using a laptop be? I guess they may be more expensive for the performance you get, harder to cool down and impossible to upgrade. Am I right? Is the lifetime of a laptop shorter in general?


Mainly that the spec doesn't reveal the thermal/engineering side. If you're building in an ATX case you can run whatever you need and work it all day without expecting failures beyond normal component life.

If you buy a well engineered laptop you can probably do that while it's new but it will age as things gradually melt. Probably low end stuff will fare better, but then the question is whether it's sufficient for needs.


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## Jeremy Spencer (Jun 9, 2021)

Boberg said:


> I'm a hobbyist and my needs are therefore not extreme, but I still wish to purchase a computer that I can work well with for a couple of years. I regularly run around 20-25 channels with VIs (most of them being orchestral libraries like CineBrass or synths like Omnisphere 2), with most of them having 1-5 patches loaded up or a larger keyswitch.


Based on this, I would consider looking at one of the Apple M1 laptops.


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## Tim_Wells (Jun 9, 2021)

Agree with much of what was said above. The downside to laptops is you don't get near as much performance bang-per-buck as a desktop. 

Also, much of the portability advantage is lost once you start hanging external hard drives, audio interfaces, midi keyboards, USB ports, extra monitors, etc., etc. 

If you want a PC that's already built and configured, there are plenty of options.


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## Boberg (Jun 9, 2021)

Alright, thank you all for the replies once again. I'm actually leaning more towards getting a desktop computer after all, as it seems to be more moneys worth. 



Jeremy Spencer said:


> Based on this, I would consider looking at one of the Apple M1 laptops.


I looked at these and tried to understand what's so special about the M1. Now, I obviously saw the flashy graphs they have of how it outperforms all PCs etc, but how true is that? Is it really so special? 

Thanks for the replies once again!


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## ism (Jun 9, 2021)

I do just fine on a 16G M1 MacBook. I have 2 external SSDs, and I don't run big templates , or write to gigantic epic orchestras, so I couldn't tell you where the cutoff of needing 32G is, but I've not hit it yet.


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## Boberg (Jun 9, 2021)

ism said:


> I do just fine on a 16G M1 MacBook. I have 2 external SSDs, and I don't run big templates , or write to gigantic epic orchestras, so I couldn't tell you where the cutoff of needing 32G is, but I've not hit it yet.


I guess that differs for me. I'm currently sitting at 24GB RAM as I have upgraded that by time, but the rest of the computer is very old. I'm already maxing those 24GBs in some cases, so 32GB would probably be minimum for me.


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## mscp (Jun 9, 2021)

Boberg said:


> I looked at these and tried to understand what's so special about the M1. Now, I obviously saw the flashy graphs they have of how it outperforms all PCs etc, but how true is that? Is it really so special?


The M1 is great for some things, but terrible for others (i.e: Kontakt/VI). I had one. Sold it. Too feeble for now, and their multicore performance is atrocious. If you need to squeeze that last drop of performance, go PC intel/AMD unless you use PT, then stick to Intel.


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## Soundbed (Jun 9, 2021)

My main studio computer is a MacBook Pro i9 from 2018 with 32GB ram and a 1tb internal drive (which is screamingly fast for samples). I bought it before the pandemic, when we were planning a lot more traveling and I needed a portable music studio. Well I’ve used it since then and it’s all I need. I wouldn’t entertain any M1 Mac until they support at least 32GB ram, personally.


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## Boberg (Jun 13, 2021)

Thanks once again for the replies. This thread has been very valueable for me!

I've started to look around ondifferent retailer sites and I've had some new questions pop up.

For CPU, I've always had intel before. Is there any large difference between Intel and AMD? Right now, I've been looking a bit at a computer with AMD Ryzen 7 3700X, which looks very good to me when just looking at the specs. Is there anything that's bad/good with AMD overIntel or vice-versa?

How much does the speed of RAM matter? I'm currently sitting on a 12GB chip with a speed of 1600MHz. Most new computers seem to have speeds up above 3000MHz. As far as I know, the chip with the lowest speed governs to speed of all the RAM. Would it be a bad idea to buy a computer with 16GB and then put my current chip in an available slot to get 28GB of RAM? 

When looking at SSDs, is there anything particularly important to look at? Is it just the speed or anything else that is important for DAW and sample work? 

Thank you all for the bits and pieces you've brought to the thread this far. It has really helped guide me in what direction I should start investigating.


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## Tim_Wells (Jun 13, 2021)

Boberg said:


> Thanks once again for the replies. This thread has been very valueable for me!
> 
> I've started to look around ondifferent retailer sites and I've had some new questions pop up.
> 
> ...


I think your wise going this route rather than getting a laptop. So much more bang-per-buck. The exception would be if there's a reason you specifically need a laptop.

On you PC config questions, you might want to start a separate thread. I'm not near as knowledgeable as some folks here. But I think most recommend the Ryzen 5 series (5600X - 5950X) as the best way to go for a DAW. The 5600X is great ban-per-buck. With the Ryzens you want at least 3200 Mhz RAM, ideally 3600. It's not a good idea to mix RAM modules.

Since your kind of new, you can probably do all right with 32 GB of RAM and save a bit of money. You could always upgrade later. Some will say you need way more RAM than that... but I'm not so sure that's always necessary. I'll let others chime in.


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## Pictus (Jun 13, 2021)

I can help build something(https://pcpartpicker.com/) you can use as a guide, but I need to know:
How much?
What country?
Need Thunderbolt?
How much disc space?
Will need monitor/keyboard/mouse?

BTW, you can check my previous posts...





My needs are modest. Wait for AMD Ryzen Threadripper 5000?


My old 2012 PC is on it's last legs and I need to look at building something new. But I could wait a little while longer. I'm trying to determine if it makes any sense to wait for the next-gen of Threadrippers (5000) to come out... or that's just overkill for me. My needs are modest relative...




vi-control.net










Which mainboard for 5950x?


So I've lucked out. I ordered a 5950x two weeks ago. Availability is pretty bad here. I thought I just order and forget, and was expecting delivery sometime in summer. Lo and behold, my cpu will arrive tomorrow. Now I have to order the other parts for my new build. Here is my list: CPU: AMD...




vi-control.net









The Beast


All it took was weeks of staying up all night following every single dubious lead for restocks. :shocked: At the time I was actually trying to get one from Best Buy when they very briefly and unexpectedly popped up on Amazon when I was looking for something else. I've never moved so fast!




vi-control.net









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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## rgames (Jun 13, 2021)

Boberg said:


> How much does the speed of RAM matter?


About as much as the color of the case.


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## Pictus (Jun 13, 2021)

rgames said:


> About as much as the color of the case.


Are you sure?





Ryzen Memory testing for audio, does it make an impact?







www.scanproaudio.info


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## rgames (Jun 13, 2021)

Pictus said:


> Are you sure?
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Yes. I've not seen any relationship between DAWBench results and practical performance metrics.

If your goal is to build a computer to run DAWBench then maybe memory speed matters. But I don't think that's what the OP is looking to do.

If your goal is to build a PC to make music then memory speed matters about as much as the color of the case. Actually a bit less 

rgames


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## Piano Pete (Jun 13, 2021)

Honestly, building an audio computer now—part availability aside—is pretty easy. There is so much variance that works, so it mostly comes down to what you want and budget.

Intel vs Ryzen: 

Yes, it used to be intel chips were the bees' knees. Some are technically still better on paper than some of the ryzen 3000 series due to clock speed and IPC; however, even then, the ryzen chips mostly brute-force their way through most work, and I highly doubt you are going to be min-maxing your computer to that degree. 

Today, I'd just stick with ryzen for the cost/performance until intel finally decides to stop sitting on their hands. For audio, clock speed usually trumps core count. Most cpu's you would even look at, just look at other forum builds, offer this out of the box.

With that out of the way, I would highly recommend the new ryzen 5000 series over the 3000 line, but availability and price just makes it frustrating—if not impossible.

If you have the cash and are willing to wait, I would recommend grabbing the newer line. If you have the cash and need something now, the 3000 line will last you awhile, but it will not get you the same performance nor future-proofing. 

How much will you notice a difference between a 3000 chip and 5000? Based on what you put in your original thread, both will be an upgrade so you wont be missing anything. The reason for the recommendation is that the 5000 is better for audio and for future proofing your build. (I have built enough rigs with Intel chips, Thread Ripper, and Ryzen 3000/5000). If you end up expanding your workflow and beefing up production, the 5000 will have more growing room 4-8 years down the road. 

Will the 3000 series still work? Yes. 

Pretty much any decent cpu from 2015 till now can run a modern workload. I still know people rocking quad-cores without problems: although they are using VEP. The question comes down to how much longer can they keep up, and this is usually dependent on workload. I'm not saying to buy kit that old, but it emphasizes Rgame's point that this doesnt really need to be overthought. For someone who isnt versed in the world of tech and kit, there's enough stuff to keep track of.

Ram:

As long as you do not purchase the cheapest ram available and end up bottle necking your system, Rgames is pretty much right: ram speed is less of a factor than pure capacity. That said, I have noticed that the 5000 series—in general—appears to like running with faster ram speeds.

Is it worth the extra money? Probably not for most people who arent pinning their rigs to the max. You are talking about percentage points that—in my opinion—are purely diminishing returns, _unless you are pushing things to the max. _

2400+ will suffice. Most modern kits are faster than this anyways. I personally like the Ripjaw V series. It offers pretty decent cost to performance, and I have only had a handful of bad sticks...which can happen with any brand. 

If it comes down between getting 32gb of fast ram versus 64gb of "it'll do" ram, get the 64gb. If you are looking to build a computer for the next 5-7 years, just grab the 128gb, as you'll probably grow into it if you are chasing this career professionally. If you cannot afford 128, just get the 64. It'll always be there down the road.

SSDs:

I always stick with Samsung drives. Nvme: 970s (or whatever version happens to be current). Regular SATA drives, EVO 870s (or whatever the current version is). 

These things are work horses, and I have only ever seen one go bad. I used to use other brands at the request of the composers I worked for, but they all ultimately ended up switching over to the Evos. TLDR: they are tanks. 

Grab a NVME for your OS and main drive. EVOs for everything else. Good ol' hard drives for long term storage and archiving. I know some people talk about using NVME/m.2 for samples, but I just cant recommend that when you start measuring the costs versus the benefits.

Past that, the world is your oyster. I'm a proponent for investing in rigs that will last 4-7 years, and when there arent global shortages, hit the sales as much as possible. 

Best of luck.


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## sourcefor (Jun 13, 2021)

Soundbed said:


> My main studio computer is a MacBook Pro i9 from 2018 with 32GB ram and a 1tb internal drive (which is screamingly fast for samples). I bought it before the pandemic, when we were planning a lot more traveling and I needed a portable music studio. Well I’ve used it since then and it’s all I need. I wouldn’t entertain any M1 Mac until they support at least 32GB ram, personally.


Yup what he said! I’ve been using a 16” MacBook Pro with 64gb ram as my main machine since late 2019 and it Mostly meets my needs with sometimes 100 tracks! And yes it gets hot and noisy but it does not bother me much. I only bought it so I did not have to be tied to my studio and be able to work from anywhere. But if you plan on staying in your studio a desktop Mac or windows would be a better option! Or wait for the new M1 macs and save your pennies in the mean time!


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## Tim_Wells (Jun 14, 2021)

rgames said:


> If your goal is to build a PC to make music then memory speed matters about as much as the color of the case. Actually a bit less
> 
> rgames


Would you mind elaborating a bit? I'm about to start a build and would like a better understanding. 

Listening through this video, they're saying a 10 to nearly 20% performance increase with the 3600 Mhz (AMD optimized) RAM over the 3200 Mhz. I'm focusing on the Ryzen chips here. 


Maybe the DAWbench tests aren't the end-all, be-all. But they seem to be the most scientific, impartial thing I know of. 

Thx.


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## rgames (Jun 14, 2021)

Tim_Wells said:


> Would you mind elaborating a bit? I'm about to start a build and would like a better understanding.
> 
> Listening through this video, they're saying a 10 to nearly 20% performance increase with the 3600 Mhz (AMD optimized) RAM over the 3200 Mhz. I'm focusing on the Ryzen chips here.
> 
> ...



DAWBench is a benchmark that is not directly relevant to real-life music production. Take a look at the tests - it shows performance where you insert hundreds of compressors or play back dozens of static block chords with thousands of streaming voices. I've never seen any project in any DAW that uses hundreds of compressos or thousands of voices worth of block chords. If you write music like that then yes, DAWBench is a good benchmark for your requirements. Otherwise, it's not relevant.

So why does DAWBench exist?

The truth is that modern computers are vastly more powerful than necessary for music production. So the only way to show a difference among them is to use something other than real-life music production - that something else is DAWBench and it's not relevant to real-life music production.

If someone wants to show that a particular computer component has an effect on performance then pick a collection of real-life projects and show the difference. For example, take a project that *won't* play with 2500 MHz RAM and show that it *does* play with 3200 MHz RAM. As far as I can tell, and I've spent a lot of time looking (and discussing exactly that scenario on this forum), that project doesn't exist because RAM speed doesn't matter for music production. Nobody has ever replaced slower RAM with faster RAM and gotten a project to work as a result. Same thing with a bunch of other computer-related specs like number of cores. Can you show a difference in a benchmark that has no ties to reality? Sure.

But if your goal is to make music then who cares?

I did a video a while back where I looked at the effect of number of cores on DAW performance. I used three different kinds of projects that span a range of different kinds of activities. I tested to see when I could hear pops/crackles in the audio at various buffer settings in those projects. Once I got past 6-8 cores I couldn't detect any more pops/crackles for a given latency. 14 cores provided no difference in performance as compared to 8 cores.

Now, DAWBench shows a difference in performance for number of cores. That's because it uses ridiculous projects that nobody would every set up. Which again begs the question - who cares?

Having a benchmark is fine. But you need to tie it to reality at some point, and you have to show that link repeatedly over time. Nobody has ever made that link with DAWBench (again, because you can't). DAWBench is a benchmark without a tie to reality.

Bottom line: any computer with 6-8 cores and 32 GB of RAM is basically as good as any other these days if your goal is to make music.

rgames


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## rgames (Jun 14, 2021)

Here's an analogy: let's say someone starts measuring how much weight a desk can support. And let's say one desk can support 50 tons while another can support 60 tons.

Would you buy the one that supports 60 tons because *maybe* one day you'll need to pile 60 tons worth of gear on your desk? I hope not. That'll never happen. 50 tons is already way more than you need. So who cares?

DAWBench results are like measuing the difference between 50 tons and 60 tons on a desk: irrelevant to anything remotely practical.

rgames


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## Tim_Wells (Jun 14, 2021)

rgames said:


> Here's an analogy: let's say someone starts measuring how much weight a desk can support. And let's say one desk can support 50 tons while another can support 60 tons.
> 
> Would you buy the one that supports 60 tons because *maybe* one day you'll need to pile 60 tons worth of gear on your desk? I hope not. That'll never happen. 50 tons is already way more than you need. So who cares?
> 
> ...


Good analogy. Thanks for taking time to reply! So any impact of faster RAM is on the extreme bleeding edge and something that has little or no relevance to real world projects. As @Piano Pete indicated, "Is it worth the extra money? Probably not for most people who arent pinning their rigs to the max."


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## rgames (Jun 15, 2021)

Tim_Wells said:


> So any impact of faster RAM is on the extreme bleeding edge and something that has little or no relevance to real world projects.


I'm not sure it's even relevant to bleeding edge. To me, "bleeding edge" implies I could think of some use case where it matters. But for music production, I can't! Again, for benchmarks, yes. But not for music production.

And that's a good thing. The days are long gone where things like # cores, RAM speed, etc. make a difference.

Nowadays performance is limited by other elements of the system, so that's where you should look. SSDs have a huge impact on performance when replacing HDDs. Quality of drivers can have a significant impact as well, especially for sound cards, video cards, network cards and anything else that has a real-time element. If you're doing orchestral work then quantity of RAM (not speed) can have a big impact if you're using only 16 GB.

So focus your attention there. RAM speed, # cores (above 8), etc. are pretty much irrelevant these days. CPU speed still matters but a lot less than it used to because pretty much everything maxes out over 4 GHz these days. At that point it doesn't matter much. 4 GHz vs 2.5 GHz is a significant difference but 4.5 GHz vs 4.0 GHz isn't that important.

rgames


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## Tim_Wells (Jun 15, 2021)

May actually be bit of a moot (_not mute_) question, anyway. There's not much of a price difference between the faster and slower RAM for 2x16gb and 2x32gb sticks. That's providing you can even find those size sticks in the slower RAM. 

I'm surprised there's not more complaining about the price of RAM. Your looking at $300 - 450 per 64Gb. It'll probably be the most expensive component in my new PC.


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## Soundbed (Jun 15, 2021)

Tim_Wells said:


> May actually be bit of a mute question, anyway. There's not much of a price difference between the faster and slower RAM for 2x16gb and 2x32gb sticks. That's providing you can even find those size sticks in the slower RAM.
> 
> I'm surprised there's not more complaining about the price of RAM. Your looking at $300 - 400 per 64Gb. It'll probably be the most expensive component in my new PC.


I think it’s expensive because most people don’t need it.


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## Pictus (Jun 16, 2021)

Tim_Wells said:


> May actually be bit of a moot (_not mute_) question, anyway. There's not much of a price difference between the faster and slower RAM for 2x16gb and 2x32gb sticks. That's providing you can even find those size sticks in the slower RAM.
> 
> I'm surprised there's not more complaining about the price of RAM. Your looking at $300 - 450 per 64Gb. It'll probably be the most expensive component in my new PC.



For AMD, I do not agree that RAM speed does not make a difference, *but our millage will vary*...
As you saw, today the price difference is small, no reason to buy the slower RAM.
The "best" RAM for Ryzen is Crucial(Micron chips). 


https://pcpartpicker.com/products/memory/#m=12&Z=65536002,131072004&sort=price&h=1


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## mscp (Jun 16, 2021)

Boberg said:


> I looked at these and tried to understand what's so special about the M1. Now, I obviously saw the flashy graphs they have of how it outperforms all PCs etc, but how true is that? Is it really so special?


Not at all. M1 Minis do not outrun 9th and 10th gen Intels at all. I had one. Sold it. If you're going to go the Mac route, wait a bit more.


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## Tim_Wells (Jun 17, 2021)

Pictus said:


> For AMD, I do not agree that RAM speed does not make a difference, *but our millage will vary*...
> As you saw, today the price difference is small, no reason to buy the slower RAM.
> The "best" RAM for Ryzen is Crucial(Micron chips).
> 
> ...


Thanks, Pictus. Any reason to look for AMD optimized RAM? Or is that "so 2020"?


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## easyrider (Jun 17, 2021)

A lot of nonsense in this thread.

The difference in price is tiny….get the faster stuff….even if it’s for resale value alone…

3200mhz is the sweet spot for Ryzen chips….3600mhz even better for 5000 series if your chip will run it….

Also people seem to forget that tighter timings can yield better Results than looser timings…


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## blakeklondike (Jun 17, 2021)

rgames said:


> Here's an analogy: let's say someone starts measuring how much weight a desk can support. And let's say one desk can support 50 tons while another can support 60 tons.
> 
> Would you buy the one that supports 60 tons because *maybe* one day you'll need to pile 60 tons worth of gear on your desk? I hope not. That'll never happen. 50 tons is already way more than you need. So who cares?
> 
> DAWBench results are like measuing the difference between 50 tons and 60 tons on a desk: irrelevant to anything remotely practical


Would you apply that same idea to a laptop with good specs running 16 gb of ram vs 32 vs 64? I just bought a used gaming computer because it is upgradable to 32, and worry that i made a mistake and will need 64 for orchestral film scoring.


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## Pictus (Jun 17, 2021)

Tim_Wells said:


> Thanks, Pictus. Any reason to look for AMD optimized RAM? Or is that "so 2020"?


You are welcome, the reason is to avoid headaches...


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## rgames (Jun 17, 2021)

easyrider said:


> A lot of nonsense in this thread.


Please do post an example to disprove the nonsense.

You'll be doing a great service to the VI Control community!



rgames


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## rgames (Jun 17, 2021)

blakeklondike said:


> Would you apply that same idea to a laptop with good specs running 16 gb of ram vs 32 vs 64? I just bought a used gaming computer because it is upgradable to 32, and worry that i made a mistake and will need 64 for orchestral film scoring.


As I said above, for orchestral work I think 32 GB is workable but 64 GB is much more comfortable. I'd definitely plan for at least 64 GB if I were setting up a new machine.

You can work with 16 GB. You just have more hoops to jump through because you'll probably have to bounce tracks at some point.

Regarding the analogy, there are clear examples where having more RAM makes a meaningful difference. For RAM speed, though, I haven't seen any examples where faster RAM makes a difference from a practical standpoint. But it seems @easyrider is about to show us just such an example, so stay tuned to the thread!

rgames


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## ism (Jun 17, 2021)

Libraries like Insolidus, Symphonic Motions & the performance patches on Spitfire Solo Strings use time stretching to great effect - but at a great cost of processing power.

Not very many libraries can afford to be designed this way in an era where very few people have the processing power to keep up. But imagine the libraries being designed now that can assume that within a few years, everyone will have 8 or 12 processors. 

The time machine on Spitifre Solo Strings is a very good example. It allows you to intensify the vibrato. It's a great effect, but on my old 2 core machine, seldom worth the cost in processing power. It's also a very localized effect, good only for a single gesture of intensifying the vibrato. 

But it's also a great proof of concept. If processor power were so ubiquitous as to remove this as a design consideration, imagine where libraries might go. Kontakt 5 had a new time stretching algorthing that was game changing for this kind of instrument design - and Insolidus is a great example of a library that quietly uses it, constantly, and invisibly under the hood to very great effect.

Imagine that Kontakt 7, or some such, might offer a new time stretching algorithms (or whatever) that require more processing power that was reasonable to assume at the time of K5.


Similarly the neuromorphic cores in the M1 and other processors, while I don't know the details, are likely to be extremely fast, hardware optimized chips for massively parallel (mostly) linear algebra. Speculatively, what if Kontakt could access this paradigm of computation for, say, extremely fast Fourier synthesis, which could revolutionize additive synthesis, and who knows what else. I imagine companies like Sample Modeling must be salivating at all the computation power of this paradigm coming to the table, and soon.


So the point is only that there's good reason to believe that what may appear an excess of computational power depends, even now, on which libraries you're using. 

And if we imagine a concerted focus of innovation in the next 3-5 years, who knows how by the ubiquity of megaflops might transform the sample library terrain.


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## easyrider (Jun 17, 2021)

rgames said:


> Please do post an example to disprove the nonsense.
> 
> You'll be doing a great service to the VI Control community!
> 
> ...


Regardless of the gains….The price is so tiny between the speeds getting anything below 3200mhz is pointless…

And the fundamental reason for this is resale value….

People want to run 3200mhz plus with Ryzen systems…Making anything slower a tough sell should you upgrade in the future.

Same goes for bank Size….2 x 32GB 3200mhz Ram is more desirable than buying cheaper 4 x 16GB banks for the same capacity….you have nowhere to go….

Better to spend the bit extra on 2 x 32GB banks now to allow for upgrading and also easier to sell as people want this configuration to upgrade themselves.

Same goes for SSD storage…Selling a Samsung or Crucial SSD to increase your storage will be easier than trying to shift an SSD from another manufacture less well known.


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## C.Franzén (Jun 17, 2021)

I have a 2019 Macbook Pro that went for $4000, and it is a workhorse! I am constantly surprised by how much it can handle, so I can recommend it.


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## vitocorleone123 (Jun 17, 2021)

Windows laptops are more risky than a Mac laptop - smooth and low latency real-time audio depends a lot on the system as a whole rather than one or two bits like a CPU.

Building your own Windows PC with carefully researched parts that are known to work well together is the best bet. Or buying one from a know system vendor specializing in audio. Buying a Mac is easier, but you get less for the money. If convenience over customization is a must, consider a Mac.

Regardless of OS, core speed vs core count can now be balanced with something like the free Audiogridder server/client (even on the same computer), which is vastly more efficient at spreading the load across cores than a DAW like Studio One (among others). In fact, I’d say core count - with good speed- matters a lot going forward.


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## Wedge (Jun 17, 2021)

A laptop is viable but you have to make sure you can get enough RAM. Most laptops these days solder RAM to the motherboard so you can't upgrade it down the road. Anything below 32GB RAM will be a pain at some point, so I would make that the minimum. I would make sure that either there are slots not soldered RAM or make sure you have more RAM than you think you'll need. My laptop has 48GB of RAM (16 soldered, 32 in a slot) which is great for me now but a year or two down the line I might be disappointed I don't have atleast 64GB (I guess I'll find out.) 

Ryzen processors are optimized to run on 3200Mhz RAM, so if you're going AMD I would go with that (That's what I have in my machines). They should run fine at with slower speed RAM but when I was shopping I saw some big drops in performance be reviewers. I don't know if it would even be noticeable in real life though ( The cost difference wasn't enough for me to bother finding out.) I think the next gen Ryzen chips are optimized at 3600Mhz but I could be mistaken.

Another thing to keep in mind is form factor. How big a laptop do you want? 13", 14", 15", or 17" inch, I personally find 14" to be my sweet spot but most of my friends seem to use 15". I only know a couple gamers with 17" (Which I would find obnoxous if I was hauling it around all the time.) It's easy to find RAM slots in a 17", pretty common in 15", at 14" and below it gets more rare.

Processing power an I7 mobile or Ryzen 7 mobile just isn't going to have the same processing power as a desktop CPU (they try to find a nice balance between battery life, heat and power, desktops don't have to worry heat as much or about battery life at all.) But unless you're using a lot of taxing effects that difference really shouldn't matter. I would recommend getting at least an 8-core 16-thread CPU (you could probably get by with 4-core 8-thread cpu but with how things move in streaks and how Intel is upping cores to match AMD, I think (me speculating) processing needs are going to be jumping up again. It hasn't really happened in a while.)

Then comes storage, you can have lots of drives in a desktop ( I have 2 HDDs, 2 SSDs, and 3 NVMEs in my workstation, with pleny of connections and space to spare). I have an NVME and an SSD in my laptop and that's really rare in a 14" (it's usually just an NVME.) Samsung and Crucial are the two biggest names in NVMEs, they are the most expensive, some of the fastest and tend to have the higheset endurance( endurance is how many writes until the drive starts failing. Heat is another thing that shortens their lifespans. But even drives with some of the lowest endurances should outlast a standard HDD.) The speed is getting to the point where the increases are not really that noticable for most things. So I'd recommend Samsung or Crucial NVME drives, but I don't think it's as important as some people make it out to be.

Well I think I've written a novel here so I'm gonna recap and run...

Yes, a laptop can be a viable studio computer
Form Factor is the first thing I would look into as everything else is based off of it.
How much RAM, depending on laptop size a lot of brands and models may not have more than 16GB soldered so by default they should not be included in your list of options ( 32GB min, more is better.. Slots can be upgraded, soldered can't)
Then I would decide between AMD and Intel (You have more options with Intel, but AMD are faster and cheaper. Intel's get about a half hour more of batterylife, on thinkpads anyway.)
Then onto drives.
Then screens (I just moved from a glossy to nonglossy screen, it is so much nicer.) Depending on where you use it look at the nits ( it's the max brightness) 250 is the minimum and if you use it in the shade or the dark it'll be fine but in direct sunlight might struggle, if that's the case you probably want to go closer to 400 nits, they can get up to 1000.
Ports - you might want to keep an eye on that as some laptops (looking at you Dell) Some of their newer machines only have two USB-C ports, and one is used for power, that means you can only plug in your interface or you need to get a USB Hub.

Good luck dude. Have fun.


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## blakeklondike (Jun 17, 2021)

rgames said:


> As I said above, for orchestral work I think 32 GB is workable but 64 GB is much more comfortable. I'd definitely plan for at least 64 GB if I were setting up a new machine.
> 
> You can work with 16 GB. You just have more hoops to jump through because you'll probably have to bounce tracks at some point.
> 
> ...


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