# If you had $8-10k budget to build/buy your dream DAW machine what would it be?



## Synetos (Oct 23, 2020)

I decided to try and move "into the box" as much as possible. Basically just studio work, songwriting, recording, dabbling in the TV/film area a little bit, etc. Pretty much anything I can do from a studio with the right gear. I sold a ton of gear that didnt fit that workflow, and I am left with a nice stash for a new DAW computer.

I look at Mac Pro, then I look at PC and I am reminded how much more DAW power I could get with the same money. I have played with Logic/Reaper/Studio One, but I am mostly a Cubase guy. If I had to choose a new DAW from those, it would be Logic

INTEL, AMD, MAC? They are all in a weird state right now. I also think Mac is stupidly overpriced and about to revamp its architecture, even though I like them...plus, Cubase isnt so good on the Mac from what I read.

My current DAW is an 18Core 7980XE [email protected] all cores. I sold all my other PCs, so I now have a single box studio setup.

I could go Mac route and turn my 18core PC into a VEP server. I could go with the new AMD, but there are many unknowns. Hard to know if Intel is going to come out with a technology leapfrog, soon, or if they are on the way out. 10900k may be an option.

Hmmm...what to do?


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## mscp (Oct 23, 2020)

Are you having a hard time working with your current PC?


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## Synetos (Oct 23, 2020)

Phil81 said:


> Are you having a hard time working with your current PC?


No, not really. Just it's aging...and mostly gear lust


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## Paul Jelfs (Oct 23, 2020)

8 Apple Pro Monitor Stands ? 

I get the gear lust though 

What about a Thunderbolt 3 Laptop (If you use that type of Audio Interface) , use that for only Cubase and have your beefy pc as a Slave. 

Plus it will have a decent GPU in it so you can game, if you like to in your spare time


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## Shad0wLandsUK (Oct 23, 2020)

Paul Jelfs said:


> 8 Apple Pro Monitor Stands ?




With the 10K option you can get some wheels too... why limit yourself?


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## mscp (Oct 23, 2020)

Synetos said:


> No, not really. Just it's aging...and mostly gear lust



Nothing out there at the moment will be miles better than what you have. Since Xeons are out of your budget range, I'd save up and wait. Perhaps spend your money elsewhere. 

The reason why I'm saying this is because I've recently switched from a kaby lake i7 4.2 (8 core) to a coffee lake i9 5.0 (16 core) and the difference was frustratingly less than what I had expected in mind.


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## Damarus (Oct 23, 2020)

Yeah this might be a different story if you had some aging hardware, but that is still a very capable processor. Even if you did need to upgrade you would want to wait until some ScanPro benchmarks come out for Ryzen 5000 series, or even futher in the future for Intel 10nm..


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## Synetos (Oct 23, 2020)

Shad0wLandsUK said:


> With the 10K option you can get some wheels too... why limit yourself?


Maybe i could just buy all wheels and no stands. I am sure they will be worth 5x is a few years time. ha!


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## Synetos (Oct 23, 2020)

Damarus said:


> Yeah this might be a different story if you had some aging hardware, but that is still a very capable processor. Even if you did need to upgrade you would want to wait until some ScanPro benchmarks come out for Ryzen 5000 series, or even further in the future for Intel 10nm..


I was thinking more of going back to multiple machines and dedicating the 18core to VEP. I plan to wait for the reviews of Ryzen 5000, but I still hold out hope for Intel. They have treated me very well on warranty issues in the past. I feel a bit of loyalty for that reason alone. That said, I love the competition. That will only be good for all of us in the long run.


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## Synetos (Oct 23, 2020)

Paul Jelfs said:


> 8 Apple Pro Monitor Stands ?
> 
> I get the gear lust though
> 
> ...


I run Waves SoundGrid setup, so ethernet is my interface. But, I also still have a MacBook Pro Mid 2014 loaded with all the bells from that time frame. I have tried it in that config, but it gets pretty loud when the fans spin up. My studio is whisper quiet, so it is super obvious.

I also dont need to be moving around, so laptop isnt all this useful. If I went the mac/logic route, I could go with a nice iMac as my DAW and still use the 18core on VEP.


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## batonruse (Oct 23, 2020)

*If you had $8-10k budget to build/buy your dream DAW machine what would it be?*

Just that.......a dream!


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## vitocorleone123 (Oct 24, 2020)

I wouldn't buy one machine, since any machine will be outdated. I'd spend half on a PC I build and then two years later I'd buy another with the other half and make the first one the primary and the initial one the secondary using networking and load sharing. Also far easier to buy yet another in 2 more years, etc. and keep the rotation, or farm, going.


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## Synetos (Oct 24, 2020)

vitocorleone123 said:


> I wouldn't buy one machine, since any machine will be outdated. I'd spend half on a PC I build and then two years later I'd buy another with the other half and make the first one the primary and the initial one the secondary using networking and load sharing. Also far easier to buy yet another in 2 more years, etc. and keep the rotation, or farm, going.


That is kinda what I am thinking by making my 18core a VST server. I am now looking more closely at a i9 iMac or 10900k PC to become my primary DAW. Still pretty sure I will stay with Intel, at least for one more build. 2-3 years from now it should be much more clear.


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## Andrew Aversa (Oct 24, 2020)

I'm really not sure you will get much better performance out of a 10900k. I'd be curious to see exact apples-to-apples comparisons, but looking at Dawbench results, the 10980xe - which is a small upgrade from what you have now - scores worse than either Ryzen 3900x or 3950x. Noticeably worse. And the 10980xe also outperforms the 10900x handily so I'm pretty sure a 10900 for you would be a downgrade.

This goes for both VI & DSP results.






DAWBench | Scan Pro Audio







www.scanproaudio.info





With Ryzen 5000 just around the corner, I HIGHLY recommend you wait for that. Consider that the 3950x is already a monster - yet takes less power/cooling than Intel's offerings - and the 5000 series looks to be potentially 20% faster or more, with both clock/frequency improvements AND IPC (instructions per clock.)

For $8000, you will _easily _be able to max out your system RAM at 128gb, and you'll be able to be loaded with blazing fast SSDs for your entire system. Hell, I did that and still had money to spend on PCPartPicker! For some reason it's not showing many hard drive options, so I had to hand-calculate a bit, but here were my numbers.

CPU: Ryzen 3950x ($709)
Cooler: be quiet! Dark Rock Pro 4 air cooler ($90)
Motherboard: Asus ROG Strix B550 ($185)
Memory: 128GB DDR-3600 G.Skill TridentZ ($549)
Storage: 1x Samsung 980 Pro (1TB, $229) 2x Samsung 970 EVO Plus (2TB & $259 each), 3x Samsung 860 EVO (2tb & $249 each), 2x WD 10tb Red Plus ($257 each)
Case + Power Supply: $250

Total: $3,791. Crazy, right? And with this, you have *five* terabytes of insanely fast NVME/M.2 SSD, plus another *six* TB of regular (but still fast) SSD storage, and finally 20 TB of mechanical storage (for archiving, backups), or you could RAID them for 10 TB of backup storage.

And again... not even half your budget there.

You could put the remaining money into a delicious 34" ultrawide 1440p display for ~$800, put in an excellent video card for photo/video editing for ~$300, and then buy hardware synths with the rest. Skies the limit.

Or - you could pay $8000 for a Mac Pro with a worse processor, 96 GB of RAM, and a total of 256gb of storage.


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## SupremeFist (Oct 24, 2020)

My dream rig would be a current Mac Pro plus Logic, but with the quality control and UX philosophy of the Apple of 15-20 years ago. Unfortunately not available at any price.


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## Andrew Aversa (Oct 24, 2020)

For what it's worth, unless you absolutely cannot learn any other DAWs other than Logic, or you have NO local PC tech/support, I just can't see the justification for going Apple at this point. Between their constant breaking of compatibility with countless plugins and software (such as their latest update), their environmental and consumer-hostile policies, and ridiculously overpriced hardware, it's a terrible value proposition.

In the US for example, in California you have Fry's, and in the rest of the country, Micro Centers can be found in most major metropolitan areas. These places will not only build your computer and test it for just a couple hundred bucks, but also offer the same kind of warranty/service plan you get with AppleCare. Just like AppleCare you can walk in with your machine and have it fixed as fast as possible. And if you need replacement parts, they can get them to you on the spot. 

This is precisely what happened to me last year when a power surge blew out my motherboard right before Christmas. I arrived at my local Micro Center on December 24th and had my machine back up and running on the 26th, completely taken care of.


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## Synetos (Oct 24, 2020)

zircon_st said:


> I'm really not sure you will get much better performance out of a 10900k. I'd be curious to see exact apples-to-apples comparisons, but looking at Dawbench results, the 10980xe - which is a small upgrade from what you have now - scores worse than either Ryzen 3900x or 3950x. Noticeably worse. And the 10980xe also outperforms the 10900x handily so I'm pretty sure a 10900 for you would be a downgrade.
> 
> This goes for both VI & DSP results.
> 
> ...


Thanks for that. I am actually waiting to grab deals over the Christmas season. I wouldn't buy a mac pro. I was looking at the 2020 i9 iMac and it would have been around $4k for how I was going to set it up. 

I am a Cubase guy, and dabbled with Logic. But, Cubase doesnt run as well on a Catalina as it does on Win10.

I would have to wait to see how Ryzen release solves some of the issues I read about regarding single core latency. It did well on multicore stuff, but seems to have issues getting really low RTL, which I need for tracking live instruments and vocals.

Kinda why it almost seems like the wisest thing is to wait and do nothing to see how everything shakes out over the next 3-6 mo. I am not in crisis mode, so I certainly can wait.


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## JonS (Oct 24, 2020)

Get the 16-core Mac Pro 3.2Ghz with 8TB internal SSD and the base 32GB RAM. You can buy ram cheaper at Amazon after you buy the computer from Apple and install it yourself.


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## jonvog (Oct 24, 2020)

It's not a very sexy answer, but if you are not limited in any way by the system you have now, why spend the money? I know the GAS is real, but seriously, just save it. Sooner or later you will come to a point where you can clearly say what you are missing and then you will know, what you should spend the money for. And I personally would save myself the hassle of having a VEPro setup if I don't really need it. If you really want to throw the money out: what about acoustic treatment? Ergonomics? A really nice chair, a nice desk, maybe from beijer workstations? A nice 4K screen? Donate it to a good cause?

Well, I myself would get more RAM (I have 32 and I am constantly hitting the ceiling) and upgrade my 1st gen Focusrite 18i20, propably with an option by RME. But that's just specifically what my system is lacking at the moment.


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## Synetos (Oct 24, 2020)

JonS said:


> Get the 16-core Mac Pro 3.2Ghz with 8TB internal SSD and the base 32GB RAM. You can buy ram cheaper at Amazon after you buy the computer from Apple and install it yourself.


That would be like $11-12k. Not happening. If I bought a MacPro, it would be the base model and upgrade CPU/Ram/Storage myself. But even the base price is stupid expensive. Never understood why Apple is like that. Seriously. Just Greedy? And that is why I haven't bought a new Mac since 2015. Every time I come close, I get annoyed by the pricing. I "could" buy whatever I want, but I am just not willing to do it...especially when they seem to break Logic with every upgrade. I digress...


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## purple (Oct 24, 2020)

I can't imagine needing that much. I could probably build a pretty much "perfect" machine for $3k or less. I mean, what am I getting, a Mobo, the best processor I can find, 128Gb ram I guess and some SSDs? A cheap video card for more display outputs... A case and power supply? $10k sounds like a ripoff!


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## Synetos (Oct 27, 2020)

So, if I did the math right, the 10980XE should yield about a 15% increase over the 7980XE. Since they both run on the same motherboard, I could just buy the newer chip for $1000, and sell my 7980XE on ebay for $500-600. Is is probably the cheapest path to a little bump in single/multi core speed. I run my rig at 128 samples. It would be nice to drop that to 64 samples. Maybe that might be possible with 10980XE upgrade. I overclock the 7980XE at 3.6ghz now with out any heat issues. If I could run the 10980XE at 4.0ghz, it might be worth the net $400-500 upgrade cost.


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