I recently saw some mini PCs being advertised that had a Ryzen 9 5900HX CPU, 32GB RAM (supporting up to 64GB), and NVMe SSDs in them with space for a second SSD, all for a fairly affordable price.

Are these good enough to get rid of the classic desktop and use these to make music on instead? They can utilise external GPU I believe, but not even sure a GPU is necessary for audio production?!

Here is an example:
https://droix.co.uk/blogs/beelink-gtr5-review/

 

what style of music? random style? if you write orchestral music you need cpu and alot of ram. if trance i think cpu is main cause of synthesizers

 

The CPU will last you 5+ years unless you absolutely must have 15+ inefficient plugins on every track and hate freezing tracks. GPU doesn't make a lick of a difference. I know of exactly one company working on GPU powered plugins, and those are still in beta. 32GB RAM is plenty. How much storage you need depends on what you're going for. 1TB (NVMe) minimum. More if you plan on getting dozens of deep sampled instruments.

 

definitely yes, but you want consistent performance, not compromised by mediocre cooling solution (comensated by wild noise isn't a solution), 5900HX has 45W TDP on paper, which should be fine

 

To add some further context, I currently have a Core i7 4960X with 64GB RAM and GTX1080 GPU, but doesn't support Windows 11, which is what I use on my laptop.

I could, theoretically, buy something like an X570 motherboard, Ryzen 9 5900X CPU, and 64GB DDR4 RAM for similar price to one of these, and add on my GPU and install in my current setup.

It'll mainly be for in the box techno production, and just trying to decide whether a minimal tidy solution using a mini PC is a viable option or to just buy the regular desktop upgrade hardware and live with more clutter (I am currently trying to minimise clutter in my studio space).

 

Last edited: Apr 5, 2023

Desktop is desktop, being it mini or midi tower, if you gonna sit there and have no desires of working mobile with that machine, get the proper desktop tower, put it somewhere on the ground and enjoy having plenty of juice and options for upgrade.

If you need to shoehorn yourself with the machine, Macbook M1/M2 Air is actually wildcard to get, especially if you only use native devices, it's similar experience people have using Linux for audio production, but much better and supported, still it can be limited and focused, especially if you get basic option.

I'm doing a melodic progressive house & techno project, you don't really need 64GB of RAM or state of the art 24 cores CPU to get by, even with stuff like Diva, DSEQ, Ozone chain on stereo bus and all the track's processing. Been investigating what other folks in scene use and pretty much seems like plenty of us landed on FabFilter, Valhalla, some Eventide and Soundtoys, U-He synths, between Hive, Diva and Zebra, you pretty much have all the grounds covered, get some controller with enough controls and have a blast.

 

if you're using protools you might consider something like this:

 

at first ask yourself if you NEED Windows 11 yet, and if circumventing TPMv2 requirement on your current spec is an acceptable workaround eventually,

speaking of small computers, you can actually build a relatively portable desktop PC, without compromised performance, from desktop-tier components, just search for mini-ITX motherboards and SFX power supplies (not impossible to find 650W GOLD and higher rated models nowadays), 10 years ago I built small PC in Fractal Design Node 304 case, and it outperformed majority of full desktops back in the day,

buying pre-built mini PC gives you literally zero upgrade options, being not that better than laptop, which at least has battery, display, keyboard and touchpad already built-in

 

Why buy a new one if your System is good enough? There are a lot of Win11 ISO's where the need of TPM and specific CPU's is cut off or you can create your own Win 11 Stick with Rufus like in this Video.

https://nerdschalk.com/how-to-use-r...secure-boot-in-bootable-windows-11-usb-drive/

And yes you can produce on an mini PC with that Specs without Problems.