Hi, a friend of mine do music production on FL Studio, but he told me that sometimes it lags, Omnisphere would take seconds to load samples, so maybe upgrade the HDD to a SSD for his music librairies, like a Samsung QVO ? they are inexpensive, have lot of storage, sure they don't write fast for large files, but they don't suffer read speed drops i think.
Or go with a NVMe drive ? the board has one slot.

He will upgrade the boot drive to a mx500.

Should I overclock the CPU too to squeeze some power ?

Here's a config I built for him 3 years ago with his tight budget:


Thanks for reading, and Merry Christmas !

EDIT: Sorry posted in wong sub

 

Last edited: Dec 24, 2021

Happy holidays to you and yours!

My possible recommendations are as follows:

EVGA 450-BT -> Quality 450W or 550W 80+ Gold (A gold rated PS for smoother/cleaner/stable power when needed)

Ryzen 3 2200G -> Ryzen 5 5600G or Ryzen 7 5700G (w/BIOS Update) Do not overclock either CPU for stability reasons.
https://www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard/B450M-DS3H-rev-1x/support#support-dl-bios

DDR4 3000 CL16 -> DDR4 3200 CL16 (will allow either CPU to function at full potential.

7200 RPM HDD -> 2TB SSD or NVMe

 

Last edited: Dec 24, 2021

Please do not overclock, but optimize the PC for the music. Just download and read:

The Ultimate Guide to Optimize your Windows PC for the Stage
https://gigperformer.com/docs/ultimate-guide-to-optimize-windows-for-stage/index.html

 

I would upgrade the memory to at least 32GB and switch the HDD to a SATA SSD (870 EVO for example).
I'd also add an NVME SSD (Samsung 970 Evo Plus) to the m.2 slot for the OS and move the libraries + VST's
to the SATA SSD. At the moment, the prices are quite ok:
870 EVO 1TB - 107€
970 EVO Plus 1TB - 109€



When you load Omnisphere from an SSD, every single preset loads in under a second.
Same applies to Kontakt Libraries and other VST's. But with 16GB of memory, the ammount of loaded VST's,
samples etc. is limited as most VST's load their samples/data from the hard drive/SSD to the memory.
So besides the SSD's, memory is an important part to make things faster.

A couple of years ago I completely swithced to SSD/NVME and my PC couldn't have been any faster,
even with an older CPU (Intel Core i7 920 - that was the first ever gen of the core i7 series from 12 years ago).
A year ago I upgraded to an i9 9900K and 32GB memory and since then I have music production Monster.
I had no single crackling or other low power stuff in any of my projects since then.

As BEAT16 mentioned, don't overclock that CPU. I overclocked a lot of hardware in the past and I also
broke a lot of hardware because of that. It's especially a bad idea, if you plan to overclock a CPU from a friend
who doesn't know much about hardware. If anything happens and he doesn't know hardware, he maybe will
break it by accident before you can help.

 

Last edited: Dec 24, 2021

Hi there! I would update the WD HDD to a NVME M2 because those drives are much faster than a simple SSD:
https://www.newegg.com/insider/m-2-and-nvme-ssds-what-are-they-and-how-do-they-benefit-your-pc/

And, as far as I see, the motherboard counts on with a bay to connect it, so no problems.
http://es.gigabyte.com/products/page/mb/b450m_ds3hrev_10

Omnisphere needs power to go quickly. I noticed the speed of storage drive when changed to NVME M.2 drive.

Hope I helped you!
Happy Christmas!

 

I recently redid my pc . Z490 10850K 32GB Ram DUAL M.2 With other SSD's and a Noctua cpu cool that looks like a enginer block lmao.. Everything feels like your clicking through presets on like z3ta. Just Instant loading From Omnisphere, to Biggest Kontakt patchs . Only instrument that takes a sec is a violin for falcon. absolutely wonderful. Anyways. Upgrade to a M2 SSD and upgrade RAM to 32GB and pretty much any system your on will feel brand new. and also get normal SSD instead of HDDs. Also if your CPU is able get a Z motherboard overclock a little. Think mine can do 5.2 but I run at 4.8 keep thermals down!
MAKE SURE IF YOUR GETTING M.2 to not stick it in the wrong slot.. NVME and M.2 are different.. or something like that. There is a very similar looking port as M2 that gets used for Wifi chips sometimes... Yeah ask me about my 3 mobos in the past 5 months....

 

Thank you so much for all your answers, I’ll push him to buy atleast a NVMe Gen 3, else if he can’t stretch the money, i’ll pick a Sandisk 3D Ultra or a MX500.

Are DRAM-less SSD really bad for libraries ? I know the write speed suffer from large file but once installed, only read speeds matter, right ?

 

I recommend these inexpensive SSD to you:

Crucial MX500 CT500MX500SSD1 500GB (3D NAND, SATA, 2.5 Inch, Internal SSD)€54.63
www.amazon.de/Crucial-MX500-CT1000MX500SSD1-Internes-NAND/dp/B0786QNS9B?th=1&language=en_GB
Crucial MX500 CT1000MX500SSD1 1TB (3D NAND, SATA, 2.5 Inch, Internal SSD) €89.90
www.amazon.de/Crucial-MX500-CT1000MX500SSD1-Internes-NAND/dp/B078211KBB?th=1&language=en_GB

 

Last edited: Dec 26, 2021

that's a well balanced computer - not strongest, but not terribly weak,

your friend should thoroughly observe where exactly is PC being limited,
I have no idea what his compositions are, what audio interface he uses, what audio buffer is set,

having big capacity SSD as second drive would be useful, cheapest 2TB SSD would be definitely an improvement from the HDD,
but not in audio performance, only read/write speeds,
I don't think NVME is worth it, especially when you stay on lower budget, many of them are barely on par with higher-end SATA SSDs,

there are so many factors to consider, I assume you're aware of this detailed article here at AS about Omnisphere?:
https://audiosex.pro/threads/how-to-improve-omnispheres-loading-time-and-performance-windows.38416/

 

Thats wrong.
M.2 is a specification that supports SSD's (NVME as the logical interface for m.2 slots), Wi-Fi, Bluetooth & NFC Adapters, SATA and USB3.x Extension cards, etc. and NVME is a kind of flash memory standard/specification which supports m.2, u.2 & u.3.

So if you're buying an NVMe drive for your m.2 slot, it's important to use the m.2 specificaion (typically named m.2 drive) rather than u.2 or u.3.
But happily there aren't much u.2 or u.3 drives available on the customer market so there should't be a problem.

So easily said:
m.2 is the mother of all those options and NVMe is just one option of them.

 

hi

If you're buying an NVMe drive for your m.2 slot, be sure to look for the m.2 specification (usually referred to as m.2 drive) rather than the u.2 or u.3 specifications.
However, because there aren't many u.2 or u.3 drives on the client market, this shouldn't be an issue.
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Last edited: Jan 14, 2022

All being said and done, with that CPU an nvme SSD might be too much. The CPU will be the bottleneck.
I know because I have a similar Gigabyte mobo and CPU though is an Intel but very similar performance. In fact more single-core performance. And still with my good 'ol SATA3 SSD. When loading big patches in Kontakt my CPU single-core maxes out.
If the prices are similar go for the nvme but if the gap is big why not a SATA3 speed SSD with M2 format.

 

@Blakdan I think the HDDs are the bottleneck in the configuration you posted. The 2200G is pretty capable for (modest) music production.

I'd first get a SATA drive (like a Crucial MX500 or other TLC drive with DRAM, try to avoid the cheaper QLV ones) for the sound libraries and use the 2TB Seagate for backups. In my experience SATA drives are fast enough for sound libraries. Also schedule the trimming in the OS.

Then after that a NVMe (not SATA) drive in the M2 slot for the OS, as the motherboard supports it.

Maybe later update the APU. The main disadvantage is APUs taking ~2GB of your RAM, you could consider either getting a dedicated GPU or expand the RAM.

RAM is pretty cheap at the moment, you could consider getting another 16GB of the same RAM already used.

[edit] As @quadcore64 mentioned above, updating the PSU could also improve the stability of this system, like a Bitfenix Formula 450W or better.

 

Last edited: Jan 13, 2022

Thanks everyone that added infos, I managed to get him a Crucial P5, will be delivered Monday, so I'll go for a Clean Install of Windows following the "The Ultimate Guide to Optimize your Windows PC for the Stage".

Will update the post when we'll try the PC

 

A new SSD won't make any noticeable difference, apart from the capacity. The WD Green there is already an SSD. If 16GB RAM are enough for the projects (quite easy to check), the bottleneck is definitely the CPU. It could be upgraded to a Ryzen 5600G, ca. 230 euros atm. Compared with the 2200G, this would give you 150% single-thread and 300% multi-thread performance. This would make a noticeable difference.

 

You're partially right, i overlooked that this WD is a SSD, but i assume that the soundlibraries are/were on that Seagate drive. Replacing the HDD for an SSD would really make a difference for the libraries. Also, that 120GB WD drive would have to be at least 30% empty for it to funtion properly. Hanging around on the sistersite does not help with disk-space.

 

Ain't that true...