Hi Everybody,
I need to buy a new computer and found these two second hand:

MB: X99 LGA2011
Intel Xeon E5-2680 V4
RAM: 64GB (2x32GB) DDR4 ECC 2133MHz
NVMe M.2 256GB
HDD 1TB
RX 580
Power Supply: Cooler Master 650W

or

Mac Mini 2018
Intel i7 3,2 Ghz 6 core (I believe it's the 8700b)
64 GB di RAM
SSD 2 TB

Both at 500 euros (mac mini 550)

I use Nuendo 15 with sample libraries and VSTi and I will need to open large orchestral ProTools recording sessions. Which one would youo reccomend?

I also found a

Mac Mini M2 pro
RAM 32 GB
HD 1 TB

for 900 euros (which it seems a good price) but it is above my budget at the moment.

I appreciate any suggestion, thank you in advance.

 

Xeon one

 

you might check amazon refurbished. HP Core™ i7-9700 or 8700 32g ram under 500euro.
i picked up the 8700 for about 350.

 

that X99 spec seems suspicious, is it some unknown chinese motherboard with crippled RAM slots and embedded processor?
and stay away from that MacMini, it's not a good value at 550€ imo (SSD is soldered and once it or mobo fails you can throw away entire Mac)

 

Thank you all. I don't know if this can help?

 

I would choose the first one - Xeon (Broadwell gen), but since it's rather old I would change the power supply for a new one, and more powerful one, like 750w or 850w Seasonic/Corsair/BeQuiet = additional ~150€, to future proof it. I would then at some point buy a better GPU like Intel Arc B580 perhaps to help with video editing, recording, transcoding. If I was only doing audio work, AMD RX580 would do more than fine, but old 650w PSU would bother me a lot. Xeon sucks about 200w if not more, RX580 too, that PSU is running hot and it's old. If it's new, then OK.

That is, unless you're really interested in a portable setup and would like a laptop instead? Mac laptops are a great choice for that, indeed. A newer one with 32GB for 900€ would do more than fine. The older Mac is probably fine, too, depending on it's condition, as it's a bit on the old side.

 

yea looks like typical chinese rig,
X99 mobos should have 8 RAM slots, and also the cpu cooler should direct from right to left, not up-down (blocked by graphics card as shown in the pic), also with those chinese boards there's unpredictable BIOS behaviour, SSDs may sometimes not work, PCIe topology is unpredictible too,

I do have X99 PC (ASUS X99-S motherboard) so I did a lot of research back in the day,
although those chinese mobos doesn't seem bad on paper, there are too many problems with them in the long run, so I would consider them only as secondary/unimportant PC for tinkering, at price I wouldn't mind throwing it in the bin when it fails

 

Ok, I understood. Thank you very much, I would have never known. What if I go on another route completely, for the time being?
I found this https://www.mercatinomusicale.com/mm/a_hackintosh-processore-i7-3-6ghz_id8151031.html. I wonder if I can just do a fresh Win 10 install. I asked the guy what CPU model is but got no answer.

 

@capitan crunch I had a look at those but I found the 64gb option to be quite expensive

 

I'm not a huge fan of xeon processors in DAWs.
//Edit// xeons need Chipsets that are not as mainstream as your average gaming rig.
That's great for CAD workstations and servers.

 

My bet goes to i7-4770.

This one seems reasonable, Dell Precision 3630 3,20 GHz i7-8700 64 GB RAM 512 GB M.2 + 2 TB HDD Win 10 - 575 euros

https://ebay.us/m/OmDSIO

 

@Melodic Reality Thanks, but I am based in Italy and is not feasable.
I asked the Xeon guy the MB specs, he sent me this:


and this

 

I doubt i7-4770 supports 64GB ram or boot from NVME, gotta be something else,
if it's i7-8700 then it could be a decent pick, it's same generation like that 2018 Mac Mini
newer i7-9700 has 8 cores though

just as I thought, good luck finding Huananzhi drivers and BIOS updates

 

and 250 euro cheaper!

 

mine is 32 gig and I have not ever filled it up.