@capitan crunch I just wanted to say that I didn't want to come across as a tosser with my reply. I too do tracks like you when doing trance or house or pop in the way you do and I am used to render tracks but I am working on a movie (it's my first one) and track count on the sessions I've being given is huge and on top of that there are also more than one video track. That's why I went on to buy this one because it has a dedicated video card for another monitor. Have a good day.

 

The Mac is no longer supported (hardware or software). You want at an M1 or M2 processor as Apple is ending support for Ventura and below.
See this article: https://endoflife.date/macos

For Windows. You want a Xeon with:
a base clock between 3.2GHz and 3.4GHz
a minimum of 8 cores
support for Windows11
on-board M.2
650W to 1000W power supply
motherboard with LGA2066 (X299 chipset) or LGA3647

Examples in Canadian dollars:
Example 1: https://deltaserverstore.com/product/dell-precision-5820/
Example 2: https://deltaserverstore.com/product/hp-z4-g4/
Example 3: https://deltaserverstore.com/product/hp-z6-g4-workstation-dual-processor/
(I bought this with 96GB before RAM & storage prices went crazy)
Example 4: https://deltaserverstore.com/product/lenovo-thinkstation-p520c/
(bought this one for my son who runs Ableton Live 12 a few years ago with 64GB)

Also check in Europe:

• https://outlet.euro.dell.com/GDOOnline/Online/InventorySearch?brandId=2&c=uk&cs=ukdfb1&l=en&s=dfb
• https://shop.flexitdistribution.com/product_list/Computers/Workstations

I should also mention a XEON cpu offers more PCIe lanes, better memory controllers and bandwidth with the addition of true error correction at the bit level. Workstation vs Consumer grade.

 

Last edited: Apr 21, 2026 at 10:08 AM

The mobo on the Xeon machine doesn't look half bad, although @tzzsmk is right to be cautious about the build quality in those old Chinese server mobos. The "star" in this is the Xeon you posted, because it's a 14 core/24 threads cpu, which even for a 10 years old machine, i 'd say it could be still relevant. The X99 platform in general is more generous than the equivalent desktop Intel of the time, so it offers more pci-e lanes, allowing for more storage, gpus and peripherals to be connected.
I would go for that, only if you have means to outsource another mobo in the worse case scenario that the mobo is not fully functional. I wouldn't worry much about the cpu, X99 is a LGA socket so these Xeon cpus have no pins, the contact pins are on the mobo's socket. Therefore if something might not work, it most likely will be the mobo.
The others don't seem like a nice offer, that M2 Mac could be good if the price was lower.
Cheers

 

If the M2 had more RAM, this would be the obvious pick of the three. For normal production 32GB will be fine, but when you start talking about orchestral projects with lots of Kontakt use, “maybe” 32GB is not enough depending on how large the template gets.

That Xeon setup is basically an older workstation platform built around core count and clock speed rather than modern CPU efficiency. It’s not a bad machine, but it’s based on architecture that is well behind current designs, with significantly lower instructions per cycle, slower memory behavior, and no modern efficiency or acceleration advantages.

The Mac mini 2018 sits in the middle of the two. It uses a much newer Intel architecture than those Xeon workstation builds, so its per-core performance is higher. In practice, that makes it feel noticeably more responsive in real-time audio work and gives it better performance per track, even with fewer total cores.

An M2 Mac mini is in a completely different performance class again. Even with fewer cores on paper, each core is significantly faster, and the chip has much higher instructions per clock cycle, much better cache and memory architecture, and much stronger single core performance, which is what most DAW/plugin chains actually depend on in real time.

It means the M2 will outperform both the Xeon system and the 2018 Mac mini in most audio scenarios, especially with low buffer playback, synth chains, and realtime processing.

So while that Xeon box may look higher spec in core count and GHz, it’s an older performance model, and even that 2018 i7 Intel Mac is already a generation ahead of it in per core performance. Apple Silicon is another step beyond that again.

The statement about the 2018 i7 being "unsupported" is not correct anyway.

 

Last edited: Apr 21, 2026 at 10:51 AM