I am looking to upgrade my PC. Looking to make some useful purchases this year end 2024 around thanksgiving.
I am a music producer who works on Films and pop music and mostly with VST and processing.
Sometimes, I can even run upto 100 VSTs (mostly kontakt,omnisphere, Arturia) and very less audio recording (may be one or two for vocals).
If I were to do put money in buying a PC, what should I look for? How would I select the processor,RAM and motherboard and make best value for money?
Any suggestion and tips on how to select would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks

 

Are you brand agnostic?
What is your budget?
Do you want a consumer grade system or true Workstation?

I have been slowly working on two Workstation ideas. One using AMD Threasdripper. The other using Intel Xeon W Series.

 

Last edited: Oct 13, 2024

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If we were to start with Intel vs AMD, I'd mention a somewhat weird opinion that AMD is Intel's proxy to try new technologies, later to be implemented on the main platform. So people get their discount for that "testing" they unwillingly do. Although this opinion may be criticized, I don't see any real reason to choose Intel over AMD...

DDR5 is highly overrated and required only for AI tasks. It's hyped so consumer would pay extra price for big tech profits. So obviously our choice is AM4.

best budget (yet decent) AM4 motherboard is MSI b450 gaming plus max

Ryzen 5500 is both budget and powerful. although you can choose whatever processor wrom their 5000 line-up

since we're talking about studio pc (although as for producer that may not be as relevant as for studio itself), one of the priorities is the noise performance. I've found that silentiumpc fortis 5 outperforms most of coolers on the market, while sacrificing very little of temp roof

I'd like to try the Pure Base case, but you really can pick whatever, based on looks or budget. f.e. aerocool

as for GPU and power supply, remembering our noise orientation, an important criteria for me would be a "Fan-stop" feature. most of the GPUs offer it, but I've chosen Sapphire Pulse RX7600, since it's cheap and powerful. As for power supply, for me it'd be Seasonic Focus GX 750, since it's really an equilibrium of price/performance.

with RAM just grab the cheapest 2400 cl17, since it's just really not that important.

what that leaves us with? a network card, an SSD, and a monitor. maybe someone else will continue

 

AMD is best bang for your buck apparently. I'm thinking about building a PC too but really wanna stay with Intel idk

 

Use this site for PC buiild PC Part Picker. Here you can create a build to suit your budget and at the same time check the compatibility of components. I advise you to create one and post it here on the forum and then we can recommend you what to change and what to add.

 

properly understand where your current PC is struggling, and properly understand what requirements your software/DAW/plugins expects to look into when picking new components,
processor choice should be balance between single-core frequency/performance and number of cores,
motherboard is about features and connectivity mostly

 

I generally build a completely new system every ten years or so because after so many years you find the new parts are no longer compatible. But you have to set out with the intention to get ten years out of it so it isn't a cheap option - although it will probably work out cheaper in the long run.

 

Please find my answers below.
you brand agnostic?
Not at all. Whichever can get best value for my money, I am ok with that.
What is your budget?
Around $2000. I am also thinking of 2 workstation design (master-slave). Need to know how to configure that. My current PC is Intel i7-5960x Haswell e.
Do you want a consumer grade system or true Workstation?
Whats the difference? I am a home music producer. I am not full fledged into music but getting opportunities recently.

 

For now better to wait and see what Intel gen 15 will bring us?

After this release we can start, compare and see what to do?

 

Consumer grade is a system with the following limitations for example:

• 24 usable PCIe lanes for AMD, 20 usable PCIe lanes for Intel
• 1 0r 2 full/true PCIe x16 slots
• 2 memory channels instead of 4, 8 or 12 (limited to unbuffered ECC memory on selected higher end boards)
• memory operates best using only two DIMMS, not four. Start with at least 64GB (32GB x 2)
  
• Maximum installed memory tops out at 128MB

$2000 will get you a good consumer grade system based around an AMD 16 core 7950X/9950X or Intel i9-12900K (avoid 13th & 14th gen). A video posted Sept 12,2024 give two ideas of a system built with a maximum $1500 budget. I would choose a better motherboard with more features for connections & storage for a workstation. One of the mid to high level boards from ASRock, ASUS or Gigabyte (Creator type?).

If you are slaving a system for DSP processing, the Minisforum MA-A1 barebone option may interest you. Supports Ryzen 7000/9000 series in 65 watt mode with BIOS overclocking options (use with caution).

 

i would do an asus b550, amd ryzen 9 5950x , 64gb ram , only gen 4 nvme's , 750w power supply, rtx whatever.. easy to cool with air cooler, last gen but still powerful system if i were you. (this around 1300$)

 

dual-setup isn't worth it from price/efficiency perspective,
5960X/X99 was workstation-tier platform, and nowadays there's no successor to it,
if you need step up from your 8 core 16 thread cpu, then you'll have to look into high-end comsumer tier from AMD - 9950X which offers 16 cores 32 threads, I'd pair it with at least 64GB ram (2x32) or 96GB ram (2x48), definitely stay away from 4-stick kits unless you need more ram capacity than that

 

AMD right now, is doing absolutely great. But I do hope that Intel will up themselves with next generation.
13th and 14th gen's been disappointing.

Last time I had Intel was a 3930K - Rampage IV Extreme configuration. Really impressive for its time. Even managed to make a "golden" hackintosh build out of it.

I'd say, start out like @quadcore64 suggested. The memory tip is something i'd recommend aswell.

 

Hi. A budget of 2K puts you in the category of upper mainstream desktop platform for both Intel and AMD.
All soft synth/sampler usage means a very fast cpu and lots of ram and at least 2 fast ssds one for system drive and one for Kontakt libs. Right now even Intel employees (the ones that are left that is as they fired 15000 peeps to save money) avoid buying Intel lol, so AMD is the way to go. Their 9xxx new line of cpus still has to iron out some issues and some strange performance incompatibilities with Win11. The new X870E mobos line rocks but minimum cost for one would be 300+ dlrs and a really decent mobo should be around 500-550.
The socket on both the new and previous line of cpus is AM5, so mobos and cpus of both the 7Xxx and 9xxx lines are compatible and interchangeable. The difference in mobos is the new ones come with USB4 (Thunderbolt capable) as standard and WiFi7.
The sane thing to do would be to go for a X670E mobo and Ryzen 9 7950X cpu from AMD as the platform is mature with enough upgrades to be stable and very fast too. Unless you need Thunderbolt so then a X870E mobo like the Asus ProArt X870E Creator (tbr at the price of 550) would be more appropriate. You can do with 2x48gb ram sticks np. Also soon the 64gb DDR5 ram sticks will hit the market massively. Some are available even now, so if you go for a X870E mobo you can do 128gbs with 2 sticks. Compatibility with the older X670E chipset for these sticks is yet to be announced, reason why i said X870E mobo. Hit me up for details if you want moar!
Cheers

 

Last edited: Sep 14, 2024

I'm in the same position. I was thinking about getting a 16-core AMD 9950X based system and running it in Eco mode, while saving the full-power setting for rendering large projects. However, I am not sure is this is a good idea or not

 

Hey mate, 'sup, i hope all's fine there I think the best idea atm, is to get a 7900X. At ~300 euros now it is a bargain. The 7950X is 500 and the 9950X is a little less than 700! They 're both not worth it unless:
1. Money is not an issue
2. You can put those extra cores to good use.
3. A 9950X may be worth it if you need faster and more memory support built in presumably if you go for a X870E mobo.
But the numbers speak for themselves really.
The 9950X vs the 7900X is better by as much as ~10% in heavy multi threaded loads. The question should be, is it worth over double the money?
Plus whatever board you choose you can always upgrade your cpu when prices normalize. I know it sounds unorthodox but if it was me, i would go for a X870E mobo that comes with USB4/TB4 and Wifi7 as standard and a 7900X. But even a X670E mobo will handle Zen5 cpus, so right now there are choices from two different compatible/interchangeable chipset/cpu generations and i get the unimpressive performance of the 9950X makes you wonder if it's the right choice.
Cheers

 

Last edited: Sep 17, 2024

Your idea is sound. Remember that the general rule is 4GB of memory per core for normal audio/video production. 2GB per core minimum. Along with software that is coded to take advantage of multiple cores (load balancing), you should be fine. The next step up is a proper Workstation class system (Threadripper/Xeon).

 

Everything is good, and thanks for the suggestions I will be playing the waiting game and only buying sometime next year, but I do want an X870E mobo though

 

Last edited: Sep 17, 2024

Yeah, 64GB RAM