I am thinking about building a PC oriented towards music production. My current desktop is 10 years old this month and is due to be replaced. Had been considering a Mac Studio but I am having second thoughts given the significant price difference and Apple’s expensive storage upgrades.
[https://pcpartpicker.com/user/Legonatic/saved/#view=q8MYXL](Link to list)
I use Ableton Live 10 for my DAW. I have a Scarlett 4i4 audio interface, so no need to add any sound card to the build.
Going for a microATX build to save on physical space. Will also likely add another case fan somewhere. No Windows 11 license listed but I intend to get one. GPU is more for any light video editing or Photoshop I might do, not planning to do much of any gaming.
Any suggestions for improvement on this part list or any thoughts in general?
I’m not an expert on DAW software, but iirc, it involves loading a lot os small files, so I’d recommend a PCIe gen 4 ssd with high iops. Something like a WD black sn850x or a Samsung 980 pro.
Also, you should be able to save some bucks on lower wattage PSU. On a side note, what do you need the USB expansion card for? The motherboard comes with some fast USB already. If you do need it, make sure that the slot on the motherboard is electrically wired up with the same amount of PCIe lanes. On an another note, I’m not sure where the sweet spot of ram speed is on intel, but on AMD it is 6000 and Intel is higher than that. So you might want to get some higher speed ram as well.
I might look into those drives. I was looking at it from more of a price to storage total. I see your point.
Might go for lower wattage seeing as I could save some money and the overhead is quite high.
USB card is for all the USB devices I have for music production. MIDI controllers, audio interface, USB connections to synths, plus other devices. Will pay attention to the PCIe lanes.
I was considering the 6000 ram too.