I produce music on 'Cubase' or 'Maschine', mostly just VSTi's from Native Instruments. I optimized the hell out of my PC a few years ago, but it's struggling now with these VST's... I didn't realize that an i7 isn't just an i7. It turns out that in 2024, my i7-2600 is like 12 years old and my 16gb of ddr3 ram sucked, nevertheless my HDD... So I need an inexpensive upgrade. I'll prob. get a refurbished Dell or something and optimize it as much as possible. Is jumping up to an i7-8700 and 32gb ddr4 good enough? or is 10th gen good enough? Please any suggestions would help.

There's a dedicated build my studio pc thread - even if not assembling your own you can learn a lot in that thread. Computers from Dell etc. aren't created with music in mind, so you run a greater risk of latency, pops and crackles.

To answer your question, yes, it's likely better. But I'd go to a system with at least an i7-11700 and 32GB (64GB if you use a lot of Kontakt or other sample instruments) and you'll likely get quite a few years performance out of that.

In the mean time, consider trying audiogridder (it's free), running both server and client on the same PC with a little bit of buffer.

Will do, I really appreciate the help. I'll look into that forum and "audiogridder" as well

It seems like you can get higher-end hardware for much cheaper in a "mini-pc", but it worries me b/c of things like overheating, noise and durability. Would you suggest staying away from an "mini-pc?

It's impossible to say without more specific info, like what are "these VSTs" it's struggling with, how many tracks are typically in your songs, how much in the way of effects are you using, etc. Most likely a 8th generation (8000 series) chip and even 16GB RAM is plenty unless you're doing some really busy, complex stuff.

And at least you learned something....the i5/i7/etc stuff matters, but what matters more is the "generation" of chipset you have (that four/five-digit number). 2000-series is REALLY low on the totem pole and could easily be out-performed by many i5 or maybe even i3 PCs.

Also FYI that brands don't mean jack anymore. No company sets out to built "music PCs."

Yes

There’s companies that pick parts and build PCs for music, and I do the same for myself. Maybe I’m not clear on what was meant by that last comment.

May I wasn't clear enough I was basically responding to your "Computers from Dell etc. aren't created with music in mind..." neither are HPs, or Lenovos (etc). Sure companies CAN tailor-make PCs more for music production, but they don't in general, so there's no reason to go to any particular brand for that. At least none I've ever seen, but maybe you know of one I don't?

Big brand like Dell? No. Builder brand? Yes - there’s some specialists. That’s what I was referring to. I also could’ve been more clear!

No worries! I never seriously checked out a tailor-made PC, but suspect it would cost more overall for the service-? And really, while it would be nice, IMO It's not necessary for most.

I'm still going over options for the pc. I can get the same specs on two choices for the same price, but one is i7-8700 and one ie i7-9700... I know it gets tricky b/c the amount of cores isn't necessarily what matters. Also, I heard hyper-threading was removed in the 9th gen. Any ideas which would be better for music?

I would think the 9700, but doubt there would be a really noticeable diff.

If you're using a lot of virtual instruments, getting into DDR4 or even DDR5 will provide benefits IMO. One of the reasons to upgrade will be more memory bandwidth. Virtual instruments can often benefit more from this versus raw CPU performance, which would be more important for DSP. Both the 8700k/9700k utilize DDR4. The 12th gen processors from Intel and Ryzen 7000 series will get you DDR5 and there are some benchmarks floating around here that show DDR5 offered massive improvements to the Kontakt (Virtual instrument) benchmarks in DAWBench.

Just some things to consider when looking to upgrade and how to allocate your budget.

Mini pcs are built on laptop platforms. Usually they perform weaker than desktops.

My desktop pc is an I7 8700 and 16GB of ram with an ssd and an Asus z390 motherboard. It does the job well for music creation with vsts and even some outboard gear.
I think you could find some similar build second hand with even maybe an I9 8900k for pretty cheap.

The i7-9700 doesn't have hyperthreading, but it hasn't been "removed in the 9th gen". You need more research.

The i7-9700 is a good CPU for audio.

Well, I built my i7-8700 with 32gb ddr4 and 6 SSD. I have no plans of upgrading and building a new machine anytime soon. Projects are mostly prog-rock, with some 60-70 tracks maybe. At least 1/3 of those are rather heavy KONTAKT libraries.

If you are building/buying today though, aim for over 8700 since, if I'm not mistaken, the CPU sockets changed after this generation, so I cannot upgrade CPU even if I wanted to, without changing the entire MOBO.

I stand by my i7 11700 rec if it can be found within budget. Older means less time it’ll be useful, newer means prices even steeper. 10700 would be ok.

Okay, thanks. Yeah, my current PC is so outdated, I only run like 5 tracks total in a project. (Kontakt Instruments or Battery) and it struggles. All have a decent effect on the performance but some are crazy. For example, the guitar vst's (ex. 'Electric Sunburst') by 'N.I.' takes like 3min. just to open and a couple min. to change presets. Trying to have 2 seperate instruments like that loaded will crash my DAW. . . 1 single 'Massive X' loaded takes about 1/3 of all my performance meters up.

Glad to know thanks.

Thanks . Yeah, builds w i7-8700 and 16 or 32gb of ddr4 are easy to come by for cheap now. That's an option I'm looking into.

Yeah, my bad, I didn't mean removed. . . Thanks, I'm glad to know the i7-9700 is good for audio. My last PC is so old that is was the first year "hyperthreading" was announced. lol (A lot has changed in the 10-15 years I've been out of the PC game)

I will look into your music. Thanks. I'm really glad to know that. It's going to be crazy for me to be able to produce some music w/out having the 5 VSTi limitation and be able to choose the VST's I want. I think it's finally time to get rid of my PC from the 1900's... I don't use my old interface but I still think it's a beast. It's the 'Emu 1820m'

Idk much about ethernet cards, wi-fi etc... One PC I'm leaning towards has an onboard "integrated: Intel Ethernet Connection I219-LM
10/100/1000". If I plug the 'rj45' from the motherboard into my 'Asus USB N66' is that decent speed for downloading? or any suggestions of a card or something. I think we have a fast reputable internet service.

Should be a fine chip.

Thanks everyone for all the help; though I'll probably need more. . . I purchased my new PC and it should be good for years to come. It's a 'Dell Precision 3440 SFF'... I got the i7-10700 cpu w/ a 1tb NVMe (main), 2tb SSD (backup), and 64gb of ram. I'm excited. . . Now I should probably upgrade my 10 year old version of 'Cubase Essentials 9' to a current 'Cubase Artist 13'

Should I optimize my new PC right away, or wait and if there's performance issues, then optimize it??? I've been trying to figure that out

I'm running an i7-14700 the last 3 weeks. I found I've had to optimise it far less than previous machines.

For me the major changes for getting good solid latency were:

1. Turn off bluetooth.

2. Apply 'Bitsum Highest Performance' profile to my DAW in Process Lasso app. Set my DAW to run on physical drives only. And various other mods that are well documented on GS, I just cant remember them right now.

3. Turn off core parking with Park Control Pro app.

4. Remember to turn off wifi when running DAW.

On my machine those steps will allow LatencyMon to run all day, unhindered.

As always, YMMV.

Sounds good. Thanks