Home-studio solo semi-semi-pro (e.g. I've had songs placed in movies) looking for a 2-3 year computer for Pro Tools. Would something like this Ryzen mini-PC be a good option? My sessions are typically 30-60 tracks - 15 tracks of VIs, 15-45 tracks of audio. I need to run a 128 sample buffer w/o dropouts or glitches. Any experience with Mini-PCs for a DAW?
TIA!

Hi, right now it's not a good time to buy computer components. Due to Corona the prices are very high. I would wait a few mont longer.
The other option is to buy a used one. Many people buy the newest stuff and sell their only one year old computer.

Greetings

GPU prices are still very high, but AMD cpu's seem to be available at MSRP again. Will you build the PC yourself? I do remember Chris Ludwig from Fundamental Audio mentioning that avid doesn't officially support AMD, so don't expect any help from them if you need support.

I may build one myself and I have yet to call AVID support for anything in 10+ years. But I see now that I can get a well-spec'ed prebuilt i7 machine for around $1K - that may be a better option.

AMD are great ! better than micro imo ... Go for a GIGABYTE X570 AORUS MASTER (rev. 1.0) Get all the legs of lamb you can ( RAM ) run 4 slots of 16 or 2 Corsair VENGEANCE RGB PRO 64GB.

Run your software on a Samsung 970 EVO Plus 2TB NVMe PCIe SSD and record everything to a Western Digital Black Caviar 2 TB

For graphics Leadtek Quadro P2200, run 4 monitors , 3 for the Daw and one for Pornhub ... in case you get lonely bar har

If you can go to Linux for your Softie, if you have to run microsoftt coc then use an older version of Win 10 , if you use win 10 there are tons of youtube vids on how to optimise your cores and shut off non essential background apps

AND best advice i can give is DO NOT PUT THAT MACHINE ON LINE... EVERRR !!! air gap your transfers to a separate pc.

best !

Thanks for the suggestions. All this minutia regarding specific PC components etc makes my head hurt. Reminds me why I’ve been using a Mac for music production.

The Mac M1’s are very powerful, we don’t want your head to explode . Just make sure the software you use is compatible, ideally without using Rosetta.

I hear ya , ive used Mac before and its great but have always reverted to PC for customisation purposes. I guess if you like to build things for specific purposes PC gives you a lot of flexibility .. .and yes head ache and chest pains.

But to be honest after your first 2 to 3 heart attacks you get used to it :0)

HI,
MIni PCs to me always seem to be a poor choice if you want to save money over the long term.
You always face a dean end with upgrade wise. Typically they have to use low - powered CPU and limited connectivity that you would be just as well off to get a laptop.
The MINI PC you linked to also probably has to do a lot of thermal management so the is most likely throttling its often in order to keep it running quietly. Like the laptop, you will not be able to do things like set the OS performance to high performance. This will most likely ramp the fan speed up to almost full speed.
I've never had a good experience with the integrated AMD GPU on their mobile and lower-end desktop chips. Always seem to have weird compatibility issues with apps.

That little box looks like it would make a great office of general home computer. But, I think you will run into problems trying to run the size projects you mention.

It is a neat-looking device so I would totally cool with being totally wrong about how well it might work.

I would probably hunt around for some reliable benchmark and reviews for it since it is so new.
I'm only see marketing fluff videos right now.

Chris

Good point - pushing too far into mini-PC territory and you're better off with a laptop. Which is very hit-or-(mostly)-miss when it comes to DAW performance. I can't see myself getting into the whole morass of component optimization and registry hacks etc. If I'm going to spend $1K+ (ish) I'm probably better off getting a Trashcan Mac Pro to see me thru a couple more years of intel compatibility for drivers etc.
Thanks for the input everyone!