Cubase Pro 13 is better optimized on Mac or PC?

If a Mac, the Mac mini pro M2 or the Mac Studio M2 Max?

By this I mean CPU management, large session handling, stability and reliability.

I take the example of Live 11, with an i7 13th gen, catastrophic CPU management and often ejected from Live 11 with a bug report.

I guess version 12 is not better.

I don't find it normal in 2024 for a dawn not to be able to manage a big session without having to freeze the tracks (live 11).

My question is, I would like to focus on learning just one daw.

I compose electronic music.

Cubase seems to be a good solution, even if gas plant.

There is also Studio One Pro, but not sure if it is better for CPU management, etc... than on Cubase?

Can you give me your opinion on the daw best suited to my needs (CPU load, management of large sessions, etc.) and taking into account my musical style (trance, melodic techno) for the composition.

A daw with good workflow and overall management is also important.

I will never do Live, just home studio production.

Many thanks in advance for your opinions and responses.

The answer through time has always been PC - until recently. Today Cubase is more efficient on Mac - note "efficient" - because PC hardware is pulling a steady gap over Apple in terms of raw horsepower, so at some point it will become the faster platform again - but will probably burn a lot more electricity doing it.

Thank you for your reply.

So with a Mac, there will be better CPU management with large sessions if I understand correctly?

Regarding the Mac, is it better to choose a Mac Mini M2 Pro or a Mac Studio M2 Max?

It's a moving target - Steinberg are still working of CPU balancing improvements but in general whatever machine has more performance cores should perform better.

Become familiar with the different M CPUs. Audio needs CPU cores, video needs GPU.

The M2 Pro and M2 Max have the same number of performance and efficiency cores, but different GPU.

So an M2 Pro Mini and Studio would be the same speed for audio. They’re also the same cost if you configure the mini like the studio! So the studio is a no brainer since you get more GPU for free.

At least in the UK, the studio with 32GB RAM. 1TB SSD and the M2 Max with 8 performance cores, 4 efficiency cores, and 30 GPU cores is £2300.

The mini with M2 pro with same SSD and RAM but 19 GPU cores and 10Gb Ethernet is £2400!

Total no brainer.

Of course you can configure a mini with a lot less CPU and memory etc. so it can start a lot cheaper.

Yeah judging by posts at Steinberg's own forums the last 2-3 years, I'd say the Mac is the rock this time. There are plenty of folks getting on with Cubase just fine on the PC, but quite a bit of the 'problem' posts are in fact PC users, and Steinberg has a heck of a time tracking stuff down due to all the hardware configurations, motherboards, CPUs, etc that are available. If you want something that won't require too much planning, just get a Mac and be done with it. Then you get to deal with Apple, but it is what it is.

I remember when I switched over back in the OS 9 days.. Cubase VST was a bit of a dog on Mac OS after coming from 98/2000. That's one of the reasons I switched to Logic Platinum, and once Apple got ahold of it, it was the king. Went back to Cubase 11 though when they announced the free upgrade to 12 and haven't looked back at all.

I prefer Cubase/ Nuendo on a PC. Works well on a Mac but options and functions are more available on PCs.
Proper Direct monitoring, less mouse clicks thru the process.

mac has two things going for it not easily found on pc:
"aggregated devices", which allows you to use interfaces from two different vendors at the same time.
"sidecar" which allows you to use an ipad as a wireless second monitor.

so if you find pc and mac systems that both have enough processing power to run your workloads, the tiebreak might be to go with the mac so you get aggregated devices and sidecar.

Thank you very much for your messages and reviews.

So, the Mac wins a majority of votes.

In the appendix, the configuration with a Mac Studio that I plan to use.

What do you think?

Now, if I take Mac Studio, isn't it better to take Logic?

It is truly optimized for the Mac.

It is still surprising this difficulty with PC to find a reasonable CPU load for operation.

Now, Studio One Pro 6 and even the latest version of Live 12 apparently have the same problem, high CPU load, even higher than with version 5 of Studio One Pro and Live 11.

Once again, surprised that in 2024, we will have to tinker with a daw and what does it matter to be able to use it without having to freeze tracks or other tinkering.

You can go with less GPU cores and save €230 - bit essential for audio work. Still lots more than the Pro chip.

Without standardised benchmarks it is all speculation…

You can't always take everything at face value.. Logic is written by Apple, you would think its the tightest on the Apple ship but guess what, Logic can't even use all those lovely efficiency cores in your M1/M2/M3 but Cubase and Reaper sure as hell can. Logic's had plenty of problems of its own over the last 20+ years (been using it since 1999)..

I run Logic Pro, Cubase 13, and Live 11 here and I could not say one is more 'efficient' or 'optimized' over another. I see problems all day long from one forum to the next, and seem to get on just fine with all 3 in my day to day here.

They all get their work done just fine. The real issue is figuring out which ones workflow fits you best, or what gimmicks sucker you into buying it.

Thank you for your feedback.

I don't always take everything literally.

I'm looking for a reliable, stable, efficient DAW, with CPU management worthy of the name and a workflow that is optimized for musical creation and production.

Which apparently isn't easy to find.

Not always speculation.

It is known that Windows 11 is not great with Cubase 13.

It is even recommended to upgrade to Windows 10.

So, without getting into the stupid Mac/PC war, there are still differences in compatibility, stability and most certainly a CPU load that is perhaps more optimized on Mac.

Quite simply because Mac is more restrictive on this design.

By that I mean, not as much diversity of processors, ram, motherboard, graphics card etc... as on PC plethora of choices.

Which must be more problematic to manage and optimize.

Really? Where's this recommended. Don't get me wrong I don't like Windows 11, it's another step down the road of forcing you into "their" ways of working in teh style of macOS - but regarding performance and stability with Cubase - it's fine.

I can't comment on Win 11 but on Win 10 Nuendo works as expected. I started on Nuendo 1.0 way back mostly on a PC until 2021 when I moved to a Macbook Pro 16. The Mac has great headroom but I noticed I had to do more steps related to my process than a PC. Also, since I record musician's is the majority of my work, having the direct monitor function that exist on PCs is a big deal to me. On my Mac to get the latency down I have to monitor recording thru the Lynx mixer. It feels like I'm working in the year 2000. It's a real pain in the ass and makes punching a real piece of work. I like the tape machine flow that's similar with DM.

I wanted to add that I still work on a PC with Win 10 at Saucer Sound, E.J's studio. Recording Eric thru the Lynx mixer would be a nightmare.

Thank you for your answers.

According to some user reviews, Cubase Pro 12 and 13 work better on Windows 10.

More stable and better CPU management among other things.

On the other hand, regarding Windows 11.

It depends on the configuration (processor, motherboard, graphics card, RAM, audio interface), there are really varied opinions.

For some Windows 11 it works, for others much less.

Concerning Cubase Pro 13,
Is it possible to use 2 or 3 screens?

If so, how should they be configured in Cubase Pro 13 and Windows 11?

I've not seen any evidence of this.

You can use as many screens as your PC/Mac supports - drag the various windows where you want them and Cubase will "remember" where everything lives to an individual plug-in level.

Not if this comes true.

Yes, if PC becomes Arm RISC then we will be comparing Apples to er apples - energy wise. But! I wouldn't jump for a long time - I don't care about power consumption - backwards compatability is a boon to me. I'll be clinging onto x64 until support starts to wain.

Nuendo on PC
Logic Pro X on MacOS

doesn't Nuendo use the same engine as Cubase? It just has more features and included plugins - or so I thought.

yes it's a cubase pro ++ no more

Thank you very much for your responses and opinions.

I will buy Cubase Pro 13

I'll see what happens with my configuration.

Thank you again for your responses and opinions.

The winky face is confusing me

If it’s good enough for Hans Zimmer, it’s probably good enough for most of us

(I use Logic )

If You’re Tired of MacBooks Winning…

Of course the "right" platform depends entirely on application. In my studio and with my huge backcatalog of software and the fact I'm comfortable assembling and supporting my own PCs, PC makes total sense - I would be a fool to switch over to mac. But my remote rig is a little M1 MBP which I only track with (no mixing), stunning battery life, cool, quiet and pretty powerful. I'd be mad to use a PC laptop. Context is everything when you make decisions. With Logic or Luna you are tying yourself to one platform - another boon to multilatform DAWs such as Cubase.

zimmer with his brainless and boring dune sound design

I use both.

I prefer Cubase on PC.