Ableton 11 Music prod cpu recommendations? 12th or 13th Gen?

[losangeles]

Actually, no- regular M1 MacBooks (Air) do not have a fan- hence, throttling can become an issue, if pushed. However, even on my M1 Max, I have never heard the fan come on.

Reading. You genius. I recommend doing it.

I’m not sure what you’re implying here?

[EnGee]

I think for a desktop pc, Intel i7 12700 is a great choice. The non k has 65w TDP which is the same as the cheaper AMD 5600x and 5700x but it has a better performance overall.
I would choose a Noktua cooler and either Asus or Gigabyte motherboard with nVidia 3050 or AMD 6600 graphic card. Of course a very good silent case (This will not likely change in the future! I have a Fractal Design case and PSU, 650w gold). PSU is important to be a very good quality. I thought to replace mine with 800w DeepCool but I returned it after few days due to noise! Returned to my trusty silent Fractal Design PSU.

[ElVincente]

I think for a desktop pc, Intel i7 12700 is a great choice. The non k has 65w TDP which is the same as the cheaper AMD 5600x and 5700x but it has a better performance overall.
I would choose a Noktua cooler and either Asus or Gigabyte motherboard with nVidia 3050 or AMD 6600 graphic card. Of course a very good silent case (This will not likely change in the future! I have a Fractal Design case and PSU, 650w gold). PSU is important to be a very good quality. I thought to replace mine with 800w DeepCool but I returned it after few days due to noise! Returned to my trusty silent Fractal Design PSU.

Just wondering, why a dedicated Graphic card ? I was always thinking embedded gpus will do just fine for DAW use and with less power comsuption, less heat production and potential less latency issues (if you need to go low latency anyway...)

[ElVincente]

I think for a desktop pc, Intel i7 12700 is a great choice. The non k has 65w TDP which is the same as the cheaper AMD 5600x and 5700x but it has a better performance overall.
I would choose a Noktua cooler and either Asus or Gigabyte motherboard with nVidia 3050 or AMD 6600 graphic card. Of course a very good silent case (This will not likely change in the future! I have a Fractal Design case and PSU, 650w gold). PSU is important to be a very good quality. I thought to replace mine with 800w DeepCool but I returned it after few days due to noise! Returned to my trusty silent Fractal Design PSU.

Just wondering, why a dedicated Graphic card ? I was always thinking embedded gpus will do just fine for DAW use and with less power comsuption, less heat production and potentialy less latency issues (if you need to go low latency anyway...)

[ElVincente]

[quote=ElVincente post_i

I think for a desktop pc, Intel i7 12700 is a great choice. The non k has 65w TDP which is the same as the cheaper AMD 5600x and 5700x but it has a better performance overall.
I would choose a Noktua cooler and either Asus or Gigabyte motherboard with nVidia 3050 or AMD 6600 graphic card. Of course a very good silent case (This will not likely change in the future! I have a Fractal Design case and PSU, 650w gold). PSU is important to be a very good quality. I thought to replace mine with 800w DeepCool but I returned it after few days due to noise! Returned to my trusty silent Fractal Design PSU.

Just wondering, why a dedicated Graphic card ? I was always thinking embedded gpus will do just fine for DAW use and with less power comsuption, less heat production and potentialy less latency issues (if you need to go low latency anyway...)

[EnGee]

I think for a desktop pc, Intel i7 12700 is a great choice. The non k has 65w TDP which is the same as the cheaper AMD 5600x and 5700x but it has a better performance overall.
I would choose a Noktua cooler and either Asus or Gigabyte motherboard with nVidia 3050 or AMD 6600 graphic card. Of course a very good silent case (This will not likely change in the future! I have a Fractal Design case and PSU, 650w gold). PSU is important to be a very good quality. I thought to replace mine with 800w DeepCool but I returned it after few days due to noise! Returned to my trusty silent Fractal Design PSU.

Just wondering, why a dedicated Graphic card ? I was always thinking embedded gpus will do just fine for DAW use and with less power comsuption, less heat production and potential less latency issues (if you need to go low latency anyway...)

I believe the overall system performance would be better. However, I tend to have a dedicated graphic card because I play games sometimes (but don't mind if it is on low or mid details). So, maybe it is a good idea to have all the system except the dedicated graphic card (but with CPU that has integrated GPU) and see how it is going first.

The cool thing about assembling your own PC is it is like a modular synth (kind of!), so parts like graphic cards and SSD, Memory, ...etc. can be replaced and upgraded within a limit of course (compatible parts only).

I have upgraded from 1600X to 5800X and nVidia 3070 about a year ago, but I chose to replace also the motherboard and memory and cooler! I took the old parts and build a new PC for my sister with additional new parts, while the old graphic card I replaced my mother's PC graphic card (replaced nVidia 750 GT 1G with nVidia 1060 3GB), so things can move among PCs and can be sold as well. The PC case however, stayed. It is now about 5 or 6 years that I have it and I have no intention to replace it.

Anyway, for music production, for me, I still much prefer my mini Mac M1! I'm using it for Music and internet browsing (including here!), seeing movies ..etc. But for gaming and work (data management related) I use my PC as it is Windows dependent. Although, I have installed Steam here on Mini Mac and I could run some games (especially the not very heavy ones), but my joypads doesn't work, so I use my keyboard/mouse which is an old style I like as well.

It depends also on what plugins and how many tracks ...etc. I do use modern synths without a problem (Massive X, PhasePlant, Pigments, Icarus 2, ..etc) and all run fine. I haven't maxed my M1 CPU yet! Running Logic Pro and Ableton 11 are no problem at all. An average of 16 tracks won't even reach 50% of the CPU! But as I said I don't use that heavy plugins. For effects, I usually use what's there in the DAW, although I still have some 3rd party effects from Kilohearts, Arturia and some other few others, but none I can classify as really heavy. Oh, and some plugins run better without any problem like Korg OPsix and ARP Odyssey has been updated with a clear GUI! So, things are more pleasant for me on MacOS regarding general use and music production.

[ROTMetro]

Have you considered if you need AVX-512 support? Things like Acustica's get a 10% or so bump from having it, and more software may take advance of it going forward. If you care, make sure your CPU supports it. I wish I would have made sure mine had it.

[jonljacobi]

Either gen, but both are incredible power hogs. AMD uses a lot less, but the M1/M2 are far, far more efficient. This is if you care. I do wish someone would do a total cost of operation comparison.

[Jim Roseberry]

[quote="Jim Roseberry" post_id=8567558 time=1669730648 user_id=67952

If you want to stick to air-cooling, I'd recommend the 12700k.
It's much less complex to configure.

DDR5 can also be more complex to configure (especially if your running 128GB).
It's not as simple as setting XMP.

Can you explain a bit more what that means in practice. Thanks.
[/quote]

Sure, it means you're not going to run the 13900k at full potential using air-cooling.
You can keep the 13900k both cool/quiet... and achieve 40k multi-thread score with Cinebench R23... but it requires a top-tier AIO.

If you're dead set on using air-cooling, get a CPU where it's effective (like the 12700k)