ITX PC build for Reaper - Feedback welcome

[saberreiter]

Hey fellow audio nerds,

I am planning on building a kinda budget audio workstation (audio interface Focusrite Clarett USB). This will exclusively be used for audio production, no gaming/media (expect youtube tutorials maybe )



Here are the components, I want to use - I am thankful for feedback:

Case: Cooler Master MasterBox NR200P

CPU: Ryzen 5600x (cooler: NZXT Kraken x63 since I already own one)

Ram: 2x16GB G.Skill Ripjaw DDR4 4000

Motherboard: MSI B550I Gaming Edge Wifi

GPU: MSI GT710 1GD3H (DDR3) - I want to drive a 1440p Monitor @ 60 Hertz

PSU: Corsair SF450 Platinum

SSDs: Intenso Sata SSD 256GB (for Windows) / Crucial P5 1TB NVME for the rest.



I ran my audio production on my gaming pc (Ryzen 5900x) before, but I wanted it seperated (for a couple of reasons). I then used my "media" PC with an Intel 10600k and 16GB of 3200 G.Skill Ram, but Render times were almost doubled and some VSTs had trouble running smoothly... hence my desire to go back to current gen Ryzen.

I want to go for an ITX build to save some desk space.

My main concern is, that the 710 is not strong enough to reliably power my Monitor (it's some 32"ROG 1440p monitor).
Otherwise: has someone compared Ryzen 5600x to 5800x performance with reaper? I compared a 5800x to the 5900x and the difference was negligable. If the performance uplift from 5600x to 5800x is high I would maybe invest the ~150€ more.

Thank you for reading this far and hopefully for your feedback.
Cheers

[toleolu]

If it's a "budget" build you're after, then maybe what might be more helpful is for you to provide some detail about what and how you record, edit, etc.

Based on what you said about running Reaper on a gaming system, I'm going to take that as you're probably a home/hobbyist user like myself. If that's not the case, and this is something that you're doing for a living, or at least have a financial stake in, in other words, there's real money involved with what you're doing, then what follows does not apply, and you can jump ahead to the replies from the really smart guys here who do that sort of thing.

I have no doubt that the configuration you posted would work just fine. Computer hardware is pretty much a no brainer for us hobbyists these days. That being the case, a "budget" build for you might involve scaling things back a bit and taking the money you save on computer hardware and spend it on analog gear or software that will give you a bigger bang for your buck when it comes to the quality of the music you produce.

I'm still running an old i5 with 8G RAM a small SSD for my system drive and an old spinner for my data drive, a large project for me is 20 some tracks with a few basic plugins on most of the tracks, this old rig handles that just fine. I know of people here with rigs only slightly bigger, that work with projects with up to hundred or more tracks and lots of plugins.

All that said, there's nothing wrong with building the beefiest bad ass rig on the planet, that's cool too. But maybe if you give everyone here a bit more info on what you're doing and what your expectations are, maybe they can save you some money that you can spend on a mic or something.

Either way, best of luck to you. Looking forward to hearing some of your music.

[saberreiter]

Originally Posted by toleolu

If it's a "budget" build you're after, then maybe what might be more helpful is for you to provide some detail about what and how you record, edit, etc.

Based on what you said about running Reaper on a gaming system, I'm going to take that as you're probably a home/hobbyist user like myself. If that's not the case, and this is something that you're doing for a living, or at least have a financial stake in, in other words, there's real money involved with what you're doing, then what follows does not apply, and you can jump ahead to the replies from the really smart guys here who do that sort of thing.

I have no doubt that the configuration you posted would work just fine. Computer hardware is pretty much a no brainer for us hobbyists these days. That being the case, a "budget" build for you might involve scaling things back a bit and taking the money you save on computer hardware and spend it on analog gear or software that will give you a bigger bang for your buck when it comes to the quality of the music you produce.

I'm still running an old i5 with 8G RAM a small SSD for my system drive and an old spinner for my data drive, a large project for me is 20 some tracks with a few basic plugins on most of the tracks, this old rig handles that just fine. I know of people here with rigs only slightly bigger, that work with projects with up to hundred or more tracks and lots of plugins.

All that said, there's nothing wrong with building the beefiest bad ass rig on the planet, that's cool too. But maybe if you give everyone here a bit more info on what you're doing and what your expectations are, maybe they can save you some money that you can spend on a mic or something.

Either way, best of luck to you. Looking forward to hearing some of your music.

Hi toleolu, thank you for the reply
I am only recording demos as a hobby (mostly for my band).
I wrote "budget" since I don't want to spend thousands of € on this , it's not a SUPER tight budget.
I record guitars/bass/vocals and program drums (EZdrummer), sometimes I record drums, too, but I usually go with programming.
I do not use many other virtual instruments.
I am currently using an Intel 10600k and it works, but it's sloooow. (rendering at less than half the rat the 5900x did)
I own pretty much all mics/other gear that I need (want is another thing ).
I tend to use a lot of plugins (e.g. my vocal cahin per track is ssl channel, CLA comp, limiter, tape saturation) and I usually use about 10 vocal tracks for a usual demo. Then there is neural dsp VSTs for guitars and bvass. So overall lots of CPU usage. therefore I wanted a stronger system.
If you want to listen to one of my songs: https://www.dropbox.com/s/0xz700fg6x...1-001.mp3?dl=0

Cheers

[toleolu]

Thanks for the link, I'm not a big metal fan, but that sounded pretty good. Did you record that at the bass players apartment?

Again, just my 2 cents but I think the config you listed will work fine. I think you'll be fine driving that monitor with graphics you mentioned. Are you planning on doing any video editing?