Mini PC’s as a DAW?

[conwayt]

Hi folks,

Does anyone have experience of using these (or similar) mini PC’s for running Cakewalk?  I run a floor based i9 tower PC and was consider one of these as a space saving upgrade/replacement.

regards and thanks.

https://www.geekom.co.uk/geekom-mini-it13-mini-pc

[msmcleod]

I've used a MeLe silent PC ( Intel Celeron J4125 @ 2.00GHz, 8GB RAM) for tracking only. 

CbB running on this easily managed recording 16 simultaneous tracks, whilst playing back 32 tracks.

However, I was using no plugins.

Plugins are always going to be the deciding factor with a mini pc - expect to have to use higher ASIO buffers (higher latency) and a limited amount of plugins in your project.

TLDR - fine for tracking, probably not ok for mixing.

[Jim Roseberry]

The smallest PCs are using mobile CPUs.

In short, they'll have the same performance limitations of a typical laptop.

 

If you can work with a slightly larger Mini-ITX build, you can have a i7-14700k CPU... with zero performance limitation.

As a point of reference (using Cinebench R23 multi-core benchmark):

• i9-14900k scores 40k
• i7-14-700k scores 33k

You get most of the performance of the 14900k... at significantly lower cost... and zero performance compromise.

[Grem]

When these first came out I was wondering the same thing. 

I ran CW on a Surface Pro 3 with a i7 cpu in it for years and had no problem doing rough mixing stuff of 20-30 trks. Since latency wasn't an issue, as both Mark and Jim mention, I could get away with it. 

Mixing I don't mind latency. I don't want to wait 10 seconds for a change to take effect!! But a few seconds is acceptable.

Recording, that's a whole another story!!!  

On my Surface 3 I could do limited, (very limited) recording with any type of plugins. Mostly what I would do was create in EZD or EZK the bounce that down/freeze those trks and get one, maybe two audio trks of guitar ideas. This using a cheap Behringer U-Phoria 2 with Behringer's own modified version of ASIO4ALL. And I would still have latency. 

But I did a lot of creating on that thing. It was easily transportable, easy setup, And all the same programs I had on my desktop machine at home. So I was familiar with everything.

[kitekrazy]

On 2/26/2024 at 3:50 PM, Jim Roseberry said:

The smallest PCs are using mobile CPUs.

In short, they'll have the same performance limitations of a typical laptop.

 

If you can work with a slightly larger Mini-ITX build, you can have a i7-14700k CPU... with zero performance limitation.

As a point of reference (using Cinebench R23 multi-core benchmark):

• i9-14900k scores 40k
• i7-14-700k scores 33k

You get most of the performance of the 14900k... at significantly lower cost... and zero performance compromise.

No need to buy the often overpriced graphics card.   My next budget build will be onboard graphics. 

[Jim Roseberry]

On 3/5/2024 at 12:17 PM, kitekrazy said:

No need to buy the often overpriced graphics card.   My next budget build will be onboard graphics. 

If you get into video editing, a RTX-4xxx card is nice.

I've got that mini-ITX build with 14700k and a RTX-4060Ti (16GB).

Amazing performance for the size... 

[kitekrazy]

1 hour ago, Jim Roseberry said:

If you get into video editing, a RTX-4xxx card is nice.

I've got that mini-ITX build with 14700k and a RTX-4060Ti (16GB).

Amazing performance for the size... 

I avoid it.  I barely know how to use DAWs.  I think think it's the most overpriced piece of hardware.