The best desktop PC ingredients for Ableton?

[Greg S]

Hi everyone,

I am going to order a desktop PC to be built by a local computer shop. The shop owner has asked me to provide the specs required. The Ableton site gives some fairly generic minimum specs, so I would like to ask:
1. Are there any key 'ingredients' (sound cars, motherboard, fan, etc.) that I need to ask for specifically in order to make it into a music PC?
2. Should I try to 'future proof' the PC by going above and beyond what the Ableton website recommends?
3. How much should I be looking to spend (in pounds)?

Thank you!

[chris harbin]

I've found out since jumping back into Live that a good graphics card (with Open GL 3 or more) is a good idea. WARNING: Avoid the PNY series especially the 1650. When trying to upgrade from my lowly 710 it's murder in the audio dropout range. This one (though underpowered) no dropouts. That one (and I've tried it on two different computers) major dropouts. Drivers and settings don't matter. BTW, DO NOT use the built in graphics on a chip, it likely won't even work with something like Push 2 for example.

I've had great luck with MSI boards, YMMV. Others don't like them. Don't go overboard, but look at things like how many USB ports. Sure, hubs are mostly reliable but it's still nice to have as many as you can get. Also, USB C is a thing these days, it's a good idea to have a card or built in USB C for anything in the future. BTW, if you look at "reviews" they will be all over the map. Try and filter out the haters and the fanboi's and make a decision based on averages. You'll likely be in better shape.

Futureproofing: This last time I went with a Ryzen 7900+, 32 gigs of ram, a solid state 1TB HD and it's pretty killer. Remember, GHZ is still KING! Many many things work off of the first core. I'm at 4.7GHZ and again, it's really nice. Live is not optimized for CPU the way something like Studio One is so keep that in mind.

Price? I wouldn't go overboard. Not sure what prices are like there but back to point 2, you don't need a billion cores, you just need a decent amount (12 is good/and you'll likely get 12 more hyperthread cores) Others will disagree, but as long as you have ram that is compatible, you're good. Don't geek out too much. 64GB is likely overkill unless you use things like Kontakt allot.

Fans and a case are very important. I have a Noctua CPU fan, it's dead silent. I have a Corsair case and haven't swapped the fans, but they are generally very quiet as well. Really well built. But it's metal and if you can get a carbon case there is a better chance of not having any excess noise from vibrations. Not necessary, but not a bad investment.

PSU. I have a Seasonic and again it's really quiet. Don't go overboard again, 600ish should suffice. Those 750+ are overkill most of the time.

Let's talk soundcards. What do you have? Most are great, but that is KEY so if you are not happy with what you have, just be aware of how important that is. Honestly, my little iD4 Audient is fantastic. I'm personally really surprised by how good it is.

[chris harbin]

Oh, and don't be afraid of Windows 11. It's fine. But I can certainly understand wanting to stick with 10. No harm there

[[jur]]

You should find plenty discussions about this around here

[Greg S]

Thank you very much, there are some really solid answers in there! I am going to go and get a quote today.

Thank you!

[chris harbin]

Let us know what you get New computers are exciting in my book

[The Rabbits]

I just built a new pc with Live in mind.

CPU: i9 13900K
RAM: 32 GB DDR5
Motherboard: Gigabyte Z790M Auros Elite mATX
SSD: 1TB Gigabyte M2
Cooler: be quiet Dark rock pro 4
PSU: Thermaltake Toughpower GF1 650w

It runs 32 tracks containing Arturia Pigments(complex patches), COLDFIRE and eq8 on all simultaneously without a glitch. The CPU fans run at about 30% during tests, just audible in the background. I didn't deliberately try to max it out, that was enough of a test.

Suffice to say I'm more than happy with it, WAY more than happy. It's wasn't cheap, but I wanted a system that will last 4-5 years and wouldn't restrict what I could do or frustrate me in the process.

I'm not running a graphics card because I don't game these days, plugins running on the GPU might change that decision. I'm also not overclocking, it doesn't need it.

Hope this is helpful.

[chris harbin]

Maybe the intel GPU chipset is more compatible. The AMD one is absolutely not compatible with Push 2.

That has been my one real frustration with getting back into Live. Frankly, I don't know what to do if I want to get a "better" graphics card. For now I'll just use this one and be happy it works

[emiel-r]

I just built a new pc with Live in mind.

CPU: i9 13900K
RAM: 32 GB DDR5
Motherboard: Gigabyte Z790M Auros Elite mATX
SSD: 1TB Gigabyte M2
Cooler: be quiet Dark rock pro 4
PSU: Thermaltake Toughpower GF1 650w

It runs 32 tracks containing Arturia Pigments(complex patches), COLDFIRE and eq8 on all simultaneously without a glitch. The CPU fans run at about 30% during tests, just audible in the background. I didn't deliberately try to max it out, that was enough of a test.

Suffice to say I'm more than happy with it, WAY more than happy. It's wasn't cheap, but I wanted a system that will last 4-5 years and wouldn't restrict what I could do or frustrate me in the process.

I'm not running a graphics card because I don't game these days, plugins running on the GPU might change that decision. I'm also not overclocking, it doesn't need it.

Hope this is helpful.

Interesting. I'm in the market for a new build aswell. What I would like to know is if ableton fully utilizes the efficiency cores in a project like this or just the performance cores. (otherwise a 16 core AMD might be superior for ableton) Could you have a look in taskmanager and tell us? I can find no real info on this anywhere.

Also: what buffer size did you use on this project? How low can you go before glitching? Tells a lot about CPU power

[[jur]]

Are CPU issues even still a thing with today's processors??
Since I got an m1 I've never experienced CPU overload ever again, it seems like those days are gone.

[The Rabbits]

I just built a new pc with Live in mind.

CPU: i9 13900K
RAM: 32 GB DDR5
Motherboard: Gigabyte Z790M Auros Elite mATX
SSD: 1TB Gigabyte M2
Cooler: be quiet Dark rock pro 4
PSU: Thermaltake Toughpower GF1 650w

It runs 32 tracks containing Arturia Pigments(complex patches), COLDFIRE and eq8 on all simultaneously without a glitch. The CPU fans run at about 30% during tests, just audible in the background. I didn't deliberately try to max it out, that was enough of a test.

Suffice to say I'm more than happy with it, WAY more than happy. It's wasn't cheap, but I wanted a system that will last 4-5 years and wouldn't restrict what I could do or frustrate me in the process.

I'm not running a graphics card because I don't game these days, plugins running on the GPU might change that decision. I'm also not overclocking, it doesn't need it.

Hope this is helpful.

Interesting. I'm in the market for a new build aswell. What I would like to know is if ableton fully utilizes the efficiency cores in a project like this or just the performance cores. (otherwise a 16 core AMD might be superior for ableton) Could you have a look in taskmanager and tell us? I can find no real info on this anywhere.

Also: what buffer size did you use on this project? How low can you go before glitching? Tells a lot about CPU power

It's hard to tell. The load on the cores fluctuates too fast to track. It's definitely using all the cores and doesn't seem to be maxing them out. So the efficiency cores are being used.

[The Rabbits]

More tests.

Set up
Chrome running in background on YouTube.

Ableton
Input buffer: 256 samples
Output buffer: 1024 samples
Sample rate: 48000

Tracks: Minimal Audio Current. Patch Marble Wind
Playing a 4 note chord.
Return tracks: Hyperspace reverb and Cluster Delay.

Total CPU power during test.

16 tracks: 105W No glitches
24 tracks: 135W No glitches
32 tracks: 170W No glitches
36 tracks: 175W No glitches
40 tracks: 175W Audible glitches

Peak temps during the whole run were 95°C for big cores, and 85°C for efficiency cores. My CPU is set to throttle at 95°C. I cooked one running it hard at 100°C and don't want to repeat the (expensive) experience. I've run it at full load doing 3D renders and all cores max out at 100% load with all temps pinned at 95°.

Looks like maybe the efficiency cores aren't quite peaking, but not by much.

I used power consumption as a measure because it represents the total load on the CPU. The plateau at 175W is strange. I assume it's throttling to limit temps.

Peak temperature gives us an idea of how hard the individual cores are working.

Hope this is useful to someone.

[emiel-r]

Hey!

That's very useful indeed! Thanks so much for taking the time!
Actually the first real confirmation I read on this.
I will be going with Intel thx to this.

Thank you!