Ableton Live 12 Windows 11 notebook hardware recommendations

Discuss anything related to audio or music production.
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-yt-
Posts: 2
Joined: Fri Aug 09, 2019 9:41 pm

Ableton Live 12 Windows 11 notebook hardware recommendations

Post by -yt- » Sat Apr 05, 2025 1:56 pm

Hi!
I am currently using Ableton Live 11 on a Windows 10 notebook from 2018.

I would like to update to Ableton Live 12 and buy a new Windows 11 notebook. My budget is around 2,000 EUR for the new notebook.

What are the hardware recommendations for the new notebook?
- Intel or AMD
- CPU type recommendations
- number of cores and threads
- base clock
- max clock
- minimum RAM
- How to know if the system is running quietly?

What else is important?

Thank you!

Kind regards,

Chris

Exie
Posts: 40
Joined: Tue Jan 02, 2007 2:58 am

Re: Ableton Live 12 Windows 11 notebook hardware recommendations

Post by Exie » Mon Apr 14, 2025 11:32 am

Everything you listed totally depends on the needs, I'd say. Minimum ram is 16, but again, depends, 32 makes more sense. Same for CPU, if you need low noise, take a look at low-power ones (<65w), check the benchmarks for specific CPUs you consider. Display quality and max brightness is a thing to consider, since you cannot replace it. Make sure it has fast disk of enough size, it's unlikely it has spare space for another one

x3000
Posts: 52
Joined: Wed Oct 04, 2023 2:47 pm

Re: Ableton Live 12 Windows 11 notebook hardware recommendations

Post by x3000 » Fri May 02, 2025 7:57 pm

This topic has already been discussed many times here in the forum.

In principle, yes, you need a lot of single-core power and multiple times. You can never have enough RAM. An SSD or several of them is a must. And if you're buying new, you shouldn't skimp on storage space either.
But if you only go by this, you will fail, unless you are lucky enough to be clueless.

The 3 key words are latency, latency and latency.

Here is a website with a latency ranking: https://www.notebookcheck.net/DPC-Laten ... 376.0.html

Most of these boxes are useless junk for audio. There is a website from Schenker/XMG that lists which laptops are suitable for audio processing. I think I read that an XMG EVO is suitable.

All the power saving nonsense in the Windows area of laptops is bad for audio processing. You have to search, but you can also find. Good luck!

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