The best CPU for Maschine

D-One

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/25495#Comment_25495

As I mentioned the problem would be finding a high-tear 10, 11 or 12th gen (intel) CPU without hyper-threading in the 1st place to even think about saving a few $... Assuming this ancient and established tech even boosts the price tag in any significant manner. IMHO if one is building a system from scratch the CPU is def not a component you want to cheap out on a few $, it's better to save elsewhere. If things are planned correctly we can always buy more ram, disk space, better case, more fans etc... but one can't buy more CPU.

Correct, I assume that if OP is going the SSF route he is aware of the number of available ram slots, there are mini-itx boards with 4 slots too.

AFAIK Alder Lake works fine modern Win, IMO if you spend a lot of money now then that should towards the technology that is the imminent future so you build something that lasts a long time, then there's considerations like PCIe-5, DDR5, etc... but some folks rather choose stability/legacy, that's fair too, kind of subjective... I guess if OP wants to stick with older Win versions then alder lake is to be avoided.

Well... Yeah, intel is def power hungry, not sure how much more in real use cases especially VS the big-little thing when comparing to equivalent AMD CPU's, but I would agree that going with AMD seems like a better choice.

djadidai

Holy moly. All the numbers, figures, generational stuff. Tech talk like this is not something I understand. What I do know is what I’ve owned before and what I own now. My MBP M1 16gig ram is a rocket and maschine (or any other NI plug-in) works perfectly, even in Rosetta. I use Logic X as my daw and I really love the light trilogy for example and often use 2-4 separate instances of those in logic, and maschine, and massive and so forth. Never had any issues. I’ve tried really to exaggerate with effects and Audio Units and whatever to barely make the laptop start the fan. I don’t know what your demands are, but for me, this is a beast that will last me a long long time.

D-One

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/25524#Comment_25524

Yeah... Once it starts it usually ends like this heheeh... For whatever it's worth I'm super happy with my 900$ M1 MacBook Air with only 8GB of ram, it's lightning fast for my typical needs in Maschine.

Kubrak

Sure, M1 is powerful. And big leap.... No question. Just the RAM and SSD are way too small, for my needs.... Beside the fact, I am not MacOS user....

AMDs are in some aspects better (more CPU power, more HW choise - RAM, SSD), in some a bit worse. Consume more power, but by far not like Intels... iGPU is probably also better on M1, but way better than on Intels. And of course no AI coprocessor on AMD... So far....

I have Zen3 APU 5700G (65W), which is stronger than M1, a bit veaker than M1 Pro. The whole setup with 64 GB RAM and 2x 1TB SSD cost me around 1000 EUR. It is small and silent.

https://www.asrock.com/nettop/AMD/DeskMini%20X300%20Series/index.asp

But generally, if one works on Mac, Apple Silicon CPU is great. If one works on Win, AMDs are good choise. But one may live with Intel as well, just they are hungry, need proper cooling...