Small form factor Windows machine ruminations

There has already been a similar thread where i showed my personal solution for this topic… :sunglasses:
Maybe you can gain some further information from there:

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Yes, I know :slight_smile: I’d dearly love to change the OT title - guess I have to notify an admin or so. You happen to know who and how?

I can do it. What title would you prefer?

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Hm … “Small form factor Windows machine ruminations”? :slight_smile:

…and so it is! :mage:

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Heh. Thx!

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Nice. Not applicable in this case, but nails an oh too common problem. Good friend of mine does film scoring. He took the plunge once, some years ago, and bought the VSL - at least a good solid hunk of it. And he upgraded. Oh, how he upgraded. Must have about 64 cores now (I didn’t keep book) and 128 GB of RAM and whatnot. Still: Things like that are for clusters, not workstations :slight_smile: Me personally? I wouldn’t touch a sample library my machine couldn’t actually play back. Why should I?

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IMHO the M1 Macs are great machines and super fast, but expensive in terms of memory capacity. If you run lots of sample based plugins, you might find the 8Gb/16Gb memory restrictive, but if not, it will probably be the better performing option.

On the SFF PC front, I am running a Lenovo M920q that I have effectively upgraded to an M920x by swapping the CPU from a Core i7-9700T with a 2nd hand Core i9-9900 and have 32Gb RAM installed. The form factor is great and have it in a cradle with VESA mount holes allowing me to mount it to my keyboard stand using a VESA mount. I access it via a 13" touchscreen velcro’d to my MIDI controller attached to the PC using a single USB-C cable.

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Bingo on the Mac M1s. A 32 GB version would be killer.

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Thought some pictures might add some perspective. The tower HP Z420 dual Xeon with 128gb ram, a Quatro P4000 graphics card and it’s air cooled is under the desk. My NUC, which I still use, is between the Triton Rack and my new rig. My new rig is 11 liters (overall size is 12.6 liters), has a z590MB, Intel 11th generation i9 11900K chip, 64gb F4-4600 DDR4 ram, SF750 watt PS, Gigabyte RTX 3070 graphics card, 2 x 2tb Samsung 970 Evo NVMe SSDs, and Corsair H115i liquid cooler. The noisiest of the 3 is the NUC unless the Z420 spools up. I can’t hear my new computer even though I sit next to it. The coffee cup should provide a relative idea of size :slightly_smiling_face: As many have said, it just depends on your own personal situation and what you want to do. It is amazing what can be had in small packages these days,


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Now that’s a power horse there! Well this should be able to handle about anything that gets thrown its way :slight_smile: SPECtacular, so to say :slight_smile:

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So I settled with a setup:

Shuttle PC Slim Line XH410G (XH410G - Shuttle Europe)
Intel i9 10900 10 x 2,80
G.SKILL RipJaws SO-DIMM Kit 64GB, DDR4-3200, CL22-22-22
Samsung 970 EVO Plus 1 TB PCIe 3.0
Dell P2418HT, 23.8" Touchscreen
ESI Maya44 eX (if this doesn’t work out I’ll settle for the Steinberg UR24C; my HDSP won’t fit into the Shuttle with an PCIe/PCI adapter boardlet. Worst case I take the plunge and buy the RME Aio Pro)

Bits & bobs are ordered, will arrive during the next 10 days.

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I bet they WILL blast out two additional M1 versions: one with 32 GB and one with 64 GB of RAM. Give’em a year or 18 months. And I will hang my head and cry :slight_smile:

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:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: @KarenColumbo The amount of misery we suffer waiting for something that might or might not come…!

Do the best you can at the time you need it and enjoy making some music for the next several years when the cosmos will have changed anyway.

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Heh, I only get overexcited when I finally get my ass up and do something like upgrading gear. Usually I watch the world go by with a mild smile on my lips. Who knows what’ll be in 18 months’ time? I’d rather take the Now by the short and curlies and do something rather than planning my future.

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Rather than waiting a year or so, the announcement might come on Monday.

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Bahahaha. There they go :slight_smile:

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“… Apple’s M1X-powered Mac mini will also introduce a new generation of industrial design” - maybe a tiny piano roll instead of the touch bar?

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off-topic: I can’t edit my posts - the “pencil icon” is gone. Have I edited too excessively?