Any time a new Win-OS hits the market it’s wise to wait at least a full year before attempting to install it. Windoze 10 was quite insufferable during the first few months. I reverted back to 8.1 and waited. After about 18 months and about 365478345 updates I tried again and been a more or less happy Win user ever since. Will do the same process minus the hasty “test” install with 11, too.
My experience was perfectly ok with windows 10 as soon as it was available. My old Asus with i7 3th generation was perfect. A new MSI gaming notebook with i7 10th generation was a disaster. I made a lot of tests: new notebooks have bios that use a lot of strategies to insert idle CPU cycles. And you cannot switch off these shitty settings because producers don’t want you to put your machine in danger of fire.
After some months I had to turn to dark side of the force, because I cannot accept a 2000 EUR machine that produce music with lots of glitches.
I sold the MSI and bought a new MacBookPro with M1.
I never had a single issue with latency or glitch.
And I can play 3 hours just with battery. A miracle that would be unthinkable on an Intel machine.
Now that it’s working for you, do you still consider it to be the dark side? 
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Dark side is obviously Apple (not GigP…).
It works damn well.
But it is evil.
Like having Rosetta working inside an M1 based host only with AUs and not with VSTs.
They are nasty, no way.
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So much about Windows laptops comes down to not the hardware and not Windows… but the company that is selling the laptop.
HP, Dell, ASUS, etc… they all load up computers you buy with nonsense cruft and lousy BIOS settings. It takes a lot of work to unpick that.
Or… you can go with a custom builder if doing that yourself isn’t your thing, a place like BOXX labs or Puget Systems makes cruft free amazing laptops and desktops.
I’ve found Samsung laptops to be light on bloatware. I’ve never used one for media production. I’ve used a few for work-related tasks (MS Office, Chrome, etc.) and they’ve been quite reliable.
I’m using a Surface Pro 8 i7 with 16gig ram. Love the small footprint and light weight. Does a great job running Gig Performer.
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For those of us with a budget that doesn’t currently include a recent Apple option, how would I go about finding a Windows machine that best fits the bill? This suddenly became relevant to me, as my current laptop has developed rapidly-widening cracks on the hinges and cover. The current machine is an Acer Aspire 3 with an i5-8250U, 12GB of RAM, and a 1T hard drive. I haven’t had GP problems with it, but my setup has been very light so far, with no sample player. My budget is in the $500 to $700 range, fwiw.
For that price range I’d probably look for a refurbished gaming laptop.
Something along the lines of this:
I’m sure there are better options out there also, but that’s an indication of what you could get in that price range.
Please… Test any windows notebook with LatencyMon BEFORE buying.
Or buy with a refund chance.
Some machines have serious problems with drivers that are terribly hard to be solved. No way to know unless testing
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Thanks. Have you been able to convince sellers to let you run LatencyMon?
btw, I just ran it on my current machine and it told me what I already know - my system is suitable for real-time audio (despite being a cheap and moderately old machine).
I had serious troubles with a high price gaming notebook by MSI. After 3 months of fighting I was able to sell it and had to turn to the dark side of the Force (I bought a MacBookPro).
I want to save you from that…
You’ve had issues? I’m still on an older MacOS and MacBook Pro, so haven’t had to worry about M1 compatibility.
But I must say, the amount of time I spend worrying about specs, latency, drivers, virtual ports…. = 0. 
I fully agree.
I don’t like Apple strategy, but now I don’t care anymore about drivers, latency, compatibility.
I open the clam and start playing.
I must admit.
M1 wasn’t an issue. For a year I worked with Rosetta on GigPerformer and plugins. Now it’s everything M1 native.
I didn’t feel any difference.
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I was a hard core Windows/PC user but have since committed to Mac for GP/Live use and I have to admit it’s very good. With the new hardware, it’s a bit less expensive for what you get and the audio/midi support just works out the box
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I’ve always been intrigued by the possibility of using a really small PC like a NUC in combination with a small touchscreen monitor instead of a laptop.
I have a new generation NUC that could probably handle it, but it’s dedicated to something entirely different and I don’t want to mess with that setup. But I know @David-san has NUC experience.
I’ve seen 12th gen i5 processor NUCs on Amazon for $500-$700 depending on whether they already have RAM and SSD or if you have to add your own.
I confirm, I am replacing an older NUC PC (Gigabyte BRIX i7) which is (too) limited to 16Gb of RAM by a new one with 64Gb and a 2Tb SSD. Well, it is not an intel NUC but has the same form factor and is designed by Geekom:
I bought it from here where you can change the country buy changing the little flags:
I am still installing it and couldn’t really try it with until now GP, but I did a quick DPC latency test which show that it should be perfect with GP. I use it together with a Wimaxit hdmi 15" touchscreen. I have the NUC/Geekom PC under my VPC1 at home, and in a 3U flight case when moving.
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congrats… give us a full report!
When I first discovered GP I installed it on an Intel NUC i7 - and that was yeas ago with Version 3 and the NUC wasn’t new then - and it ran fine. I also ran it on a Dell Z420 workstation with little noticable difference. Due to other considerations and age I build a new small form factor rig (itx) which I am still using and happy with. I don’t think GP would be an issue with a modern NUC, it depends what else you are doing with the platform and it’s potential resources/limitations. Having said this and being a hard core PC user all my life - but immensely liking the various iPads I have had, next time I’m going to try a Mac Studio (probably) as a dedicated music machine, with all the other things you can’t do with the Apple ecosystem left on my PC projects.
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I have a NUC as home theater PC. It’s a machine that has all features to make it a good GigPerformer workhorse. All drivers made by Intel, low risk of driver bad interaction, no limitation on bios (new notebooks are not this way to protect them from thermal issues).
I think that it’s intrinsically a much better machine for this purpose than a gaming notebook
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