Mini PCs suggestion for Cubase 14

[head84]

Hi everybody, I'd like to move to a mini PC for my music production. I got a Steinberg UR22mkII audio interface and I'm going to purchase a new Cubase 14 educational license.

I recently came across the Geekom A5 and I think it should be a good option, but I will use it just for amateur music production (no gaming). Do you think this is overkill for what I have to do? Is there something in the Mini PCs realm more suitable and maybe cheaper? Thanks.

 

[TalismanRich]

I think is should easily handle basic recording/mixing. I do it with a much lower spec tower (a 9 yr old Lenovo Core I5 based system) The mini PCs are basically laptop level system without the screen and keyboard. The Ryzen 7 5825U is designed for low power usage but should easily run with a DAW. The A5 you listed should have 32GB RAM, which is more than enough for most things, and has slots for multiple NVMe drives plus a SATA drive.

$400 is really a decent price for that level of PC. The Ryzen 7 is a much quicker processor than the Intel N100 or Celeron based systems, which are generally the cheaper options. The Geekom is priced similarly to the Beelink with the Ryzen 7 based mini PC.

I wouldnt try to go "cheap" and save $100, and then find out that you missed out on a lot of perfomance. People today don't realize how incredibly cheap a $400 computer with this level of performance really is. I paid 3x that for a 386-SX 25 based system with 512KB of RAM and a 20MB hard drive about 40 years ago. That would be about $3500 today based on inflation.

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