Choosing Motherboard & CPU for Cubase 10 is harder than I thought!

I already have these from my last machine:
ATX case
Power Supply Unit (850W)
Graphics Card (EVGA GeForce GTX 1050 2GB)
2x Crucial SSD drives
M-Audio FAST TRACK II (USB) Audio Interface.
Cubse 10 Pro

I need to buy a Motherboard, CPU and RAM… and my budget is around £400 ($480).

  • I dont mind buying 2nd hand, if need be.

For some reason, I really want to get a Ryzen CPU because it looks like better value for money.
I know that LOADS of people seem to prefer INTEL chips… but they are more expensive, and I’m getting the feeling that (since the 2nd generation) Ryzen chips seem to be fine with Cubase 10.

Having a Ryzen chip means I need an AM4 socket Motherboard.
I’ve no idea which one to choose, and which company.
Asus pop’s up a lot in searches. But I heard some good feedback about Gigabyte too.
I’ve no idea if MSI is a contender?

Should I be worrying if the Motherboard has thunderbolt?
I doubt I will be using more than 20 Audio and 20 MIDI Tracks in a song…

Should I be considering the future? ie: if I were to buy a new Audio Interface, would thunderbolt be of use to me?
Or, if I upgrade to Cubase 10.5 or 11, would I be able to fully use it with my current choices?

I appreciate any useful info… especially about pairing a motherboard and CPU.
Is it silly to spend extra money on a PCIe SSD drive for Cubase & libraries? or am I getting in over my head?

I’m a basic singer-songwriter, but also have keyboard and intend to use VST’s and orchestration in my songs.

Kind regards,
Marc

AM4 motherboards within your budget don’t have Thunderbolt.

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We’ll i would have sacrifice one of your SSD and put the money towards a gen10 or 11 intel CPU… you can always go with SATA drivers for your sounds libraries

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You will be very limited if you buy Mobo + CPU + RAM for only £400, as the RAM is already £110 for 32 GB DDR4, £130 for a mobo that has integratedd Wi-Fi, and these are the lowest prices !
You have only £160 left for the CPU, but you’ll get a potato for that price :grimacing:
£400 is already the price of a good CPU alone.

You shouldn’t choose your config based on how many tracks you will have in your projects…
A few Instrument tracks can be enough to make expensive CPUs reach their limits, it simply depends on what instruments you are using, and also what plugins and how many you load.

thanks for the reply.
I saw a YouTube video by SCAN which asked people to do a particular Benchmark test and see how many tracks your system can handle before it glitches… and then to write what system they are using.
A lot of people with basic mid-range Ryzens seem to be getting around 30 to 50 tracks before it glitches…
And I am happy to make my budget go further by getting maybe some of the components 2nd hand.
I can push the budget to maybe £460 maybe.
I saw 32GB of Cubase optimized ram on SCAN for £113
And, I’m hoping to get a CPU for about £200
And maybe a Motherboard for about £150 Tops.
So, that’s £460 in total.

Also, if I were to get one of the above components 2nd hand, which do you think it should be?
I read on another forum that CPUs are usually either working or not working, and that its quite safe buying used CPU’s… (if they arrive broken, then obviously I would return).

Any thoughts?

I’m not sure I understand what you mean.
My SSD’s are from my OLD system… from several years ago.
Did you mean that I should maybe sell one of my SSD’s?

Also, please can you tell me the reasons you would be going for intel and not ryzen?
I am hoping to find out some real life experiences.
I did read on old forum posts that ryzen wasnt as good… but these posts were at least 5+ years old. But posts in the last few years mostly seem quite positive about Ryzen.
Please do share anything which you feel is useful to me.
Part of my difficulty is deciding whether to go with intel or ryzen.
I heard with DAW’s, sometimes there can be glitches between certain configurations of hardware.
Since my graphics card is a GTX 1050, I want to make sure it doesnt glitch or enter problems with certain hardware setups.

again, any info is welcome :slight_smile:

ok, I will forget the Thunderbolt.
Do you know anything about my other questions?
it really would be helpful :slight_smile:

Maybe if you can get some of the older specs for SCAN audio PCs. For instance I have a ASUS Rog strix 390 e gaming which was the m/b they used a couple of years ago.

It will be a struggle getting a mobo, 32GB ram and a decent CPU for £400.

You don’t NEED intel!!
Amazon search:
AM4 mother board cheapest £44.99
ryzen 5 5600x 6 core 12 thread cpu on sale £182.99
32GB DDR4 cheapest decent stuff (Corsair Vengance, 3600MHz) £113.99.

Is less than £350! so you could spend the unused 50 on getting a better mobo?

I have Ryzen 5 3600 6C/12T and 32Gb RAM. Never had any warnings about resource shortages.
Never dropouts crackles or pops in the audio chain and I have ASIO latency @ 64 samples. I do have UR22MKII usb interface. Not sure what kind of difference if any using your M-Audio would have

Happy shopping

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