Upgrading to a new computer and Cubase 9.5

Steinberg Lounge Computer/Studio Hardware & Setup
#1

Hi,

I’m thinking of upgrading my i7 920 computer from 2009 with Cubase 6.5 to a new one with Cubase 9.5 because it’s getting really slow and the VST performance peaks all the time when the projects are getting large. But I’m not really sure how much performance I need to run big projects with many instrument tracks.

Do you have any recommendations for which processor, motherboard, RAM and SSD drive that would suitable? For processor I have looked at Intel Coffe Lake i7 but I’m sure I need that much performance. On the otherhand, I don’t want to end up in the same situation as today. For RAM I’m thinking that 16 GB DDR4 should be enough. Motherboard and SSD I’m not really sure of.

#2

The I7-8700K would be a very good choice. Maybe you won’t need that much CPU power now but it will be more future proof than a slower CPU.
16 GB RAM should be more than enough unless you are working with many or large sample libraries, Kontakt instruments and such.
If you get the 8700K CPU, get a good motherboard with Z370 chipset and the features you like/need from Asus, Gigabyte or MSI.
SSD will speed up stuff quite a bit. At least get a SSD for your system drive and you can then use a HDD for storage, sample libraries and probably recording/Cubase projects until audio track count gets very high.

#3

Go for 32GB if you want to run large projects with many instrument tracks. 16GB will do for many relatively small vst’s but not if you also want to use large Kontakt libraries and Omnisphere multi’s. I have 16GB in my current machine (64GB in my new one that I’m currently testing) and I run into memory shortage on a regular basis. So I decide not to cut back on memory on my new machine.

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#4

RAM amounts depends what you do. For me 16 GB is more than fine as i just need to run Superior Drummer and possible a synth or 2 sometimes, rest is recorded tracks.