Question Processor recommendations / OS for audio recording / gaming

[Anomaly_76]

Building a rack-mount PC for a friend for the purposes of audio recording. I already have the case, PSU and enough parts to throw something together, but I want it to be the best bang for the buck for minimal thermal outputs.

In light of Microsoft's 'you vill zurrender ze data' email, I have strongly recommended some form of Linux for an OS, as I am currently shopping distros for my own purposes. We both use Audacity to record analog signals from a mixer, which I understand should not be a problem for Linux.

He currently uses a Dell Optiplex 990 mini tower with an i3-2100, maybe 2 GB RAM, unknown storage but suspect a HDD of unknown origin / hours / etc. At the very least, this machine will need more RAM and at least an SSD upgrade. This platform's advantage is that the i3-2100 is a 65W chip, which will help thermals, and he is okay with the idea of simply swapping this board and processor to the new case.

What I already have at my disposal --

AsRock B450M-HDV with Crucial Ballistix DDR4-3600
Asus Tuf B550-Plus with Patriot Viper Blackout 4 DDR4-3200

Ryzen 5 3600X

IS-55 Cooler (brackets for LGA or AM4)

RackChoice 2U ATX case with four 80mm fans

Asus Phoenix GTX1650 OC (slot powered)

Asus Tuf Gaming GTX1650S-4-OC (requires 6+2)

I don't want to make him spend more money than necessary, and I also don't want the thing to be a furnace. Any recommendations would be greatly appreciated. If the 65W i3-2100 on its original Dell board would be fine with a few upgrades and run cool in this case, then so be it.

One other question, would a machine that Win11 does not support, bother with prompting for an upgrade anyway?

Ideally, I would like this thing to stay below 50-55C, as not only will it be housed in a DJ-style rack, my friend and I both suffer from Irritable Larynx Syndrome, which makes us sensitive to heat.

But for the purposes of recording audio, would a Dell Q67 board with i3-2100 with SATA SSD at 3.0 Gbps be comparable to say, a 2400G / 3200G with a PCIe3 M.2 on an AsRock B450M or Asus Tuf B550?

Would that be worth the added cost of another CPU and M.2 over the added heat of a dedicated GPU?

Also, I've so far been recommended several versions of Linux for my own purposes (gaming / audio recording / recording my personal DVD collection), which include Mint, Ubuntu, Cinnamon, Nobara, ZorinOS, PopOS, Qemu, and KDE.

We both more or less need as seamless a transition as possible, though I know that's a tall order with Linux. But the less terminal and line-command stuff we have to do, the better. I am reassembling my old 1700 rig for the purposes of testing distros this weekend.

 

[Lutfij]

AsRock B450M-HDV with Crucial Ballistix DDR4-3600
Asus Tuf B550-Plus with Patriot Viper Blackout 4 DDR4-3200
Just an FYI, you have these inverted, B550 can take advantage of DDR4-3600MHz out of the box while the B450 would be best off at DDR4-3200MHz.

But for the purposes of recording audio, would a Dell Q67 board with i3-2100 with SATA SSD at 3.0 Gbps be comparable to say, a 2400G / 3200G with a PCIe3 M.2 on an AsRock B450M or Asus Tuf B550?
You'd have a tough time doing anything on the i3 build in 2024, take it from me, who tried building a system on a budget and was a whole lot of mess, to which I suggested to my friend/client to just get something concurrent instead of wasting money.

I would advise on getting a 5000 series APU to pair with your B550 chipset motherboard.

 

[Anomaly_76]

AsRock B450M-HDV with Crucial Ballistix DDR4-3600
Asus Tuf B550-Plus with Patriot Viper Blackout 4 DDR4-3200
Just an FYI, you have these inverted, B550 can take advantage of DDR4-3600MHz out of the box while the B450 would be best off at DDR4-3200MHz.

While I'm aware that the B550 would be a better logical choice for 3600, the ASRock B450 board does indeed support the 3600 Ballistix for a Zen 2. Not second-guessing, that's just what was on the QVL for each respective board. As I said, Ryzen boards and CPUs / APUs are funny about RAM, I don't know if it's just a Zen/+/2/3 thing or not.

While I do agree it would rather seem the other way around, in my (limited) experience, it really comes down to the processor and board combo. That said... just because a kit is not listed on the QVL doesn't mean it won't work, but it either means it is unstable, or it is untested. Neither of which bode well.

I've seen some really odd inconsistencies in the QVLs, and after learning the hard way with my 5900X build (originally on the Asus board, which listed the Patriot 3200 on QVL), I tend not to deviate from them.

You'd have a tough time doing anything on the i3 build in 2024, take it from me, who tried building a system on a budget and was a whole lot of mess, to which I suggested to my friend/client to just get something concurrent instead of wasting money.

I would advise on getting a 5000 series APU to pair with your B550 chipset motherboard.

While I managed to get surprising results with an i3-2100 / GTX750ti and i7-2600 / GTX1050 in gaming, I am skeptical about the i3's abilities when it comes to recording, which is far more RAM and storage-intensive. So I tend to agree with you on leaning toward an APU.

Reliability is a factor here, however, and not only do I not want to make my friend spend more for a 6 or 8-core processor if a 4-core will do the job, the B550 Asus board is a fresh replacement (the second under a warranty that is close to running out), and I have not yet tested it. So I also have to consider that.

The B450 board supports 2200G / 2400G and 3200G / 3400G APUs, which are on eBay all day long for $35-$45.

And while I understand that Zen 3 offers some performance differences over Zen+ / Zen 2, and that a 5600G or 5700G seem to be in a similar price range, I do wonder how much of a difference there really would be in this use case with a 2200G / 3400G, versus, say, a 5600G / 5700G.

So, that said, I'm not 100% sure I want to take a chance on building my friend a machine on that B550, either.

While I've noted a fair bit of difference in write speeds between a PCIe M.2 and a SATA SSD, I'm curious whether such a difference would be a problem in recording audio. I tend to use WD's Blue and Black series for storage, but I'm open to other suggestions that are better bang-for-the-buck.