Building a Studio PC 2025

[john12ax7]

It's time to build a new windows studio pc. To be used for recording, mixing, simulation, and video editing. Stability and low noise are the biggest priorities. Any suggestions for quiet and stable parts appreciated.

Want to add a mid to high end GPU. Is the fan noise an issue? Often record in the same room as the computer, until now have used onboard graphics or fanless cards..

AMD vs Intel. Always used Intel for my DAWs, should I go AMD this time, are they stable enough?

Thinking of going racmount case, any reason not to?

 

[soulsonic]

I've been using AMD for my DAWs for the past 10+ years and haven't had any trouble with them. I had used Intel for the previous 10+ years.

 

[SubSpec]

We're pretty spoiled for choice these days compared to the olden days of Windows DAW performance. My studio is centered around a handheld gaming device (Asus Ally X), no joke, and it handles all my projects to date. I do have to crank up the buffer size on some of my more intensive projects (100+ tracks, heavy plugins). But it's an $800 machine that outperforms the $2k machine it replaced.

Not recommending that. I do agree that AMD is the CPU to beat these days. Regardless, barring intensely demanding workloads like live orchestral tracking or extremely high track count scoring / sound for video work so long as you pick modern components with reasonably performant specs you should be golden.

Noctua used to be the go to for quiet fans, I'm sure there is more competition these days (all the better) but you could always opt for liquid cooling if you want to be extra quiet. Better yet, Noctua NH-P1 is a massive passive (not the Manley kind) cooler that has been demonstrated running one of AMDs most performant chips under high workload while remaining practically as cool as a liquid cooled system. That paired with a case that compliments passive cooling (something that allows a good volume of airflow without fans) and a similarly quiet GPU choice (or something with integrated graphics) could net you a virtually noiseless system.