That’s good you are looking at benchmarks, as it is the only way to get a practical comparison of total performance on two machines. Yes, a good i3 is better than a modest i5, and yes there are many other considerations. The RAM and hard drives would matter the most after the CPU.

Interestingly BIAB is processor-intensive more than most programs. A DAW would need fast drives, for example.

Good news, the graphics are not important at all for digital audio programs.


BIAB 2024 Win Audiophile. Software: Studio One 6.5 Pro, Swam horns, Acoustica-7, Notion 6; Win 11 Home. Hardware: Intel i9, 32 Gb; Roland Integra-7, Presonus Studio 192, Presonus Faderport 8, Royer 121, Adam Sub8 & Neumann 120 monitors