Good points above.

I think of the choices you give that the SSD is the one I would do. I have SSD boot drives on all my machines, and I would never go back. I also have BIAB on the SSD. This is the only application program I feel makes a significant difference with an SSD. Of course, I back up the song data regularly.

One nice feature of my machines with an SSD is that they do not crash anywhere near as often. When they lose power, they don't lose data, and I think that makes then more stable than hard drives.

Either CPU you mentioned would be great (and far better than mine, which runs BIAB just fine).

The RAM over 4 GB is unnecessary for BIAB at this time.


BIAB 2025 Win Audiophile. Software: Studio One 7 Pro, Swam horns, Acoustica-7, Notion 6, Song Master Pro, Win 11 Home. Hardware: Intel i9, 32 Gb; Roland Integra-7, Presonus 192 & Faderport 8, Royer 121, Adam Sub8 & Neumann 120 monitors.