Originally Posted by QuestionAsker
Hackintosh....

What PC Will Be Used For
• Music Production (Ableton): Using both VSTs and recording live instruments.
• Work / Productivity: CAD + lots of Brave browser tabs open across 2-3 windows, random programs, etc
• Light gaming: Not really important, but sometimes I do like to try out flight simulators sometimes, etc, just for fun. I don’t really game but would be cool to have the option from time to time.

Budget
• ~$2000, though I can try to increase if need be. I’m located in the U.S.
With a budget of $2000, why not buy an actual Mac? I'm using a 2020 Mini M1 (16gb ram and 1tb SSD) for music production and it's MUCH faster than the i9 Hackintosh it replaced, even with 1/4 the memory (ARM is generally more efficient than x86 in terms of memory usage). I literally never hear the fan on it, and it's able to handle Logic projects with 200+ tracks. You can probably get an M4 Mac Mini with the specs you need under budget.

Originally Posted by QuestionAsker
Parts List So Far
• CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 9950x – (I hear for Ableton this is a good choice)
• CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-D15 – (to keep noise levels down)
I'd go with water cooling on a Ryzen 9. The aforementioned i9 rig used a D15 on a 9900K, and it actually was not enough to keep cool - temps would still spike to the point of throttling (over 90ºc and even hitting 100º), and believe me the D15 had the ability to get quite loud when the system was under load. The 9900K is a 95-watt chip vs the 9950X is 170-watt... Now compare that to my previous rig which was an i7 4930K (a 130-watt chip), and the smallest 120mm radiator with a single fan was enough to keep it below 65ºc even running torture tests.

I would also suggest maybe looking at the "X3D" Ryzen chips, as the extra cache would be helpful for DAWs.

Originally Posted by QuestionAsker
[b]• Case – (wondering which will be quietest, while allowing for high airflow?)
• GPU – (I know GPUs are crazy expensive now. But looking for something somewhat decent for light gaming, and quiet as well)
• RAM (128gb) – (which brand will be best? Also – 2 x 64gb?, Or 4 x 32gb?)
• Hard Drives
Fractal Design "Define" cases are somewhat of the gold standard for audio engineering use.

GPU - if you can get a fanless one that'll be quietest. Otherwise anything - most GPU's these days will completely shut off the fans if they're not needed.

RAM - 2x64 allows you to upgrade later without having to replace parts.

Hard drives - don't bother, stick with SSD. You're not gonna need the fastest one ever, even for gaming - I recently upgraded mine in my gaming machine, and yeah sure the new 4tb can theoretically transfer about 4x faster than the 2tb it replaced but the difference isn't usually noticeable in load times, only in sustained large file transfers. IOPS are more important than throughput in most cases.

Originally Posted by dcuny
These mini PCs are always coming out with better, faster versions, and they aren't like a desktop computer where you can just swap the CPU out.
Some of them have socketed CPU's - I've got an HP Elitedesk 800, and on that one it's possible to replace the i5 with an i7 or i9.

Originally Posted by Mike Halloran
An ARM based PC may have a chance. Count on any Intel based PC made now to be obsolete before then. This has nothing to do with whether or not the hardware will last—with any decent cooling system, that should be easy to achieve.
Yep, another reason to look at an actual Mac, since they stopped building any Intel machines 5 years ago. Even on the Windows side of things they're slowly moving towards ARM for efficiency, which will eventually drag the performance market along with it.

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