08/10/2024
Theme: computer for audio work.
Think about the full project, not half.
Power-supplies: 80+ Bronze, Gold, Platinum, Titanium: depending on less or more efficiency (more or less heat only), the power supply better being low-ripple (distortion) to prevent issues. Check reviews.
Motherboard: stability about phase stages, dissipation (better or worse) about VRMs, good socket, good RAM support + size, capabilities about offboard (dedicating cards to make less overall system usage) + built-in great connections (USB, USB 3.0, USB 3.1, USB-C, Thunderbolt, firewire...);
CPU: With or without integrated graphics processing unit (some models have iGPU, some none). More or less overall wattage management, cores about loads management while threads are a way that cores may manage what they do. GHz as speed, cache memory as a very fast memory that may aux overall CPU performance, nanometers about size creating less lenght for a circuit delivering normally a more sophisticated performance;
RAM: not only size (4 GB, 8 GB, 16 GB, 32 GB...): technology (DDR, DDR2, DDR3, DDR4, DDR5..) + speed + timings (about very few short time to act) + dissipation;
Storage: SATA II, SATA III, SATA III with M2 connection, NVMe... HDDs are slow, more easy to crash... formating a lot may reduce lifespan too and if your SSD or HDD supports RAID-0, RAID-1 etc I recommend RAID-1 for security, because if one unit fails your projects might be safe about the another unit, while RAID-0 is faster and doubles size, but no protection about failures;
About offboard cards:
GPU: if your system disables your iGPU while using GPU, less CPU load tend to occur. The same about NIC (ethernet external card plugged via PCI). A NIC may have, or not dissipation and "may" free your CPU about ethernet usage;
Also a nice computer's case: good air flow, FAN in & FAN throwing out the hot air... prefer low-profile, but great CPU cooler, it prevents vertical cases setups against mainboard being crashed due to the heavy cooler.