I am about to build a new recording computer and I am currently using cubase 8.5 with windows 7 without a hitch. I am thinking of using cubase 8.5 with windows 10 on my new computer. Are there any performance advantages to this? Or should I just stick with windows 7? I am little concerned about how future proof windows 7 is, but I do like its stability. Anyways, I would appreciate any helpful thoughts. Thanks!
I’ve had no issues with windows 10, personally.
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I also heard they are stopping support for windows 7 at the end of the year. If I do go windows 10 are there any tips for optimizing the system for recording? Getting rid of cortana etc.?
I would not hesitate to go with W10. It’s quite stable, and especially if you’re doing your own build you will have no issues of dealing with the bloatware that the manufactured machines come with. I would definitely not commit to W7 when it is already pretty much abandonware as an OS. Drivers and plugin updates, DAW updates etc will just not be there, and IMO those are worth getting most of the time.
Good luck!
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I got the free windows 10 on a i3.
At first I freaked because of the mandatory upgrades but you can get it to leave your drivers alone.
The other thing is not having your Recording pc online but well…that never happens here.
Even with it all I have had minimal hassle with 10.
Reaper and basic plugins and a 2010 interface, that last tested has 1msec latency between Dry & “realtime monitoring”
Ive been waiting and wondering if USB-C and Thunderbolt will revolutionize the entire world but so far it hasn’t.
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Thanks for the reply. I am still using an old rme fireface 400 from a decade ago. It works great. I’m going to try an integrate it with my new build. Might have to go thunderbolt. Also what version of Windows 10 should I go with? The regular or pro version? Does it make any difference?
Thunderbolt is wonderful but it’s still early on Windows. I built a system at the beginning of this year based around a motherboard with onboard Thunderbolt because I was having huge problems with the TB add-on cards. Works great with the recording rig I’ve built but it seems like TB-native motherboards are slow to come, and there’s plenty of problems with the ones that are out there.
That being said, Win10 all that way. 7 was great, but once MS stops support it’s a bit of a crap shoot if something stops working. I use Win10 Pro… and to be completely honest I can’t remember why, other than I got the free upgrade from Win7 Pro.
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Good to know, I’ll probably use a separate card for the firewire. I am not even sure if they make firewire cards that are compatible with modern motherboards lol. If not I’ll just add a thunderbolt one and get an adapter for my firewire cable. I have read that windows 10 pro might be more stable. I’ll probably go with 10 pro, its pretty inexpensive on ebay. Thanks for the help guys! Any other comments/suggestions will be greatly appreciated!
You heard correctly.
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Hi I have Win 7 in my studio with Studio one and it has been disconnected from the internet for many years. Too old for updates. I have a portable set up with Win 10 on my laptop. Right now my new laptop’s fan is running wide open. Here we go again. good luck and nice meeting you
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Windows 10 with Reaper has worked flawlessly for me too. There’s lots of help available for optimizing, and it has been reliable for me.
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Good to know. I’ll be using cubase 8.5 (probably not as stable as reaper but it’s what I know). My buddy is using 8.5 with windows 10 without any problems. We will see!
May your build post successfully upon first power-up!
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I was using Cuba’s 5 when I switched to Reaper. Next time Cubase wants you to upgrade it is worth looking into. It took a little while to get used to, but once I figured out the differences, it was worth the effort. Cubase does a great job with graphics and is easy to use visually, Reaper lets you customize everything as you go, and the terminology is different. Once you get past that, it is pretty close, and Reaper lets you continually upgrade as they make improvements, where Cubase seems to wait and drop all kinds of new stuff into a completely new version. It really becomes a personal preference thing, both are great.
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Another voice saying Windows 10 has had no issues. Actually, the drivers on my Delta 1010 are slightly less good, but it still works. I certainly wouldn’t build a machine based around W7 if I was getting a new one.
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Here are the specs of the build. Let me know what you guys think.
AMD Ryzen 9 3900X 3.8 GHz 12-Core Processor
be quiet! Dark Rock Pro 4 50.5 CFM CPU Cooler
Asus PRIME X570-PRO ATX AM4 Motherboard
Corsair Vengeance LPX 128 GB (4 x 32 GB) DDR4-2400 Memory
for main C Drive
Samsung 970 Evo 500 GB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive
Asus Radeon R5 230 1 GB Video Card
Looks good, especially that 128 gigs of RAM. You should be able to breeze through just about anything.
Only addition I might suggest is a multi-terabyte 7200 rpm hard drive as storage. I run a 500GB SSD for my C drive as well, and I make sure all the main programs run from it to take advantage of their blinding speed. But I have My Documents and just about everything else on the platter where access speed is not relevant. Best of both worlds imo.
Good luck!
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Thanks, Yeah I have some backup WD Black drives that I will use to house plugins and instruments.
Actually I would not do that-- I leave all that on the SSD because when your DAW accesses them, it’s instantaneous. Anything to do with the DAW, plugins, virtual instruments, sample libraries, the whole enchilada I leave on C. For me, that’s the whole point of having the SSD, to take advantage of the instant access. YMMV of course. 
Edit: one question: That’s a pretty brawny graphics card. Will you be using this rig for other stuff besides music making, or is it a dedicated box? If the latter, you really don’t need much in the way of a graphics card, even the mobo’s onboard graphics are plenty for recording purposes. If it’s for other stuff too, that’s a different story of course.
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Thanks for the advice, I’ll look into getting additional ssd’s for my plugins/instruments. I have some of my virtual instruments stuff now on ssd’s and it does make a difference. It will be mostly a music computer but I might do some video stuff with it in the future.
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