Agreed that desktops have fewer power saving mechanisms than notebooks, but notebooks are so much more mobile friendly, that I only use notebooks for live usage.
(Almost) all the performance killers in notebooks can be eliminated via configuration.
I use exclusively Reaper for live mixing 16 I/O channels via USB3 (Zoom UAC-8 + 8 channels from another ADAT Pre-amp: Focusrite Scarlett 18i20 with USB disconnected).
After heavy treatment on windows 10 it is capable to run 32-Sample buffer at 44.1 kHz stable, but for live mixing I use 64 Samples, and if recording is enabled I use 96 Samples, just for safety.
The necessary treatments for no clicks in audio stream at low latencies:
In Device manager search ACPI battery: right-click disable it (yes it really interferes)
Set the power plan to high performance and check in details, if USB power saving is properly disabled.
The following steps are only for the fearless!
Use Windows 10 1607 with no updates (from pre-Meltdown-and-Spectre era)
Put these lines in a file like audiooptimization.cmd and run it as administrator before each live performance (some settings get reverted after reboot, only some remain):
__________________________________________________ ____
rem NVIDIA Tray Service
net stop NVDisplay.ContainerLocalSystem
bcdedit /set disabledynamictick yes
rem bcdedit /set disabledynamictick no
taskkill /f /im OneDrive.exe
taskkill /f /im RuntimeBroker.exe
net stop TimeBrokerSvc
sc config TimeBrokerSvc start=disabled
net stop TimeBroker
sc config TimeBroker start=disabled
net stop WpnService
sc config WpnService start=disabled
net stop WpnUserService_27e14
sc config WpnUserService_27e14 start=disabled
net stop wuauserv
sc config wuauserv start=demand
taskkill /f /im TiWorker.exe
net stop TrustedInstaller
sc config TrustedInstaller start=demand
net stop WSearch
sc config WSearch start=disabled
net stop SysMain
sc config SysMain start=disabled
net stop OneSyncSvc_27e14
sc config OneSyncSvc_27e14 start=disabled
net stop SCardSvr
sc config SCardSvr start=disabled
net stop SNMPTRAP
sc config SNMPTRAP start=disabled
net stop wscsvc
sc config wscsvc start=disabled
net stop DcpSvc
sc config DcpSvc start=disabled
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From rehearsal to concert and after-show party you will run Reaper as live mixer with 64 Samples for 12 hours without any glitch or interruption or restarting any software. I wouldn't see the need for a desktop computer for this kind of setup.
For heavy VSTi-usage I would use a separate computer.
If you use other software than Reaper for syncing reasons, the Windows 10 treatments will be useful in the same way. MAC-users may be happy anyway (but not for too long: meldaproduction Email from Apple about Catalina)
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