Does the Master computer matter if your Slave is good?

[FNHH]

Hi all,

I am wanting to buy a PC VST Slave connected to my iMac through VEP. However, my iMac has gotten rather old (2011/i7 quad core/3.4Ghz,16GB RAMM) and the processor has definitely slowed considerably. Ideally, I both need a new mac and a PC slave but I only have the money for one. My question is, if you are doing DAW heavy templates with VST's running from a good PC slave, does your Master matter all that much?

Thanks for your help

[Passing Bye]

Your mixing plugins will take most of the master's resources, but only you can determine is that enough for you or not, in theory it should be enough now when you offloaded all your instruments on slave, but you might start working differently, bounce less, use more demanding plugins and so on.

As far as getting new Mac, don't know if that makes any sense anymore, Cubase runs more stable on Windows anyways (Junkie XL use it), your 2500 slave Ryzen PC that Pictus recommended for you in another thread is much more powerful than 6000 base Mac Pro model, much cheaper too, but your call.

[AdvancedFollower]

Having two computers and dealing with the added complexity and overhead just seems a bit unnecessary these days when a single computer with one CPU already has so many cores. Might have made more sense back when only the most expensive high-end CPUs came with more than 4 cores, but now you can easily get 12-16+ cores.
Unless you're using Logic, I just don't see a reason to get another Mac, either. You can get a more powerful PC for a fraction of the cost. If you don't want to assemble a PC yourself, there are lots of companies that specialize in audio production PC's, picking out the most suitable hardware and tuning everything for the lowest latency.

[Passing Bye]

Think VEP can utilize all core's better than Cubase, sure it adds complexity, but there's gained performance for fraction of the cost of another Mac or better CPU (which cost arm and leg if you really want to go for one super powerful machine, still Cubase will not handle all those resources most optimally), all boils down to personal preference, so it's best to try everything, see what makes most sense.