Need Some New PC Build Help

Want to talk about music hardware or software that doesn't include Reason?
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gak
Posts: 2840
Joined: 05 Feb 2015

27 Jul 2017

So the OP left us for dead, and now there is something new after MUCH deliberation...........

My god, I'm full of BAN.

I'm the bad guy, the awful thing on this forum that needs extinguishing!!!!!!

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Gorgon
Posts: 1233
Joined: 11 Mar 2016

27 Jul 2017

Steedus wrote:
26 Jul 2017
Guys I'm torn deciding on a new PC. Basically it's the CPU that's got me stumped. I'm looking at 2 different Dell computers (I'm not interesting in building it myself).
Don't do Dell for audio PC's.
"This is a block of text that can be added to posts you make. There is a 255 character limit."

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AttenuationHz
Posts: 2048
Joined: 20 Mar 2015
Location: Back of the Rack-1

27 Jul 2017

ZDPhoenix wrote:
28 Jun 2017
What about this for a parts list?

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/qFyZm8

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel - Core i7-7700K 4.2GHz Quad-Core Processor ($326.49 @ OutletPC)
CPU Cooler: CRYORIG - H7 49.0 CFM CPU Cooler ($34.99 @ Amazon)
Motherboard: Asus - MAXIMUS IX HERO ATX LGA1151 Motherboard ($228.98 @ Newegg)
Memory: Kingston - FURY 32GB (4 x 8GB) DDR4-2133 Memory ($189.81 @ Amazon)
Storage: Samsung - 850 EVO-Series 500GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($174.44 @ OutletPC)
Case: Fractal Design - Focus G (White) ATX Mid Tower Case ($49.99 @ NCIX US)
Power Supply: EVGA - SuperNOVA G2 850W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply ($119.79 @ SuperBiiz)
Optical Drive: LG - GH24NSB0B DVD/CD Writer ($19.88 @ OutletPC)
Operating System: Microsoft - Windows 10 Home OEM 64-bit ($89.99 @ Adorama)
Wireless Network Adapter: Rosewill - RNX-N150UBE USB 2.0 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi Adapter ($12.99 @ Amazon)
Total: $1247.35
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2017-06-28 15:43 EDT-0400

It's over budget, but I'm trying to make sure this will last me a lil longer and not slow down large projects.
Looks good, decent price.

I would probably swap the Fractal case for a Fractal define R4/5 extremely quiet case!
The cooler I'd swap for a Noctua but that is personal preference. But careful with the large cpu coolers make sure your ram has a low profile I had to get a Noctua D15S. Single fan version of the D15 and it has a cut out for tall ram.
SSD I would split a 256 for programs and software and another 256 for sample libraries.
Possibly even go with a be quiet! PSU but really all that noise would be hard to hear if you choose to get a Fractual Define R4/5

I would not bother with a wifi card myself but my router is close to the desktop and I use ethernet.
It is not too much of an ask for people or things to be the best version of itself!

Steedus
Competition Winner
Posts: 1009
Joined: 31 Aug 2015
Location: Melbourne, AU

27 Jul 2017

Gorgon wrote:
27 Jul 2017
Don't do Dell for audio PC's.
Any particular reason? I've been using Dell computers pretty much all my life. I like them.

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Carly(Poohbear)
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Posts: 2871
Joined: 25 Jan 2015
Location: UK

28 Jul 2017

Steedus wrote:
27 Jul 2017
Gorgon wrote:
27 Jul 2017
Don't do Dell for audio PC's.
Any particular reason? I've been using Dell computers pretty much all my life. I like them.
Personally I don't like Dell or HP and other named brands, they use quite cheap components and as you go up towards their top end you may as well build your own for a lot less... that's my own personal experience and opinion..

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Gorgon
Posts: 1233
Joined: 11 Mar 2016

28 Jul 2017

Steedus wrote:
27 Jul 2017
Any particular reason? I've been using Dell computers pretty much all my life. I like them.
Yeah, I've seen weird things happen with Dell computers regarding audio and video. Glitches in mp3 playback, with absolutely no justifiable cause. For a business/office computer Dell is fine, but for an audio workstation I would never recommend one.
"This is a block of text that can be added to posts you make. There is a 255 character limit."

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syncanonymous
Posts: 477
Joined: 16 Mar 2015
Location: UK and France
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17 Sep 2017

aeox wrote:
29 Jun 2017
http://natex.us/enthoo-128kit

16C/32T machine with 128 GB ram, i believe it just needs hard drives and a video card and it's good to go. i could be wrong though.

EDIT: yea it needs more than that but it's cheap stuff like fans for both CPUS and etc.
This is some interesting food for contemplation. Used/Recycled XEON dual ...I feel used computers are highly underrated especially after doing minor maintenance on all my family laptops which yielded excellent results. Does Reason make use of the dual CPU set up? I've seen power users of CAD, GFX and Video rendering talking about how more channels gives more robust performance. Researching the CPU benchmark listing I see the higher priced CPUs are often the ones with more channels. More research to do... It would be nice if PHeads were a bit more prescriptive on their suggested computer specs.

Personally, I am ready to upgrade and am on the fence between socket 115x and 2066; leaning a bit more to 2066 :-) XEON sounds good too! I guess we are all waiting for possible price drops with i9 launch. I am too cautious to experiment with Ryzen. Thanks for everyone's views shared here... It's very helpful!
RSN 10.4d4_9878_RME UFX+_Intel Core i7-8700K 3.7 GHz__Corsair Vengeance 64GB DDR4-3000
ASRock Fatal1ty Z370__Palit GeForce GTX 1050 Ti KalmX__Samsung 960 PRO/ M.2-2280 NVME SSD
:reason: :re: :recycle: :PUF_figure: :rebirth: :refill:

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aeox
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Posts: 3222
Joined: 23 Feb 2017
Location: Oregon

17 Sep 2017

syncanonymous wrote:
17 Sep 2017
aeox wrote:
29 Jun 2017
http://natex.us/enthoo-128kit

16C/32T machine with 128 GB ram, i believe it just needs hard drives and a video card and it's good to go. i could be wrong though.

EDIT: yea it needs more than that but it's cheap stuff like fans for both CPUS and etc.
This is some interesting food for contemplation. Used/Recycled XEON dual ...I feel used computers are highly underrated especially after doing minor maintenance on all my family laptops which yielded excellent results. Does Reason make use of the dual CPU set up? I've seen power users of CAD, GFX and Video rendering talking about how more channels gives more robust performance. Researching the CPU benchmark listing I see the higher priced CPUs are often the ones with more channels. More research to do... It would be nice if PHeads were a bit more prescriptive on their suggested computer specs.

Personally, I am ready to upgrade and am on the fence between socket 115x and 2066; leaning a bit more to 2066 :-) XEON sounds good too! I guess we are all waiting for possible price drops with i9 launch. I am too cautious to experiment with Ryzen. Thanks for everyone's views shared here... It's very helpful!
I'm loving mine.

It does utilize both CPUs, I got the best results with hyper threading off in the BIOS. For what I paid, I couldn't be more happy with the results. It's still running strong after a little over a year and almost 100% uptime (my computer never gets shutdown)

Problem is, single threaded performances isn't the greatest. So, I often start to bottleneck my project with huge VST FX chains working on a single thread. I just have to be mindful of that.

There is a Reason benchmark thread here: viewtopic.php?f=4&t=7501402&hilit=benchmark&start=25

My post is on the top of that page. You can compare it to others results.

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syncanonymous
Posts: 477
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Location: UK and France
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17 Sep 2017

aeox wrote:
17 Sep 2017

There is a Reason benchmark thread here: viewtopic.php?f=4&t=7501402&hilit=benchmark&start=25

My post is on the top of that page. You can compare it to others results.
Buffers at 1024!?! Others setting buffers to 2048?!? That is the latency of my onboard audio chip. The only VST that makes me work with that much latency is Sonnox Restore. I live at 256, I can cope with 512 yet I'd rather not. That is the problem with those benchmark songs. I do realize the reason why to benchmark with these massive latencies, it is so differences in various soundcard drivers do not taint the results. So single core performance is still the benchmark. I am still in the dark about CPU channels; cores and threads I understand....I bestvlook it up.

This doesn't put me off your suggestion, though, to get used high end computer components is wise as far as vfm :-D
RSN 10.4d4_9878_RME UFX+_Intel Core i7-8700K 3.7 GHz__Corsair Vengeance 64GB DDR4-3000
ASRock Fatal1ty Z370__Palit GeForce GTX 1050 Ti KalmX__Samsung 960 PRO/ M.2-2280 NVME SSD
:reason: :re: :recycle: :PUF_figure: :rebirth: :refill:

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AttenuationHz
Posts: 2048
Joined: 20 Mar 2015
Location: Back of the Rack-1

20 Sep 2017

Benchmark is for max buffer!
It is not too much of an ask for people or things to be the best version of itself!

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aeox
Competition Winner
Posts: 3222
Joined: 23 Feb 2017
Location: Oregon

20 Sep 2017

syncanonymous wrote:
17 Sep 2017
aeox wrote:
17 Sep 2017

There is a Reason benchmark thread here: viewtopic.php?f=4&t=7501402&hilit=benchmark&start=25

My post is on the top of that page. You can compare it to others results.
Buffers at 1024!?! Others setting buffers to 2048?!? That is the latency of my onboard audio chip. The only VST that makes me work with that much latency is Sonnox Restore. I live at 256, I can cope with 512 yet I'd rather not. That is the problem with those benchmark songs. I do realize the reason why to benchmark with these massive latencies, it is so differences in various soundcard drivers do not taint the results. So single core performance is still the benchmark. I am still in the dark about CPU channels; cores and threads I understand....I bestvlook it up.

This doesn't put me off your suggestion, though, to get used high end computer components is wise as far as vfm :-D
Funny because I work with buffer at 2048--4k by choice. :lol: I don't record anything live, and @ 2048 samples I really like the feel of the delay when playing piano.

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syncanonymous
Posts: 477
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Location: UK and France
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20 Sep 2017

AttenuationHz wrote:
20 Sep 2017
Benchmark is for max buffer!
I read the whole thread after I posted there...thanks for the clarification :-)
RSN 10.4d4_9878_RME UFX+_Intel Core i7-8700K 3.7 GHz__Corsair Vengeance 64GB DDR4-3000
ASRock Fatal1ty Z370__Palit GeForce GTX 1050 Ti KalmX__Samsung 960 PRO/ M.2-2280 NVME SSD
:reason: :re: :recycle: :PUF_figure: :rebirth: :refill:

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syncanonymous
Posts: 477
Joined: 16 Mar 2015
Location: UK and France
Contact:

20 Sep 2017

aeox wrote:
20 Sep 2017
syncanonymous wrote:
17 Sep 2017


Buffers at 1024!?! Others setting buffers to 2048?!? That is the latency of my onboard audio chip. The only VST that makes me work with that much latency is Sonnox Restore. I live at 256, I can cope with 512 yet I'd rather not. That is the problem with those benchmark songs. I do realize the reason why to benchmark with these massive latencies, it is so differences in various soundcard drivers do not taint the results. So single core performance is still the benchmark. I am still in the dark about CPU channels; cores and threads I understand....I bestvlook it up.

This doesn't put me off your suggestion, though, to get used high end computer components is wise as far as vfm :-D
Funny because I work with buffer at 2048--4k by choice. :lol: I don't record anything live, and @ 2048 samples I really like the feel of the delay when playing piano.
LOL :lol:

that said...I am spec-ing now for a new to me audio workstation...so far looking like E5-2680v3 or v4 is quite reasonable price...still searching, tho...
RSN 10.4d4_9878_RME UFX+_Intel Core i7-8700K 3.7 GHz__Corsair Vengeance 64GB DDR4-3000
ASRock Fatal1ty Z370__Palit GeForce GTX 1050 Ti KalmX__Samsung 960 PRO/ M.2-2280 NVME SSD
:reason: :re: :recycle: :PUF_figure: :rebirth: :refill:

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syncanonymous
Posts: 477
Joined: 16 Mar 2015
Location: UK and France
Contact:

22 Sep 2017

aeox wrote:
28 Jun 2017
as stated above, 16GB RAM and SSD is important but CPU is the most important.

here is a list of CPU benchmarks: https://www.cpubenchmark.net/high_end_cpus.html

just to get an idea of whats out there, don't pay attention to the prices on that site because they are often outdated/wrong.

use good judgement to find one that is suitable for your price range yet still has good performance.
Haha I found my slow ass CPUs down down down on the midlow_range_cpus.html chart
i3 370m at 2,002
Core2Duo T9550 at 1,794

I am researching to spec above 15,000
RSN 10.4d4_9878_RME UFX+_Intel Core i7-8700K 3.7 GHz__Corsair Vengeance 64GB DDR4-3000
ASRock Fatal1ty Z370__Palit GeForce GTX 1050 Ti KalmX__Samsung 960 PRO/ M.2-2280 NVME SSD
:reason: :re: :recycle: :PUF_figure: :rebirth: :refill:

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