Computer Component Rising Prices

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syncanonymous
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04 Nov 2017

I'm a couple of weeks away from pulling the trigger on a new audio computer...but looks like I gotta get something cheaper for the interim. As much as I want to go XEON v4 or i9 the numbers just don't make sense when one can purchase a Xeon v2 Dual with 128GB of RAM for $1500. Plus I'll have more money next spring :-)

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Carly(Poohbear)
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04 Nov 2017

You never know, prices may go back down for you in spring :)

I have been toying with Xeon v2 Dual...

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syncanonymous
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06 Nov 2017

I think RAM prices are gonna have me acquiring XEON 26xx v2 Dual. i9 isn't outrageous, but the RAM is pretty crazy prices.

You have been toying with purchasing a XEON Dual or have you already got one?
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Carly(Poohbear)
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06 Nov 2017

Been toying about getting a second hand one.

Just been looking at a Dual Hex-core x5650 48GB, 120GB SSD+ 1TB HDD, windows 10 Pro for £622 (and I can claim the VAT back off that).

But as I say, I still looking....

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syncanonymous
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07 Nov 2017

Nice...is that from a UK company? I am looking in the US; shipping from Colorado to France is MUCH, MUCH less expensive than the automated calculation in the cart I tried. The original (automated cart) shipping was over $500! I contacted the vendor and the actual is more like $150. I looked at scan.co.uk, but the machine I spec'd came up to about £4500....then I read up on trustpilot and I do not appreciate scan's awful tone of voice talking to trustpilot reviewers; I'd rather build it myself.

I am looking at Dual 2680 v2/ 128GB DDR3 /Intel mobo / PSU and cooling (I would purchase better (quieter)) and PhanteksCase for $1500; no storage, so add £300 for a couple of ssds. £300 for another full Reason license...gonna need another monitor...FW card...GFX card... I gonna need to do some CAD too...i9 starts to look appealing at $700 for the CPU alone with h.2 mobo. **sigh** maybe I gotta spec lower for an interim machine ...I think the 2680 clock speed is hard to compete with at that price point...
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Carly(Poohbear)
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07 Nov 2017

I have used Scan a lot in the pass for components, no issues with them, I do usually build my own PC's however my last PC I spec'ed out and it was a lot cheaper to buy a ready built one from Overclockers which I did, it's an old PC now but still works really well today (1st gen i7, 920 I think).

So I do recommend https://www.overclockers.co.uk/ it worth checking out for the i9 route.

The site I have been looking at for Xeon is http://www.bargainhardware.co.uk/

As for Monitors, my last monitor was a 4k TV 49", works a dream 60Hz, Reason is amazing to work with, changed my workflow.

I do a lot of photo editing as well and a lot of spreadsheets (which again is fantastic at use at 4K)..

God luck with your search and keep us updated.



PoohBear

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Recent Music made with Reason
(Electronic) Poly Madness
(Electronic) Solar Dance
(Electronic) Into The Night
(Upbeat) The Players Took Me There Made in Reason 9 with heavy use of the players
(Electronic) 5 Steps (Video added) Updated
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My Soundcloud Page ....... Nektar Mappings
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syncanonymous
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11 Nov 2017

thanks for your links :-D
Scan just gets hammered on trustpilot and their responses to complaints are unacceptable.

I’ll be pulling the trigger before Dec...likely 2680 v2 or maybe 2690 v2
I gotta get into my spreadsheets and do all my budgeting
After the budget I may consider i7 7820...but I’d rather obtain a system config I haven’t yet seen here to add to the benchmarking info :-)
Of course I will add my findings here.

I have just decided this past week I must have an Eventide HW8000FW as well
it is a necessity for me

So, now, the missus and I are off researching new car and property purchases :-)

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EnochLight
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15 Nov 2017

I'm close to pulling the trigger and building a new Core i9 7900X system. Life's too short to not treat one's self to occasional indulgence, after all.
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syncanonymous
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19 Nov 2017

cool, EL, go for it! Your reports on performance would be welcome info :-)
I am on the fence about going i9 or XEON...I still need to adjust my spreadsheet budgets for deciding.

I agree on the “life’s too short” concept, but I am gonna apply that concept to a new guitar rack rig and amps too, which I want to do straight away. I really want an Eventide H8000 and some high end amps for my Dry/Stereo rig. The Switchblade isn’t gonna be free, either :puf_bigsmile:
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dana
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19 Nov 2017

5960x or 6950x cpu second-hand with an x99 motherboard overclocked will beat the fastest i9 and xeon processors at stock speed, that is if you get a chip that can reach those speeds :) They are fairly easy to overclock, and i can throw a load of plugins and run close to the max without stuttering.

Its tricky to get overall performance between the different chips and architectures when you look at cinebench r15 multicore, geekbench v4 and passmark (cpumark) scores together they vary widely but overall performance and overclocking headroom, after spending a long time researching, it seems the 6950x is a great buy at 650gbp at computer exchange, only second to the 5960x at 390gbp.

I've stuck with the 5960x because its way more than i will ever need to be honest, and that is only running dual channel memory - i'm making a 2nd rig that will have quad channel (albeit with half the ram at 16gb but i found i never use more than 8Gb anyway!)

I was looking at the threadripper but it has too many issues with latency - plus the ryzen 7 1800x is only dual-channel memory (and the aforementioned latency issues), plus the motherboards for the x299 and x399 are significantly higher prices. And i prefer to have two supercomputers rather than one total beast at least for now.

Its a bit of a pain the graphics cards being really expensive but you can get an asus 2Gb nvidia gt710 for 35gbp and it works fine with reason, i checked the percentage used and its really hardly touching it. Its probably no good for games but thats what the xbox one is for :)

Good luck with your new build whatever you pick, i would personally stick with the 5960x or the 6950x to be completely honest as it has an unlocked multiplier - the msi motherboards have OC genie which will slightly overclock your cpu by a couple of hundred megahertz without having to do anything other than press a button on the motherboard - its not as good as doing it by hand but at least its there, its easy, its stable, and will give you a bit of a boost for just pressing a button.

I'm more than happy with what i've got, i just had to chime in with that anyway :)

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AttenuationHz
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19 Nov 2017

Getting "MAD" deals for Cyber Monday is why!!
It is not too much of an ask for people or things to be the best version of itself!

Steedus
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19 Nov 2017

I went from a 4th gen i7 4C/8T, 12GB DDR3 1600MHz RAM with 7200rpm spinning drives to a current gen i7 7820X 8C/16T, 32GB DDR4 2666MHz RAM with 512GB PCI-e M.2 SSD and have no noticeable performance increase. Don't waste your money. Just go back to an earlier version or Reason. I'm over it.

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Psuper
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19 Nov 2017

Bout the same as ever, I been building my own PCs for 30 years.
Reason needs to DAW.viewtopic.php?f=6&t=7504985

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AttenuationHz
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19 Nov 2017

Steedus wrote:
19 Nov 2017
I went from a 4th gen i7 4C/8T, 12GB DDR3 1600MHz RAM with 7200rpm spinning drives to a current gen i7 7820X 8C/16T, 32GB DDR4 2666MHz RAM with 512GB PCI-e M.2 SSD and have no noticeable performance increase. Don't waste your money. Just go back to an earlier version or Reason. I'm over it.
Outside of Reason you probably notice the difference no?
It is not too much of an ask for people or things to be the best version of itself!

Steedus
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19 Nov 2017

I guess. My old computer was perfectly fine for other tasks. The purpose was to get better performance in Reason. I'm going to try and return it. Just over $3000 for Reason to still have glitches and give me the old "your computer is too slow" message.

dana
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20 Nov 2017

Steedus wrote:
19 Nov 2017
I guess. My old computer was perfectly fine for other tasks. The purpose was to get better performance in Reason. I'm going to try and return it. Just over $3000 for Reason to still have glitches and give me the old "your computer is too slow" message.
Which cpu were you running on your old rig? And was it overclocked?

One thing to try is go through the device manager and turn off all the power-saving checkboxes on everything that has it, and also set the power mode to always-on. There is a guide online somewhere.

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syncanonymous
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20 Nov 2017

dana, thanks for the great info :-)
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AttenuationHz
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20 Nov 2017

dana wrote:
20 Nov 2017
Steedus wrote:
19 Nov 2017
I guess. My old computer was perfectly fine for other tasks. The purpose was to get better performance in Reason. I'm going to try and return it. Just over $3000 for Reason to still have glitches and give me the old "your computer is too slow" message.
Which cpu were you running on your old rig? And was it overclocked?

One thing to try is go through the device manager and turn off all the power-saving checkboxes on everything that has it, and also set the power mode to always-on. There is a guide online somewhere.
I tried an overclock on the my i7 4790k and Reason didn't much like it! I did not spend too much time with it but it seemed to be a stable OC (4.2).

Does anyone use Reason with an OC'd cpu I wonder though?
It is not too much of an ask for people or things to be the best version of itself!

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syncanonymous
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21 Nov 2017

yeah, I wasn't even considering OCing as an option, really
I was Just going off of Aeox's test results with his Xeon 2670v2 as a guide.
That said, I can't work at 2048 or 1024 samples' latency.
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AttenuationHz
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21 Nov 2017

syncanonymous wrote:
21 Nov 2017
yeah, I wasn't even considering OCing as an option, really
I was Just going off of Aeox's test results with his Xeon 2670v2 as a guide.
That said, I can't work at 2048 or 1024 samples' latency.
I have always used a high buffer and the new interface I got a month or so ago is muck for high buffer scarlet 2i4. The old one Mbox 2 mini I could not tell the difference for high buffer on the sequencer but obviously noticed it when playing midi. On the scarlet you can see the delay on the sequencer when DSP is high. Funny when I was trialling ableton with the Mbox you could notice the high buffer on the sequencer wonder if you can notice it with the scarlet!

I would probably use both if I was able scarlet for input audio/midi Mbox for output. Not digging the volume curve on the headphone knob on the scarlett and the noise floor on the ins on the Mbox is terrible!
It is not too much of an ask for people or things to be the best version of itself!

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syncanonymous
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25 Nov 2017

Yeah, man, multiple interface functionality would be welcome! I usually only want it for more outputs with the gear I have. Surely, it would be a total nightmare.

I have an old mbox2 and it works with the standalone pace drivers on win7 as a typical interface, but it isn’t pretty. There is a slight delay and audible click every time spacebar is pressed. That is highly annoying, pretty much unworkable with my typical tasks.

The PreSonus FireStudio Mobile is pretty great, especially for low latency...the biggest negative is the audio ins do need to be muted when not in use, cuz they are noisy.
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EnochLight
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26 Nov 2017

I've had my current build (an i7 3770k on an Asus Sabertooth Z77) running at a software overclock for about 5 years now, but I never turned off the C1 and EIST / Speedstep, so I never really overclocked all my cores for very long. It was always throttling the cores back down to less than 2 Ghz after shooting them up to about 4.29 Ghz in turbo.

So tonight, I said fuck it, and decided to manually overclock right through my BIOS (errr... UEFI). Set my multiplier to 45 x 100 Mhz, cranked my voltage up a tad, and adjusted some other stuff, and BAM - I'm now running at a solid 4.5 Ghz on air cooling right now. Currently stress testing my system with Prime95, and my cores seem to be peaking at about 77 C (170 F), which is still below the 80 C threshold that people with 3770k's start to get worried about. Hoping it stays stable for a few hours, and if so, I might drop my core voltage down a tick and run again.

I don't know why I didn't do this years ago - mostly because I was more concerned with stability and system longevity. But if I fry my CPU doing this, it will just be a great excuse to build that killer 7900X system I keep toying around with. :lol: :lol: :lol: In the meantime, I'll enjoy this free performance boost!
Win 10 | Ableton Live 11 Suite |  Reason 12 | i7 3770k @ 3.5 Ghz | 16 GB RAM | RME Babyface Pro | Akai MPC Live 2 & Akai Force | Roland System 8, MX1, TB3 | Dreadbox Typhon | Korg Minilogue XD

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AttenuationHz
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26 Nov 2017

EnochLight wrote:
26 Nov 2017
I've had my current build (an i7 3770k on an Asus Sabertooth Z77) running at a software overclock for about 5 years now, but I never turned off the C1 and EIST / Speedstep, so I never really overclocked all my cores for very long. It was always throttling the cores back down to less than 2 Ghz after shooting them up to about 4.29 Ghz in turbo.

So tonight, I said fuck it, and decided to manually overclock right through my BIOS (errr... UEFI). Set my multiplier to 45 x 100 Mhz, cranked my voltage up a tad, and adjusted some other stuff, and BAM - I'm now running at a solid 4.5 Ghz on air cooling right now. Currently stress testing my system with Prime95, and my cores seem to be peaking at about 77 C (170 F), which is still below the 80 C threshold that people with 3770k's start to get worried about. Hoping it stays stable for a few hours, and if so, I might drop my core voltage down a tick and run again.

I don't know why I didn't do this years ago - mostly because I was more concerned with stability and system longevity. But if I fry my CPU doing this, it will just be a great excuse to build that killer 7900X system I keep toying around with. :lol: :lol: :lol: In the meantime, I'll enjoy this free performance boost!
Would be interested in the increase performance in Reason if you can post! Would try it myself if I knew it would increase performance. Currently tinkering on the brink of DSP nightmares towards the end of projects!
It is not too much of an ask for people or things to be the best version of itself!

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EnochLight
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26 Nov 2017

AttenuationHz wrote:
26 Nov 2017
Would be interested in the increase performance in Reason if you can post! Would try it myself if I knew it would increase performance. Currently tinkering on the brink of DSP nightmares towards the end of projects!
It's a noticeable increase in performance, as I was running Reason at "stock clock" at just 3.5 Ghz (since my OS-based overclock was being throttled, it would jump to 4.29 Ghz periodically, but then drop down pretty quick to 2 Ghz to 3.5 Ghz even under max load). Now with my current clock, it is locked at a solid 4.54 Ghz - all of the time. No throttling whatsoever. :puf_bigsmile: :thumbs_up:

I haven't done an accurate before/after test, but some of the test song files I used to run can run longer, and a Spire test song file I have can now have 10-12 more instances of Spire running. I only know this because I saved the original file on my previous clock, and started adding new instances on the new overclock and get about 10-12 more before the audio starts pop/clicking. Free performance is awesome!

Looks like I'm hovering at about 82C (179F) for one core, while the other 3 are staying below 79C (174F) at max load. Keeping it under 90C as a whole is my goal, so I'm pretty happy with the performance boost so far. Currently running Prime95 to verify stability.

3770k_OC.jpg
3770k_OC.jpg (67.32 KiB) Viewed 3050 times
Temps.JPG
Temps.JPG (97.84 KiB) Viewed 3050 times
Assorted musings:

- I had to turn all of my fans (CPU, case, and motherboard) up to 100% to keep things cool.
- My machine is noticeably louder now, which will make recording vocals and live mic'd instruments a bit more challenging (though not a problem)
Win 10 | Ableton Live 11 Suite |  Reason 12 | i7 3770k @ 3.5 Ghz | 16 GB RAM | RME Babyface Pro | Akai MPC Live 2 & Akai Force | Roland System 8, MX1, TB3 | Dreadbox Typhon | Korg Minilogue XD

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AttenuationHz
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26 Nov 2017

EnochLight wrote:
26 Nov 2017
AttenuationHz wrote:
26 Nov 2017
Would be interested in the increase performance in Reason if you can post! Would try it myself if I knew it would increase performance. Currently tinkering on the brink of DSP nightmares towards the end of projects!
It's a noticeable increase in performance, as I was running Reason at "stock clock" at just 3.5 Ghz (since my OS-based overclock was being throttled, it would jump to 4.29 Ghz periodically, but then drop down pretty quick to 2 Ghz to 3.5 Ghz even under max load). Now with my current clock, it is locked at a solid 4.54 Ghz - all of the time. No throttling whatsoever. :puf_bigsmile: :thumbs_up:

I haven't done an accurate before/after test, but some of the test song files I used to run can run longer, and a Spire test song file I have can now have 10-12 more instances of Spire running. I only know this because I saved the original file on my previous clock, and started adding new instances on the new overclock and get about 10-12 more before the audio starts pop/clicking. Free performance is awesome!

Looks like I'm hovering at about 82C (179F) for one core, while the other 3 are staying below 79C (174F) at max load. Keeping it under 90C as a whole is my goal, so I'm pretty happy with the performance boost so far. Currently running Prime95 to verify stability.


3770k_OC.jpg


Temps.JPG

Assorted musings:

- I had to turn all of my fans (CPU, case, and motherboard) up to 100% to keep things cool.
- My machine is noticeably louder now, which will make recording vocals and live mic'd instruments a bit more challenging (though not a problem)
Nice! What CPU cooler do you have? Bought a Noctua there a while ago it is very good at keeping things cool!
It is not too much of an ask for people or things to be the best version of itself!

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