Old 04-18-2013, 06:59 AM   #1
Groovetreatment
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Default DAW BUILD 2013

Guys im ordering my DAW this days and i dont know what cpu+mobo to choose.I have find a retailer for very good prices.I have post once again in past but i couldnt buy the computer then i dont had enough money,but now i have.
This is the build:

case: Fractal Design Define R4 Black Pearl
psu: Seasonic G-550 for lga 1155 and G-650 for lga 2011 build.

cpu+mobo: 3770K+GA-Z77X-D3H or 3820+GA-X79-D3H?

cpu_cooler: Corsair H60 2013 Edition (or somethinge else like Thermalright Archon SB-E X2 for lga 2011?)

ram: Corsair Vengance 2 kits of (2x4) total 16GB (CMZ8GX3M2A1600C9 X79 compatible)

gpu: Asus GeForce GT630 2GB

ssd: Samsung 840 250GB

HDD: 2x Wd Caviar Black 1TB or 2x Baraccuda 1TB (-30eurw in total price)

This build will cost to me 990eurw with lga 1155 and 1040eurw with lga 2011. 50eurw difference.

I will add better gpu for little gaming in the end of summer.
Im not considering upgrade in next 4-5 years.
I have read many topics and see grapths that 3820 have better benchmarks in daw but will i see differences?
I work with about 40-50 channels max.
7-8 channels with vsti like omnisphere,nexus,komplete 8 vsti's + i add Reason with rewire.
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Old 04-18-2013, 07:38 AM   #2
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some comparisons since I just did a new build recently:

case = corsair Obsidian 800D
cpu = intel i7 3930k [6 cores unlocked]
mobo = asus sabertooth X79 [5yr warrantee, 1 old pci slot, up to 64 gb ram on 8 slots]

cooler = corsair H100i [goes right into that case and keeps the cpu below human body temp!]

psu = corsair 1200 ax modular [great power supply IMO]
memory = 64 gb corsair vengance [8 by 8 gb sticks, matched]

ssd = corsair Neutron GTX 480 gb... boot drive
also a couple of 3 tb seagates...

vid card = nvida [EVGA] 650Ti ... good enough for now

Win 7 64 bit OS...

audio card = m-audio profire 2626

Much like you, not planning to do another build for some years now.
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Old 04-18-2013, 07:43 PM   #3
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Quote:
Originally Posted by hopi View Post
some comparisons since I just did a new build recently:

case = corsair Obsidian 800D
cpu = intel i7 3930k [6 cores unlocked]
mobo = asus sabertooth X79 [5yr warrantee, 1 old pci slot, up to 64 gb ram on 8 slots]

cooler = corsair H100i [goes right into that case and keeps the cpu below human body temp!]

psu = corsair 1200 ax modular [great power supply IMO]
memory = 64 gb corsair vengance [8 by 8 gb sticks, matched]

ssd = corsair Neutron GTX 480 gb... boot drive
also a couple of 3 tb seagates...

vid card = nvida [EVGA] 650Ti ... good enough for now

Win 7 64 bit OS...

audio card = m-audio profire 2626

Much like you, not planning to do another build for some years now.

Holy cow! 64 gigs of ram?

You are a wild man Hopi!
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Old 04-18-2013, 08:07 PM   #4
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no doc... I'm just aka Max Stout.

It might seem like a big deal to you for audio but you likely don't work in Photoshop, eh?

I do and with some rather huge digital image scans. When an 8 x 10 negative is scanned at 4500 dpi the result is a large file. PS like to have 3-5 times the file size to work in and trust me, you don't want to work in PS in virtual memory.

And besides, that ram was very cheap considering that when I built my old xp pc's, we paid about the same for a mere 4 gb's of DDR2.
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Old 04-19-2013, 08:13 AM   #5
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Quote:
Originally Posted by hopi View Post
case = corsair Obsidian 800D
cpu = intel i7 3930k [6 cores unlocked]
mobo = asus sabertooth X79 [5yr warrantee, 1 old pci slot, up to 64 gb ram on 8 slots]

cooler = corsair H100i [goes right into that case and keeps the cpu below human body temp!]

psu = corsair 1200 ax modular [great power supply IMO]
memory = 64 gb corsair vengance [8 by 8 gb sticks, matched]

ssd = corsair Neutron GTX 480 gb... boot drive
also a couple of 3 tb seagates...

vid card = nvida [EVGA] 650Ti ... good enough for now

Win 7 64 bit OS...

audio card = m-audio profire 2626
Hi hopi, may I ask what the total cost for that came to?

I'm seriously thinking about putting another new one together myself soon.

Do you think the ssd is worth it and are you putting all your program files on it?

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Old 04-19-2013, 08:27 AM   #6
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Tod... don't have that figure handy... but you can easily make a spreadsheet and compare prices... but approximately 2500-3000

start with NewEgg as they have most of those things listed...

and their prices are on average OK... compare with TigerDirect...

sometimes one or the other will have better prices... by far really

now that corsair case is no longer in production.. as they will very soon have the the 900 ready to ship... wish I'd known that but then I would have had to wait... hate to wait...
Can't say enuff about that case... it's huge but makes the build very much easier than anything else I've ever used.

about the SSD... simply put yes, IMHO it is 'the' way to go.
Firstly, that particular SSD is the only one that gets stellar reviews across the board. You can find all that online.

I install a lot of stuff and need all what room so to me it's worth the cost for the speed.

Almost all programs and vst and vsti's are on it.
I have two SATA HD's as well, 3TB's @ 7200 rpm... the D drive holds a huge amount of kontakt lib's and samples... and also the larger Drum vsti's and their sounds.

Now worth mentioning that the asus mobo with it's utilities will allow a way to install the OS on a SATA HD and use the SSD [of any size] as a cache, that will boost the SATA's performance... but I opted to just use the SSD as is and prefer that for my needs.

happy to talk in more detail if you wish.
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Old 04-19-2013, 12:30 PM   #7
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Heh heh, wow, 1200 watts. Back several years ago when I built me XP computer I told the guy at the computer store I wanted at least 450 watts and he thught I was crazy.

Quote:
Originally Posted by hopi View Post
about the SSD... simply put yes, IMHO it is 'the' way to go.
Firstly, that particular SSD is the only one that gets stellar reviews across the board. You can find all that online.

I install a lot of stuff and need all what room so to me it's worth the cost for the speed.
I don't know much about ssd yet. Aside from faster loading programs does the ssd also speed up things when you inside and working with a program? Like Reaper?

Quote:
Now worth mentioning that the asus mobo with it's utilities will allow a way to install the OS on a SATA HD and use the SSD [of any size] as a cache, that will boost the SATA's performance... but I opted to just use the SSD as is and prefer that for my needs.
That I will definitely have to check out.

Thanks hopi.
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Old 04-19-2013, 08:35 PM   #8
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yeah could have gotten by with less than 1200 watts, but it's their top of the line modular PS... and it costs very little more than the next ones down... so why not...

ssd's... ah yes well my first time around with them and lemme tell ya, I wish I was really fat, I'd have a pile of them!

Super Talent makes a 2 TB pci unit... but it's about the cost of my whole system...

are they faster? on clean win 7 64 install, boot up to desktop was 8 seconds. Now with MUCH more happening during boot up, it's slower, but still spritely by any standards I've ever encountered.

But fair warning... all ssd's are not the same... READ the reviews and tech test reports... Tom's Hardware has some as do others.

There are not that many with totally glowing reviews. The Neutron GTX is one of the few.

What I'd love to have is ssd room enough for all the Kontakt libs... well someday, maybe, who's nose baby...
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Old 04-19-2013, 11:42 PM   #9
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My H80's stock fans are quite noisy... How about that H100i, Hopi? Stock fans or you replaced them with some quieter ones?
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Old 04-19-2013, 11:56 PM   #10
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I had a system built by PC Audio Labs. I have built systems maybe 5 or 6 years ago. I felt out of the loop with all the newer stuff so I decided to buy. I bought this system with the idea that it should last me quite a while.

Motherboard: Intel DX79SI (X79 based chip set)
CPU: Intel 3.2Ghz i7-3930K
RAM: 64Gb DDR3-1600 Quad Channel

At the time I didn't know it but there was a thread on GearSlutz that gave me a high degree of buyers satisfaction on the i7-3930K and the X79 chipset. The CPU performance and the way it interfaces with the RAM form a really strong foundation

Video Card: AMD Radeon HD 5450

The card is fanless which was important to me. Not the most powerful card but the system really is ONLY for audio although I may want to get into video as some point and there are better options but I think most have fans for cooling.

Drives:
The OS and applications are on a 128Gb SSD. With 64Gb RAM there is no paging file. It is only the OS Win 7 Pro 64 bit and applications and I am trying to only choose applications that are 64-bit.

The audio drive are two 500Gb (SATA2 16Mb cache) in RAID 0 using a RocketRAID 640 card

The samples drive is 1Tb (SATA2 32Mb cache)

I have a hot swappable drive tray. I have two trays at the moment. One for another OS that I can boot with to use the machine on the internet. When I boot from the SSD it is purely an audio PC with no internet connectivity and just audio based applications. The second tray is for backing up the OS, Audio Drive and Samples drives.

I included a multicard reader with additional USB2/3 ports and one eSATA port. The card reader is USB3 but for whatever reason on boot the USB3 driver doesn't load. If I manually load the driver it is fine and I can reboot and it is fine but if I shutdown I have to reload the driver. I am planning on swapping this out.

There is plenty onboard USB2 and 3 ports. Also onboard Firewire 400 and I added a PCIe Fireware 800 card.

The audio interface is RME HDSPe MADI with a Lynx Aurora 16 AD/DA

I have two Samsung 22" monitors.

Everything is in a 4U rackmount case. I wish I had done some more research on that before hand... I made an assumption based on a rack case I saw on the website. The one I have has a big "door" across the front so to get the DVD, hot swappable drive trays, card reader, and front ports I have to drop the door down. My bad on that one.

The Audio PC that I am coming from was a dual Xeon box with 2Gb RAM (max) with IDE drive for the OS and Samples and SCSI drives for the audio. I am really happy with the box I configuration I have now. The hex core gives me 12 threads, I have way more RAM than I ever need, Reaper and other applications load really fast off the SSD and the samples (Superior Drummer) load much faster than my older system. I preparing to track some projects but as of now I haven't really pushed the audio performance yet but I expect good things.

I hope some of that helps in your decision making process.
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Old 04-20-2013, 06:43 AM   #11
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Originally Posted by PerunZG View Post
My H80's stock fans are quite noisy... How about that H100i, Hopi? Stock fans or you replaced them with some quieter ones?
the H100i fans are very quiet... the only time you actually hear them is for a moment at a hard boot up when they run full speed for just a second... after that they spin very slowly ...

I have a db meter, and when held right at the top of the case it says, 42-43 db...

for comparision, if I hold it at arms length and make my softest psst, pssst, whispering noise, it reads 50-55 db.

you have to consider the H100i is a lot more cooler than the 80.
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Old 04-20-2013, 10:04 AM   #12
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Originally Posted by hopi View Post
the H100i fans are very quiet... the only time you actually hear them is for a moment at a hard boot up when they run full speed for just a second... after that they spin very slowly ...

I have a db meter, and when held right at the top of the case it says, 42-43 db...

for comparision, if I hold it at arms length and make my softest psst, pssst, whispering noise, it reads 50-55 db.

you have to consider the H100i is a lot more cooler than the 80.
What does it read when the computer is off?
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Old 04-20-2013, 08:25 PM   #13
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my computer is just about never off... hahaha... but if I go into a room with nothing in it, the meter sits at 38 db... maybe it hears me breathing or heart beats... no idea...

Now I'm not saying the fans on the computer may zero sound... they do... just that it's very quiet compared to anything else in my pc experience...

I was recording some person with acoustic guitar last month...

in the computer room, with a fairly hot condenser mic, I could dig in and find the computer noise... it did not really disturb the recordings.. but ... I decided to move the player and the mic into the next room... and in that session there is zero other noise.

Now I would expect the H80, being a smaller radiator and push pull fans to be louder... but I've never personally heard one.
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Old 04-21-2013, 12:02 AM   #14
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I definitely have to replace H80 stock fans, they are just too damn loud. All other fans are almost inaudible, but these sound like fucking jet engines.

I'm thinking Silent Eagle, or something similar. Any suggestions for good and quiet 12 or 14 cm fans?
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Old 04-21-2013, 01:42 AM   #15
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I slapped one of these on my i7...

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16835118128.

Works great, keeps the CPU and the mobo's temp in the mid 20s.


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Old 04-21-2013, 09:03 AM   #16
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I definitely have to replace H80 stock fans, they are just too damn loud. All other fans are almost inaudible, but these sound like fucking jet engines.

I'm thinking Silent Eagle, or something similar. Any suggestions for good and quiet 12 or 14 cm fans?
that sounds strange... really it sounds like they are not being controlled by either your bios or by the corsair software...

I know the jet engine sound, but it ONLY should happen for a second or two at boot up... it's the full speed sound... after that they should be running very slowly and should be very quiet.
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Old 02-24-2014, 03:59 PM   #17
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I'm looking at building a daw soon too! I know Jim Roseberry from StudioCats makes a pretty mean one as well.

I sure would like 64 gigs of ram. I'll be doing video as well as audio.

The Asus Sabertooth looks pretty sweet! Anything else to compete with it?
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Old 02-24-2014, 05:46 PM   #18
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don't take my word for it SEA, but for my wants I found no other MOBO to compete... but that don't mean there might be a better choice for your desires.

Lotta people go for the GIGAbyte boards so they can more easily do a hackentosh... but that was not a major decision for me... don't care about doing Mac anyway.
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Old 02-24-2014, 05:55 PM   #19
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Lotta people go for the GIGAbyte boards so they can more easily do a hackentosh... but that was not a major decision for me... don't care about doing Mac anyway.
Me Too!
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Old 02-25-2014, 07:44 AM   #20
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Check out this daw. It uses the Asus Z9PE.

Looks like you can have duel 8 cores (16 cores).

http://www.endpcnoise.com/cgi-bin/e/...rkstation.html

I wonder how this would compete next to the Sabertooth?
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Old 02-25-2014, 08:49 AM   #21
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ummm dbl check the speed of those cpu's against the price of them on that same page...

KISS principle for me thanks 1 i7 3039k results in 12 cores running...

and remember I'm into quiet liquid cooling the easy way...

also I would NEVER build in a rack mount... NEVER NEVER NEVER
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Old 02-25-2014, 08:52 AM   #22
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Quote:
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ummm dbl check the speed of those cpu's against the price of them on that same page...

KISS principle for me thanks 1 i7 3039k results in 12 cores running...

and remember I'm into quiet liquid cooling the easy way...

also I would NEVER build in a rack mount... NEVER NEVER NEVER

Thanks Hopi for your reply!

I wouldn't build a rack either. I was just looking at the MB and the processors and all.

I'm very interested in liquid cooling. What do you suggest?

Thanks!
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Old 02-25-2014, 11:30 AM   #23
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ram: Corsair Vengance 2 kits of (2x4) total 16GB (CMZ8GX3M2A1600C9 X79 compatible)
Why not one set of 2x8? If you only have 4 slots you have to throw away one set if you want to increase the ram.
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Old 02-25-2014, 02:13 PM   #24
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I'm into quiet liquid cooling the easy way...
How quiet Hopi? Like... can your daw be a few feet away from ya when cutting vocals?

Currently I have a Big Typhoon in my old daw and it's in the other bedroom next to my studio in the closet so I hear nothing!

But... I WOULD like a quiet water system.

Any tips Hopi? What water system do you recommend?

Thanks!
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Old 02-25-2014, 02:50 PM   #25
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yes it is very quiet... the fans barely run unless there is some major load on the cpu... and to do that takes some doing...

but there is more to it to get this done easily...

In my case [pun intended] it is pretty easy, so that is the point:

you won't like this at first thought, but... IMHO it IS the way to go.

this is the case I have:

http://www.corsair.com/us/pc-cases/o...ries-800d.html

but now they have an even better one:
http://www.corsair.com/us/pc-cases/o...ower-case.html

IMO, worth every damn penny!

and then the cooler used is this:

http://www.corsair.com/us/cpu-coolin...pu-cooler.html

the "i" in the name is important... if you go shopping.

so the thing is this... to make that cooler work with the sabertooth mobo which has a unique config of cpu and ram, you NEED some case room... but I like lotta case roon anyway...

The big obsidian cases [800D or better] give plenty of room and make for a quite easy build.
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Old 02-25-2014, 05:43 PM   #26
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Quote:
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How quiet Hopi? Like... can your daw be a few feet away from ya when cutting vocals?
Quote:
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yes it is very quiet... the fans barely run unless there is some major load on the cpu... and to do that takes some doing...
Hey hopi, I've ended up procrastinating a little about getting my new computer together. At this point if and when I make the move, I've basically got it pretty much patterned after yours.

But when it comes to quiet, exactly how noisy/noiseless is your computer. Can you sit next to it and record some dialog, or as SEA asked, a vocal.

To help explain why I'm asking, the reason I've procrastinated in getting my own new computer is that I've already got a pretty good computer in my studio. It belongs to one of my old clients that I'm still working with, basically programming all his midi and recording all his songs that he uses to play live. It actually sits in my studio 24/7 which is why I haven't made my own personal move yet.

At any rate, this computer, an i5 quad with 8 gig, win 7, is a computer that Jim Roseberry put together for my client. It's whats called a cube and is very compact (I mean very small) plus extremely light.

I honestly don't know what's inside because I haven't had a reason to take the cover off yet and I've had it for about 3_1/2 years.

I have to say, I don't think any computer is any quieter than this one. On top of that I've never had any problems with working with and recording audio under any circumstances other than the occasional crash due to some unforseen reason. I've got the computer siting on top of a small table just big enough for the computer, screen, and keyboard/mouse. The computer is literally maybe 2&1/2 feet from my ears and I have to listen very hard to hear it. Occasionally I hear the disks do a little mechanical clicking as they shift gears.

I'm sure it's got fans of some kind but I don't hear them. This is all in my control room and I record in there all the time.

With my old setup, I couldn't do this. I've been using computers since back in the mid 80s and have never seen anything like this, this quiet and small.

I guess what I'm trying to say, or better yet asking, what is quiet?

Being able to set up and record vocals without undo noise I think could be called quiet. But better yet, setting up and recording acoustical instruments like guitar, banjo, violin, etc., in stereo with good condenser or ribbon mics is even better.

I think we just need a basis for what quiet is because it can be so important in a control room or any other recording environment.

Heh heh, I'm still fashioning my build according to your's hopi.
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Old 02-25-2014, 06:23 PM   #27
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I built my first system with a SSD a few months back. I'm using the Samsung 840 Pro 128GB for my boot drive (500GB Western Digital Caviar Black for audio). They make a HUGE difference in snappyness of the system. I haven't timed the boot, but the Windows splash screen appears for about a second at the most before the desktop. Super quick. Copying files and running installs etc are zippy too.

I just bought an Asus Windows 8 laptop with the SSD used as cache for the HDD as Hopi mentioned earlier. Not near the speed of running SSD as your program drive, but helps a little. Nothing drastic in speed over a HDD though.

I'll throw in my specs of my build real quick as reference of a stable machine:

i7 4770K cpu
Asus z87-a LGA 1150 mobo
16GB Corsair Vengeance low profile RAM
CPU fan Noctua NH-D14
Fractal Define R4 case
Focusrite 2i4 interface
Samsung 840 Pro 128GB boot drive
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Old 03-02-2014, 08:16 AM   #28
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So here's what I'm looking at for my new daw. I haven't ordered any of the parts yet, just putting it together on paper. Hopi... I'm taking a lot of your suggestions (thanks) and I would appreciate any other suggestions from the forum as well!

Case = Obsidian Series® 900D Super Tower Case

CPU = Intel Core i7-4930K Ivy Bridge-E 3.4GHz LGA 2011 130W 6-Core

Mobo = Asus Sabertooth X79

Cooler = Corsair H100i

PSU = Either the Corsair RM Series 850 Watt ATX/EPS 80PLUS Gold-Certified Power Supply or the Corsair 1200 ax modular.

Memory = 64 gb Corsair Vengance

Video = NVIDIA - GeForce GTX 660 Ti 2GB GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 Graphics Card or perhaps the new EVGA GTX 750 Ti.

OS = Win 7 64

Interface = Focusrite Liquid Saffire 56 (I've had this unit for a few years now).

As far as HD are concerned, I'll probably have 4 - 3T drives. 1 for the OS, 1 for recording, 2 for samples and archiving. I might bump up to 4TB drives since it's like $20 a TB now.

Any thoughts?

Thanks!
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Old 03-02-2014, 12:44 PM   #29
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Originally Posted by SEA View Post
So here's what I'm looking at for my new daw. I haven't ordered any of the parts yet, just putting it together on paper. Hopi... I'm taking a lot of your suggestions (thanks) and I would appreciate any other suggestions from the forum as well!

Case = Obsidian Series® 900D Super Tower Case

CPU = Intel Core i7-4930K Ivy Bridge-E 3.4GHz LGA 2011 130W 6-Core

Mobo = Asus Sabertooth X79

Cooler = Corsair H100i

PSU = Either the Corsair RM Series 850 Watt ATX/EPS 80PLUS Gold-Certified Power Supply or the Corsair 1200 ax modular.

Memory = 64 gb Corsair Vengance

Video = NVIDIA - GeForce GTX 660 Ti 2GB GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 Graphics Card or perhaps the new EVGA GTX 750 Ti.

OS = Win 7 64

Interface = Focusrite Liquid Saffire 56 (I've had this unit for a few years now).

As far as HD are concerned, I'll probably have 4 - 3T drives. 1 for the OS, 1 for recording, 2 for samples and archiving. I might bump up to 4TB drives since it's like $20 a TB now.

Any thoughts?

Thanks!
Looks very good to me SEA
LG makes a nice DVD burner that will do Blu Ray and everything else... you'll want something like that or even two of them... plenty of room in that 900D case.

Corsair either has or is about to have a new PSU... me? I'd get the most monster one they have... you know it don't use power unless it's needed, but they have done some kewl stuff with how it supplies power... [a VERY foundational, important thing]

Now as to HD's...

First... I HIGHLY suggest this for your boot drive:

http://www.corsair.com/en-us/ssd/neutron-series-gtx
..and I went with the 480 gb.... money, yes but you will never be sorry. Check with New Egg and Tiger Direct for prices and if they have them on hand!

HD's... well we can NEVER have enough it seems... I always start out thinking "now I have LOTS of room" and shortly need more. It's Murphy's Law of 'stuff'... "Stuff expands to fill all available space plus 20%"

Lately I've gotten into a couple 4TB Seagate NAS drives
...because of talking with their tech's about them. They are not 7200 rpm, but 5900 rpm... but also have some trick controllers to get the r\w speeds almost on a par with the 7200's.

The 'thing' about these is their specs for robustness... many, many times that of a normal HD.
So they are kewl to have a couple of, for storage where you don't need every ounce of speed. They are not slow but are a little less than 7200's. BUT super cost effective!!!

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/search...op+Nav-Search=

There are some 4TB 7200's but to me they are too costy...
So I go with a couple 3TB 7200's

You can get from Corsair, extra HD holders for about 10 bucks
That will let you swap almost instantly in that 900D, so you an have special extra HD's to back up things, etc.
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Old 03-02-2014, 04:19 PM   #30
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First... I HIGHLY suggest this for your boot drive:

http://www.corsair.com/en-us/ssd/neutron-series-gtx
..and I went with the 480 gb.... money, yes but you will never be sorry.
Do you suggest this because of it's boot speed, reliability (less crashes) or both?

Boot speed is no biggy to me. As far as $$$ goes, the SSD 480 is about $450 where I can buy two 1 TB HD for like $60 each, then use the 2nd drive as a mirror backup drive so if the 1st drive every crashed I'm good! That was my plan at least
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Old 03-02-2014, 05:09 PM   #31
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yeah I know... it's money for that SSD, but IMO it's the best thing I've ever had in terms of making a system I can happily live with.

So look, even in that case, there are a limited number of HD's you can have internally...

In my personal experience, I like to keep a lot of important programs and plugins on C, even IF other parts of them [say kontakt lib's etc] get put elsewhere.

When we think about what goes on C, it as first seems very little but it soon becomes way more, with all the app data and such that every program actually installs.

Boot speed IS important to me, and not only that but launch speed of various other programs... and ONLY an SSD with do that.
It is a joy compared to anything else...

I'll say this... I only wish they made even bigger SSD's... someday they will.
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Old 03-02-2014, 07:52 PM   #32
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A SSD is the 'biggest bang for the buck' investment you can make for a DAW system. There is absolutely no point in investing in 8 core server class i7 systems if they are just going to be idling while waiting for old technology HDD's to catch up!

A SSD is premium cost storage. So use both SSD and HDD strategically.

OS/apps/workspace* on the SSD
data/media storage on large HDD's

* Workspace means your current project audio. This is your high performance workspace for audio.

Running a SSD (and further, also running audio to it) lets me record all inputs to disc when I run live sound 100% error free. This flat out does not work with standard HDD's (even 7200rpm).
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Old 03-02-2014, 08:09 PM   #33
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so I'm in the same camp as serr obviously

but just to mention, the sabertooth mobo does offer a feature that let's you use an internal SSD in conjunction with a HD... that let's the SSD work as a cache for the HD... so you actually install stuff on the HD but get a speed increase from the SSD

Personally, I did not want to compromise this way... gimme the full house power of a big SSD, ...thanks just the same.
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Old 03-02-2014, 08:35 PM   #34
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There are also 'hybrid' SSD/HDD products that do that. It looks like a very poor choice for a DAW system. In fact, I believe it would degrade performance. A 'SSD buffer' as it were, will increase performance for web browsing for example, with lots of small files to cache. But for large audio files, that buffer space is finite and you are going to be reduced to the performance capability of the HDD part of the drive.

Depends on your use of course. I've had situations with live sound + recording where the system was running for 4 or 5 hours with no pauses. Recording multitrack the whole time. The computer has absolutely no time to come up for air.

A pro quality SSD is actually a small price to pay for that kind of performance ability.
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Old 03-03-2014, 06:06 AM   #35
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Hello,

I spent literally months agonizing over exactly what hardware to buy for my new machine... to the point of probably losing it a bit. I am a total computer geek and like to think I know what I am doing with computers.

My computers are all generations of 'Gigabot'. His current incarnation is Gigabot 3, and here are his parts and prices I paid December 2013:

Cherry G83-6105LPQGB-2 Slim Line Wi £14.33
Lycom PE-101 2 Port Firewire 1394a £20.38
Silverstone SG08B USB 3.0 Sugo SFF £152.50
Pioneer DVR-TD11RS Slim 8x DVD±R, 8 £18.13
Noctua NH-L12 Low Profile High Perf £43.67
Intel Core i7 4770S, 1150, Haswell, £223.40
Asus H87I-PLUS, Intel H87, S 1150, £89.84
120GB Samsung 840 EVO SATA III Basi £76.94

I am using an Audiofire 4 into a Benchmark DAC1, getting the right TI chipset for the firewire was very important.

I nearly got a 100% fanless silent system, but changed my mind at the last moment. This was a great decision as Gigabot 3 is nearly totally silent anyway. I got the 4770S to make sure the CPU did not get too hot and force the case fan to speed up. That plan totally worked It never leaves the slowest speed even at max CPU.

If anyone attempts the same build note that the Noctua NH-L12 needs the alternative method of mounting it and you must get a SATA+Molex to Mini SATA Power & Data cable to attach the DVD-ROM.

I did a radio show co-hosted with Gigabot 2, if you like electronic music you will love it

http://www.mixcloud.com/Gigabot/

I have an external 2TB USB3 drive and use Pathsync every night to backup my SSD. Never trust any drive not to fail, however great the brand. It WILL fail one day, be ready!
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Old 03-03-2014, 11:51 AM   #36
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I spent literally months agonizing over exactly what hardware to buy for my new machine... to the point of probably losing it a bit.
This sounds familiar, I was doing the same...but for about 5 years, lol. Plan a setup, adjust to the diminishing budget until there's no point (too small changes vs. the price). Wait half a year and do the same all over again and again. This year I was finally able to do the complete system change and am happy about it. I managed to bypass few CPU generations and two OSses, so the jump was pretty radical.

Quote:
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I got the 4770S to make sure the CPU did not get too hot and force the case fan to speed up. That plan totally worked It never leaves the slowest speed even at max CPU.
I was planning on the same move, but went for the 4770k in the end. The price difference here was just 20€ and I wanted to maximize the performance potential within my budget. I haven't done any real stress tests yet, but in regular use I have the case fans set to the lowest voltage (Fractal Design Define R4) and the temps hover around +30C. Just a bit of low hum audible in a silent room, if sitting next to the tower.
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Old 03-03-2014, 12:34 PM   #37
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Running a SSD (and further, also running audio to it) lets me record all inputs to disc when I run live sound 100% error free. This flat out does not work with standard HDD's (even 7200rpm).
So your OS (or C drive) is a SSD drive AND your record to that same drive?

If so... are you using a bunch of VSTis and audio tracks? Currently I'm running VSTis like Omnisphere, LL3, Superior 2 drums, Kontakt 5, Absynth, etc.

If the OS drive is a SSD, perhaps I could run all my VSTis AND audio tracks on just 1 drive!

Has anyone done this or is it still better to have an SSD for your OS AND a HDD running all my audio AND VSTi tracks?

Thanks!
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Old 03-03-2014, 12:41 PM   #38
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so I'm in the same camp as serr.
So Hopi, are you saying you are running Reaper projects on your OS drive (aka C drive) which is an SSD correct?

If so... do you use a lot of VSTis like Kontakt, Omnisphere, Trillian, Absynth, etc., along with your audio tracks ALL on the OS - SSD drive?

If so, is your performance way better than cutting tracks on a separate HDD?

Thanks!
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Old 03-03-2014, 12:54 PM   #39
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So your OS (or C drive) is a SSD drive AND your record to that same drive?
Yes. (Except I named my system drives "SERR VIII" and "Studio Earth VIII". I have redundant system drives in case of hardware failure at a live show.)

Quote:
Originally Posted by SEA View Post
If so... are you using a bunch of VSTis and audio tracks? Currently I'm running VSTis like Omnisphere, LL3, Superior 2 drums, Kontakt 5, Absynth, etc.

If the OS drive is a SSD, perhaps I could run all my VSTis AND audio tracks on just 1 drive!
I don't use any instrument plugins for running live sound of course. The instruments are real, on stage, and being played by real musicians.

I use VSTi's in the studio here and there. Pretty much anything goes in studio mode. I set the disc buffer to 2048 and just forget about it since there is no need for live sound with "real-time" low latency. The SSD is still the "high performance" workspace for audio. However you can get away with a lot with HDD's in a pinch. The SSD is required for live sound mode.

Quote:
Originally Posted by SEA View Post
Has anyone done this or is it still better to have an SSD for your OS AND a HDD running all my audio AND VSTi tracks?

Thanks!
Putting anything on a standard HDD would slow your system down vs. using the SSD.

Last edited by serr; 03-03-2014 at 01:04 PM.
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Old 03-03-2014, 01:21 PM   #40
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Putting anything on a standard HDD would slow your system down vs.using the SSD.
Excuse me if I don't get it 100% yet... but are you saying if I have a SSD drive for my OS and my VST programs and THEN run my Reaper projects on another drive separate from my SSD drive (cutting audio, running my VSTs), that my system will be SLOWER vs. having EVERYTHING (my OS, programs, audio and VSTs) all running AND recording on 1 SSD drive?

IF so, what about ASIO Buffer Size? I'm currently running at 512 latency but would like to use 256 or less. Can all this be done on 1 SSD drive?

Currently I'm using 3 drives. 1 for my OS and programs, 1 for my projects cutting audio and running VSTs, and 1 drive for streaming samples.

Thanks!
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