Old 05-05-2017, 10:15 AM   #161
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Wow, sounds impressive!
Ya, well that's being ultra optimistic. I plan to build my own case, so

motherboard - $100
CPU - $500
Ram $300
PCIe $300
Case + cooling $200

(I already have a power brick and SSDs). Will sell my DDR3 Ram (4 x 8gb) if anyone wants it (as well as an i7 4800mq Clevo laptop).
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Old 05-05-2017, 10:23 AM   #162
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Ya, well that's being ultra optimistic. I plan to build my own case, so

motherboard - $100
CPU - $500
Ram $300
PCIe $300
Case + cooling $200

(I already have a power brick and SSDs). Will sell my DDR3 Ram (4 x 8gb) if anyone wants it (as well as an i7 4800mq Clevo laptop).
Wow $300 for memory alone!!!
I haven't checked DDR4 prices, that's hideous.
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Old 05-06-2017, 02:37 AM   #163
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Wow $300 for memory alone!!!
I haven't checked DDR4 prices, that's hideous.
Actually, it will likely be more than that. That's why I'm waiting for 2018, for prices to come down.
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Old 05-06-2017, 01:30 PM   #164
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Wow $300 for memory alone!!!
I haven't checked DDR4 prices, that's hideous.
This is part of why I ended up hunting down a mainboard compatible with DDR3 and my i7 2600K CPU. It's a Gigabyte GA-Z77-HD3, and a friend/fellow REAPER forum member recommended it to me for DAW work. It was $155. If it works (still shipping), I'm going to purchase another one for a backup.

A new DDR4 mainboard, new CPU and 16GB DDR4 RAM is going to cost WAY more than a measly $155, or even $310 for an additional backup mainboard.
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Old 05-06-2017, 10:52 PM   #165
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RAM usually have lifetime warranty. But mainboard, unless the flagship ones may have 5 years, many only have 3 years. CPUs for example Intel, are only 3 years as well. Also, old motherboard doesn't support newer technology, for example m.2 and PCIE SSD as boot disk. For this reason I will not spend too much on "backup" hardware otherwise they will become a burden when some discontinued parts are broken.

I am using ASRock B85M Pro4 which only cost about $63 in my local stores and it supports up to i7-4790k or Xeon E3 1286 v3, and 32GB DDR3.

Now a single stick 16GB DDR4 costs about $115 and the lastest mainstream Intel and AMD mainboards support up to 64GB (4 sticks).
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Old 05-07-2017, 02:42 AM   #166
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This is part of why I ended up hunting down a mainboard compatible with DDR3 and my i7 2600K CPU. It's a Gigabyte GA-Z77-HD3, and a friend/fellow REAPER forum member recommended it to me for DAW work. It was $155. If it works (still shipping), I'm going to purchase another one for a backup.

A new DDR4 mainboard, new CPU and 16GB DDR4 RAM is going to cost WAY more than a measly $155, or even $310 for an additional backup mainboard.
That sounds very expensive. Do you really need all its features?
Are you a hardcore gamer with 2x graphics cards?

Do you know that you can use Micro ATX in an ATX case? - I tell you this to broaden your options. Performance wise there is no difference, only feature count.

Gaming boards come with useless expensive features that will not help you.

I have found brand new 1155 motherboards going for under £40 today (look on Amazon for a start). No need to pay for bells and whistles.

Do not dismiss micro ATX motherboards unless you really need specific features of full length ATX boards.
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Old 05-07-2017, 04:49 AM   #167
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That sounds very expensive.
Agreed.

Intel "Z" chipsets support overclocking for "K" CPUs, but for non-overclockers, H61 is the minimun requirement for 2600K. Alternative chipsets include H67, P67, Z68, B75, Q77, H77 and Z77. If you use Intel's integrated graphics, also take a look at the motherboard's video output connectors (VGA/DVI/DP/HDMI) and see if they suit your monitor or not.

Higher-end chipsets and larger form factor enable more IO (PCIE, SATA3, 5Gbps USB3), flagship motherboards may have better onboard audio support like optical output, 7.1 surround and better RMAA results but I guess DAW users should have their dedicated audio interfaces already.

$155 is already enough for a recent Intel Kaby Lake / AMD Ryzen motherboard with overclocking, NVMe PCIE/m.2 SSD and 10Gbps USB3 support.

RAM hungary users could deley purchase, otherwise they can also buy 2x8GB DDR4 first, wait until next year and buy another 2x16 modules.

Last edited by bennetng; 05-07-2017 at 09:05 AM.
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Old 05-07-2017, 03:14 PM   #168
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I have found brand new 1155 motherboards going for under £40 today (look on Amazon for a start). No need to pay for bells and whistles.
It's strictly for DAW use. No gaming. The only reason I needed to get another mainboard is because my DAW mainboard of over 5 years of use died last week. As far as I know, all other computer components still work. I sure HOPE that's the case. I'll find out by Wednesday night after I build the new computer.

Do you know if any of the LGA 1155 boards you've seen for under £40 have been road tested for DAW use? I mainly run VST(i) FX in REAPER. It's basically a REAPER, Spectrasonics (everything), Kontakt & Toontrack Superior Drummer rig.

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Agreed.
Intel "Z" chipsets support overclocking for "K" CPUs, but for non-overclockers,
Fortunately, I don't OC the 2600K, but I don't understand what you mean by this.

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Originally Posted by bennetng View Post
Agreed. H61 is the minimun requirement for 2600K.
The minimum for anyone considering doing overclocking?

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Originally Posted by bennetng View Post
Alternative chipsets include H67, P67, Z68, B75, Q77, H77 and Z77. If you use Intel's integrated graphics, also take a look at the motherboard's video output connectors (VGA/DVI/DP/HDMI) and see if they suit your monitor or not.
Thanks for this information! I was trying to locate it on Intel's website. The chipset in my previous (now dead) DAW mainboard was the Intel P67. The mainboard was an Asus P8P67 Pro rev3.1, and it worked perfectly until last week. Do you know if there are any issues or conflicts with these or newer Intel chipsets within the context of DAW use? My Asus board is a revision because it includes a revision of the Intel P68 chipset. As some may remember, Intel messed up something with this chipset's SATA II controller and it needed to be recalled.

More info here if this issue is still relevant to anybody:
http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleID=2589
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Old 05-07-2017, 10:56 PM   #169
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Fortunately, I don't OC the 2600K, but I don't understand what you mean by this.

The minimum for anyone considering doing overclocking?
I mean H61 (non-overclockable) is the absolute minimum requirement for 2600K, all other chipsets I mentioned have better specs than that.

If someone fully tested the Gigabyte board you mentioned, step by step illustrations to tweak the BIOS are available, or "recommended for DAW" settings were given by the tester then it should be 100% safe and I would say the tests alone worth the extra money. I'd consider this as a kind of technical support. Otherwise all boards have risks since they are not tested, regardless of the features the boards offer.
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Old 05-08-2017, 05:50 AM   #170
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Mikeroephonics,
Bennetng has pretty much said it all. You really should read up on the differences yourself. If you are going to swap out motherboards basic knowledge of the feature set can save you spending a great deal of money on extra bells and whistles, and that is mostly what it comes down to, not stability, not differences that will give you unusable latency or a slower processor and so on.

Extra graphics card slots, extensive overclocking features, greater number of connections are wasted if you are not likely to use them ever.

Ask yourself how many of the SATA inputs you need, how many USB3 devices you can utilize and so on.
In terms of overclocking my humble B75MA will auto overclock without even being in the special overclock mode (which it does have for advanced overclocking of memory timing, individual voltages and so on - I'm not interested in that, more interested in stable and quiet).

A minor weakness of my motherboard is that it only has one Sata 3, so the additional SSDs have to sit on Sata 2 (though real world differences are tiny).
The difference with SSD is night and day to the user experience.

Anyway I got one of these new £45 a couple of years back (I would pay about the same used as I don't need expensive gaming board features like SLI):
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/MSI-B75MA-...QAAOSwwpdW5AXY

Another option to seriously consider is entire machines being sold cheap (plenty about) use what you need, sell the other parts or even build up a cheap second machine.
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Old 05-23-2017, 08:07 PM   #171
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Thanks, Softsynth! Do you know if the MSi B75MA-P45 works well with any of the following?
- Kontakt
- Spectrasonics Omnisphere, Trilian, Keyscape, Stylus RMX
- Toontrack Superior Drummer
- VST(i)s in general

As far as its I/O is concerned, the MSi B75MA-P45 has what I need. The SATA III would be for Windows 7 and the remaining SATA II ports for HDDs and my optical drive.

I had two mainboards destroyed within the last month due to the Windows 10 USB installation stick corrupting both of their BIOS chips (long story.) I just want to make sure I can get my DAW back up and running. It's been out of service for about 4 weeks now.

Thanks for the help!
- Mike
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Old 06-07-2017, 08:40 PM   #172
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Thanks for all this info, everybody! I'm planning to build a new PC for the studio, and I'm tempted to try the Ryzen 7 1700 and report back. Otherwise, I'd probably get an i7 6770 solely because it's what ED got, and you seem pretty dang knowledgeable, ED But I have a question for you gurus:

It seems that most of y'all are discussing using a lot of VSTi's and how the CPU handles that. My priority is to be able to record and monitor lots of (32) channels of ADC and DAC at the lowest possible latency, at 48khz, stably of course. I'll be using two Lynx AES16e cards for the in/out I'm considering switching to RME HDSP's eventually, but since I've already got the lynxes, that's what I'm going to use for now.

Do y'all think that this would affect my choice of a CPU?
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Old 06-07-2017, 08:56 PM   #173
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Thanks for all this info, everybody! I'm planning to build a new PC for the studio, and I'm tempted to try the Ryzen 7 1700 and report back. Otherwise, I'd probably get an i7 6770 solely because it's what ED got, and you seem pretty dang knowledgeable, ED But I have a question for you gurus:

It seems that most of y'all are discussing using a lot of VSTi's and how the CPU handles that. My priority is to be able to record and monitor lots of (32) channels of ADC and DAC at the lowest possible latency, at 48khz, stably of course. I'll be using two Lynx AES16e cards for the in/out I'm considering switching to RME HDSP's eventually, but since I've already got the lynxes, that's what I'm going to use for now.

Do y'all think that this would affect my choice of a CPU?
It looks like we're very much on a similar page.
I'm currently pricing all the components for a new custom studio PC and I'm also looking for the best all round audio recording and mixing performance.

I do use software synths but I also use a lot of analog synth gear and record physical instruments with mics. I currently have 28 input channels running via an RME Fireface UFX and 2 x Behringer AD8200s and monitor and mix in third order Ambisonics through a 3D cube array.

My new build is currently based on an i7 7700K CPU on an Asus Prime Z270a motherboard with 64GB RAM and probably Samsung 500GB M,.2 solid state drives.
I'm going with the i7 7700K mainly due to its fast clock speed without overclocking (4.2/4.5GHz).
The general consensus is that clock speed is more important than more CPU cores for realtime audio performance in REAPER.
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Old 06-07-2017, 09:02 PM   #174
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Good call, ReaDave. I was late to this thread, and just now saw that I had missed some insightful comments earlier on about the speed vs. cores issue for RT audio. I think I'm more or less caught up now (I hope!). Ah, physical instruments! I love 'em!
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Old 06-07-2017, 09:12 PM   #175
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Good call, ReaDave. I was late to this thread, and just now saw that I had missed some insightful comments earlier on about the speed vs. cores issue for RT audio. I think I'm more or less caught up now (I hope!). Ah, physical instruments! I love 'em!
Totally agree!! The debate about whether hardware or software sounds better isn't really a thing any more with so many really good VSTi synths (I'm particularly fond of u-he and I have plenty of others which I also use) but for me, there's no substitute for hands on, tactile control, especially when improvising which is a huge part of how I write music.
I must admit though that I have my eye on a Native Instruments S88 which looks like a good bridge between software and hardware.

There's a photo on the front page of my synth site of my current keyboard rig setup if you're curious.
The url is www.synthesizers.audio
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Old 06-07-2017, 09:27 PM   #176
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Awesome setup! One item of curiosity regarding CPUs is that the Ryzen line apparently has a whole lot of PCIe lanes. might this be helpful enough while using two PCIe interface cards to justify the lower clock speed?
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Old 06-08-2017, 04:15 AM   #177
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Originally Posted by mikeroephonics View Post
Thanks, Softsynth! Do you know if the MSi B75MA-P45 works well with any of the following?
- Kontakt
- Spectrasonics Omnisphere, Trilian, Keyscape, Stylus RMX
- Toontrack Superior Drummer
- VST(i)s in general

As far as its I/O is concerned, the MSi B75MA-P45 has what I need. The SATA III would be for Windows 7 and the remaining SATA II ports for HDDs and my optical drive.

I had two mainboards destroyed within the last month due to the Windows 10 USB installation stick corrupting both of their BIOS chips (long story.) I just want to make sure I can get my DAW back up and running. It's been out of service for about 4 weeks now.

Thanks for the help!
- Mike
I haven't looked at this thread in while.

Motherboard compatibility isn't considered with particular programs within Windows. You can assume all motherboards that will handle a given CPU and a given operating system (that give you good performance) will all be compatible.

It's a bit like asking "is this Ford car compatible with this motorway?"

Yes it will be fine with those programs.
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Old 06-08-2017, 12:23 PM   #178
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Awesome setup! One item of curiosity regarding CPUs is that the Ryzen line apparently has a whole lot of PCIe lanes. might this be helpful enough while using two PCIe interface cards to justify the lower clock speed?
I'm only taking a loosely educated guess here but I'd be going for the faster processor. I don't think you'll have any issue with an i7 running two PCIe cards.
Practically all modern motherboards support multiple PCIe cards without resource conflicts so I don't think this will be a limitation.

I ran multiple cards in my ProTools Mac seventeen years ago without any issues and things have come a LONG way since then.

Cheers for the thumbs up on my rig too.
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Old 06-08-2017, 07:51 PM   #179
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That sounds good to me. Also,my rig right now is an upright piano and a Casio SK1 that my kids keep loaded with the word "poop".
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Old 06-08-2017, 10:34 PM   #180
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That sounds good to me. Also,my rig right now is an upright piano and a Casio SK1 that my kids keep loaded with the word "poop".
LOL @ kids use of SK1!!!
Nothing wrong with some cheesy 80s sampling grit. The SK1 has made its way onto some well known commercial releases from what I understand.
Every studio needs an upright piano too IMHO.
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Old 06-22-2017, 11:44 PM   #181
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I have been doing a bit of reassure on this subject.And this is a comparison between models http://cvc2.org/best-cpu-for-gaming/
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