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EDIT! This was what is now dubbed the 1700 paperweight. DON'T EVER BUY AN ASUS LIGHTED GAMING MOBO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


So first off, it's going to be windows. I have a 0.0000 interest in mac for many reasons.

Second, this should be a slow moving thread as it's a HUGE purchase and it has to be right. What I'm searching for is information people that have built newer (or are building) and have insights as to what is good or janky. It's been a while for me. (see my specs :lol: )

Currently, I'm not opposed to someone building it, but I wouldn't know who and I know you pay for the idea. But chances are excellent I'll be building it myself. This of course is for Studio One use, but I also do standard every-day stuff on it.

Needs:

-It's got to completely BLOW AWAY my current computer. I'm not interested in a 10-20% increase after all that trouble. Shouldn't be too hard to do, this one is pretty old.
-Dead quiet. Cases are tricky because some of them are made from metal and they rattle, so carbon is important. But I don't want fancy gamer stuff. Just a good solid black/grey box that has good ventilation. I guess I'm interested in water cooling but just not sure. I have a Corsair and it's served me well. Also, power supplies can be noisy so that's one of those geeky things that has to be taken into consideration.
-At least 16 cores (well, 8 cores 8 more threads). Probably more. I've got a BUNCH of stuff I can sell off to make this happen so I'm not going to cheap out.
-I do not play games, so noisy fanned VGA cards are not an option. Just something that will work for my 27" monitor is good enough for me. Absolutely not going to have the monitor off the CPU/motherboard. Nope.
-I just use one SSD drive for everything and nothing ever bottles up. It's an ancient Samsung 750GB and it's been fantastic. Is Samsung still the way to go? I'm currently at about 50% storage and then back things up on an external drive. I think a TB will do nicely.
-I've heard a lot of people saying you need 32 GB of ram. I'm fuzzy on this one. Once you get past 8GB (thank god for x64) I've mostly been fine. Need input.
-I'm completely lost when it comes to motherboards. I've 0 percent idea on what to do. They all look overpriced and too gamery with not very many USB connectors.

I've heard that Ryzens have some kinda issue with audio latency. If this is still the case I'll need to stick to Intel. I expect fully to spend between 500 and 800 USD on the CPU. I want a real upgrade.

Just a side note, I'm pretty happy with my current computer but I've noticed that as my templates grow, so does the CPU use by a lot. And I've also noticed that Studio One is finicky on what it does to spread over CPU's. This harkens back to all the days in the past when it looks like one core is doing most of the work. Seems that more CPU's should be more GHZ and not as worried about cores.

Ok, that is long enough :lol: (for now ;) )
Last edited by reggie1979beatz on Fri Jan 27, 2023 8:46 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Bye......:roll:
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by benmccluskey1 on Sun Feb 28, 2021 1:45 pm
All the best man! I built my computer almost 10 years ago and it's still solid. Boots up in a matter of seconds and I've never had any problems.... yet :P

I think mainly due to my (C:) Drive being an SSD. Get at least half a TB or a TB preferably for your C.

Graphics card - aim for 4Gb GPU, that should do you a good few years. My GPU is only 1Gb and it still works quite well but I can notice it struggling a bit with complex analysis plugins.. And definitely games it's useless... (although you said no games)

If I was going to upgrade my RAM just now I would get at about 16 to 32Gbs. Plenty enough for normal music production. Need more Gbs if you're into big Kontakt library stuff just for headroom.

Not sure what motherboard right now. Mine was an ATX when I did this. So I had to get an ATX case / ATX PSU / etc..

Also processor sockets are different now. My old i7 2600k used an LGA1155 socket. They have changed for the recent CPUs, I'm not sure what to though. So a motherboard that has the right CPU socket and also the right form factor for your intended case is important.

I think in terms of audio processing / multithread handling intel processors still have one up on AMD but I might be wrong. AMD have recently released new CPUs that are supposedly very good. I always thought AMD was better suited for a "gamer" CPU choice. Who knows?

i9 / i10 ? its all getting quite crazy now. Certainly not something to rush. Probably a lot of folk here that are more computer savvy than me and all up with the specs and what not...

I would say though, take your time to get everything right and build it yourself.... You'll save a lot of dosh. I think when I built mine I saved myself something like 4 or 5 hundred quid instead of buying off-the-shelf custom built. I did take about a month or two to plan it all though. It was the first computer I'd ever built and I'm still using it, still works, still happy.

Studio One 4.6 - PC i7 2600k 8Gb RAM - Presonus Studio 24c interface
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by reggie1979beatz on Sun Feb 28, 2021 5:58 pm
I have no idea if it means anything or [i]what[i] it means but the Ryzen I want is 39250 on the benchmark. My chip is 7070 on that same benchmark. That is 5.5x the "processing" but I've not got a clue on how that works in the real world.

For all I know, that will mean 50% better CPU which would be nice but I'm really looking for something amazing.

Bye......:roll:
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by mycbeats on Sun Feb 28, 2021 7:06 pm
About 6 months ago I went from an i7-4790k system to the Ryzen build in my signature.
Overall I'm fairly happy with it. Its a system that has more power than I currently need which leaves room for growth, and has upgrade protentional with compatibility for the new 5000 series.

Here are my observations:

1) In real world scenarios I can load twice as many plugins, theoretically should be 3x but its hard to split an audio workload across 24 threads unless you've got hundreds of tracks in your session.

2) On my old system my buffer sizes on my Studio 192 were 512 for mixing and 128 for tracking, on the Ryzen both have dropped two notches, I'm mixing at 128 and recording at 32. I could 16 but the latency becomes so low that sometimes the artists head voice starts phasing with their headphone feed. lol

3) Export speeds have seen only 5-10% improvement. This primarily has to do with clock speed not core count. But I can watch youtube and work in photoshop during an export and the speed never drops. (This is where the large quantity of threads helps)

Some general tips:
-Get an NVME m.2 ssd for your boot drive. NVME is 4-5x even faster than a standard SSD.
-Don't use any mechanical drives, not even for secondary or tertiary drives, 2TB SSDs are fairly affordable at $250 now. HDDs are loud, unreliable, and slow down your whole system while waiting for them to spin up .

I made my PC silent by doing the following:
1) Undervolt CPU to make it run cooler/last longer and therefore require lower fan speeds
2) Use low noise fans, I use Noctua fans whenever possible, I also got a big Noctua CPU cooler. Noctua also includes these "low noise" adapters with their fans which are just resistors to reduce the max RPMs to like 3/4th, I installed them figuring it would let my fan controller have greater control over them.
3) x570 chipset requires a tiny fan on the motherboard, this guy can be noisy, its speed is also not accessible in the bios. I found Open Hardware Monitor is able to adjust it.
4) Set fan curves properly, really dial the curves in.

Both my old system and the new one are dead silent.

Toronto, Canada
Project engineer by day, sound connoisseur by night.

Main Rig: Windows 11 (21H2) 64-bit, Ryzen 3900x, 32GB RAM, RTX 2060, dual 4K Monitors
Presonus 192, Faderport v2, Atom SQ, Akai Advance 49, Keystation 61 mk3, 2x Behringer X-Touch Mini + way too many synths.

Mobile Rig: MBP M1/16GB, Atom SQ, IOstation
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by reggie1979beatz on Sun Feb 28, 2021 7:31 pm
Ok, so a 12 core is roughly double the speed that mean a 3950x might give me ...... maybe 30% more than that? It's a guesstimate. That CPU is a significant savings over the 3950x.

I don't like the "should be 3x" not actually being that, but like you said, streaming out to all cores isn't an exact science as of yet.

Bye......:roll:
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by mycbeats on Sun Feb 28, 2021 10:30 pm
I'd probably say more like 10% more, above 8 cores it really becomes diminishing returns.

Toronto, Canada
Project engineer by day, sound connoisseur by night.

Main Rig: Windows 11 (21H2) 64-bit, Ryzen 3900x, 32GB RAM, RTX 2060, dual 4K Monitors
Presonus 192, Faderport v2, Atom SQ, Akai Advance 49, Keystation 61 mk3, 2x Behringer X-Touch Mini + way too many synths.

Mobile Rig: MBP M1/16GB, Atom SQ, IOstation
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by j0001s on Sun Feb 28, 2021 11:13 pm
I built my 9900k machine about a year ago. I took a while to figure it out (as you are) and am extremely happy with the results. I won't get into specific parts (though I can if you wish). But here are some of the considerations that guided my choices.

I wanted Thunderbolt compatibility. At the time, that knocked out Ryzen. There were a few Ryzen motherboards that had add on cards, but the cost of them ate into the price advantage of the processor. They also didn't have the best reputation for compatibility. This may have changed, but I haven't looked recently.

I wanted the fastest single core performance I could afford. I've done a bunch of testing with S1, and though it handles multiple cores better than some people say, it will get into situations where one core will be loaded down more than the others. For that reason, I turn off multithreading as well.

I wanted stability. So I wasn't looking for maximum overclocking flexibility from the motherboard. The simple option is to have all cores run at Turbo speed, and that's what I did.

I wanted quiet. Don't cheap out on the case, CPU cooler or power supply. Even with the cores running full tilt, it's dead quiet.

I did end up using the built in GPU, and it's sufficient for driving S1 on a 4K screen.
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by patm300e on Mon Mar 01, 2021 8:00 am
I JUST built my dream machine: i9 10900K with 32GB memory, WD BLACK M2 500GB for booting and programs, WD Black M2 1TB for songs, loops, etc. Corsair 550 Watt power supply GOLD + rated. ASUS Z490 PRIME -A Motherboard. Noctura Air cooling for the CPU (NH-U12S). I put this in a Fractal Design R5 Define case. I did not use the case switch for the fans, but simply powered them from the motherboard. They are constant 1000 rpm fans. This is the quietest PC I have ever built or heard. virtually no fan noise. Could even be quieter replacing the fractal design case fans with Noctura 4 pin PWM fans. I did not see the need. I am using the integrated graphics right now with a single monitor (a 27" TV). I have two IPS 24" monitors that I plan to use later when the studio is finished.
I put all this together from newegg, and caught the CPU on the low end of a price swing. Things are fluctuating now and I have seen the i9 10900K for as much as $699. I paid $469. The whole system set me back ~$1400. My last system was a generation 3 i3 with 16GB RAM. It worked fine for what I do (Mostly recorded audio files with a little midi and not a whole lot of processing. I wanted to be able to add more processing. So far this guy is performing admirable.

Right now my studio is in flux as I just moved into a new house. (I am NOT a professional studio, but an avid hobbyist!). I need to finish my studio with sound proofing so right now I am not using my standard interface (Behringer XR18), but built in audio from the motherboard. It sounds amazing. A lot better than the old motherboard's built in audio.

I guess before actually rating the thing overall I should at least use my XR18, but with built in audio, I am pleased. My i3 worked OK with the XR18, so I am expecting the same here. After I get that hooked up, I will give you an update.

Now for how it works with Studio One. I do not use a lot of MIDI, but I did load up the Neil Zaza Turn the world around tutorial with no issues. I also added Waves Nx with the Nashville Ocean Way plugin Or the Abbey Road Studio Plugin that allows you to essentially mix on the headphones with much more spatial information that tries to mimic the actual studio. I have the Bluetooth Nx Tracker that tracks your head position. CPU comes in at about 22%, disc is at 2% (PRESONUS measurements). Task Manager is MUCH lower at 10% CPU and 19% memory with 0% disk! Before I could not use anything like Waves Nx. It would shut down the Audio Engine with drop outs.

I did perform the recommended system tweaks found here: https://support.presonus.com/hc/en-us/a ... Windows-10

[EDIT/UPDATE] It works well with my interface Behringer XR18. It still stays below 50% [Presonus values] and less than 12% [Windows values]. The Waves plugins for Abbey Road Plate reverb and Abbey Road Chamber reverbs being the biggest CPU hogs, I only have one instance of each (Plate for vocals, chamber to "glue" the mix.). I also have Waves Nx which simulates being AT Abbey Road or Ocean Way in Nashville. It takes some CPU also. I did not have the Nx before, but did have the reverb plugins when I was running an i3.

The one issue I thought I was hearing clicks and pops turned out to be in the WAV file for the recording (I did not record the stems I downloaded).

I do think this machine runs better than my i3, it is certainly quieter! But my i3 was third generation with 16GB Ram and it worked had very little issues with drop outs.
The i9 is very fast doing most things, but I am very surprised that the CPU performance is not better.
Last edited by patm300e on Fri Mar 05, 2021 6:03 am, edited 1 time in total.

Studio One 5.1 Professional on Home built i9 10900K on ASUS Z490 Prime-A with 32 GB RAM 64-bit Windows 10 Pro Premium 500GB M2 WD Black SSD (OS) 1TB M2 WD Black SSD Data Drive. Behringer U-Phoria UMC204HD, and/or XR-18 USB 2.0 Interface. Single FaderPort , Behringer X-Touch control. Ozone 10 Advanced, Various Waves Plug-ins including Nx with Head Tracker and Ocean Way Nashville and Abbey Road studios.M-Audio Oxygen Pro Mini 32-Mini-Key Keyboard Controller, You Rock Guitar [Gen 2] Guitar MIDI Controller. Alesis DM10 MKII Studio Kit Electronic Drum Set.
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by reggie1979beatz on Mon Mar 01, 2021 10:59 am
mycbeats wroteI'd probably say more like 10% more, above 8 cores it really becomes diminishing returns.


See, this makes me nervous. I start to question the cost (which is going to be significant) of doing the upgrade.

Great info, keep it coming, I've got plenty of time :)

Bye......:roll:
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by mycbeats on Mon Mar 01, 2021 2:04 pm
reggie1979beatz wrote
mycbeats wroteI'd probably say more like 10% more, above 8 cores it really becomes diminishing returns.


See, this makes me nervous. I start to question the cost (which is going to be significant) of doing the upgrade.

Great info, keep it coming, I've got plenty of time :)


Instead of a 3950x, I'd get a 5900x. it has like 20% better single core performance and should therefore be a noticeable improvement over the 3900x in every workload.

Toronto, Canada
Project engineer by day, sound connoisseur by night.

Main Rig: Windows 11 (21H2) 64-bit, Ryzen 3900x, 32GB RAM, RTX 2060, dual 4K Monitors
Presonus 192, Faderport v2, Atom SQ, Akai Advance 49, Keystation 61 mk3, 2x Behringer X-Touch Mini + way too many synths.

Mobile Rig: MBP M1/16GB, Atom SQ, IOstation
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by reggie1979beatz on Mon Mar 01, 2021 5:03 pm

Bye......:roll:
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by Bub on Mon Mar 01, 2021 9:20 pm
Go to Purrrfect Audio's web site. The guys name is Jim Roseberry. I've known him through another forum for over a decade.

If you decide to build your own, the best advice I can give is start with a motherboard. Go to the manufacturer's website and do a search for supported CPU's and RAM. Find what has been tested by the manufacturer, especially the RAM. Pick one from the list of part numbers they provide. <-- This is of the utmost importance.

Then follow the Unofficial Windows 10 Audio Workstation Build And Tweak Guide.

I built the DAW in my signature based off advice I got from Jim on the forum we both hang out on. Up until a couple of weeks ago it was running Firewire. Not once did I ever have any trouble with this DAW and it's still running fine.

Also, if you plan on using the embedded GPU on the CPU (which is perfectly fine for DAW usage) some do not support 4k UHD (Ultra High Definition). They all support 4K resolutions but there is a difference between 4K and 4K UHD support. Put another way, you can still watch a 4K video on YouTube, but it won't be processed in UHD (Ultra High Definition) on some Intel GPU/CPU combo's.

Good luck.

Shane

Intel i7 6700k || 16GB RAM || 2 x 250GB SSD's || Win 10 Pro || Presonus Studio One Pro 5.5 || Studio 1810c || Yamaha HS-80M's || ART Pro VLA II Compressor || ART Pro MPA II Reference Series Mic Pre || Blue Bluebird Mic || The usual misc. guitars.
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by Vocalpoint on Wed Mar 03, 2021 3:51 pm
"Absolutely not going to have the monitor off the CPU/motherboard. Nope."

I used to think this way too - right up until I built my last three DAWS using the actual onboard GPU. For DAW-only work - it has never been smoother or quieter. (or cheaper)

Your use case might be different - but if you are not routinely doing any activity that need some three figure ($$$) graphics card - you can save yourself a bunch of cash and put that towards the "Big 3" that really matter (CPU, RAM and Motherboard)

Today's high end boards pack some surprisingly good onboard GPU value.

"I just use one SSD drive for everything and nothing ever bottles up. It's an ancient Samsung 750GB and it's been fantastic. Is Samsung still the way to go? I'm currently at about 50% storage and then back things up on an external drive. I think a TB will do nicely."


If it were me - I always dedicate the OS (and apps) to C:\ , Data (Songs, work files, downloads etc) to D:\ and all my sample libraries and content sit on S:\

Breaking them out allows for more specific backups and imaging (and restores if needed) .

I tend to draw a sharp line between OS and my data at all times. Even the standard Windows folders like My Documents get pre-moved to D:\ during the OS install.

Cheers

VP

DAW: Studio One Pro 6.5.1.96553 | Host OS: Windows 10 Pro 22H2 | Motherboard: ASUS PRIME z790-A | CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-13600K | RAM: Corsair Vengeance LPX 64GB | Graphics: Intel UHD 770 (HDMI) | Audio Interface: RME UCX II (v1.246) | OS Drive : Samsung 990 PRO (1TB) | Media Drive: Samsung 970 EVO Plus (500GB) | Libraries: Samsung 970 EVO+ (2TB) | Samples : Seagate FireCuda (2TB) | Monitoring: Presonus Monitor Station v2 + Presonus Eris 5 | MIDI Control: Native Instruments Komplete S61 & Presonus ATOM
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by reggie1979beatz on Wed Mar 03, 2021 6:42 pm
It would be a fanless card :)

It's just been my experience that a dedicated card gets the job done w/o applying those resources from the CPU. I apricate all the input!

Bye......:roll:
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by reggie1979beatz on Thu Mar 04, 2021 2:02 pm
If one was to have more than one drive, is external good enough (as long as it's SSD) ?

Bye......:roll:
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by Vocalpoint on Thu Mar 04, 2021 2:18 pm
reggie1979beatz wroteIf one was to have more than one drive, is external good enough (as long as it's SSD) ?


Internal would be better for your SATA connections. Connecting right to the motherboard ports with a single cable - or an M2 drive (best) is the way I would plan it.

If you are tricking this new build out with a brand new case - there should be room in there for a new SSD drive - yes?

VP

DAW: Studio One Pro 6.5.1.96553 | Host OS: Windows 10 Pro 22H2 | Motherboard: ASUS PRIME z790-A | CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-13600K | RAM: Corsair Vengeance LPX 64GB | Graphics: Intel UHD 770 (HDMI) | Audio Interface: RME UCX II (v1.246) | OS Drive : Samsung 990 PRO (1TB) | Media Drive: Samsung 970 EVO Plus (500GB) | Libraries: Samsung 970 EVO+ (2TB) | Samples : Seagate FireCuda (2TB) | Monitoring: Presonus Monitor Station v2 + Presonus Eris 5 | MIDI Control: Native Instruments Komplete S61 & Presonus ATOM
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by reggie1979beatz on Thu Mar 04, 2021 2:51 pm
There's plenty of room now :) I need a drive so weighing my options. Strong possibility that this build (if it happens) is going to be a while, still very unclear on CPU's.

Bye......:roll:
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by Vocalpoint on Thu Mar 04, 2021 2:58 pm
reggie1979beatz wroteThere's plenty of room now :) I need a drive so weighing my options. Strong possibility that this build (if it happens) is going to be a while, still very unclear on CPU's.


Best advice I can offer on CPUS - I always buy the second or third best model in a given range. "Best value" for the price is my definitive gauge rather than overspending on the fastest (which in many cases - cannot really be "felt") when compared to the second or third best - which usually are quite a bit cheaper.

And remember too what we are doing. Recording audio and using VSTs etc is not as CPU intensive as saying rendering video or gaming etc.

Any modern, decently powered CPU/RAM/Motherboard combo should run Studio One with no issues at all.

I definitely do not overspend on the CPU. I built new DAWs in 2015, 2018 and soon here in 2021 - and to be honest - the 2018 model did not feel dramatically different than the 2015 one did - at least where Studio One is concerned. Yet the CPU's were of completely different pedigree and speed (at least on paper).

Cheers!

VP

DAW: Studio One Pro 6.5.1.96553 | Host OS: Windows 10 Pro 22H2 | Motherboard: ASUS PRIME z790-A | CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-13600K | RAM: Corsair Vengeance LPX 64GB | Graphics: Intel UHD 770 (HDMI) | Audio Interface: RME UCX II (v1.246) | OS Drive : Samsung 990 PRO (1TB) | Media Drive: Samsung 970 EVO Plus (500GB) | Libraries: Samsung 970 EVO+ (2TB) | Samples : Seagate FireCuda (2TB) | Monitoring: Presonus Monitor Station v2 + Presonus Eris 5 | MIDI Control: Native Instruments Komplete S61 & Presonus ATOM
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by Bub on Thu Mar 04, 2021 8:55 pm
Another thing I am going to do in the future is only get matched core/threads and avoid the 4 core/8 thread scenario. The i5-9600K system Studio Cat sells is 6 core/6 thread. It benchmarks faster than my i7-6700k that is 4 core/8 thread and it's a lot cheaper. Don't be fooled by the i5/i7/i9 marketing. Really dig in and do some comparisons.

Shane

Intel i7 6700k || 16GB RAM || 2 x 250GB SSD's || Win 10 Pro || Presonus Studio One Pro 5.5 || Studio 1810c || Yamaha HS-80M's || ART Pro VLA II Compressor || ART Pro MPA II Reference Series Mic Pre || Blue Bluebird Mic || The usual misc. guitars.
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by Tacman7 on Fri Mar 05, 2021 8:51 am
My instinct is that the i5 is quicker because it's 3 generations later.

I7 use of hyperthreading was always an advantage, just marketing fueling the anti hyperthreading hub bub?

https://www.techspot.com/article/1850-h ... threading/

I read the passmark benchmarks when shopping a processor. How I wound up with Ryzen...

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