Has anyone built a new DAW recently? tips on builds?

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Hello everyone.

I'll be upgrading my DAW soon. I wonder if anyone has built a recent build and can give any tips on the MB they used.

I'm looking at getting an intel quadcore i7, or Haswell-E 6 or 8 core.

Any tips?

Thanks

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Well, not exclusive for music production, but it is quite a beast in that area:

Intel Core i7-5930K 3.5GHz 6-Core Processor
Be Quiet! Dark Rock CPU cooler (literally NO ONE had the "pro" version in stock...)
Asus X99-A ATX LGA2011-3 Motherboard (Yes yes, extra PCIE lanes for more video cards in the future, producing video and 3D too)
Corsair DOMINATOR Platinum 16GB (4 x 4GB) DDR4-2800 Memory
Samsung 850 Pro Series 256GB 2.5" Solid State Drive
Fractal Design Define R4 Blackout with Window ATX Mid Tower Case
SeaSonic X Series 850W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply
Windows 8.1

Already had a video card

Using Reaper and Ableton Live 9

Rock solid, literally zero problems on first bootup.

Motherboard is picky about which PCIE slot for video cards if using only one card. Works best with the card in slot 3.

BIOS is awesome. Overclocking is so easy.

PSU and Case fans are so quiet I have to put my head against the case to hear that it's on.

There are many other configurations. If you have the money, Xeons are still apparently the way to go.

IMHO the 8-core 5960x is way too overpriced.

If you don't need the extra lanes for multiple video cards and all that jizz maybe just go for the 5930k 6 core Haswell-E.

Let me know any questions, be glad to share what tiny bit of knowledge I might think I have a tenuous grasp on.

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Thanks codestation.

I think you just talked me out getting the Haswell-E 8 core. You're right, not really worth it.

I might get this exact build, but more ram. What video card do you recommend?

how far you have been able to OC this?

Thanks,

dw

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Just under 4GHz stable and quiet
RAM at 3000

I don't overclock it all the time, it really isn't necessary for audio work.

The BIOS is really a slick deal on this MB. Then again I was using a board from about 6 or 7 years ago prior to this build.

Not a video card guru, but surely one of the GeForce cards (I have an old one in now, doing a fine job). I hear some high praise for PNY cards (ha ha, 4000$ cards and up)

What I'm using right now is the Radeon HD 7700, a very limited card by today's standards.

Yeah, on the Haswell-E 8 core it's twice the price of the CPU I bought, I just couldn't justify it.

It'll be cool to see what you get!

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Bought a 4790k system from avadirect.com and it's been great. Lots of customization options, quiet, and fast. Great price all things considered and they test each PC for a free days before shipping. They found an incompatibility between the SSD and mobo, recommended an alternative, ordered it, tested it, and shipped it. Next PC I buy will also come from them.

If you're curious about specs I can pull them up tomorrow. I went for a balance of cost and speed.

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Just checked out avadirect, never heard of them before.

I'm very curious about your specs. Do they tweak for audio?

Thanks,

I'm really looking forward to the new PC I get, whichever it is.

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dusted william wrote:Just checked out avadirect, never heard of them before.

I'm very curious about your specs. Do they tweak for audio?

Thanks,

I'm really looking forward to the new PC I get, whichever it is.
I heard about AVA Direct from someone on Gearslutz who mentioned being happy with them. I looked them up, checked reviews, and they seemed legit so I tried them out. Couldn't be happier with the process. The PC is great so far, no issues at all, and it was packed and shipped great. Once I got it, all I had to do was pop it open to remove the packing they put in the case (it's a single piece, so easy to remove), and add my hard drives, Firewire card, and UAD-2 Duo.

Here are my PC specs with comments:

Define XL R2 Titanium Grey Silent Full Tower Case, XL-ATX / EATX, 9 Slots, No PSU, Plastic/Steel
Full tower case, but very quiet. Built like a tank and looks nice to boot. Great built in cable management.

TPD-0650 Toughpower™ Gold 650W Power Supply w/ Modular Cables, 80 PLUS® Gold, 24-pin ATX12V EPS12V, 4x 8/6-pin PCIe, Retail
I had no clue about what a good PSU is or isn't but this had modular cables and was 650w which seemed healthy. No complaints yet.

Z97-A, LGA1150, Intel® Z97, DDR3-3200 (O.C) 32GB /4, PCIe x16 SLI CF /1+1*, SATA 6Gb/s RAID 5 /6, SATAe /1, M.2 2280 /1, DP + HDMI + DVI + VGA, USB 3.0 /2+4, HDA, GbLAN, ATX, Retail
This is the ASUS motherboard. Last MOBO was a Gigabyte and I had problems with it, so I wanted to try something different. I only had to go into the BIOS once to put it in high performance mode. Normal mode was causing spiking in Studio One as I believe the BIOS was holding the processor back, once I changed the BIOS setting to a high performance mode (which had an option for "multimedia rendering PC") it's been great. Note: the BIOS was in some sort of "easy" mode, which I didn't bother even trying to figure out how to turn off. So far, no complaints here yet either except for no on-board Firewire (but who does?).

Core™ i7-4790K Quad-Core 4 - 4.4GHz TB, HD Graphics 4600, LGA1150, 8MB L3 Cache, DDR3-1600, 22nm, 88W, EIST HT VT-x XD, Retail
Thought about going for a 6 core, but the clock speeds on those are considerably lower from what I saw. This seemed like a nice balance between raw clock speed, hyperthreading performance, and price. Happy with it so far. Projects that were maxing out my i7 950 run at like 55-60% CPU now.

16GB (2 x 8GB) HyperX PC3-14000 DDR3 1866MHz CL11 1.5V SDRAM DIMM, Non-ECC
RAM. It works. Seems fast enough for me.

NH-D14 CPU Cooling Fan, Socket 1155/1156/1366/775/FM1/AM3/AM2, 160mm Height, Copper/Aluminum, Retail
The 4790k doesn't run too hot to begin with, but my last PC was such a headache that I figured I'd play it safe and go with a high performance fan. This thing is huge!

250GB BX100 SSD, MLC Silicon Motion SM2246EN, 535/370 MB/s, SATA 6 Gb/s, 2.5-Inch, 7mm w/ 9mm Adapter, Retail
So this is interesting. I ended up with a Crucial SSD after the prior SSD I bought was discovered to be incompatible with the motherboard. While the PC was in the "testing" phase, I got an email basically telling me they found an issue and had called ASUS and discovered there was an incapability. They recommended the Crucial as a replacement.

3TB Barracuda®, SATA 6 Gb/s, 7200 RPM, 64MB cache, Retail
BW-12B1ST Black 12x/16x/48x BD/DVD/CD Blu-ray Disc™ Burner, SATA, Retail

Hard Drive, Blu-Ray Burner. Both work.

Radeon™ R7 250 (Fanless) 1000 - 1050MHz, 1GB GDDR5 4600MHz, PCIe x16, HDMI + DVI + VGA, Retail
Integrated Audio Controller

Didn't know what to get for a video card but this was fanless and seemed to work.

Also, running Windows 8.1.

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dusted william wrote:Hello everyone.

I'll be upgrading my DAW soon. I wonder if anyone has built a recent build and can give any tips on the MB they used.

I'm looking at getting an intel quadcore i7, or Haswell-E 6 or 8 core.

Any tips?

Thanks
Hey. Will you let me know what you end up with? I'm going to get a dedicated DAW pc, in addition to my gaming rig, in a few months time. I'm looking for a silent rig that also has a very low dcp latency, as I normally operate at 2 ms, ideally even lower. Cheers!

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Thanks for the specs and the builder steer FET. Not looking now, but could be down the road.

Small-ish SSD (system I assume) and one 3 TB drive is enough? Do you have apps/VSTs on the SSD too? I figured with the low cost of drives these days, separate sample and audio recording drives was the way to go, and maybe a third one for apps, or a bigger SSD. 1 TB SSDs aren't completely outrageously expensive any more...

Mind if I ask what the total cost of your build was? (PM if you want.)

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Codestation wrote:SeaSonic X Series 850W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply
No No, you need 1.21 gigawatts! :party:

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I just build a monster dual-boot system. For the DAW OS I have:

Asus Z-97 Pro
Intel i7-4790k
Samsung 850 Pro 256 GB (OS/Programs/VST)
Crucial MX100 512 GB (Sample disk)
Seasonic M12II Evo 620W
Seagate Barracuda STBD2000201, 2TB (2x) (1 for projects/scratch disk and 1 for extra content)
MSI GeForce GTX 960 GAMING 2G
Corsair Vengeance LP CML16GX3M2A1600C9
Noctua NH-C12P SE14 CPU cooler
Fractal R5 case

The mobo is solid. Great BIOS/UEFI.
The CPU is more than enough for now but wanted the possibility of overclocking for future use.
The SSD's and HDD's I chose based on reviews. The Crucial MX was the cheapest 500GB SSD.
The GPU was chosen because the fans remain idle when not needed and the 970 series has problems.
The PSU is an odd one. I too first looked at the Seasonic X series but a DAW-builder told me some just didn't deliver well so he stopped using them and pointed me to this (cheaper) version.
RAM and cooler: low-profile (for the GPU) and Noctua cooler has a good rep.
Case: Was looking for the R4 but with that one you must choose to use the blue led light indicator either for PC on/off status or for HDD-activity. This has been resolved in the R5. HUGE mid-tower with plenty of room!
Win8.1 64x/Live 9/Steinberg UR44/Roland HP 235/Edirol PCR-800/Eastman AC222/Washburn D12/Ch. Les Paul/Behringer BCF2000 & BCR2000/Korg Nanopad 2/Focusrite VRM Box/AT 2020/2xB5/E825s/Beyerdynamic DT990 Pro 250/Tannoy 502

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Spiritos wrote:.......Seasonic M12II Evo 620W...........The PSU is an odd one. I too first looked at the Seasonic X series but a DAW-builder told me some just didn't deliver well so he stopped using them and pointed me to this (cheaper) version.
No No, you need 1.21 gigawatts! :party: As T-CM11 said earlier.

:lol:

Looks like you're getting along well with that super build Spiritos :tu:

I've been considering an Asus MOBO so it is good to hear it is solid for you!

Happy Musiking!
dsan
My DAW System:
W7, i5, x64, 8Gb Ram, Edirol FA-101

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Hi Spiritos

thanks for the build specs. Did you get a Devils Canyon or Haswell?

Thanks,

dw

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dsan@mail.com wrote:
Spiritos wrote:.......Seasonic M12II Evo 620W...........The PSU is an odd one. I too first looked at the Seasonic X series but a DAW-builder told me some just didn't deliver well so he stopped using them and pointed me to this (cheaper) version.
No No, you need 1.21 gigawatts! :party: As T-CM11 said earlier.

:lol:
Hehe.. I contemplated over it but since I already had an energy bill last year the size of a small village I declined ;)
dusted william wrote:Hi Spiritos

thanks for the build specs. Did you get a Devils Canyon or Haswell?

Thanks,

dw
It's a Devil's Canyon.
Win8.1 64x/Live 9/Steinberg UR44/Roland HP 235/Edirol PCR-800/Eastman AC222/Washburn D12/Ch. Les Paul/Behringer BCF2000 & BCR2000/Korg Nanopad 2/Focusrite VRM Box/AT 2020/2xB5/E825s/Beyerdynamic DT990 Pro 250/Tannoy 502

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Just built a new DAW myself. It's hard to go wrong with sheer horsepower from quality manufacturers, so I won't bore you with the details, however I will note that I'm very pleased with my choice of power supply and video card, both of which are dead silent for audio production.

My power supply is the Rosewill SilentNight (500W), which is fanless and silent. I tested it out of the box to make sure it worked before installation, and I could tell no difference from it being on or off without looking at the power switch. It's also super efficient, which makes it cool even without the fan. A case with a top-mounting PSU is recommended so heat doesn't have to traverse the case, but it's not mandatory.

My video card is the ASUS STRIX 750Ti. It's also cool and quiet, as the fans don't even spin up unless under significant load. For everyday use, it is essentially a silent card, but it still has enough horsepower to handle gaming when needed. If you're a hardcore gamer or doing video authoring, you probably want to step up to one of the higher STRIX models, but for my needs this was great.

The important thing for me is that these were both able to get me quality performance with zero noise. I haven't actually done any audio work on it yet, but I'm very pleased with the build thus far.

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