KVR Audio

Gribs · Post by **Gribs** » Fri Apr 17, 2015 12:14 pm

I don't follow regular news on the Intel processors, but it looks like the fifth generation Core i7 processors have been a little slow out of the gate. Several were announced and are shown on Intel's web site, but they are all two core processors. AFAIK the big deal is supposed to be power efficiency. If I was going to build now, I would probably go with a fourth gen quad core.

KingofBeers · Post by **KingofBeers** » Fri Apr 17, 2015 12:31 pm

Just checking in with a DAW build I am thinking about.

My current PC is a Q6600 8gig, doing ITB score work.

What do you guys think.

Mobo: Asus Z97-PRO.
CPU: Intel Core i7 4790K.
Ram: HyperX 16GB 1600MHz DDR3.
Power: Fractal Design Tesla 650W.
Case: Fractal Design Define R4.
GPU: Asus GT 730.

I have SSD's & Hard drives from current comp.

Running Win 64bit.

Cheers.

Spiritos · Post by **Spiritos** » Fri Apr 17, 2015 12:40 pm

@KingofBeers:

Only suggestion I'd have is to buy the Fractal R5. I have it and It's about the same price but with the benefits of haveing quiter fans plus being able to use the blue LED indicator for both power on/off state as well as HDD activity -which isn't possible with the R4.

KingofBeers · Post by **KingofBeers** » Sun Apr 19, 2015 4:29 pm

Spiritos wrote:@KingofBeers:

Only suggestion I'd have is to buy the Fractal R5. I have it and It's about the same price but with the benefits of haveing quiter fans plus being able to use the blue LED indicator for both power on/off state as well as HDD activity -which isn't possible with the R4.

Gonna go with an R5 then, thanks for the tip

Cheers.

dusted william · Post by **dusted william** » Tue Apr 21, 2015 2:57 am

Thanks everyone for the help. I put together my machine over the last two days, working well. I will probably do some tweaks on windows 8.1 over the next few weeks.

If you get a Devils Canyon, make sure you don't' use the stock fan! I ordered the wrong fan, and when I started up my machine with the stock fan the CPU was at 88 degrees C. Now with my new fan it peaks at 30 degrees C.

I'll post my specs over the next couple of days.

Thanks again!

dw

murnau · Post by **murnau** » Sun Oct 25, 2015 8:10 pm

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

Intel Core i7-5930K 3.5GHz 6-Core Processor

I just checked all the i7 CPUs for my new DAW and you can't beat this model pricewise!

incubus · Post by **incubus** » Tue Oct 27, 2015 11:13 pm

Wake the dead...ish.

Isn't that the same thing as the 20 with a WHOPPING .2 ghz increase?

If so, it CAN'T be 200 usd better than the 20 for audio use. Baristudios just went through a rather detailed build using the 20 for people that don't realize this is a 6-7 m/o thread.

UltimateOutsider · Post by **UltimateOutsider** » Wed Oct 28, 2015 12:19 am

incubus wrote:If so, it CAN'T be 200 usd better than the 20 for audio use. Baristudios just went through a rather detailed build using the 20 for people that don't realize this is a 6-7 m/o thread.

With the 5930K vs 5820K it's not just clock speed but PCIe lanes.

Not everyone needs the lanes, but for those that do the 5930K's a solid midpoint between the 5820K and 5960X.

Throbert · Post by **Throbert** » Thu Oct 29, 2015 12:01 am

Here's mine,
Still have to finish the case work, but here's my parts,

CPU : Intel Core i7-4790K 4.0GHz Quad-Core Processor
good reviews, it's fast and don't need 6 or 8 cores for an instrument rig.
CPU Cooler : Noctua NH-D15 82.5 CFM CPU Cooler
Huge cooler, Great brand, should keep temps very manageable.
Motherboard : MSI Z97 MPOWER ATX LGA1150 Motherboard
Took some time to pick this. wanted to keep real time performance up and CPU hits down, great BIOS for tuning and OC. MSI uses quality components.
RAM: 2x Crucial Ballistix Sport 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-1600
I've read that Crucial gets good chips so I went with 2 times this since it was cheaper than a 4 8GB kit. Two channels so no big deal.
Storage: Samsung 850 EVO-Series 1TB 2.5" Solid State Drive
Don't have it yet, may be a better or cheaper option.
PSU: Corsair 750W 80+ Platinum Certified Fully-Modular ATX
I've had good but limited experience with Corsair, think this will do fine.

Don't see any reason for a GPU card it's onboard the MOBO and the CPU supports it. Looking at a possible M.2 drive for the OS but have a couple 128GB 840 EVOs for now.
Bought a 5 unit rackmount case from a place called Par Metal in NY, they fabbed the face to accept 2 Noctua NF-A14 FLX fans and a couple of front load dual 2.5 drive cages,one with a slim optical slot, if needed. Also a couple holes for power and reset, the swithes have independent LEDs for power and HDs.

incubus · Post by **incubus** » Thu Oct 29, 2015 4:41 am

UltimateOutsider wrote:
incubus wrote:If so, it CAN'T be 200 usd better than the 20 for audio use. Baristudios just went through a rather detailed build using the 20 for people that don't realize this is a 6-7 m/o thread.
With the 5930K vs 5820K it's not just clock speed but PCIe lanes.

Not everyone needs the lanes, but for those that do the 5930K's a solid midpoint between the 5820K and 5960X.

PCIe lanes? Is that a gaming thing? Sorry, I don't know.

UltimateOutsider · Post by **UltimateOutsider** » Thu Oct 29, 2015 5:06 am

incubus wrote:
UltimateOutsider wrote:With the 5930K vs 5820K it's not just clock speed but PCIe lanes.
PCIe lanes? Is that a gaming thing? Sorry, I don't know.

The CPU has a fixed number of channels/lanes available to the PCIe bus. Different cards have different requirements; most graphics cards require 16 lanes, my firewire card uses 4, etc.

The 5820K doesn't have enough lanes to support 2 16-lane graphics cards- and no, it's not just for gaming. Lots of creative types are getting into extreme multi-monitor setups; or multi 4K setups which benefit from distributed GPU load.

Like I said, it's not for everybody, but it's not insignificant either.

NystagmusE · Post by **NystagmusE** » Sat Oct 31, 2015 8:56 pm

Earlier this year I built my Linux DAW. Most of the same optimizations for Windows systems are the same for linux systems; disable certain powersaving and speedstep functions in the BIOS. And if you can't do it in the BIOS, modify the kernel commands at the boot loader level or within the GRUB config. Disable last file access logging. Disable any unused services such as Bluetooth. Put the SWAP file in it's own logical partition, not an extended partition as the Ubuntu (security) default is. Use Ext3 instead of Ext4 to prevent data loss. Don't use Ext2 / encryption. Don't use NTFS or FAT32.

Don't buy a laptop unless you have no other choice. Some laptops don't have enough USB ports, are prone to overheating, and don't allow complete editing of the BIOS to get better performance and reduced glitches.

incubus · Post by **incubus** » Thu Nov 05, 2015 7:04 am

UltimateOutsider wrote:
incubus wrote:
UltimateOutsider wrote:With the 5930K vs 5820K it's not just clock speed but PCIe lanes.
PCIe lanes? Is that a gaming thing? Sorry, I don't know.
The CPU has a fixed number of channels/lanes available to the PCIe bus. Different cards have different requirements; most graphics cards require 16 lanes, my firewire card uses 4, etc.

The 5820K doesn't have enough lanes to support 2 16-lane graphics cards- and no, it's not just for gaming. Lots of creative types are getting into extreme multi-monitor setups; or multi 4K setups which benefit from distributed GPU load.

Like I said, it's not for everybody, but it's not insignificant either.

That's interesting. I'ma have to look into it further, but it's weird that intel would do the 30 that way, leave the 20 in the dust, and how little the "daw" world would know about it.

JFC, computers, people that moan about windows don't know the whole story, a whole lotta weird hardware things to consider.

incubus · Post by **incubus** » Thu Nov 05, 2015 7:09 am

NystagmusE wrote:Earlier this year I built my Linux DAW. Most of the same optimizations for Windows systems are the same for linux systems; disable certain powersaving and speedstep functions in the BIOS. And if you can't do it in the BIOS, modify the kernel commands at the boot loader level or within the GRUB config. Disable last file access logging. Disable any unused services such as Bluetooth. Put the SWAP file in it's own logical partition, not an extended partition as the Ubuntu (security) default is. Use Ext3 instead of Ext4 to prevent data loss. Don't use Ext2 / encryption. Don't use NTFS or FAT32.

Don't buy a laptop unless you have no other choice. Some laptops don't have enough USB ports, are prone to overheating, and don't allow complete editing of the BIOS to get better performance and reduced glitches.

Just so that you know, many many of us have done all the tweaks and the like with absolutely NO improvement. Frankly, other than some first-world issues (and a mobo thing I'm convinced of) this 4770k has been fine. But IF I've run into a problem (and it's the same with my older first gen i7 and my even WAY older 9xxx dual core vista system) many tweaks don't do shit. And I mean nothing.

Things that do work? Power saving at "performance" and using the latency checker (the free one) to see if drivers are cool for online DAW use. Outside of that, bupkiss.

Kaine · Post by **Kaine** » Fri Nov 06, 2015 4:33 pm

incubus wrote:
UltimateOutsider wrote: The CPU has a fixed number of channels/lanes available to the PCIe bus. Different cards have different requirements; most graphics cards require 16 lanes, my firewire card uses 4, etc.

The 5820K doesn't have enough lanes to support 2 16-lane graphics cards- and no, it's not just for gaming. Lots of creative types are getting into extreme multi-monitor setups; or multi 4K setups which benefit from distributed GPU load.
That's interesting. I'ma have to look into it further, but it's weird that intel would do the 30 that way, leave the 20 in the dust, and how little the "daw" world would know about it.

The DAW world doesn't know about it, because it mostly doesn't affect them. If your doing video editing on the side however, chances are your going to be aware of this in some shape or form.

The 5820K is basicly just a cut down 5930K to hit a better price point. It's not really odd, it's simply how they've positioned them this time around. I'd much rather they did that, than something like crippling the cache!

24 lanes is enough for a gfx card and a UAD/Capture/wifi/firewire/thunderbolt card with ease, which unless your building a video processing box is enough for most people. Keep in mind GFX cards do between 3 and 6 screens each these days, it's not a huge issue. Maybe if your want to run 3 or 4, 4K screens your going to see issues, but if you can afford to spend that much on screen real estate, you can afford to buy the 5930k.

Intels price points between generations are always fairly fixed and the 5820K came in far cheaper than any one expected for a hex-core chip from them. Think about it as a budget enthusiast CPU that gives you the processing power for cheap, with some minimal (for audio at least) inconvenience.

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