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  • Hardware considerations

    Hello, dear forum! :)

    I'm about to assemble a new desktop PC whose main purpose is going to be sequencing/sampling. (I'm smart enough not to buy a graphics card at the moment - otherwise I wouldn't be sampling for quite a while. :P)

    I'm just popping in with this short question: Are there any special requirements, which certain hardware components have to meet? Say, something important about the motherboard (e.g. audio specs?) or the CPU? Something, that a normal computer geek might wouldn't take into account, if he wasn't specialised on "music computers"?

    And do you think I should go for a motherboard/CPU combo that supports up to 64 GB of DDR4 RAM (such as the Intel Core i5-6600 4x3.30GHz 1151 Socket (Skylake) for instance)? Otherwise, a Intel Core i5-4690 4x3.50GHz 1150 Socket (Haswell), for example, could do, which only supports up to 32GB DDR3. (Guess I'm not going to breach the RAM barrier all to soon at this point though...)

    I'm not asking you to build my computer - but some trains of thought or recommendations would be very much appreciated. :)

    Thank you and kind regards,
    Lukas

    EDIT: I guess the CPU should support HyperThreading? I have the faint memory of VE being happy having as many threads at its disposal as possible?


  • Hey! :)

    I don't wanna be pushy, but some notions about the hyperthreading and audio specs of a motherboard (there was a thread recommending an audio interface even - do you mean an external soundcard or an interface such as the classical focusrite stuff for instance?) would be very much appreciated.

    I don't expect you to build my pc, no worries!

    Thank you!
    Lukas


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    @LuCsa said:

    do you mean an external soundcard or an interface such as the classical focusrite stuff for instance?

    You are going to want an external audio interface, computer sound cards are very low quality. Which one you should get really depends on your budget and the number and type of inputs and outputs you need.

    If you post everything you want to run on it i.e. DAW, sample libraries, plug ins, etc... people will probably be better able to give you some advice.

    Michael


  • I just bought a system from studiocat.com. They build VSL optimized systems and Jim, the owner, is top notch with customer service. You'll pay more, but it's worth it in my opinion, as everything, including the OS is optimized for audio production. Dave www.soundcloud.com/carovillano

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    @Acclarion said:

    I just bought a system from studiocat.com. They build VSL optimized systems and Jim, the owner, is top notch with customer service. You'll pay more, but it's worth it in my opinion, as everything, including the OS is optimized for audio production.

    Dave
    www.soundcloud.com/carovillano

     

    I couldn't agree more.

    I'm pretty computer savvy and I still went to somebody who specializes in building audio computers.  It's just not worth the hassle and headaches with trying to go rogue.

    Just to give you another option, I use adkproaudio.com.  These guys are out of Kentucky in the U.S. and I've had pretty good customer service with them.  They'll install a remote access button on your system so if something goes wrong they can patch in and fix it lickety split which is pretty handy.

    Whoever you call just tell them what you want to do and your budget and, if they're worth their salt, they'll do whatever they can to fit within the parameters you've set. 


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    @Another User said:

    I couldn't agree more. I'm pretty computer savvy and I still went to somebody who specializes in building audio computers.

    I am no and I am not going to be a pro (in the near future :P) and I am not assembling a studio, so those, although surely good, services are no option for me. I was about to build a new pc and just wanted to assure that the most important aspects of a sequencing machine are factored in.

    What I'm after are just some general sign posts, like (imaginary assertions ahead):

    • DDR3/DDR4 - doesn't matter
    • Hyperthreading comes in handy when you use >10 instances of VE, but it's not a must for normal use (*)
    • Mainboard should have at least the DAC-super-quantum-XyZ 1.2.3 technology
    • ...

    I checked the pages you linked, of course. Some list a palette of CPUs as "broad" as my question here, haha. 😄 Among others, the i5-6600 is in the list, for instance (no HT).

    (*) The VEP manual also has some details about multithreading... can someone give an estimation about how many instances can work fine with 4 decent cores? I don't have the faintest idea about even the order of the number... could be 3 or 30 or 300. 😄

    Thanks a lot!
    Lukas

    PS.: The more I think about it, the more I feel that as soon as I find myself stating that "32GB are not enough, my 4*3.5GHz CPU can't handle that anymore", it's time for a master-slave setup anyways, haha...


  • Hey LuCsa,

    This is going to be a "little" of a long read, but perhaps you find it worth your time. Maybe lot of the info here you already know, but indulge me and hopefully I can share something useful to you.

    I have done much research on what to get and how to assemble a music computer. I just finished assembling my temporary workstation based around Windows 10 Pro. I use Cubase 8.5.20 with Albion and CineSamples (for now). Albion, especially, is very resource hungry. Spitfire Audio makes top noch samples, but they come with a cost and it's not just the price tag, but it's also your CPU, RAM and storage capabilities.

    Anyways, allow me to give you my two cents of what I found out to be helpful and necessary so far. But before that, you need to understand (and maybe you already do) that there are things you can allow yourself to cheap out on and other that you just cannot. With that being said, here we go.

    1- CPU and Storage Solution is your new best friend. A musician needs to be very familiar, especially nowadays when sequencing has become the main way to make music for media, with the concepts of Multi-threading, Core count, base-clock speed, PCIe lanes, Spinning platter HDDs, Flash storage (SSDs) solution, nVME (PCIe and M.2 storage) solution and, finally, RAID methodology.

    This may sound very overwelming already, but I promise you that it sounds fancier than it actually is. The CPU and the Storage Solution are your two new best friends because they belong to the family of "cannot cheap out on". Sometimes a 500 dollars more expensive CPU can very well be the difference between a on-time stems delivery and a late stems delivery. There are two sides of a CPU purpose in Music composition and sequencing: Core Count and Base Clock Speed. There is also Turbo-Boosting, but we get there later.

    a. Core-Count is essentially the amount of Cores the processor has. PHYSICAL cores, not logical cores. What's the difference? Well, when we talk about physical cores we refer to the actual physical amount of chips contained in the Processor. (e.g. Intel Xeon E5-2697 V4 18-Cores, 36 Threads) You see, in this example you have 18 Physical Cores and 36 threads. When talking about Thread we are talking about Logical Cores. So, you can think of it as in "there are 2 Logical Cores per Physical Core". Now this particular processor has a Base-clock speed of 2.3 Ghz, but it Turbo-boosts up to 3.6Ghz (this is an insane CPU, which I am actually after right now). This means that, when idle or with very very small workload, the motherboard floats this Processor voltage to a maximum of 2.3 2.4 ghz. But when under load, the motherboard allows the voltage to bump up and give more current to the CPU, allowing it to jump to what is called Turbo-Boost mode, which brings it to 3.6Ghz, allowing to calculate and move information much much faster.

    SO, how does this apply to you? Well, you want the processor that gives you the maximum amount of cores with the highest turbo-boost clock speed. This way you have 2 advantages (and barely no drawbacks) 1- You have lot's of cores to store your tasking calculations (DAWs usually need more than four cores to function to top functionality) and you have a high clock speed which reduces latency when playing-back or recording live.

    b. When it comes to storage solution, there should not be any compromises. Your storage needs to be fast, and by fast I mean, forget HDDs (Spinning Platter Disk) of any sorts. No matter if you RAID 0 them, they will be far too slow for the sample libraries we have nowadays. Before this Windows machine, I owned a MacPro 6-Cores for about 4 years and the only SDD was the OS...dark times. They are noisier, slower and break easier because of the moving parts and the machanical friction. They function much better as long term storage and backup devices, where they have to move data araound as less as possible.
    Anyways, longs story short, look from SSD foreward, and yes, prices increase a little, but today the most espensive 250GB SSD you find is made by Samsung (850 EVO) and it floats around $80 bucks, not too bad, cosindering that you can shove in there a few sample libraries.

    Now, to understand this further, your SSDs are responsible for how fast and how well your data stream is from disk to DAW, in other words, from the moment you selct the instrument to the moment all the samples are loaded, your processor, RAM and disk are working very hard. However, if you cut that time in half (or more) all those componets work way less to load that instrument, and they can focus their strength on other parts of the software. This will allow your to stream from disk faster and with less waste of resources from all the other components.

    Another solution for your storage (albeit far more expensive) is PCIe Storage, that uses nVME technology. An example of that is the renouned Intel 750 Series, this PCIe ssd is extremely fast, reaching, sometimes, the reading spead of 1.5 - 1.7GB per second. Blazing fast. However, a 400GB model is still around $350.

    The nVME technology, which is simply a faster communication, smaller size and more efficient use of the storage cells inside the SSD, is also found in the M.2 SSDs, and there are 2 types (SATA M.2 and PCIe M.2) The PCIe ones being faster than PCIe SSDs, btw. Usually people deploy them as OS drives, tha way the softwares and the OS load snappier and without much trouble. Generally you want to look at at PCIe 4x (4 lanes) M.2, which, most motherboards support nowadays. However the drawback of this M.2 is that is going to desable one of your PCIe slots to dedicate to itself. So when in the BIOS you enable the M.2 to run in PCIe 4x mode, you are sacrifying one of your espansion slots. No, don't worry, it's not the first one where you Graphic Card usually sits.

    c. LANES. Something that us, workstation users, need to be aware. The reason why is because we tend to be the most users and abusers of expansion slots. For gamers, all you need is...love..NO! All you need is the graphics card slot and, most of the time, that's about it. But for us, we sometimes want a workstation Graphic Card, USB 3.0 PCIe expansion cards, Wired Network Cards over PCIe (for further LAN and ethernet connectivity), red rocket cards, Pro Tools cards, storage, ect. So they run out pretty fast. Now, WARNING! lanes are not equivalent to the amount of PCIe slots you have on board, they are calculated out of each and intividual peripheral, that's why it's tricky. A Enthusiast, gaming graphics card can function on 16x (16 lanes) or 8 lanes, thus occupying, of course, 16x or 8x. A good processor has around 40 lanes of capacity, which means that you can shove in a total of 40 lanes worth of expansions. The M.2 will take 4x, the PCIe SSD will take between 4x and 8x (more likely 8x), the graphics card will take between 8x and 16x, each SSD or HDD plugged in through SATA connection will take it's share of those lanes (although much less significant, but still worth considering). So, with a processor that can only support 18-24 lanes, you won't go far on a Workstation Computer. However, if you opt for a Haswell E or EP, Bradwell E or EP (E being the enthusiast grade and EP being the Xeons) you should be okay, although there are some in these families (the cheaper ones) that have half the lane support. Always check manufacture websites to verify how many lanes are supported, that way, when you slap in an expansion card and it seams very slow or sometimes even not functioning correctly at all, you know why.

    2- RAM. Now this is something that is most commonly thought to be the cause of fastness or slowness of yout Workstation. While that is true to a certain extent, it is also false. RAM dosen't impact "speed" if your sistem, it just impacts how well, how much and how fast the informations that are needed the most in that particular situation, are handled and transfered between storage to application. For instance, if I have a session where I have 2 fully loaded instruments, (let's say one instance of Kontakt 5 with the AlbionONE Strings - around 230MB - and the second another Kontakt 5 instance of CineStrings 1 Violins True Legato - 400MB -) approximately 630MB of your, hipotetically, 4GB of RAM are accupied by the instruments, and they remain there because the CPU is telling the RAM to keep 'em there for fast recall, so those files travel from disk to RAM and stagnate there till you shut down your DAW or your PC altogether. You can see that as you increase the instruments count, your RAM will have to handle more and more information. So, the more you have it, the better for Workstation purposes.

    I personally recommend DDR4, all the way and not less than 32GB, running at no slower than 2133MHz.
    Many people here may not agree with this, and I can see why. But, again, these are my two cents. The amount of RAM really does depend on how many VST you are going to use and how heavy they are. If you use mainly Synths, you will be able to get away with 16GB or even 8GB, no sweat. But as soon as you start delving in the realm of Vienna, Spitfire Audio, CineSamples, ProjectSAM, 8DIO, so on and so forth, you might want to consider upping your game.

    3- Motherboards are a little less of a concern, although, if you want to be ideal, they can be considered and they do make a difference. I usually advice two types of motherboards for workstation purposes:

    a. Gaming MoBos are usually very well built and sturdy. They tend to have a good amount of connectivity and they, most importantly, support a large variety of high-end processors, including Xeons (if you go with the X-99 chipset). Skylakes, while very powerful for gaming and video rendering, are not really indicated for music production, althoug my i7-6700 3.4Ghz is not really bad, it's just a 4-Cores 8 threads so it does struggle a little bit when I have 40-60 instruments playing at the same time.

    b. Workstation Grade MoBos are the IDEAL solution. Anything that has the letters WS or WS-E in front is bound to give you the most solidity with your components. They are just built for heavy-duty, task intensive and professional work. In the build I am planning to put together, hopefully, in the next few months, the MoBo I chose is the ASRock WS-E X-99 model. This thing as 7 PCIe expansion slots all 16x, 8 slots for RAM dims, chockers that are second to none and plenty of features.

    As I mentioned before, another point to consider when choosing a motherboard for workstation purposes, is wheather you're going to get an X-99 chipset or a Skylake Chipset. Apparently, and I don't have benchmarks on this so I'm just speaking out of work of mouth, the X-99 is a much more reliable and solid chipset for professional work.

    I think this covers it all and, again, hopefully this has not bored you but tought you something you didn't know that can turn out to be useful for you in the future.

    Best

    Lorenzo


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    @Another User said:

    i7-6700 3.4Ghz is not really bad, it's just a 4-Cores 8 threads so it does struggle a little bit when I have 40-60 instruments playing at the same time.

    This section was especially interesting for me, as I, for now, settled for the i7-6700K - so this should be fine for my current level. (starting out ambitiously)
    May I ask a final question here: Would you say that I should exploit the CPU's overclocking possibility and get a more expensive motherboard (Z170 chip) and a proper cooler, or should the base clock speed of 4.0GHz suffice (the non-K's is at 3.4GHz)? My ambitions about overclocking are rather low, but if someone told me, I should deeeefinitely go for it...

    Thanks again!

    Lukas


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    @LuCsa said:

    May I ask a final question here: Would you say that I should exploit the CPU's overclocking possibility and get a more expensive motherboard (Z170 chip) and a proper cooler, or should the base clock speed of 4.0GHz suffice (the non-K's is at 3.4GHz)? My ambitions about overclocking are rather low, but if someone told me, I should deeeefinitely go for it...

     

    Hi LuCsa,

    I am happy you found my post informative. it definitelly was a long post, so forgive me.

    You question is incredibly legitimate, however, this is another misinformazion about computer that needs to be clarified.

    While Overclocking is indeed a way to boost performance, it also boosts the chances for instability. What happens when you overclock yout CPU is that you basically drive a higher level of current in your CPU, forcing it to boost it's base clock to a certain level. But is still a "forcefull manouver".

    Now, you have selected the 6700K, which "K" stands for "Unlocked", ergo it can be overclocked. However the base clock of that Processor is 4.0Ghz!!! It's pretty fast as is, not going to lie. However, like I said in the previous post, what does base clock speed impacts is simply the real time performance and live recording. If you are planning on working with VSTs and lots of MIDI tracks, than 4.0Ghz is far more than enough, considering that it turbo-boosts to 4.2Ghz as well. If all you do is work with VST you will see no benefit whatsoever when overclocking your processor. If you game or live record, you will see a slight benefit, but not even that considerable to justify the possible instability. I know of people that have managed to bring the 6700K up to almost 4.8Ghz and stable (this without custom liquid cooling), but they were games and their benefit was around 15-20 FPS in game performance. Not too shabby, this is far from the kind of application we are talking about here.

    I think ultimately in our line of work, one should never choose performance in spite of stability. Stability is key and it's how we turn in Stems safely, without additional headaches. 

    But, again, like I said, overclocking in your case is doable and not that hard, with a processor like that. I went with the 6700 because I knew I was not going to overclock at all.

    Bottom line, if you wish to overclock, I'd say, do it, but don't OVERdo it. But if you see instabilities happening, tone it down or just bring it back to standard clock speed asap, it's not worth it to go through blue screens and crashes just to have that extra few more milliseconds of real time performance.

    My two cents 😊

    PS. yes the non-K, the one I own, is 3.4, turbo-boosting at 4.0


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    @Another User said:

    Now, you have selected the 6700K, which "K" stands for "Unlocked", ergo it can be overclocked. However the base clock of that Processor is 4.0Ghz!!! It's pretty fast as is, not going to lie. However, like I said in the previous post, what does base clock speed impacts is simply the real time performance and live recording. If you are planning on working with VSTs and lots of MIDI tracks, than 4.0Ghz is far more than enough, considering that it turbo-boosts to 4.2Ghz as well. If all you do is work with VST you will see no benefit whatsoever when overclocking your processor. If you game or live record, you will see a slight benefit, but not even that considerable to justify the possible instability. I know of people that have managed to bring the 6700K up to almost 4.8Ghz and stable (this without custom liquid cooling), but they were games and their benefit was around 15-20 FPS in game performance. Not too shabby, this is far from the kind of application we are talking about here.

    But, again, like I said, overclocking in your case is doable and not that hard, with a processor like that. I went with the 6700 because I knew I was not going to overclock at all.

    Ah, okay, that's also very on point! Thank you for that!! Considering your reply, I am going for the K variant just for the sake of higher base clock speed, but won't invest into "overclocking gear" (mobo with the more expensive Z170 chipset and high-end cooler) - meaning: i7-6700K with no ambitions to overclock whatsoever. 😊

    Thank you!


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    You are most welcome.

    Let me point out something though:

    Having a good motherboard and a good cooling solution allows your machine to live longer and better. Never underestimate cooling. And you don't have to spend a fortune. The CoolerMaster Hyper 212 EVO is around 30-40 bucks and it easily outperforms most of the more expensive competitors. It looks like nothing, but trust me it's areal good cooler. Just make sure you place a secon fan on it so to double the airflow. My mixing engineer owns a old Sandy bridge processor that he overclocked to 4.1Ghz (quad core) and he mounts this particular cooler and he showed his thermals to me: he never EVER goes above the 60C, and this is while heavy-processing my orchestral stems, with verbs, EQs and Compression going all over the places. Not to bad for a 30-40 bucks air cooler. I bought it too and I am quite happy with it so far.

    For the MoBo, don't go bankrupt, but also don't go too cheap. A model I recommend for you is the Asus Z170-A, it's an ATX (full size) 6 SATA III ports (4 regular and 2 harvestble from the Sata Express port), Holds up to 64GB of GGDR4 RAM (that's VERY good), it has real good capacitors and chockers and you can find it as cheap as $130. it's an amazing board.
    When talking workstation, just tck with Asus. They just manufacture stuff better for Professional work. ASRock is not bad, but I'd go with Asus any day.

    Maybe this can help you.

    Also, since we are here, if you need further assistance with putting together you rig, feel free to email me or PM me here, it's the same. I'd be glad to help you out. Me and my Sound Engineer are always glad to help in figuring out the best gear. 😊


  • For anyone who's interested... it turned out to be:

    Intel Core i7-6700K (4 cores @ 4.0GHz with HT)
    CoolerMaster Hyper 212 EVO CPU fan
    Gigabyte GA-Z170-HD3P motherboard
    16GB DDR4 RAM 2133GHz
    240GB SSD (Samsung EVO 750) for OS, apps and frequently used samples
    1TB HDD (Data)
    beQuiet! pure power 530W PSU

    Windows 10 Home 64bit
    Reaper

    No graphics card so far (I'd only be gaming :P) and there will be a separate SSD for the samples, eventually.

    cheers,
    Lukas


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    @LuCsa said:

    If all you do is work with VST you will see no benefit whatsoever when overclocking your processor.

     

    Apologies for replying to an old thread but I'm not sure I agree with that. I just went from 3.6Ghz to 4.72Ghz by overclocking and the playback of a large orchestral score using Synchronized Special Editions within VEPro 7 + MIR plugins etc now playback without any pops/crackles with 256 Buffer. It was stuttering before the overclock. I also adjusted the BIOS to reflect the 3000Mhz, as it was showing 2133Mhz for some reason, having installed the Corsair RAM modules with DDR4 3000Mhz.

    Do you think it's the RAM speed making the difference? The CPU usage percentage went down after the overclock. Not loads, but noticeable. Unless the RAM tweak is lightening the CPU load?


  • Just to follow up: LuCsa seems to be correct here. I overclocked and although my speed went up, I noticed that the main thing that made a difference was the RAM frequency speed. It was set to a lower value than what the RAM modules were advertised as. So I chose XMP 1 from the BIOS setup and now my frequency is 3000Mhz, as it should be, instead of 2133Mhz.

    This seems to have lightened the load on my CPU. Instead of hitting 90% on dense/tutti passages in playback, it is hovering around the 75% mark with no drop-outs/crackles etc with 256 buffer sample size at 6-7ms latency.

    I'm happy :)