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  3. PERFECT DAW! When money is not an Issue

  • PERFECT DAW! When money is not an Issue

    L
    L

    Alright fellas...
    I have posted about this in the past, but, with weeks and months of research I think I finally found a solution to my, and other people's,  constant yerning to build (or buy) the best specs possible for our DAW Systems.

    Now! We all know well that this is a delicate topic, as no workflow is equal to another, BUT, in todays world of deadline, we all try to achieve the fastest and most reliable performance per budget.

    In my previous post I went through the DAW rig I wanted to buy for one of my good gigs I got for next year. I was planning big because money could very well not be an issue after this.

    I got amazing feedbacks from all of those that replied but now I wanted to take it a step further.

    I made some modifications and chages and I would love for all of you to share your rig and its specs (no instruments required, just sheer Computer hardware, weather it be Mac or PC). Then I'd like us all to share what, if money weren't an issue, we would like to have or build.

    Another thing I will ask is for more of your input on the current version of my rig I am intentioned to build.
    But let's start with the current one I already own and built.

    Intel i7-6700 (non-K) 3.4Ghz Quad-Core (8 threads, turbo-boost to 4.0Ghz)
    32GB DDR4 RAM 2133Mhz G-Skill Ripjaw V
    Kingstone Predator 240GB M.2 PCIe x4 (OS Boot Drive)
    4 SSDs of various size for samples and plug-ins.

    Now the rig I am thinking is quite the jump:

    MASTER MACHINE
    Intel i7-6950X 3.0Ghz 10-Cores (20threads, Turbo-boost to 3.5Ghz)
    64GB DDR4 RAM 2666Mhz Corsair Vengeance LPX
    Samsung 950 Pro 512GB M.2 PCIe 4x (OS Boot Drive)
    Samsung 850 EVO 1TB for Synths and Plug-Ins

    SLAVE MACHINE
    Dual Intel Xeon E5-2650 V4 2.2Ghz 12-Cores each (24 Cores, 48 threads, turbo-boost to 2.9Ghz each)
    256GB DDR4 ECC Registered RAM 2133Mhz Crucial Server grade
    Kingstone Predator 240GB M.2 PCIe x4 (OS Drive) super overkill I know, but worth it.
    bunch of Intel DS S3710 SSDs for libraries over VEP6

    What do you guys think?

    my additional question here is also this: if I wanted to drop 4,500 dollars on the 2699 V4 (22-Cores) would it be wise and future proof? Would I gain performance?

    Thanks

    Lorenzo
  • F
    F

    He Lorenzo,

    for the master machine you should wait until the new Samsung 960 Pro M.2 PCIe will be available in November supporting a whopping 3200Mb/s read rate. This should decreasing loading times for KONTAKT instances dramatically. The price for these is quite the same as for the SAMSUNG 950 Pro. I would replace all of these in your Slave machines as well. Your Idea running with 256gb RAM on SLave is good.

    Cheers 

    Feliks
  • L
    L

    Hello Feliks,

    thank you for your insights. Very helpful.

    I actually did end up swapping the 950 with the 960 and I made some major modifications to the overall set up.

    I am actually going to run just one slave with two Xeon 14 cores. However I want to wait until the new Skylake Xeons come out. They'll probably be faster. Will see.

    I also thought to use a second M.2 mounted on a Hyper PCIe ASUS m.2 card. 2TB will be sufficient to run the most demanding libraries, I think.

    What's your input on it?

    -Lorenzo
  • R
    R

    Hi!

    could I ask you guys what kind of Dual Motherboard you using? since I'm also now faced with a choice to buy a Dual Board, but I can't decide which one is the best?

    Thanks
  • A
    A

    Hi Lorenzo, 

     

    Have you seen this video? This makes me concerned that you might actually get worse performance from the 5960X at 3.0 Ghz, compared to what you have now. When it comes to running lots of plugins at a low latency, there seems to be a huge emphasis on single-threaded performance, and having lots of cores might not always be the best choice. Intel also offers some 6 core and 8 core processors running at higher clock speed, and I suspect those might be a better choice over a 10 core at a lower speed. Also, the 6950X ($1,649) is ridiculously over priced. you could build a 3rd computer for the price of that CPU alone. Just my 2 cents.
  • S
    S

    I am running the 6950x on an Asus X99 Deluxe II board with 128GB ram. It runs very well OC at 3.54 GHz. I dont even use a slave anymore, and just run VEPro on local host. CPU rarely goes over 20%. Tweaking drivers and tuning the OS go a long way to improving DAW performance and system latency. As always...YMMV.