Audio oriented PC

[8tg]

Budget (including currency): 2000$ USD

Country: USA

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: high resolution music playback, audio recording from external sources, local storage of videos and music

Other details (existing parts lists, whether any peripherals are needed, what you're upgrading from, when you're going to buy, what resolution and refresh rate you want to play at, etc): currently have the HT omega claro halo II and a few spare drives

 

Heres my builds part list for right now:

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/QnbFj2
 

I am undecided on a GPU as of yet, thinking about just using whatever I have lying around or snag one of the passive GT 1030’s

Passive psu is a must, this is supposed to be quiet. Same reasoning behind the shadow rock LP with no overclocking.

The board is a must for 2 PCI slots, for my future sound card + any others I swap in for other purposes.

 

Kinda wanted to know what other people are doing for music oriented media PCs. I have a decent gaming PC and I have my thinkpad already, but my music system is a lynnfield Xeon system I got for like 30$ and I just had a drive die, luckily there was a backup. And I also had the PSU die, a Corsair rm650x.

So it’s just time for a new build in general.

I chose the case for the 5.25” bays for multiple disc reader/writers and room for lots of hard drives in the future.

 

Let me know if you have any other suggestions or changes, or just want to know why I picked any part.

 

This system will be set up alongside my other audio hardware and running either some bland Linux distro or windows 10, maybe windows 7 if I can get it work with 7 as the system will be mostly offline anyway.

 

[da na]

OK, do you mean PCIe, not PCI? Just want to confirm. Or do you want conventional PCI? 

If it's a sound build, you may just want a quiet 4 core CPU. And you wouldn't need a GT 1030 either, a R5 240 would suffice, they're cheap as hell used. Quiet fan, but you can literally unplug the fan on those cards and they still work fine. Only get up to the mid 70s under 100% load with the fan unplugged. Or if you really want to go low you could get a Quadro NVS, they use like 12w of power and are passive but I wouldn't recommend.

Your sound card looks good, that's a nice card. If you wanted to save a bit you could go with the Creative Sound Blaster Z (what I use for music production), basically same specs (24b, 192k) for about $120 but the DAC and outputs may not be what you're looking for.

Don't use Windows 7... I would recommend Windows 10 in S if you can get a key for that (for compatibility) or Linux Lite if all your drivers will work.

Other than that, your build looks great!

[Dedayog]

How on earth do you need a $2k machine to playback audio?  You forgot the $1000/meter audio cables

 

Put all your audio goodness in a minimal server and be done.  

 

"High resolution music playback" can be done with a Raspberry Pi to put things in perspective. It's a marketing term basically.  

 

 

[--SID--]

13 minutes ago, 8tg said:

I am undecided on a GPU as of yet, thinking about just using whatever I have lying around or snag one of the passive GT 1030’s

i7-11700 and use the igpu.

14 minutes ago, 8tg said:

Passive psu is a must, this is supposed to be quiet

No, more than often coilwine. I've used Prime Fanless in some builds but returned them because of a lot of coilwine. https://pcpartpicker.com/product/7y4BD3/super-flower-leadex-iii-gold-550-w-80-gold-certified-fully-modular-atx-power-supply-sf-550f14hg is much cheaper, and fanless until 400w of load.

16 minutes ago, 8tg said:

shadow rock LP

Not sufficient for a loaded 10900.

Same for the motherboard; H410 gets burning VRM due to the powerconsumption of a i9.

 

RAM has dramaticly high latency. Look for dimms with 3200C16.

 

The Silverstone case has very bad airflow and the heat goes through the PSU. Better pick a case with the PSU on the bottom.

[jaslion]

Really expensive when a cheap i3 10100 with an igpu is going to be plenty here and still work with everything here.

 

For case just get the nr400 with 5.25 inch slot it's better and cheaper.

 

Cooler makes no sense that is a compact itx cooler just get a full tower cooler? Even a hyper 212 is better and quieter too as it doesn't have to work so hard.

 

Psu is kinda insane here. Just get a cx550 or like a lower power rm series?

 

Why a bluray drive? That would only be used for movies and bluray on windows is a hell to get going.

[tkitch]

Buy a non-F CPU and use the iGPU.  Don't waste money / slots on a 1030.

[8tg]

16 minutes ago, Mel0nMan said:

OK, do you mean PCIe, not PCI? Just want to confirm. Or do you want conventional PCI? 

Conventional PCI, a lot of audio equipment is only PCI, including the majority of my library of sound cards.

16 minutes ago, Mel0nMan said:

If it's a sound build, you may just want a quiet 4 core CPU. And you wouldn't need a GT 1030 either, a R5 240 would suffice, they're cheap as hell used.

CPU wise I figured I should just get whatever’s the best on a locked platform with no upgrade path. It’s like over half as cheap to just get the 10400F or only 120$ for the 10100F but I don’t really see the point in case I want the system to do something else in the future. When it’s not in use I may have it set up to run other stuff, not sure yet, but the cost effectiveness isn’t a big deal so much as getting nice components is.

I was looking at some of the low end Quadros for the same reason like the P620 but I think just a 1030 will handle my needs fine of playing movies or streaming movies to a 4K TV.

 

Im gonna try windows 7 simply because it’s easy to strip down and it’s a lot more stable than 10 is, 10 requires an annoying amount of work to set up without too much nonsense going on such as automatic updates. Windows 7 I can set up to never ding for any reason or tell me to do anything, windows 10 you gotta use the group policy editor to get rid of windows update and cortana and strip out the bloatware from consumer installs.

I use 10 LTSC enterprise on my thinkpad but that’s only because my workplace provided activation for it, I can’t get a legit 10 LTSC install otherwise, so I’d be buying 10 pro or something and having to remove all the stuff it comes with.

The other alternative is Linux but I’ve expressed my distaste in Linux problems before and while I still use it, it frustrates me. I’d ideally have 7 which is pretty reliable. That’s only if it works of course and the stuff I lose isn’t too important, I can lose a few USB ports but NVME may be a hassle.

13 minutes ago, Dedayog said:

How on earth do you need a $2k machine to playback audio?

The money isn’t the important factor, I explained a bit of that above but it comes down to what else I would potentially want to use the machine for, and the higher cost of nicer components like the passive psu and aftermarket cooler on a locked cpu, older case with inflated prices but the features I want, etc

2 minutes ago, --SID-- said:

i7-11700 and use the igpu.

24 minutes ago, 8tg said:

I wanted a dedicated gpu for more video output options rather than just igpu. Igpu could handle what I need but having more options than the board offers alone would be potentially useful.

3 minutes ago, --SID-- said:

Not sufficient for a loaded 10900.

Same for the motherboard; H410 gets burning VRM due to the powerconsumption of a i9.

It’s a 65w cpu, I know tdp != power consumption but it’s not a 10900K, and it’s a decent board, just in case though the downdraft cooler is to keep the board cool. I don’t expect to see this system under much load but passing a lot of air over the board and ram and over the top of cards is why I chose the downdraft cooler, alongside being quiet.

Though I will look more into power specs of the 10900, as far as I’m aware the board I chose is pretty decent for being H410.

5 minutes ago, --SID-- said:

RAM has dramaticly high latency. Look for dimms with 3200C16.

 

The Silverstone case has very bad airflow and the heat goes through the PSU. Better pick a case with the PSU on the bottom.

The ram I’m not concerned about, I just picked kinda whatever, the benefit of a passive psu at the top is that I gets some easier airflow. Bottom mounted psus are a great choice with fans which suck in from the bottom, but otherwise it’s usually a pretty air dead zone in a regular case. With the passive psu up top it’ll be in an area with more air moving in general. It’s not a hot system by any means so I’m not worried about effectively cooling the psu with exhaust air.