Feedback on 12th gen DAW build with upgrade path to proper VR gaming

[EinsZweiHopsie]

Budget:

now (for basic upgrade): €1000,-

later (for intermediate VR upgrade): €2000,-

later (for final VR upgrade): €3000,-

Country:

The Netherlands

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for:

Now (as DAW): Ableton Live.

Later (as DAW + VR): Ableton Live, No Man’s Sky, Half Life Alyx, DiRT Rally 2.0, F1 22.

Other details: 

 

Existing build:
CPU: Intel Core i7-8700 3.2 GHz 6-Core Processor
Motherboard: Gigabyte H310M HD2 Micro ATX LGA1151
Memory: Crucial Ballistix 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR4-3200 CL16
Power Supply: be quiet! Straight Power 10 400 W 80+ Gold Certified ATX

 

First time poster here! I produce EDM music and had built myself a rack-mounted PC over 5 years ago, with loads of faster RAM to reduce latency and allow for all the plugins and synts. Since then I have moved houses, and because of that, I had to rethink my music room taking into consideration the wife factor both in terms of sound as well as aesthetics. So I got an 011 Dynamic case with be quiet! fans and cooler for quiet operation and some subtle RGB to match the room. Next to music production, however, I finally want to get into VR gaming, now that we get into a generation of HMD's capable of a truly immersive experience. With the new music room and case, I want to build myself a future-proof PC now, that has an upgrade path to proper VR gaming in the near future and lasts me for the next 5 to 7 years.

 

So I'm thinking of the next build:

CPU: Intel Core i5-12600K 3.7 GHz 10-Core Processor  (€342.00 @ Azerty) 
Motherboard: MSI PRO Z690-A ATX LGA1700 Motherboard  (€222.95 @ Megekko) 
Memory: Corsair Vengeance 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR5-5600 CL36 Memory  (€192.95 @ Azerty) 
Storage: Samsung 980 Pro 1 TB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive  (€134.90 @ Amazon Netherlands)
Total: €892.80

https://nl.pcpartpicker.com/user/MrBoogie/saved/WZCWcf

 

I went with the 12600K because of better single core performance over the 12400/12500 and 6 performance cores seem to be recommended for VR gaming. The Z690, even though I don't plan on overclocking, but they are cheaper than B660 mobos anyway. I went with gen 5 PCIe and DDR5, because I want this PC to last, and with ever-increasing production software requirements and 6k VR coming, I rather see my PC becoming memory and GPU limited than CPU limited and I just want the upgrade path if needed.

 

The next step would be to wait for the GeForce 40 series to be released, and see if I can get a 3080 ti or 3090 ti at a discount together with a Pimax 5k super to tip my toes in VR gaming and see if fiddling with Pimax is something I'm capable of. At this point, I need to upgrade my PSU as well.

 

The last step would be to trade the Pimax 5k super for a Pimax 12k with their trade-in system when it is released and get the best GPU available that I can afford by then. And the possibility to upgrade to 13th gen if necessary.

 

Questions:

 

1. Any considerations for this build, especially with regard to VR?
2. Is the MSI mobo ok for this plan or would you recommend something different?
3. I went for the lower latency Corsairs because of music production. Is this a good match for a 12600k?

Thank you!

[ChuckMaurice]

DDR5 RAM doesn't provide an advantage for gaming on Intel 12th gen, plus you already have 32GB of DDR4 which would save you a significant part of your budget. So I'd recommend getting a Z690 or B660 motherboard that is DDR4-compatible and keep your current RAM.

 

For music production I'm not sure your current RAM is your bottleneck, after all people have been producing music without DDR5 for a while. IF DDR5 does indeed provide a significant edge, I would wait for AMD Ryzen 7000 or Intel 13th gen CPUs to really have something that needs DDR5 and will be more powerful for gaming. They are just around the corner

[EinsZweiHopsie]

@ChuckMaurice Like this? That would save me 250 euro to spend on a graphics card later.
 

PCPartPicker Part List: https://nl.pcpartpicker.com/list/fWWHJM

 

CPU: Intel Core i5-12600K 3.7 GHz 10-Core Processor  (€342.00 @ Azerty) 
CPU Cooler: be quiet! Silent Loop 2 360 73.33 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler  (Purchased For €0.00) 
Motherboard: MSI PRO B660-A DDR4 ATX LGA1700 Motherboard  (€172.95 @ Amazon Netherlands) 
Memory: Crucial Ballistix 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR4-3200 CL16 Memory  (Purchased For €0.00) 
Storage: Samsung 980 Pro 1 TB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive  (€134.90 @ Amazon Netherlands) 
Case: Lian Li PC-O11 Dynamic ATX Full Tower Case  (Purchased For €0.00) 
Power Supply: be quiet! Straight Power 10 400 W 80+ Gold Certified ATX Power Supply  (Purchased For €0.00) 
Case Fan: be quiet! Light Wings PWM 41.51 CFM 120 mm Fans 3-Pack  (Purchased For €0.00) 
Case Fan: be quiet! Light Wings PWM 41.51 CFM 120 mm Fans 3-Pack  (Purchased For €0.00) 
Total: €649.85

[ChuckMaurice]

Pretty good.

 

I guess you also plan on getting a new PSU. 850W is enough for a RTX 3080 or 3080Ti + your CPU, for RTX 4000 wait for release so we know the power requirements.

[Somerandomtechyboi]

https://nl.pcpartpicker.com/list/tTPRC6

12700f for the same price

 

The ssd is a cheaper but same speed alternative as the 980 pro, if you dont actually need gen4 (dont need ridicolous r/w performance you wont notice in games) then theres the exceria at ~85€ and its a higher end gen3 for cheap (>3k r/w)

 

Cut cost on the board, b660a pro at 172 is stupid, may aswell go for the z690-p instead, b660 ds3h cause decent amount of i/o

[BeastyB314]

52 minutes ago, Somerandomtechyboi said:

https://nl.pcpartpicker.com/list/tTPRC6

12700f for the same price

 

The ssd is a cheaper but same speed alternative as the 980 pro, if you dont actually need gen4 (dont need ridicolous r/w performance you wont notice in games) then theres the exceria at ~85€ and its a higher end gen3 for cheap (>3k r/w)

 

Cut cost on the board, b660a pro at 172 is stupid, may aswell go for the z690-p instead, b660 ds3h cause decent amount of i/o

If you plan on getting the parts immediately, stick with the 12600K for the integrated graphics. If you wait, however, the 12700F is better, but also cannot be overclocked if you are interested in that.

 

Also yea b660 at 172 is overpriced

[Somerandomtechyboi]

12 minutes ago, BeastyB314 said:

If you plan on getting the parts immediately, stick with the 12600K for the integrated graphics. If you wait, however, the 12700F is better, but also cannot be overclocked if you are interested in that.

 

Also yea b660 at 172 is overpriced

Oh wow didnt even notice op isnt gonna buy a gpu in the first upgrade, though you can skate by on a cheap placeholder gpu like the lower end hd 7000 series, or if you need more gpu power an rx 460/550 or gt 1030/gtx 1050, i5 is just priced too close to the i7 to make sense unless you need quicksync

 

Btw cpu oc is dead so that doesnt matter but keep in mind that you usually cant run >3600 gear 1 due to locked (0.95v) vccsa, doesnt matter anyways if you just wanna tighten subtimings like trfc, sr dr dd (r/w/act/pre), tfaw, and trrd since thats where all the performance comes from, you can loosen trcd to lighten the load on the imc and run higher clocks, you may be interested in proper ram tuning if you need the bandwidth and latency

[EinsZweiHopsie]

4 hours ago, ChuckMaurice said:

Pretty good.

 

I guess you also plan on getting a new PSU. 850W is enough for a RTX 3080 or 3080Ti + your CPU, for RTX 4000 wait for release so we know the power requirements.

Affirm. Plan is to wait for the 40 series to be released to see what it does with the 30 series prices and maybe get a good deal on an RTX 3080 (3090 has issues with Pimax apparently), together with a Pimax 5k super. I want to get into tinkering with the Pimax to see if it is something for me, before spending the big bucks when the 12k or equivalent alternative HMDs come out (and buy a card to drive them). From what I read getting good results on those Pimax HMDs is a wonky experience, to say the least, but the only way to really know is to live with it for a while. When I do take the leap in VR, I do it for a fully immersive experience and other current-gen headsets just don't quite fit the bill for me with narrower FOV, SDE, or lower resolutions (I've tried pretty much all of them). And I like tinkering anyway haha!

[EinsZweiHopsie]

3 hours ago, Somerandomtechyboi said:

https://nl.pcpartpicker.com/list/tTPRC6

12700f for the same price

 

The ssd is a cheaper but same speed alternative as the 980 pro, if you dont actually need gen4 (dont need ridicolous r/w performance you wont notice in games) then theres the exceria at ~85€ and its a higher end gen3 for cheap (>3k r/w)

 

Cut cost on the board, b660a pro at 172 is stupid, may aswell go for the z690-p instead, b660 ds3h cause decent amount of i/o

For my music I'm tracking around 30 channels of analog synths, effects, and acoustic instruments at 24bit/192kHz on average, which would be about 1 GB a minute. With overdubs, sampling, etc, I more than once in a while get close to a 100 GB for a project. I know Ableton does playback buffering, but still loading that kind of samples from my 5+ year old SSD while in a live session sometimes results in disk overload and crackling audio. Hence my "knee jerk reaction" to not cop out on NVMe speed  Thanks for the listed suggestions!

[EinsZweiHopsie]

2 hours ago, Somerandomtechyboi said:

Oh wow didnt even notice op isnt gonna buy a gpu in the first upgrade, though you can skate by on a cheap placeholder gpu like the lower end hd 7000 series, or if you need more gpu power an rx 460/550 or gt 1030/gtx 1050, i5 is just priced too close to the i7 to make sense unless you need quicksync

 

Btw cpu oc is dead so that doesnt matter but keep in mind that you usually cant run >3600 gear 1 due to locked (0.95v) vccsa, doesnt matter anyways if you just wanna tighten subtimings like trfc, sr dr dd (r/w/act/pre), tfaw, and trrd since thats where all the performance comes from, you can loosen trcd to lighten the load on the imc and run higher clocks, you may be interested in proper ram tuning if you need the bandwidth and latency

Yeah, that's probably on me and my convoluted post, I could have made it shorter by saying "music now, VR in near future"  Thanks for bringing up the i7 + cheapo GPU alternative. I'll see what I can find, else I'll just stick with the 12600k, CPU is probably not going to be the bottleneck anyway with these core counts for my studio setup. Also, my understanding is the current generation and next generation VR HMDs will max out the GPU earlier than a 12th gen i5 or i7 anyway, right?

[EinsZweiHopsie]

8 hours ago, ChuckMaurice said:

DDR5 RAM doesn't provide an advantage for gaming on Intel 12th gen, plus you already have 32GB of DDR4 which would save you a significant part of your budget. So I'd recommend getting a Z690 or B660 motherboard that is DDR4-compatible and keep your current RAM.

 

For music production I'm not sure your current RAM is your bottleneck, after all people have been producing music without DDR5 for a while. IF DDR5 does indeed provide a significant edge, I would wait for AMD Ryzen 7000 or Intel 13th gen CPUs to really have something that needs DDR5 and will be more powerful for gaming. They are just around the corner

Just me being curious and trying to learn: What is it that makes it so that 12th gen doesn't get an advantage from DDR5 for gaming currently, but 13th gen would need it?

[ChuckMaurice]

My comment was more about how AMD Ryzen 7000 will require DDR5 RAM (and get an advantage from it, specifically from DDR5-6000 as Ryzen's Infinity Fabric has been optimized for this frequency according to AMD). I think the benchmarks we'll see in the following weeks will confirm that.

 

Intel is a more complicated blend, because they chose to make their 12th gen CPU work with both DDR4 and DDR5, which was imo a good bet at the time (seeing DDR5 prices were bonkers at release). Until we have benchmarks for 13th gen we don't know if they will get an advantage from DDR5 justifying the upgrade. Intel has basically two courses of action:

• Keeping the 13th gen working well with both DDR4 and DDR5 (performance independent of RAM frequency/version)
• Leveraging DDR5 performance to their best to compete with AMD, however they might not need to, or it might require a deep CPU redesign that we'll see at 14th gen.

TL;DR we won't know until release/benchmarks

 

For your case there's another thing to take into account: you already have a significant amount of DDR4 RAM. If Ryzen 7000 or Intel 13th gen provides let's say 15% performance from DDR4 to DDR5, is that worth buying again 2*16 GB sticks of DDR5?

[EinsZweiHopsie]

@ChuckMaurice @Somerandomtechyboi @BeastyB314 Thanks for your help and explanations. I think I'm going with the following build. I'll keep the 12600K over the 12700F for the iGPU, but I went with a B660 DDR4 board and the Fury NVMe as suggested. This will save me 290 euro's over my initial plan.
 

PCPartPicker Part List: https://nl.pcpartpicker.com/list/xJHw8r

 

CPU: Intel Core i5-12600K 3.7 GHz 10-Core Processor  (€342.00 @ Azerty) 
CPU Cooler: be quiet! Silent Loop 2 360 73.33 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler  (Purchased For €0.00) 
Motherboard: Gigabyte B660 DS3H DDR4 ATX LGA1700 Motherboard  (€142.95 @ Azerty) 
Memory: Crucial Ballistix 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR4-3200 CL16 Memory  (Purchased For €0.00) 
Storage: Kingston Fury Renegade 1 TB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive  (€117.90 @ Amazon Netherlands) 
Case: Lian Li PC-O11 Dynamic ATX Full Tower Case  (Purchased For €0.00) 
Power Supply: be quiet! Straight Power 10 400 W 80+ Gold Certified ATX Power Supply  (Purchased For €0.00) 
Case Fan: be quiet! Light Wings PWM 41.51 CFM 120 mm Fans 3-Pack  (Purchased For €0.00) 
Case Fan: be quiet! Light Wings PWM 41.51 CFM 120 mm Fans 3-Pack  (Purchased For €0.00) 
Total: €602.85

Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2022-09-20 01:10 CEST+0200