Looking to buy a new audio production PC

[Mikelo]

My current PC is a Scan 3XS system which I had made/built back in 2009. It's starting to show its age. Looking to buy another Scan system but I'm a little overwhelmed by all the disc options and best configurations (ie solid state, m.2 etc).
My budget is around £1500 (GBP).
I'm also a big Kontakt user (not orchestra) plus Toontrack EZ drummer.

Do I buy a m.2 for Windows OS?
1TB SSD for audio projects and another 1TB SSD for sample libs or standard hard drive?
Where (which drive) do I put programs files for Cubase and other VSTs?
Is it still worth just investing in a standard mechanical HD?

Little confused with today's options.

[lfm]

Been checking out a bit if eventually to get a new PC also.

Personally I have no problem with hdd. Suspicious about SSD and lifetime since I use PC rather long time. Current PC I write on is 15 years old, and no SSD last that long. So even my current daw from 2010 only have hdd.

So configured 1 TB hdd for system, and 3 TB for media and the rest.

About interfaces, I would look at thunderbolt and see if any interfaces for that, or soon to be.

Other things that bother me about my current daw from 2010 is that card slots did not have two slots wide where you put graphics card, so you loose one card slot that way. Newer MB I looked at have an empty space and not putting another slot next to PCI Express x16 for graphics.

So I looked at MB with 7 PCI Express slots, not to ever be limited by that as I feel I am now.

[Orbit-50]

My current PC is a Scan 3XS system which I had made/built back in 2009. It's starting to show its age. Looking to buy another Scan system but I'm a little overwhelmed by all the disc options and best configurations (ie solid state, m.2 etc).
My budget is around £1500 (GBP).
I'm also a big Kontakt user (not orchestra) plus Toontrack EZ drummer.

Do I buy a m.2 for Windows OS?
1TB SSD for audio projects and another 1TB SSD for sample libs or standard hard drive?
Where (which drive) do I put programs files for Cubase and other VSTs?
Is it still worth just investing in a standard mechanical HD?

Little confused with today's options.

M.2 is where it's at now. For shits and giggles, I built a i7 7700K machine this year using a Samsung Evo 960 Pro M.2 as my system drive. I also bought three Samsung Evo 850 SSD's that I use for samples, songs, installers etc... I kind of thought I wasted my money as I was putting the machine together but after firing her up and using her for a few minutes, everything ran blazing fast. I was totally amazed. Literally everything happened in a blink of an eye. I was not used to that kind of speed. I will leave you with this, get the best drives you can afford, it is worth every penny. Trust me.

[Mikelo]

Sounds like sound advice. Thank you! What size drives did you get out of interest?

[Orbit-50]

512GB Samsung Evo 960 Pro M.2 for the system.
500GB Samsung Evo Sata II SSD for songs.
1TB Samsung Evo Sata II SSD for sound content. (VST instrument expansions, sample packs, DAW content etc...)
500GB Samsung Evo Sata II SSD for utility stuff. (miscellaneous storage, downloads, installers, temporary stuff etc...)

Side note: if you want, you can cheap out on your secondary drives, but not your system drive.

[Mushy Mushy]

I would call Scan, tell them your budget and intended use and let them spec it for you.

[Pictus]

Been checking out a bit if eventually to get a new PC also.

Personally I have no problem with hdd. Suspicious about SSD and lifetime since I use PC rather long time. Current PC I write on is 15 years old, and no SSD last that long. So even my current daw from 2010 only have hdd.

The Samsung 970 PRO is your friend, it can stand a lot more than the EVOs.
The EVOs already have great endurance...
Надёжность SSD: результаты ресурсных испытаний [обновлено 20.06.18] / Накопители

About interfaces, I would look at thunderbolt and see if any interfaces for that, or soon to be.

For reference https://www.gearslutz.com/board/music-c ... st13368351

Other things that bother me about my current daw from 2010 is that card slots did not have two slots wide where you put graphics card, so you loose one card slot that way. Newer MB I looked at have an empty space and not putting another slot next to PCI Express x16 for graphics.

So I looked at MB with 7 PCI Express slots, not to ever be limited by that as I feel I am now.

7 PCIe slots is a lot, excluding mining I fail to see any use for all those slots...
But slots are not the whole story, need a CPU/chipset with enough lanes.
https://youtu.be/nJyH0XEoPEs

[lfm]

Been checking out a bit if eventually to get a new PC also.

Personally I have no problem with hdd. Suspicious about SSD and lifetime since I use PC rather long time. Current PC I write on is 15 years old, and no SSD last that long. So even my current daw from 2010 only have hdd.

The Samsung 970 PRO is your friend, it can stand a lot more than the EVOs.
The EVOs already have great endurance...

About interfaces, I would look at thunderbolt and see if any interfaces for that, or soon to be.

For reference https://www.gearslutz.com/board/music-c ... st13368351

Other things that bother me about my current daw from 2010 is that card slots did not have two slots wide where you put graphics card, so you loose one card slot that way. Newer MB I looked at have an empty space and not putting another slot next to PCI Express x16 for graphics.

So I looked at MB with 7 PCI Express slots, not to ever be limited by that as I feel I am now.

7 PCIe slots is a lot, excluding mining I fail to see any use for all those slots...
But slots are not the whole story, need a CPU/chipset with enough lanes.

Really good input, thank you.

I currently have 4 card slots, and one is obstructed by graphics card.
I wanted to install a second RME interface card, to get more channels, but can't do it.
So feeling more headroom with slots that I never will be limited, so what I saw as next step was 7 slots MB's.

[Mikelo]

Thanks everyone for their replies.
I've been looking to purchase these specs for my next 3XS system with an AMD chip:
Case
Fractal Design Define R6 - Case Dimensions 233 x 448 x 535 (WxHxD mm) [Fractal Design Define R6 Black, Mid Tower Computer Chassis, E-ATX/ATX/MicroATX/Mini-ITX, 3x 140mm Fans ]
£106.99 inc VAT

Motherboard
ASUS PRIME X470-PRO
£158.48 inc VAT

AMD CPUs
AMD Ryzen 7 2700X, 3.7GHz, 4.30GHz Turbo
£289.99 inc VAT

CPU Cooler
be quiet! Shadow Rock 2
£42.98 inc VAT

Case Fan Upgrade
2 X BeQuiet! - Ultra low noise option, better airflow than stock fans, although lower than other options. Best in class for noise levels.
£40.97 inc VAT

Memory
32GB Corsair LPX 2666MHz
£309.98 inc VAT

Graphics Cards
2GB ASUS R5 230 Passive CORE Edition - Passive (silent) Gfx card with DVI-I / HDMI / D-SUB connections and triple screen support
£42.98 inc VAT

Power Supply Unit
700W be quiet! Pure Power 10 CM, 80 PLUS Silver, Hybrid Modular
£94.99 inc VAT

M.2 NVMe Storage Drives
250GB Samsung 970 EVO, 3400MB/s Read, 1500MB/s Write, 200K IOPS
£85.99 inc VAT

Storage - Solid State Drives
500GB Crucial MX500 - Read 560MB/s, Write 510MB/s
£89.48 inc VAT

1TB Crucial MX500 - Read 560MB/s, Write 510MB/s
£179.48 inc VAT

Storage - Hard Disk Drives
1TB WD Blue WD10EZEX, 7200rpm, 64MB Cache
£39.59 inc VAT

Optical Drives
LiteOn IHAS124 - 24 X DVD Reader & Writer
£11.48 inc VAT

Texas Instruments Firewire Cards
Not Selected
WiFi Network Controllers
Not Selected
Audio Interfaces
Not Selected
UAD Audio Interfaces & Co-Processor Cards
Not Selected
Operating System
Microsoft Windows 10 Home Advanced 64-bit
£110.98 inc VAT

Just comes under £1800, slightly over budget but manageble.
What do you guys think???

[Pictus]

AMD CPUs
AMD Ryzen 7 2700X, 3.7GHz, 4.30GHz Turbo
£289.99 inc VAT

http://www.scanproaudio.info/2018/05/02 ... testbench/
OK, but sadly for audio Intel is better and nowadays no Thunderbolt for AMD.
Floating point and AVX we may found in some plug-ins are faster in the Intel.
AMD seems more aimed at computer nerds like myself...
We can tweak/fix and deal with any problem...

Motherboard
ASUS PRIME X470-PRO
£158.48 inc VAT

It is OK, but the VRM heatsink is crap, not good for overclock/hot places + heavy usage.
https://youtu.be/osvm26W4e3M
VRM on the new AM4 motherboards
https://www.overclock.net/forum/13-amd- ... st27199649

Memory
32GB Corsair LPX 2666MHz
£309.98 inc VAT

That is the Achilles' heel of AMD...
AMD is too picky about RAM and some applications seems to benefits from
faster RAM with tighter settings.
I do not know if audio stuff benefits, maybe real-time tracking with low ASIO buffers.
https://www.io-tech.fi/artikkelit/ddr4- ... rituskyky/
https://www.computerbase.de/2018-04/amd ... _steroiden
http://www.overclock.net/forum/13-amd-g ... m-am4.html
You must check the motherboard site for memory compatibility.
The best 2x16 DDR4 https://www.gskill.com/en/finder?cat=31 ... 4-14-14-34
2x16(dual rank) probably will not run faster than 3200Mhz.
For 3466Mhz only with 2x8(single rank), 4x8 is not good for Ryzen.

CPU Cooler
be quiet! Shadow Rock 2
£42.98 inc VAT

My choice would be the Thermalright ARO-M14G
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/sho ... ht-ARO-M14



https://youtu.be/r7fPofwF1Cw

Graphics Cards
2GB ASUS R5 230 Passive CORE Edition - Passive (silent) Gfx card with DVI-I / HDMI / D-SUB connections and triple screen support
£42.98 inc VAT

OK, but no 4K(DisplayPort/HDMI 2.0)

Power Supply Unit
700W be quiet! Pure Power 10 CM, 80 PLUS Silver, Hybrid Modular
£94.99 inc VAT

Check with https://outervision.com/power-supply-calculator
The reviews http://www.jonnyguru.com/modules.php?na ... ecatnum=13

M.2 NVMe Storage Drives
250GB Samsung 970 EVO, 3400MB/s Read, 1500MB/s Write, 200K IOPS
£85.99 inc VAT

Storage - Solid State Drives
500GB Crucial MX500 - Read 560MB/s, Write 510MB/s
£89.48 inc VAT

1TB Crucial MX500 - Read 560MB/s, Write 510MB/s
£179.48 inc VAT

Storage - Hard Disk Drives
1TB WD Blue WD10EZEX, 7200rpm, 64MB Cache
£39.59 inc VAT

OK

Optical Drives
LiteOn IHAS124 - 24 X DVD Reader & Writer
£11.48 inc VAT

A Blu-ray drive(LG WH16NS40) is way better than
DVD because it is faster/safer and can storage a lot more data.
The LG WH16NS40 supports M-disc(endurance thousand years)
https://www.pcworld.com/article/2933478 ... years.html

[acYm]

skip the WD Blue, get a usb 3.1 external drive instead, for your mass storage. spinning rust doesn't belong in your shiny new pc.
it's a bunch of noise for no reason.

[Kaine]

It is OK, but the VRM heatsink is crap, not good for overclock/hot places + heavy usage.
https://youtu.be/osvm26W4e3M
VRM on the new AM4 motherboards
https://www.overclock.net/forum/13-amd- ... st27199649

I'm not overly convinced by his setup. I get what he's saying about this arrangement and the rad overheating at the rear, but he really shouldn't be pulling heat into the case like that given the rest of the stup. He's running an AIO in there with no VRM fan on it, causing heat spots where there wouldn't normally be one with an air cooler, and this is being ramped up by the GPU and hot air coming in off the rad.

Even the test page you sent through (unless I missed something, I did skim through it) looks to at least give it a fairly reasonable result in their testing.

My choice would be the Thermalright ARO-M14G

Mine too as it happens, but I can't source them currently with enough regularity in the supply chain.

[acYm]

I'd like to add that while bluray writers are indeed quite practical, the cost of the bd-r discs is prohibitive because unlike dvd-r which were popular, nobody uses them. every time I bought a spindle, I had to wonder if I shouldn't just get an external drive instead.

[AcrossTheSky]

I just had a quick look at https://www.scan.co.uk/3xs/configurator

lol - so expensive...one can build better Pc for less££
...just a tip..
1 a mboard that Supports Quad Channel DDR4 is a must have..
2. A Cpu with about 6 cores 15Mb in very nice -
the Intel Core i7-6850K 3.6 GHz 6-Core Processor - 15 MB runs in my system at 4Ghz - perfectly well - with fan cooling.
3 HyperX HX424C15FB2K4/32 FURY complements the TRIO perfectly..
4 SSD for system is a must have too (500gb - amazon Crucial MX500 right now £77 -wow) 2nd for large libraries helps nicely
5 nice box - silent video card Palit GeForce GTX 1050 does the trick.

there is so much out there - just think MB CPU MEMORY - the most important bits - make sure they run at full speed spec wise !

cheers

[Pictus]

I'm not overly convinced by his setup. I get what he's saying about this arrangement and the rad overheating at the rear, but he really shouldn't be pulling heat into the case like that given the rest of the stup. He's running an AIO in there with no VRM fan on it, causing heat spots where there wouldn't normally be one with an air cooler, and this is being ramped up by the GPU and hot air coming in off the rad.

Even the test page you sent through (unless I missed something, I did skim through it) looks to at least give it a fairly reasonable result in their testing.

From https://www.overclock.net/forum/13-amd- ... st27478410
"I have my 2700X at 4ghz(Asus Prime X470 Pro), 1.2875v running 100% load 24/7 on World Community Grid.
I have a 120mm fan at 1000rpm as intake at the top of the case blowing over the motherboard. I have been
running it this way since release as I pre-ordered.

I also have a temp gun and just took readings from the VRM's. He has his temp probe in the right place, I get
the highest reading from that point. 65C, and the other areas are 40-55C. On the front of the board, the middle
choke is 50C and the VRM heatsink itself is 43-45C.

So, just as with most of the AM4 boards, a little airflow goes a long way."