PT10 USERS for advice on best NON-SSD Drive, 6 core vs 4; Quiet/Cool Case?

[reeltape]

Hi everyone, I am new here, but not new to the game! however, I am just finishing up a build for PT10 - my rig is 80% done: Win7 Ult, x79/2011 p9x79 WS, i7 (3820 but looking at 3930k see below); 32gb vengeance RAM, are the key components so far. My post is 3 fold - I need some advice on HD's, a QUIET and COOL case, and if anyone has tried the 3820 vs the 3930k 6 core, and if there is a significant difference that warrants the extra 300.00. I have seen the benchmarks and some youtube comparisons, mostly in the gaming framework. But, this is more of a multi-tasking set-up as I do tend to do everything on my main PC whilst editing etc.

1) Hard Drives, I do not know what configuration they will be in if at all at this point. I am going to get some smaller SSD like an intel 520 / a Crucial M4 for OS and programs, however, I am looking for some large drives for the editing/mastering stage - I do tend to use LARGE audio files (mainly large live shows / events @32bit) and, as i am sure most of you can relate, I do not like waiting 10 minutes to copy something to the clipboard! So, does anyone have some experience with using these in this manner (2gb-25gb+ audio files) and could suggest, based on real world use, (not bench tests), what they have found to be ideal for use as an EDITING / storage drive that will be used frequently (ie: needs to be efficient at read/write).

2) A case - I see some of the cooler master cases have lots of fan potential, not sure I will use water, but, something that has lots of room, and that can be deadened inside or out, or that is already built this way that has FRONT USB3, Firewire, Headphones @ the top front or top proper. As well as top fan/exhaust. So I guess what I am asking is - a case that can handle lots of fans, which brand/model of fans do you all use, and which case has the best set of features on the front for i/o and maybe even fan control? I have looked as I said, but I find it all a bit overwhelming and largely focused on the gaming community's needs. I wont be overclocking much if anything unless I have to...which brings me to the next and final part

3) i7 3820 quad vs 3930k 6 core - worth $300? I was thinking of dropping in the 3820 and seeing how it goes, and down the road getting the Ivy Bridge de jour. I just dont see how paying $300 for 2 cores is a good choice at this point.

4) Ok I lied, one more quickie: anyone with a brief answer in terms of running dual PCI-e sound cards or one and having it get along with a firewire DAC. I basically would love to have a 2nd sound card that I can use to listen to things such as movies and other music while I edit? i hear that installing 2 sound cards can not always be ideal in windows but I have never tried it - and I would really like to!

Any advice, even if it's just a line or 2 or a model # would be awesome, I can go check out what you suggest. This was a longer than planned post and I really do appreciate anyone who can spare a minute to throw an idea my way. I will post back with my final build and what it takes to get this running on the x79 system!

Shine on!

[albee1952]

My favorite hard drives are WD Caviar Black, with 32 or 64 meg cache. With PT10(HD or w/CPTK anyway), you can load your session into RAM, so drive performance should be less of an issue than with older versions. In any case, you can also use Round Robin to split audio across 2 drives, but it makes backups a bit more complicated. I would install 4 hard drives. System, samples, recording 1, recording 2.

For a quiet case, check out the Antec P180 and P182. The panels are a sandwich of plastic/foam/metal and are really dead(they don't transfer noise from inside the case to outside). That with big fans(turning slower) will make for a quiet system. Your PSU should also use a large/slow fan(120-140mm). I put a Corsair H60 liquid cooler on my i7 950 and it works quite well, so their higher models(like H80) would also be good options.

I think you will get great performance from the quad(if its setup correctly) so you can wait on the 6 core if money is tight.

[reeltape]

Originally Posted by albee1952

My favorite hard drives are WD Caviar Black, with 32 or 64 meg cache. With PT10(HD or w/CPTK anyway), you can load your session into RAM, so drive performance should be less of an issue than with older versions. In any case, you can also use Round Robin to split audio across 2 drives, but it makes backups a bit more complicated. I would install 4 hard drives. System, samples, recording 1, recording 2.

For a quiet case, check out the Antec P180 and P182. The panels are a sandwich of plastic/foam/metal and are really dead(they don't transfer noise from inside the case to outside). That with big fans(turning slower) will make for a quiet system. Your PSU should also use a large/slow fan(120-140mm). I put a Corsair H60 liquid cooler on my i7 950 and it works quite well, so their higher models(like H80) would also be good options.

I think you will get great performance from the quad(if its setup correctly) so you can wait on the 6 core if money is tight.

Hi, thanks for your reply, much appreciated. I like your case suggestions! I was also looking at the Corsair 550D - also a quiet case, but not sure about the air flow, so I will do some reading into the Antec you suggested. I did hear that the P182 is a really good choice.

You are saying that I could use 32-64gb RAM as a RAM disk essentially? That makes sense. I would rather do that than buy SSD at the current prices too. With the way things are evolving, by the time I get this built, SSD and 6 cores might be cheaper anyways. It's not that I am tight on money I just hate throwing needless cash out the door when say a 4 core will do vs the 6 core. At least to start. When you say "set up properly" are you meaning well cooled and OC'd using the multiplier? I think that is all I can do with the 3820. Might go with the 100 cooler too, depends I guess on how it plays out of the box.
thanks for your advice on the WD caviars, I think that for the small difference in price the 64mb cache is the way to go. Cheers!

[albee1952]

SSD drives are not good for recording, but they make nice system drives and sample library drives(limited writes), and to me, they are not worth the extra cash(others care a lot more about boot time than I do). I am often running 50-60 track sessions on my quad 920, so the X79 stuff should be a major step up from there.

[reeltape]

Originally Posted by albee1952

SSD drives are not good for recording, but they make nice system drives and sample library drives(limited writes), and to me, they are not worth the extra cash(others care a lot more about boot time than I do). I am often running 50-60 track sessions on my quad 920, so the X79 stuff should be a major step up from there.

Thanks for your input - yes, I agree with you on that one! I bought 4x 300gb ED velociraptors and 2x 2tb caviar blacks. Holding off on the SSD for now as a system drive even, I just cant see paying $200 for 120gb regardless. Plus as they fill up the seek times arent that great I hear.

While we talk Hard Drives, does anyone have thoughts on a SCSI raid array on the x79 platform? Those older drives are pretty cheap right now...always wanted to try them out!

[albee1952]

Originally Posted by reeltape

Thanks for your input - yes, I agree with you on that one! I bought 4x 300gb ED velociraptors and 2x 2tb caviar blacks. Holding off on the SSD for now as a system drive even, I just cant see paying $200 for 120gb regardless. Plus as they fill up the seek times arent that great I hear.

While we talk Hard Drives, does anyone have thoughts on a SCSI raid array on the x79 platform? Those older drives are pretty cheap right now...always wanted to try them out!

Do you really want to trust your audio files to "old" drives? Besides, if you go HD or CPTK, you can choose to load your audio into RAM, which should make for blistering performance