i7 Builds - Specs and Results

[DBK]

Another question - Between the three m.2 drives - What is the order of importance for 'better quality' SSDs?

Obviously the Boot/Windows 10 Main Drive will have a Samsung Evo Plus, is there any point in Using an Evo Plus on the Pro Tools session drive and the EWQL/Kontakt/Etc.. Drive?

And with that being said, which of the 3 drives should use the lesser quality SSD? Say for arguments sake I had 2 evo pluses and a WD Black sn750..which drive should get the WD black? Is it more important for Pro Tools to be reading quick, or my sample libraries (heavy libraries like East West Orchestra) to be reading quick?

[Darryl Ramm]

Personally I would just but Evo drives for all M.2 slots. The Plus is not much better. I would watch follow install recommendations and watch temps on them.

[DBK]

Originally Posted by Darryl Ramm

Personally I would just but Evo drives for all M.2 slots. The Plus is not much better. I would watch follow install recommendations and watch temps on them.

I remember you saying that before now. I got brainwashed by all of the benchmark videos. The Plus seems to blow the regular 970 out of the water if going by those? Or is it already at such a high scale of read/write that the difference is nothing?

[timothyd4y]

Posting to share some very positive results from my new 10700K build. I've built a PC to replace my aging HP Z600 Workstation. The 10700K has been a great upgrade. I was going to go for the 10900k but it has been hard to find and I found this 10700K at my local microcenter as an open box item.

I had a several generations old Nvidia GPU that I was planning on using but have had a lot of luck running the on-board GFX from the CPU. Plays back big video files really well so far. I am using a 2560x1440 MSI monitor.

The chip is running at 5GHz and is cool and quiet. I've played with Hyperthreading on and off and haven't noticed a difference (save for the temps rising a little bit while stress testing). I have left it disabled. I have also turned off Multi-Core Enhancement and Turbo Boost. VCore is set to 1.296 and is solid.

I chose the Vision D for all of its connectivity options.

I am using an RME UFX II interface and an iConnectivity mio10 MIDI interface both are working flawlessly at a 64s buffer.

I tweaked the fan curve in the bios and have enjoyed a near silent PC!

Also worth noting that Acronis did a great job of moving the OS and program drive from the old PC to this new build.

SPECS:
BeQuiet 801 Soild Side case (an excellent recommendation from another DUC post)
Corsair HX 750 PSU
Gigabyte Vision D Z490 MoBo
64GB Corsair Vengeance LPX 3200 Ram
Intel 10700K
Western Digital Black m.2 and spinning HDs.
Noctua NH-D15 Cooler.

Happy to answer any questions or test something if anyone needs some insight.

[TOM@METRO]

Good info, thanks Timothy.

[DBK]

Originally Posted by timothyd4y

Posting to share some very positive results from my new 10700K build. I've built a PC to replace my aging HP Z600 Workstation. The 10700K has been a great upgrade. I was going to go for the 10900k but it has been hard to find and I found this 10700K at my local microcenter as an open box item.

I had a several generations old Nvidia GPU that I was planning on using but have had a lot of luck running the on-board GFX from the CPU. Plays back big video files really well so far. I am using a 2560x1440 MSI monitor.

The chip is running at 5GHz and is cool and quiet. I've played with Hyperthreading on and off and haven't noticed a difference (save for the temps rising a little bit while stress testing). I have left it disabled. I have also turned off Multi-Core Enhancement and Turbo Boost. VCore is set to 1.296 and is solid.

I chose the Vision D for all of its connectivity options.

I am using an RME UFX II interface and an iConnectivity mio10 MIDI interface both are working flawlessly at a 64s buffer.

I tweaked the fan curve in the bios and have enjoyed a near silent PC!

Also worth noting that Acronis did a great job of moving the OS and program drive from the old PC to this new build.

SPECS:
BeQuiet 801 Soild Side case (an excellent recommendation from another DUC post)
Corsair HX 750 PSU
Gigabyte Vision D Z490 MoBo
64GB Corsair Vengeance LPX 3200 Ram
Intel 10700K
Western Digital Black m.2 and spinning HDs.
Noctua NH-D15 Cooler.

Happy to answer any questions or test something if anyone needs some insight.

I'm pretty much running the exact same thing - The only difference is i still have my Voltage set to auto and I have each of my 8 cores manually running at 4.9ghz. I believe on auto the voltage it usually runs around 1280-1390, do you suggest I manually set this to something like 1295 to stay at a constant? Im new to PC and BIOS so still trying to figure it all out.

I also have Multi Core enhancement off but only because I manually set each core at 4.9 so MCE would be kind of pointless. I have Intels turbo boost technology on right now but will turn it off if I experience errors, same for hyper threading. (Although EVERYONE says to turn turbo off, am I being Naive by having it on? I figured I'd at least see if it worked first.)

If you wouldn't mind would you take a screenshot of your advanced BIOS page? I'm still learning what each individual setting does so it would be nice to compare mine to someone with more experience tweaking stuff. Hard to find info on the Vision specific BIOS since its so new, I find its missing, or more likely, renamed a lot of the key settings I hear referenced in other videos. The manual is great for breaking down each setting and what it does but I'm so new to everything PC related that even some of the manuals descriptions seem french haha.

10700k
Vision D
128gb Corsair Vegeance RAM
Radeon RX580 GPU
EVGA G3 750w PSU
Samsung Evos for both of my System and Audio Drive.
Noctua NH D15s cooler

[timothyd4y]

Nice. Have you done any benchmarking with Cinebench or the like? Are you using HWInfo64 to check your power and temps?

There is always more tweaking to do to get that last little iota of performance out of a K chip, but if it feels fast and is running well, you've already won.

I've attached the Tweaker and Advanced CPU screens here. I've updated to the latest Win10 Pro and the latest Gigabyte Vision bios.

Hope you find them helpful.

Noticed an odd thing today: My PC makes a little chirp sound when I Bounce sessions. The actual PC, not in the audio at all, but the fans or CPU or something is making a little 200ms "cheep" sound.

My studio cats are like, "Huh?"

[DBK]

Originally Posted by timothyd4y

Nice. Have you done any benchmarking with Cinebench or the like? Are you using HWInfo64 to check your power and temps?

There is always more tweaking to do to get that last little iota of performance out of a K chip, but if it feels fast and is running well, you've already won.

I've attached the Tweaker and Advanced CPU screens here. I've updated to the latest Win10 Pro and the latest Gigabyte Vision bios.

Hope you find them helpful.

Noticed an odd thing today: My PC makes a little chirp sound when I Bounce sessions. The actual PC, not in the audio at all, but the fans or CPU or something is making a little 200ms "cheep" sound.

My studio cats are like, "Huh?"

Thank you!

Is there any thought behind why you still have EIST and speedshift turned on or did you just leave them on auto for the hell of it?

Also I'm not sure about Ring Ratio, I left mine on auto (43) and obviously turned my CPU ratio to 49 to match my 4.9ghz core speed.

I havent done any benchmarking or stress tests at all yet, I wanted to get my system saved and backed up before I did anything to try pushing it just incase I needed to reinstall windows for whatever reason..but everythings saved and my windows image is backed up in 3 locations so I guess I can start trying to break stuff now.

I suppse cinebench is the way to go? Ive also heard of RT 20 or something like that.

[timothyd4y]

Good question. I left them on auto for the hell of it. I'll do some fussing with those today.

I've been stress testing with the intel extreme utility as well. I'm not sure which is the best for our application but Cinebench is quick and gives me a sense of what I'm gaining relative to the last tweak. Seems to be fine for that.

[beggehorn]

New system time! I was finally able to snag a i9-10980xe CPU at a reasonable price and I'm looking for some help and moral support as I finalize the mobo and RAM decisions.

I'll be repurposing my exiting video card (Matrox C420) and spinning drives for now (audio, sound and sample storage) but will probably opt for a new M.2 1TB system drive, retiring my old SSDs (I have multiple OS clones I swap out).

I'm leaning heavily towards this mobo:

ASUS WS x299 SAGE 10g

I was also looking at the x299 Deluxe II but I really don't need the integrated wireless, Bluetooth and Thunderbolt that model provides. The SAGE mobo is a workstation class board (better quality) and also offers (2x) 10g ethernet which will hopefully hit the mainstream in the near future.

This brings me to RAM...

I'm hoping someone here can offer some insight as to what I should be looking for. Obviously referencing the qualified vendors list for RAM is necessary but I'm not sure how to best balance RAM speeds/timing vs. current prices.

I'm guessing that I'd never need 128GB and might not even need 64GB for the next 5-10 years of use I'm hoping to get out of this build. However, this decision will affect whether I go with 8GB or 16GB sticks to start and I want to get it right (the SAGE has 8 slots).

I'm currently limping along with 12GB on my old quad core i7 so even starting with only 32GB (with room to grow) would be adequate for now.

So how much will RAM speeds and timings affect things? I def don't want to overspend on specs I'll never appreciate...

Thx!