i7 Builds - Specs and Results

[EGS]

Originally Posted by Skwaidu

Possibly unrelated, but I personally think (or at least have a hunch), that many CPU spiking / -9173 errors with seemingly lots of CPU headroom left are related to single core speed limits, which obviously is now much less of a factor for me than before...

Good hunch. What speed are you running your CPU? Are you getting spikes?

I'm running i9-11900k all-cores at a constant 5.1Ghz, turbo boost off i.e. no throttling. Intel claims I could go up to 5.3, but I'm okay being conservative. At the first hint (rare) of spikes, I do the affinity switch and the Pro Tools CPU meter drops & stabilizes right away.

[Skwaidu]

Originally Posted by EGS

Good hunch. What speed are you running your CPU? Are you getting spikes?

I'm running i9-11900k all-cores at a constant 5.1Ghz, turbo boost off i.e. no throttling. Intel claims I could go up to 5.3, but I'm okay being conservative. At the first hint (rare) of spikes, I do the affinity switch and the Pro Tools CPU meter drops & stabilizes right away.

No spikes so far. I haven't delved into the UEFI BIOS much, my Mobo defaulted to all cores sync so I went with that but didn't touch the offered "Auto OC" (I know better), just enabled XMP. I might try manual tuning the clocks at some point, but it seems that there's no need right now...

Though ATM, the P cores seem to be peaking only at 4,9GHz (or actually constantly there unless I switch on the Balanced Power plan) so maybe I should check what's up with that (the Auto OC claimed it could do 5,3 IIRC)

[EGS]

Originally Posted by Skwaidu

...I might try manual tuning the clocks...

When I manually set my clocking I was not going for overclocking at all. Rather, I wanted to clock all cores at a constant, non-wavering amount. I set mine above the Intel base clock spec, but below the Intel boost clock spec. I simply typed-in the bios settings I found in this article for i9-11900K & Gigabyte Z590: https://skatterbencher.com/2021/04/0...ional_Approach Scroll down to "Strategy #2: Traditional Approach". Worked perfectly first try, and I've been running all cores at a constant 5.1GHz ever since. Fan-cooling (low RPM & low db) & a titanium PSU keep temps in the 40s to upper 50s (80s only during video rendering). No throttling up or down, no crashes. This is a conservative setting. Stable 6 months in

[Skwaidu]

Originally Posted by EGS

When I manually set my clocking I was not going for overclocking at all. Rather, I wanted to clock all cores at a constant, non-wavering amount. I set mine above the Intel base clock spec, but below the Intel boost clock spec. I simply typed-in the bios settings I found in this article for i9-11900K & Gigabyte Z590: https://skatterbencher.com/2021/04/0...ional_Approach Scroll down to "Strategy #2: Traditional Approach". Worked perfectly first try, and I've been running all cores at a constant 5.1GHz ever since. Fan-cooling (low RPM & low db) & a titanium PSU keep temps in the 40s to upper 50s (maybe 80 during video rendering from my video edit app). No throttling up or down, no crashes. This is a conservative setting. Stable 6 months in

Right, but remember that I'm on 12th gen i9-12900K so that guide doesn't apply. And I feel that I have so much power right now that I can wait for a good guide for mine or pick a time and do it the old-school way at some point. I've still been thinking that it looks like it's underclocked slightly (though I haven't really delved into it or if I'm even monitoring it properly on HWInfo64) but like said, the power reserves are abundandt so far, and NO spiking.

I even created a Win recovery USB stick during mixing lol (I guess I wanted to truly test how much it can multitask). I did get a CPU error when taking a screenshot during mix playback, but I also saw my temporary GTX960 GPU spiking to 100% during that, so probably just that. I'll be investigating a slightly (or much) more powerful GPU later on.

The Slate VRM bug (Pace / Ilok using constant 8-10% CPU if one does not own all of the released VRM modules / no sub) did result in some rolling balls and short lockdowns but no PT errors, luckily that got resolved. Damn Slate...

[FL3GS]

Greetings! New to this forum and new to building PC's - After speaking quite a lot on forums, doing some research and hanging out on Reddit, I got this setup suggested and might go for it unless you have better suggestions - This PC will be used primarily for PT, but also video editing and maybe the odd game:


CPU
Intel Core i7-12700K 3.6 GHz 12-Core Processor

CPU Cooler
Noctua NH-U12S chromax.black 55 CFM CPU Cooler

Motherboard
MSI PRO Z690-A WIFI DDR4 ATX LGA1700 Motherboard

Memory
Gigabyte AORUS RGB 32 GB (4 x 8 GB) DDR4-3600 CL18 Memory
Storage
Samsung 980 1 TB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive

Video Card
Asus GeForce RTX 3060 Ti LHR 8 GB DUAL MINI V2 Video Card

Case
be quiet! Pure Base 500DX ATX Mid Tower Case

Power Supply
Corsair RM (2019) 750 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply

My budget is around 2k and already bought a 32" screen and RAM on Black Friday sale. Also got some glorious looking KEF R3 walnut speakers for €999 to use as reference speakers (originally apparently €1599). Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated - Thank you for your time!

[zedhed]

Originally Posted by EGS

To zedhed (& others doing Intel/Gigabyte builds):

When I first setup my i9-11900K/Z590 Vision D, I followed this article's straightforward advice: https://skatterbencher.com/2021/04/0...d-to-5500-mhz/
Scroll down to "Strategy #2: Traditional Approach". Worked perfectly first try, and running all cores at a constant 5.1GHz ever since. Temps are fine, no throttling up or down, no crashes. This is a conservative/gentle setting; no crazy "gamer" type OC stuff at all. Stable & works great 5 months in. This build has tons of CPU headroom.

Thanks for this info EGS.

I do have one concern though.
The temperature that my current rig runs at is around 30 degrees C (@3.50 Ghz)

The scenario #2 that you are using states "The average CPU temperature is 93 degrees centigrade and the average VRM temperature is 58 degrees centigrade."

That seems like a huge difference to me. Are you able to confirm the temperature your CPU averages?

[EGS]

Originally Posted by zedhed

Thanks for this info EGS.

I do have one concern though.
The temperature that my current rig runs at is around 30 degrees C (@3.50 Ghz)

The scenario #2 that you are using states "The average CPU temperature is 93 degrees centigrade and the average VRM temperature is 58 degrees centigrade."

That seems like a huge difference to me. Are you able to confirm the temperature your CPU averages?

Reminder: 93C quoted in that article is under extreme stress test loads, used to determine the absolute limits of a rig. Nobody actually runs a machine like that!

For "normal everyday" computing usage - like several chrome tabs plus word processing plus music or video playback - I'm getting temps in the low 40's (all-cores at a constant 5.1GHz). For big Pro Tools sessions (buffer 64 & still 5.1) it'll get into the upper 50's - maybe 60s if the room is hot. Small Pro Tools sessions typically mid 50s.

The other day I needed to render a 75 min video. I didn't want to push/risk things, so I temporarily dropped the clock to 4.7, and it rendered at 65C. Video rendering is the only time I ever even think to check temps anymore.

I use excellent low-RPM/low-noise CPU & case fans (I do not use water cooling). My CPU cooler has 2 fans for push-pull. I also use a titanium true fan-less PSU from Seasonic.

[EGS]

Originally Posted by FL3GS

Greetings! New to this forum and new to building PC's - After speaking quite a lot on forums, doing some research and hanging out on Reddit, I got this setup suggested and might go for it unless you have better suggestions - This PC will be used primarily for PT, but also video editing and maybe the odd game:


CPU
Intel Core i7-12700K 3.6 GHz 12-Core Processor

CPU Cooler
Noctua NH-U12S chromax.black 55 CFM CPU Cooler

Motherboard
MSI PRO Z690-A WIFI DDR4 ATX LGA1700 Motherboard

Memory
Gigabyte AORUS RGB 32 GB (4 x 8 GB) DDR4-3600 CL18 Memory
Storage
Samsung 980 1 TB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive

Video Card
Asus GeForce RTX 3060 Ti LHR 8 GB DUAL MINI V2 Video Card

Case
be quiet! Pure Base 500DX ATX Mid Tower Case

Power Supply
Corsair RM (2019) 750 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply

My budget is around 2k and already bought a 32" screen and RAM on Black Friday sale. Also got some glorious looking KEF R3 walnut speakers for €999 to use as reference speakers (originally apparently €1599). Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated - Thank you for your time!

Unless you are a gamer, you could get a less expensive GPU and instead invest in a top-of-the-line titanium PSU. Also, I've had good luck with Gigabyte MBs. My 2 cents.

[Skwaidu]

Originally Posted by FL3GS

Greetings! New to this forum and new to building PC's - After speaking quite a lot on forums, doing some research and hanging out on Reddit, I got this setup suggested and might go for it unless you have better suggestions - This PC will be used primarily for PT, but also video editing and maybe the odd game:


CPU
Intel Core i7-12700K 3.6 GHz 12-Core Processor

CPU Cooler
Noctua NH-U12S chromax.black 55 CFM CPU Cooler

Motherboard
MSI PRO Z690-A WIFI DDR4 ATX LGA1700 Motherboard

Memory
Gigabyte AORUS RGB 32 GB (4 x 8 GB) DDR4-3600 CL18 Memory
Storage
Samsung 980 1 TB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive

Video Card
Asus GeForce RTX 3060 Ti LHR 8 GB DUAL MINI V2 Video Card

Case
be quiet! Pure Base 500DX ATX Mid Tower Case

Power Supply
Corsair RM (2019) 750 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply

My budget is around 2k and already bought a 32" screen and RAM on Black Friday sale. Also got some glorious looking KEF R3 walnut speakers for €999 to use as reference speakers (originally apparently €1599). Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated - Thank you for your time!

Looks pretty good. If game perf isn't super important I would second dropping down the GPU slightly and maybe even going with the i9. (I went personally with 64GB for my mixing i9 but I do run quite large projects, haven't gone much over 32GB in usage so far)

[EGS]

Originally Posted by Skwaidu

Looks pretty good. If game perf isn't super important I would second dropping down the GPU slightly and maybe even going with the i9. (I went personally with 64GB for my mixing i9 but I do run quite large projects, haven't gone much over 32GB in usage so far)

I built my rig with 64gb RAM too. An attempt to future-proof my build. DDR4-3600. Pro Tools disk cache 8gb. Works!