Tell me about building a PC
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@jon-nyc take a look at the "Mini-ITX" form factor. You can home-build very small PCs that fit very nicely on a desk or under a display. You'd still have a separate display and associated cables, but PCs don't need to be in a "midi tower" or the like anymore. A mini ITX PC can be as small as a Mac Mini, if you use the right chassis, and it can be very quiet if you use passive cooling.
@Klaus said in Tell me about building a PC:
@jon-nyc take a look at the "Mini-ITX" form factor. You can home-build very small PCs that fit very nicely on a desk or under a display. You'd still have a separate display and associated cables, but PCs don't need to be in a "midi tower" or the like anymore. A mini ITX PC can be as small as a Mac Mini, if you use the right chassis, and it can be very quiet if you use passive cooling.
I'll check it out
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I 99% sure have my build finalized and I was able to trim the cost to $3,316.00 for the components and $325 for a 4 year no cost replacement on most of the components. The power supply has a 10 year warranty.
After researching the best processor specifically for audio recording/mixing the winner of that contest is the Intel Core i9-10900 Comet Lake 10-Core 2.8 GHz It even beat out the 3.7 Ghz model and every other processor including the 64 core $4,000 AMD Threadripper, in single core / thread performance. The processor is only $587 and is the most significant factor in bringing my cost down. The motherboard also brought the price down.
During my research, I found out that audio production, while definitely taking advantage of multi-cores, requires very fast single thread performance and there is no getting around that. It's why a $500 processor can best a $4,000 processor in this very specific task. Other factors come into play like what is interrupting the processor and vying for time and power in competition with the audio processing. That can include system devices like memory, video, network, etc. Motherboards needs to be up to the task and the gaming motherboards seem to be the motherboards accepted as best for this task.
New Build:
Intel Core i9-10900 Comet Lake 10-Core/20-Thread 2.8 GHz (Able to be overclocked to 4.9 Ghz)
ASUS ROG MAXIMUS XII HERO (WI-FI) LGA 1200 (Intel 10th Gen) Intel Z490 (WiFi 6) SATA 6Gb/s ATX Intel Motherboard
G.SKILL Ripjaws V Series 128GB (4 x 32GB) 288-Pin DDR4 SDRAM DDR4 3200 (PC4 25600) Desktop Memory
ZOTAC GAMING GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER Triple Fan 8GB GDDR6 256-bit 15.5 Gbps Gaming Graphics Card
Sabrent 2TB ROCKET NVMe PCIe M.2 2280 Internal SSD High Performance Solid State Drive
LG Black 12X BD-ROM 16X DVD-ROM 48X CD-ROM SATA Internal Blu-ray Burner
Seasonic FOCUS GX-1000, 1000W 80+ Gold, Full-Modular Power Supply
be quiet! Dark Base Pro 900 Black rev. 2 Full Tower ATX Case
Arctic Silver Arcticlean Thermal material Remover & Surface Purifier
Arctic Silver 5 High-Density Polysynthetic Silver Thermal Compound
Optical Quantum 25 GB 6X BD-R Blu-ray Recordable Media 10 PackFor a monitor I am going to buy a 43" TCL 4K UDH TV and give it go. If I don't like it I will get the LG 38WN75C-B 38-Inch Class 21:9 Curved UltraWide QHD+ (3840 x 1600) IPS Display with HDR 10
https://www.newegg.com/p/0JC-000D-00B06?Description=LG 38WN75C-B&cm_re=LG_38WN75C-B--0JC-000D-00B06--Product -
That's beyond cool, Mark!
I really respect the research you have done, to come up with a computer that can do what you want to do, instead of just buying the most expensive components and hoping that price = quality. That is unfortunately, what I tend to do.Music-related software certainly does eat up memory. The issue is latency of course. Those milliseconds add up, and can make things more than frustrating. No big deal for small ensemble, but unmanageable for large. Impressive that you have thought through all of these potential frustrations.
When will you have the unveiling? Have you started the build, or are you waiting for all the components?
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That's beyond cool, Mark!
I really respect the research you have done, to come up with a computer that can do what you want to do, instead of just buying the most expensive components and hoping that price = quality. That is unfortunately, what I tend to do.Music-related software certainly does eat up memory. The issue is latency of course. Those milliseconds add up, and can make things more than frustrating. No big deal for small ensemble, but unmanageable for large. Impressive that you have thought through all of these potential frustrations.
When will you have the unveiling? Have you started the build, or are you waiting for all the components?
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@mark said in Tell me about building a PC:
@Rainman Waiting for approval from the CFO.
Why would your CFO stop approving now?
@Loki said in Tell me about building a PC:
@mark said in Tell me about building a PC:
@Rainman Waiting for approval from the CFO.
Why would your CFO stop approving now?
Well, I actually have approval to build two of them. One will be sans video card, for the CFO. He doesn't do any gaming or anything outside of normal business tasks. We're really just waiting for the funds to arrive.
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That's beyond cool, Mark!
I really respect the research you have done, to come up with a computer that can do what you want to do, instead of just buying the most expensive components and hoping that price = quality. That is unfortunately, what I tend to do.Music-related software certainly does eat up memory. The issue is latency of course. Those milliseconds add up, and can make things more than frustrating. No big deal for small ensemble, but unmanageable for large. Impressive that you have thought through all of these potential frustrations.
When will you have the unveiling? Have you started the build, or are you waiting for all the components?
@Rainman said in Tell me about building a PC:
That's beyond cool, Mark!
I really respect the research you have done, to come up with a computer that can do what you want to do, instead of just buying the most expensive components and hoping that price = quality. That is unfortunately, what I tend to do.Music-related software certainly does eat up memory. The issue is latency of course. Those milliseconds add up, and can make things more than frustrating. No big deal for small ensemble, but unmanageable for large. Impressive that you have thought through all of these potential frustrations.
This video is a great explanation of latency.
Link to video -
@brenda said in Tell me about building a PC:
Mark, I thought your CFO was your wife.
You're not the only one
@xenon said in Tell me about building a PC:
@brenda said in Tell me about building a PC:
Mark, I thought your CFO was your wife.
You're not the only one
You are confusing the responsibilities of a CFO and a CEO, who has overall power to veto anything
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AND! Now I am back with AMD. lol
More research into the actual difference in single core / single thread performance has put to rest, any misgivings I had about the AMD line. That, coupled with the trepidation of putting this much into the last 14nm Intel processor family has me seriously leaning back in the direction of AMD.
Intel is working on a 10nm process that might give some advantage over AMD but, I am not sure they will catch up to AMD any time soon.
AMD is already using a 7nm process for the current line and is working on a 4nm process. AMD is just in a better place right now with its desktop processors.
The 3.5 Ghz AMD Ryzen 3950 16 Core / 32 Thread, is now my processor of choice. The single core single thread performance is very close to to the Intel i9 Comet Lake 10 Core which is still rated better but not in any significant way that would impact my intended purpose. It is much faster in the multi-core operation because it has 6 additional cores and 12 additional threads running a clock speed that is 700Mhz faster. It actually beats the Intel in a couple of the single thread tests. It is basically a wash at this performance level. I do not see me mixing much more than 16 channels of audio and even that would be stretch. I do intend to get into multi-channel miking for my drums but that usually only takes at the most, 6 to 8 channels. Add bass, guitars, keys, other instruments it could get crowded but I am very sure the AMD will be up to the task. One thing is for certain, it will blow away my current first generation Core i7 930 2.8 Ghz 8 Core / 8 Thread processor.
The Ryzen 2950 also consumes about half the power of the Intel and is easier to keep cool, especially when overclocked, where the Intel almost reaches 300 watts of power consumption. The AMD has PCIe 4.0 where the Intel is still using 3.0. That translates into much faster SSD read/writes speeds approaching 2 x the transfer rate with 5,000 MB/s reads and 4,200 MB/s writes.
The Motherboard of choice is now the MSI MEG X570 GODLIKE Gaming Motherboard. It will be fully populated with 128 GB of ram.
https://www.newegg.com/msi-meg-x570-godlike/p/N82E16813144257?Item=9SIAPMXBSP4233
The M.2 SSD is now the 2TB Corsair Force MP600 M.2 2280 2TB PCI-Express Gen 4.0
I downgraded the video card from the RTX-2080 to the RTX-2070. I might go back to the 2080.
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@xenon said in Tell me about building a PC:
@brenda said in Tell me about building a PC:
Mark, I thought your CFO was your wife.
You're not the only one
You are confusing the responsibilities of a CFO and a CEO, who has overall power to veto anything
@bachophile said in Tell me about building a PC:
@xenon said in Tell me about building a PC:
@brenda said in Tell me about building a PC:
Mark, I thought your CFO was your wife.
You're not the only one
You are confusing the responsibilities of a CFO and a CEO, who has overall power to veto anything
True enough, bach, and that would indeed be the wife.
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@bachophile said in Tell me about building a PC:
@xenon said in Tell me about building a PC:
@brenda said in Tell me about building a PC:
Mark, I thought your CFO was your wife.
You're not the only one
You are confusing the responsibilities of a CFO and a CEO, who has overall power to veto anything
True enough, bach, and that would indeed be the wife.
@brenda said in Tell me about building a PC:
@bachophile said in Tell me about building a PC:
@xenon said in Tell me about building a PC:
@brenda said in Tell me about building a PC:
Mark, I thought your CFO was your wife.
You're not the only one
You are confusing the responsibilities of a CFO and a CEO, who has overall power to veto anything
True enough, bach, and that would indeed be the wife.
Nah, Mrs. Mark has nothing to do with this one. Strictly business.
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@brenda said in Tell me about building a PC:
@bachophile said in Tell me about building a PC:
@xenon said in Tell me about building a PC:
@brenda said in Tell me about building a PC:
Mark, I thought your CFO was your wife.
You're not the only one
You are confusing the responsibilities of a CFO and a CEO, who has overall power to veto anything
True enough, bach, and that would indeed be the wife.
Nah, Mrs. Mark has nothing to do with this one. Strictly business.
@mark said in Tell me about building a PC:
@brenda said in Tell me about building a PC:
@bachophile said in Tell me about building a PC:
@xenon said in Tell me about building a PC:
@brenda said in Tell me about building a PC:
Mark, I thought your CFO was your wife.
You're not the only one
You are confusing the responsibilities of a CFO and a CEO, who has overall power to veto anything
True enough, bach, and that would indeed be the wife.
Nah, Mrs. Mark has nothing to do with this one. Strictly business.
Alright. You got lucky this time.
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All sounds good, Mark. Whatever it means.
Don't forget to let us know when you first start it up.
We will all cross our fingers, and hope there is no blue screen of death.
Now, THAT I've had to deal with. Blue screen of death. Gives me chills just thinking about it. -
Here's a pretty good build in terms of bang for buck. It is DEFINITELY overkill for minecraft - but is something I would recommend as a fairly future-proof machine (this CPU is extremely capable for digital editing / coding / encoding):
https://pcpartpicker.com/list/2FbPDx
You can save $170 by going no graphics card (getting a CPU with built'in graphics like a laptop). Or about $100 by going with a very basic video card.
You could perhaps save another $100 or so by going one tier down on the rest of the parts. But after that you're starting to make some real compromises.
@xenon said in Tell me about building a PC:
Here's a pretty good build in terms of bang for buck. It is DEFINITELY overkill for minecraft - but is something I would recommend as a fairly future-proof machine (this CPU is extremely capable for digital editing / coding / encoding):
https://pcpartpicker.com/list/2FbPDx
You can save $170 by going no graphics card (getting a CPU with built'in graphics like a laptop). Or about $100 by going with a very basic video card.
You could perhaps save another $100 or so by going one tier down on the rest of the parts. But after that you're starting to make some real compromises.
Revisiting this.
Some questions -
Probably would get the kid 16GB memory. Assuming I like this setup, what do I need to know about sizing and/or fit in the motherboard?
What about an internal PC speaker? Or do people just not do that these days?
How do you install windows on an initial build?
I'll have other questions as I move forward.
