Got a new computer? Got some new stuffs for your current system? Show us what you’re working with. Pictures welcome. I know we have some setup porn, “Pictures of your Studio” but this is more directed at the actual computer sitting in the corner or those pictures.
PC Rig Builds - Show Us Your Builds
bbb
#2
I’ll start it off.
I spent this weekend finishing ordering all of the parts for my new build. Thanks to Amazon and checking for next day/two day shipping, I was able to pull the trigger and starting building it Saturday noonish.
Here’s the part list( I’ll link a picture once I get home):
https://pcpartpicker.com/list/Cy6gxG
I went with the Ryzen 5 2600 because while it’s a little less powerful for gaming, compared to Intel, it’s a great CPU for multiple other tasks at a great $. The graphics card is middle of the pack but a giant leap forward from my 750ti. The motherboard was picked because of the case I had been looking at. And plenty of storage and cooling. The case fan on the picker list isn’t the one I got. Just the cost comp to what I got. I picked up 5 120mm led fans for $20 on Amazon. I think I have 3 in the Thermaltake V21 case, along with the stock 200mm fan that pushes air from the front. My case, to the touch, last night felt like an icebox.
I did buy a few of these things previously, such as the GPU and PSU, to stagger costs over a period. Just had to keep everything in mind, as I went through the list of stuffs.
Artificer
#3
Looks like a nice setup. Should get lots and lots of tracks with it.
It’s interesting you posted this, as I’ve just been considering a cpu/mobo/ram upgrade for my current desktop. The last time it got any lovin’ outside some more ram was in '13 when I put an E3-1240v2 in it (basically a multiplier locked i7). It’s holding up surprisingly well, but it’s looking like I could get a 60-70% performance boost just going with a modern mid-tier cpu, and it should handle more VSTs and tracks with aplomb. So it’s lots and lots of research to figure out what I want, as I haven’t really kept up with the nitty gritty of specific cpu models.
Currently looking at an i5-8600/H370 motherboard/16x2 ram, though I’m still poking at it. Also looking at a new PSU, something that runs passively when not under load, maybe an EVGA G3. The current one I have is a bit loud.
bbb
#4
I’m not trying to switch you but you might find this neat.
I compared my CPU with the one you mentioned and then the Ryzen 7 2700 as well, which is comparable in price to the Intel one you’re thinking about. Plus if you get the 8600k, you’ll have to buy a cooler as well. Additional $, each Ryzen comes with one stock.
As for my build, I’m hoping it will do much work for me for a long time, especially for the price. If you do decide to change over to AMD and the 2000 series, pay attention to the boards you look at. Needs to be a 4 series (ie AM4 b450 or x470 board). That way you don’t have to update bios to handle 2000 series Ryzen chips. The box should say “Ryzen 2000 series Ready”. The 3 series AM4 handled the 1000 series. Some of the 3 series boards may now. Just didn’t want to mess with it.
One annoying thing I dealt with was installing Windows with the USB flash drive I bought. It kept giving me errors for a missing driver, even though I was clean installing to a fresh SSD. I ended up having to clone my old Windows install to the SSD and doing a reinstall from there.
Simply putting a 500gb SSD in has made my system feel faster. HDD no bueno. =/
aSSerbik
#5
Watching this thread with interest. I haven’t been keeping up at all with any of this. I built my last rig in…2009, holy shit! It’s based on Intel Core i7 920 2.66GHz LGA 1366 130W Quad-Core Processor and GIGABYTE GA-EX58-UD4P ATX Intel Motherboard. I just upped the RAM to 18 gigs recently, as some projects started chocking up because of it. But otherwise, the fucker is still chugging along and won’t die. I’ve thought about building something new preemptively, but the thought of re-installing everything and configuring shit kind of fills me with dread.
But I guess I should at least have parts picked, so when it does die, I can just order stuff quickly and at least be up and running right away instead of spending a week doing research and shit. So suggestions are welcome. I don’t game or anything, so audio work is priority. No budget and I’ll spend whatever I need to build a killer system, but I also don’t feel the need to get top of the line stuff or pay a lot more for marginal improvements.
Artificer
#6
I have some software that apparently doesn’t play nice with Ryzen’s memory handling and 128 bit FP pipelines, so it’s likely Intel for me. I’m actually way down that rabbit hole right now trying to see if there’s solutions, now or on the horizon, because AMD is certainly providing a lot of bang for the buck.
Also, 8600, non-K, comes with a cooler. I literally haven’t overclocked since Clinton was in office, so the locked multiplier doesn’t bother me, and I’m sort of a fan of Intel’s tiny little coolers. Even without the overclock, Intel has better single core performance per clock cycle, which will likely make a difference for some of the things I’m doing on my desktop. The biggest boost Intel gets over AMD is that developers actively optimize for Intel instruction sets, though that doesn’t tend to be the case for most of the software I use (I’m not aware of any audio software that benefits). I have a couple of older E5 Xeon workstations for distributed computing tasks, so I’m less concerned about core/thread count than if I only had one machine.
I guess all that is to say, benchmarks don’t tell the whole story and it depends on what you’re wanting to do with the machine. On the other hand, unless there’s a significant compatibility problem with one or the other, it probably won’t make a bit of difference, because they’re all so awesome compared to the old crap I’m using that any differences will get washed out by the overall increases. The Ryzen’s are so damn cheap it’s really hard not to just get one and find out.
I’ll agree about the SSD. There’s not much that’ll breath life into an old machine like one. Big slow drives are still the sweet spot for price/GB for long term storage, but you certainly don’t want to work off them.
bbb
#7
Definitely. Intel is typically way better at single core performance just for the shear clock speed. And keep in mind the difference in the 8600 and 8600k is base clock speed. 3.1 and 3.6 respectively. On top of the cooler.
White_Noise
#8
I just work of a decent laptop for music, but my gaming machine… that’s been a work in progress for over a year. I haven’t re-upgraded anything either, it’s just been a steady pace towards a whole gaming setup. This week, it’s a laser switched gaming keyboard, which is supposed to last 10-15 years in addition to being slightly faster than mechanically switched stuff. After that, all that’s left is to do nicer speakers (I’ve had the current set of logitechs for about 8 years now).
For my production machine, I need to do a 1tb SSD to replace my 1 TB HDD because I had to port my DAW to that recently and it works well enough, but I do miss working off an SSD. All told, I’m a few months away from being done with both of these until software that I can’t run to my satisfaction comes along. I’ll see what I can do about photos soon, I’ve been meaning to get on instagram anyways…
Artificer
#10
So, research research research. Lots of ins and outs and what have yous. Here’s my thoughts on the matter as of now.
tl;dr - still a bit of a toss up. Intel’s objectively better if money’s no object, AMD wins out for a lot of price points. All of it depends on what exactly you’re doing, and then it probably doesn’t matter all that much. New things in the first half of 2019 might bring revelations. Ryzen got me tempted.
I’ll likely hold out until at least after CES and AMD’s potential announcement on Ryzen 3k stuff and see if there’s anything there worth waiting until Spring for.
OMG NERD STUFF
Regarding audio production, I’ve been digging into some threats on KVR, Gearslutz, reddit, and a couple other corners (Scan Pro Audio has some great audio-specific testing methodologies) while trying to get up to speed with the latest developments.
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Specifically, it looks like Ryzen’s cache handling is a pretty big determent at lower buffer sizes, meaning it’s less suited to recording than Intel chips, especially the more tracks you have. It also has considerably lower IPC and seems to have plateaued as far as relative single core/thread performance in the near-term.
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On the flip side, Ryzen’s extra cores and threading are better suited to ‘mixing’, with mixing broadly defined as “things that aren’t recording or using low buffer size”, and thus a lot of ITB production that’s common around here. There’s also a bunch of footnotes. One major one is that overall performance really depends on how both your DAW and your plugins are coded and set up to use resources. Some are set up to combine instances of plugins into a single ‘master’ thread, in which case single core performance is helpful, otherwise the extra threads are going to win out. Ryzen’s definitely going to win on number of tracks played back and number of unique plugins, provided the buffer size is kept large enough.
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There’s also the hardware end of things to consider. AMD isn’t likely to have Thunderbolt support soon, if ever. I don’t know that I really care, but it’s a solid standard that’s going to be more prevalent going forward, so it’d be a nice option to have. Most companies will continue to offer USB, so I don’t think it’s critical.
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The sticking point for me is that AMD is likely going to roll out the 3000 series in Q2, and while I’m not one to buy into spec rumors and leaks, I do want to see if it’s worth waiting for. At the very least, 2000 series prices will drop. The other thing is that Intel is is releasing Ice Lake in Q4 19/Q1 20, rumored to be on the LGA4198 platform along with their other 10nm offerings, which means buying LGA1151 is buying into a terminal platform without long term upgrade options. If I’m going to buy for the next 5-6 years, I’d like the option of an upgrade in that time period.
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I will admit that all these performance comparisons are a matter of degrees, and it’s unlikely that any modern cpu won’t do what 90% of people ask of it. Hell, it’s likely most people wouldn’t notice any difference a lot of the time. Half of this is nerding out, half is just trying to save myself some headaches and max my bang for the buck over time. But in the grand scheme of things, it probably doesn’t matter.
I couldn’t find a spoiler tag. We need a spoiler tag.
IO_Madness
#11
My main machine:
mobo: Gigabyte G1 GA-Z170X
processor: Intel i5 7600k
ram: 16GB Corsair Vengeance LPX DDR4 3000
storage(c:/ drive): 240GB Corsair Force MP500 M.2 drive
storage(extra): 3TB Toshiba 7200RPM SATA drive
gfx: Evga GeForce GTX 1050
EDIT: I do have to say the M.2 drive is AWESOME!!
…all running Windows 10. I don’t do a whole lot of gaming, but I wanted to get a bit better graphics card for movies and I do occasionally game on the computer.
I don’t have a picture, but it’s not that amazing to see, really, but I do have a stock photo which actually is exactly how it looks anyway (just without dust or being under a desk):
I also use an Asus notebook running Arch Linux, and I have my server which was my last build from 2011 that is now just for network experimentation and stuff.
bbb
#12
Yeah @Artificer I get it. And you have multiple systems. So I guess you could spec it too for exactly your needs. Even though I’ve already bought in to Ryzen, if they do announce a 3xxx run, I’d be curious if they’ll up the single core performance. Seems to be the largest issue over Intel I’ve seen in my research.
I think I read the non x variants are easier to overclock for Ryzen but I haven’t tried it yet. Need to see if I need a better cooler before I go there. And 8gb more RAM.
@White_Noise nice. Hopefully you get the gaming PC all done up. I was actually playing some stuff last night and it was definitely a step up from 750ti.
@IO_Madness yea. I almost got an M.2. But I hadn’t really experienced a booted SSD before and took the option with 500gb. Hopefully plenty of space with my 2 TB HDD. Would like to do some video stuff at some point, as well. But we will see.
Thanks everyone for joining in so far. Would love to read/see some more systems. I might actually take more pictures of mjne, turned off and the case pulled apart. Pretty neat modular set up. Can rotate and pull all side but back off.
bbb
#14
Sorry if this thread is feeling spammed but I just read an article about a Russian site posting the new Ryzen 3xxx’s. Pretty neat if it’s for real. Higher clock speeds, introduction of a 9 with 16/32 core/threading?
nose
#15
My very short and easy synopsis of my monster that still runs strong today:
i7 Haswell LGA1150 / 4.0Ghz
Nvidia GTX Titan X 12GB DDR5
32GB (4x 8GB G.SKILL X series)
Asrock Z270 (my weakest link, need a new mobo)
2x 500GB SSD
1x 1TB SSD
1x 5TB HDD
1x 2TB HDD
And I run all of that on 3x 27" monitors in 5760x1080 resolution, which makes for killer ultrawide gaming and even better FL studio times 
Getting a bit bottlenecked with my mobo capabilities, should have forked out more on that instead of… the $1300 for my Titan, but hey, widescreen resolution takes a lot of power XD
nose
#17
Was pretty prior to my spring cleaning, so mind my clutter. I recently moved this into a different area of my condo so I have a lot more room, but I’m not home to take a new photo.
Video game screenshots for proof of awesomeness :
bbb
#18
Nice setup. I have a second monitor and couldn’t imagine ever dropping down to a single again. I don’t multiple monitor for gaming. But def. sweet for the DAW and multitasking.
Thanks for posting. I imagine that cost a pretty penny when you first got it.
nose
#19
Not suuuper pricey, I think these days a really slick ultrawide 4k monitor would be much more expensive. These monitors were $280 a piece, it was mostly hard finding ones with the right borders to match everything. By far the most expensive thing is having a GPU that can push those resolutions for gaming, and really, a small portion of games work in 5760x1080 resolution without having to do a ton of back end work to get the GUI elements to not stretch and be positioned properly.
Had VR existed at the time, I probably would haven’t just gotten that instead of being stuck in triple monitor world… It’s a hassle sometimes. For DAW though, it’s really nice. Especially for really long tracks … :
aSSerbik
#20
Dude, but your KRKs are BEHIND your computer monitors?!? WTF?!? How do you mix like that? If I were you, I’d sacrifice some room space, move the table away from the back wall by a few feet, and put those monitors on cinder blocks (the cheapest and the best monitor stands you can have for under $200…get some fabric to cover them for a e s t h e t i c s). Buy some Auralex pads to angle them down a little (and decouple them from the stands). You probably won’t be able to reach those guitars, though, so they would need to be moved. But shit… You gotta do what you gotta do.
Yeah, same here. I have 4, but I have smaller ones one the sides and at the top angled down. 27" in front. I think with all 27"s like that, I’d probably develop some neck pain or just avoid putting things into furthest corners of the screen.