Finally Starting to plan my new PC. help/advice appreciated

[Yogimeister]

Hi,

Im starting to move forward with buying a new PC ...
I think I will buy custom parts from retailers here and maybe get some help assembling/configing it
(The "AudioPC" labs here dont want to take on the job as they do not want to mess with the SCOPE cards ... :/)


In any case - the new PC will be an audio PC and I plan to house 3x15DSP PCI cards on it ...
(No internet or printers or anything ... just alot of plugins/synths and some sample banks - but not currently planning on huge GBs of loaded patches)


Because of that, I thought that the main compatibility consideration is the MOBO ...



I read here that the MOBO I should look for is a 1150 series - and also that the Gigabyte got the most positive feedback ....
So I went over the local offerings here and here is the list of options:
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

- Gigabyte GA-H97-D3H LGA1150, Intel H97
- Gigabyte GA-Z97-D3H LGA1150, Intel Z97

and also
- Asus Z87-K LGA1150, Intel Z87
- Asus Z97-C LGA1150, Intel Z97
- MSI H97-GAMING 3 LGA1150, Intel H


All these have 3 PCI slots .... (I still need to verify that they can accept 3 large SCOPE cards in terms of space ....)


Any advice about which one is preferable (For SCOPE PCI and also for Audio considerations?)


Also, are there any other critical specs that I should look for ?


Thanks

[tlaskows]

Hi,

Z87-k works fine here with 3 Scope Pro cards. You will need a very big case. I had to cut my internal drive bay out

-Tom

[ronnie]

After some research, and professional advice particularly from garyb, I recently purchased one of these HP XW4600 boxes:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/HP-Compaq-XW460 ... 5d573fb46b

and have zero problems with a new home for my 3 Scope cards and 5.1 upgrade. You can spend a lot more money and time (check other posts for specific non-musical technical acrobatics which drove others nuts until things smoothed out) Scope really doesn't need more than this. With a 30 day refund or replacement guarantee for a whole box at less than the price of a MB and RAM there was no real downside. I opened the case, put in the cards, did the basic tweaks and installed 5.1 in about an hour and was basically good to go. Performed some more Windows 7 64 bit tweaks here and there like disabling the stock audio, optimizing the project studio cabling, etc., and removing mostly superfluous services. Installed Sonar, MIDI controllers and many VST's no problems. The box comes with 7 SP1 installed and zero bloat-ware so there really aren't any programs to remove. Seeing all was well I eventually upgraded the video card and I
cloned a 1TB hybrid drive (which became my main drive, boots in 30 seconds with Scope locked and loaded).

I'm not saying this is the only way to go but it worked for me. At the price, it was my first choice with basically nothing to lose. I could always get more adventurous and sexy but I can't really see an advantage if you are not going to run GBs of samples. I have an 3.5Ghz i7 32 GB RAM Windows 8.1 64bit notebook for that with ADAT and MIDI back and forth to the Scope box.

[tlaskows]

Well,

That's a very good price for that HP workstation. If you're not running heavy VSTs, it will probably do. The new CPUs are few times as fast.

-Tom

[Yogimeister]

Ok,

So after a visit to the major PC seller here - this seems to be the build I am going with :

Core i7 4790 3.6GHz 8MB L3 Cache s1150
GIGABYTE GA-H97-D3H LGA1150 , Intel H97, DDR3 1600 , 2xPCI-E, VGA, DVI, HDMI
(Has 3 PCI slots)

G.Skill Ares Dual channel memory (anyone know this brand?)

Asus GT730 Silent 2GB GDDR3 VGA DVI HDMI PCI-E (Video Card)

Western Digital Caviar Blue 1 TB/ Seagate 2TB / Corsair Force SSD

Corsair Obsidian 750D full tower window (case ... Not sure about how quiet this would be ...)

Windows 8 (they dont sell 7 anymore ... :/ )



Any thoughts / recommendations / compatibility warnings ?
(This will be my studio PC and will mainly run Scope PCI, Cubase and maybe some Ableton and stuff)


Thanks a lot - much appreciated ...)

[petal]

I might be looking into upgrading my 5 year old pc. Not because I need it for my music, but I do play games and Fallout 4 is due this fall

I too have 3 PCI cards and because of my need for the computer to house a powerfull 2 slot size graphics card the list of usable MOBO's is not long.

I think you might have a problem. If you put in all 3 Scope cards, I'm afraid there will not be enough space to house your graphics card of choise. It needs 2 slots of space because of the cooling element, and there is only 1, once the Scope cards are in place.

I hope I'm wrong, but you should double check this before you buy.

Cheers,
Thomas

[Yogimeister]

Thank you very much Thomas ... I will double check ..
(These guys at this huge chain are not very proffesional when it comes to PCI ... (And pro audio) - and the pro audio/PC place declined the job because it didnt want to deal with the scope environment - thus all these newbie questions on my part

[garyb]

yeah, you don't need an expensive video card unless you are playing a lot of games, or are rendering a LOT of video. if the card will cover a slot, use a simpler card and save money.
i prefer NVidia cards to ATI cards, personally.

[Yogimeister]

Thanx for the advice .. I will revisit the shop next week and dig further ...

(I MIGHT be doing a bit of rendering using after-effects and stuff - but audio/SCOPE has a much higher priority for me ...

Can Cubase/ableton Win8 take advantage of a strong GPU ?

[tlaskows]

I was able to have a gaming card with 3 PCI slots open, it depends on the motherboard. It was covering up an extra PCI-e 1x slot. I sold the card and bought a 15$ Quadro Fx 1700.

-Tom

[garyb]

Can Cubase/ableton Win8 take advantage of a strong GPU ?

nope. not really. definitely not for audio.

[Yogimeister]

Yeah , my situation is actually a bit more complex because I also have 2 SSL Duende PCIe cards and might get an old UAD PCIe - so I will also need a couple of those ...

The H97 3DH seems to be the largest mobo in terms of slot "real estate" but I will dig a bit deeper into them and the graphic card options ....

[petal]

You just need to have a good look at the MOBO layout and figure out if there's room for all your cards. You should also pay attention to the placement of chipset cooling plates, USB slots and other electronic elements that might limit the space needed for the big scope cards.

A cheaper 1 slot graphics card might do the trick with your initial problem. But finding a MOBO that will also be able to house 2 ssl duende cads and a UAD in addition to your 3 Scope cards, is maybe stretching it too much.

In any case, I'd be looking into to dedicated server mobo's.

[tlaskows]

I'm running 3 UAD-2s and 3 Scopes and a small graphics card. The big one will definitely not fit now.

-Tom

[dawman]

FWIW the new HD4500 and upwards are capable of combining resources with a video card on a 16X slot and seem to be making gamers I know happy.
You can OC the GPU/GFX and choose the amount of RAM you want so it can be worth looking into.

[Yogimeister]

Getting closer now,

Another question regarding the graphics card ...

I am getting a
Processor Core i7 4790 With Graphics Tray
and
Motherboard Gigabyte Mainboard GA-H97-D3H LGA 1150 MOBO


I was also offered a " Gigabyte GT730 2GB DDR3 Passive Cooling GV-N730SL-2GL" Video Card.

However - it seems that this card will provide exactly the same graphic outputs and specs as the MOBO -

- so ..... I was thinking to use the onboard graphics and ditch the graphics card altogether (Leaving my 16x PCIe free - and perhaps avoiding IRQ conflicts and crackles like I have now (when using GUI-rich VST plugins AND GUI-rich (usually "quick" LED VUs) Scope devices ...

On the other hand - maybe this will tax my CPU and cause "CPU overload" crackles instead of bandwith/IRQ crackles ....


(I dont intend to render 3D or game on this PC - but the cubase desktop (on 2 monitors) can get "GUI-heavy" too ...


What do you guys think ? Any experience with this ?


P.S.
Should there be any problem using SCOPE PCI with a RAID setup with two clone HDDs ? (For projects/bounces and samples)

Thanks so much ...

PEACE,
Yogi

[garyb]

no, RAID should be fine, it's just unnecessary. why make things more complicated for so little benefit?

i would use the graphic card, not the cpu. as to irq issues, it won't matter. you'll need to diable some USB controllers in any case, no big deal. the built-in graphics are plenty good, but why use CPU cycles for visuals? the only time i'd use built-in graphics is for a last ditch money saving exercise or if space was my main concern, like in a 1 space rack mount.

[w_ellis]

These days, they've managed to squeeze a GPU into the same form factor as the processor, so it's not a case of using the CPU for graphics. I'd say it's a good call to see how you get on without a discrete GPU. If you do end up getting one, look into Nvidia Quadros, as they're much more stable. You can get one on eBay for under £50

[garyb]

yes, the quadros are good and the older ones are cheap. a four head card is pretty cool.

well, from what i can see, w_ellis is absolutely correct. there's nothing wrong with starting out using onboard graphics. you can always add a card if you feel that performance isn't up to snuff. chances are that it would be fine. it's true that there is actually a GPU on the die, but there are possible data bottlenecks to memory, with both GPU and CPU using the same pipeline, that can degrade CPU performance pretty significantly or not at all. it depends on what you are doing. i've seen several different benchmarks. i just go with a card, but it may really be unnecessary.

[Yogimeister]

Thanx for the advice ...

My main current reason for thinking of ditching the graphics card is performance (I will probably also have 2 SSL duende PCIe cards) ,

second consideration is space (though I currently only have the two cards so that should leave me with 1 more empty slot even if I install a graphics card - as long as my PCIe cards run at x1 ....)

I dont think I will know how to recognize a performance bottleneck - because I guess that compared to my 8 year old rig - this beast will fly at warp speed anyway ... So thats a bit tricky ...
I was thinking I can always add one later - but maybe starting with it and then trying to remove it and the drivers might leave a bit of mess behind ....

BUT After reading your comments (saying it shouldnt affect the SCOPE performance - then maybe I will add the card (or a Quadro) .... This current one is around 90$



Last but not least .... i dont know much about RAIDs - but the computer shop guy sold me on it for reasons of
1) backup of my projects (I will also keep a second backup on an external HDD - instead of 2)
2) double the read speed/bandwidth (I am thinking this would be great for playing many long bounced tracks in a project and should enhance performance ..... Though I decided to go with 64bit and 16GB RAM - so I guess those can be stored in mem (unless I also use large sampler patches ...)
Im planning to have 2 x 2TB drives as the RAID....


What do you say ?