Audio Production/Recording Machine

System

This discussion was created from comments split from: Micro Center AMD Threadripper 3990X Build Guide.

Dave1212

Hi, On this upcoming tax free weekend "29th and 30th" I would like to buy the parts, and have a pc built to handle the demands on my cpu from dsp processing.

This machine will be for audio production and recording, and I don't know much nor which to believe when it comes to dsp processing. I "think" I understand that the daw/softerware functions more so with single core processing than multicore. Last year I bought a PowerSpec G156 Gaming Desktop PC Intel Core i5+ 8400 Processor 2.8GHz; NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050Ti 4GB GDDR5; 4GB DDR4-2400 RAM; 16GB Intel Optane Memory from your store and it was only a tid bit better "I believe it was 2 more audio plugins I was able to use" from my current pc. My current pc, I also bought from your store in 2011 a Lenovo Idea Center with an Intel Core i3-2100 @ 3.10GHz with an upgraded SSD drive and 16gb of Ram. I was really dumbfounded and quite disappointed that the benefit of the new machine was only 2 more audio plugins. (benefit I was concerned with)

So now I am seeking professional help from someone that "knows specifically" the demands of dsp processing within the daw/software environment to assist with choosing the components needed for my build.

My thoughts on what I "think" I need are

i9-9900 @ 3.10GHz 

ASUS Z390-E ROG Strix Gaming Intel LGA 1151 ATX Motherboard

Samsung 500GB 970 EVO NVMe M.2 V Nand Internal SSD  M Key (Boot)

RAM Undecided

GPU Undecided

PSU undecided

Case Undecided

RGB  Undecided, most likely not unless there's something that functions like a graphic equalizer display.

Again, this is what I "think" I need.

I'm hoping that your store has a killer sale for the tax free weekend. I am just a music hobbyist and the most I ever paid for a computer was $600 (whole sale friend) back in 1996 with the top specs being a 6gb hdd and 6mb Ram and an Amd 266.

I tried find an appropriate place to seek assistance via the service and repairs and build a pc but character count was extremely limited.

I hope it is ok to post here, if not, My bad. Sorry

 

TSTonyV

Hello @Dave1212! Welcome to the Community. 

I moved your question to our "Help Choosing Parts" category as that's a little more appropriate for this question. If you're looking at the i9-9900, I'd throw in a recommendation for the i7-10700k instead. The 10700k is essentially the same CPU as the i9-9900k was as it's an 8 core/16 thread part, but you get the benefit of the new 10th-gen Intel platform vs the 9900. The RAM, GPU, case, etc... can be flexible. 

Which programs/plugins are you using? That would be helpful for us putting a recommendation together and figuring out whether your needs are more single or multi-thread bound. 

Dave1212

Thank you very much, I use a few daws but my main daw is FL studio, the big cpu strain comes from Acustica Audio plugins. Some of their plugins are more heavy/intensive than others. For example, channel strips in general. "Coral" is what I use as a bench mark so to say, it's one of the heaviest on cpu (within the daw "FL") for example, FL will show cpu within itself maxing out while my actual cpu load is 50 to 70% (pic attached)  I look forward to and really appreciate your recommendations. Thank you again, David   ps, I just took a look at the i7 you recommended and I'm not sure if the performance difference would be worth the higher wattage, heat, and incidental cost to a build/ additional cooling. My budget is limited. Believe me, I'd love to be able to get the top shelf of everything.  ; )  I hate trimming the  cost for the 500gb ssd nvme, I definately would prefer a tb.

TSTonyV

So it appears that their own recommendations say there's a point at which extra cores become unnecessary. They've got a pretty comprehensive overview on the type of hardware to look for here:

https://support.image-line.com/action/knowledgebase?ans=214

It seems they recommend targeting fast single-core performance first, because a lot of audio-processing can't be computed in parallel which means it's not as good at taking advantage of higher numbers of cores and threads. Following that logic, Intel is going to hold the advantage here, though AMD could certainly compete well. Depending on your budget, we're looking at CPUs like the i7-10700k, i9-10900k, Ryzen 9 3900X or Ryzen 7 3700X as the best potential options. 

Will you be doing any kind of gaming on the system, or is this just going to be used for audio production? If there's no gaming involved, then you'll have essentially no GPU requirements besides how many monitors you want to use at a time. 

Dave1212

I am not much of a gamer. I currently have 1 additional monitor connected at present for a total of 2. Three would be most ideal.

PowerSpec_MikeW

@Dave1212

The motherboard has to digital video output with DP and HDMI. You also have USB C, should be able to go DP Alt with the USB C for the third monitor. Personally, I'd invest in a basic card like a 1650 to run multiple monitors and to be able to expand in the future.

Dave1212

Appreciated Mike

TSTonyV

I think that's sound advice, having a basic dedicated video card can be useful for if/when you want to add more monitors later on. 

Do you know what your overall budget is? Now that we have a good idea of exactly what kind of requirements your software has, I think we can put something together that should work well. 

Dave1212

My head hurts. This is an excerpt of a recent post from the plugin designer "- incredibly, i9 systems offer little advantage in terms of performance over i7, with the same number of cores. In some cases we even noticed that some i7s had better performance, although in our offices i9 desktops are all based on liquid cooling.- i5 performance is lower than i7, but only slightly (always with the same number of cores). The point is that all are usually based on similar clock frequencies, and offer the same optimizations: AVX2 seems to be supported almost everywhere, and they tend to perform half as fast as the old SSE2 optimization and twice as fast as no vector registers."My budget is ( I probably shouldn't be doing this ) : )  but 7 to 800. 

Dave1212

TSTonyV Thank you Tony

I went with the 99K, 32GB G-skill 3200, 500GB 970 NVMe, Unfortunately the plus was out of stock and so was the ASUS Z390 ROG Maximus XI Hero WiFi Intel LGA 1151 ATX, the ASUS Z390-E ROG Strix Gaming Intel LGA 1151 ATX was also out of stock but I left with a Gigabyte z390 aorus master that will be exchanged when the Rog Strix comes in. I spent a bit too much than I planned and hopefully I'll be able to follow the instructions to put it all together. Just wanted to say thank you for helping me out here!

Hope your doing well and have a great week.

Keep safe

Dave1212

Crazy, ab-so-lutely crazy. I can not even get a ball park date on shipment/delivery/restocking. 2 weeks later and I still have $960.00 worth of stuff in their bags and I still need to grab a case and OS. When I spoke with customer service they granted me another 15 days for the MB and processor, that was nice.  I decided to remove my store location on the website and went to the online web store and "Low and Behold" everything is on the web store I'm waiting on? The 500gb 970 (none plus ) NVMe ssd drive I got is the same $89.99, but the plus version is $99.99 from $92.99 it was. They also list the MB's I was interested in getting. I don't get it, I'm extremely frustrated and that should not be a part of buying.  And get this, I noticed on my receipt that I did not receive any discount for compatible bundle and mentioned it to customer service and they explained it was because the MB I got was an open box item and not eligible, "after knowing the intention of its purpose" (to exchange for one of the MB's I'm waiting on to be restocked) I don't know how it turned in to such a fluster cuck, I was planing on spending $800 tops, and was about to happily finish around $1,300. Right now, I plan on returning everything tomorrow. I guess planing on a tax free weekend purchase is a not such a good idea.

TSTonyV, thank you for helping me spec it out, it is appreciated.

TSTonyV

Dave1212 said:

Crazy, ab-so-lutely crazy. I can not even get a ball park date on shipment/delivery/restocking. 2 weeks later and I still have $960.00 worth of stuff in their bags and I still need to grab a case and OS. When I spoke with customer service they granted me another 15 days for the MB and processor, that was nice.  I decided to remove my store location on the website and went to the online web store and "Low and Behold" everything is on the web store I'm waiting on? The 500gb 970 (none plus ) NVMe ssd drive I got is the same $89.99, but the plus version is $99.99 from $92.99 it was. They also list the MB's I was interested in getting. I don't get it, I'm extremely frustrated and that should not be a part of buying.  And get this, I noticed on my receipt that I did not receive any discount for compatible bundle and mentioned it to customer service and they explained it was because the MB I got was an open box item and not eligible, "after knowing the intention of its purpose" (to exchange for one of the MB's I'm waiting on to be restocked) I don't know how it turned in to such a fluster cuck, I was planing on spending $800 tops, and was about to happily finish around $1,300. Right now, I plan on returning everything tomorrow. I guess planing on a tax free weekend purchase is a not such a good idea.

TSTonyV, thank you for helping me spec it out, it is appreciated.

Always happy to help. 

As for the web store vs. your local store, shipping is not done directly out of stores so we may have some products in stock at our distribution centers that are not currently available in-store, depending on your location. Technically for the motherboard/CPU it's either open-box discount or bundle discount, but in my experience managers are usually willing to throw both on if you ask, but that's at their discretion. If there's anything else I could help you with, feel free to ask.

 Dave1212 said:
My head hurts. This is an excerpt of a recent post from the plugin designer "

- incredibly, i9 systems offer little advantage in terms of performance over i7, with the same number of cores. In some cases we even noticed that some i7s had better performance, although in our offices i9 desktops are all based on liquid cooling.

- i5 performance is lower than i7, but only slightly (always with the same number of cores). The point is that all are usually based on similar clock frequencies, and offer the same optimizations: AVX2 seems to be supported almost everywhere, and they tend to perform half as fast as the old SSE2 optimization and twice as fast as no vector registers."

My budget is ( I probably shouldn't be doing this ) : )  but 7 to 800. 

Sounds like the plugins aren't designed to take full advantage of the extra cores/threads on the higher end i9 chips and instead scale better with frequency at that point. Usually the i7 and i9 CPUs are very close in terms of frequency, with the i9s taking a slight edge generally but still being close. Depending on the workload, how long boost duration lasts, and the plugin/software's behavior with cores/threads I can definitely imagine a situation where i7s might be equal or slightly better. 

Dave1212

Did the build at the beginning of this month, came out great, works like a champ. Your assistance's was very helpful!

Thank you!