Pro audio computer(PC)

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BrooklynBoy

New member
Hi guys,

I need your help regarding a system that I'm about to purchase.

First of all, my studio workstation based on a synthesizers and drum machines.
I will not use any VST and the only synth that have a VST is the Virus Ti 2.

I will use some lite plugins for Delay, Reverb, and Stereo Expander.
I will use the UAD-2-SATELLITE-DUO for mixing and some mastering.
I will use the TC electronics Finalizer 96K for the mastering processor.
Cubase 8 as my main sequencer and RME FF800 as my audio interface.

I have built a PC that fits my budget, but I will consider an upgrade if you guys advise me. Please note that the system will have acoustical treatment inside.

System:

Corsair - 750W RM750 10DB(quiet) 80% plus

H97 Matx 5th/4th Gen Haswell i7, i5 Quad Core: 1-PCIe 3.0/2.0 16x, 3-PCIe 2.0 1x up to 32gig ram, USB 3.0 USB 2.0

Intel - Core i7 4790 Haswell 3.6GHz Quad 8 meg cache with HT

16gig 2x8gig DDR3 1600 -

Microsoft - Windows 7 Pro 64 bit OEM

Micron - 256 GB SSD M600 560MB/s Read 510MB/s Write

SEAGATE - 3TB Sata 600 7200 RPM 64meg cache 2 yr warranty

SIIG - PCIe Firewire 800 3 port (TI chipset)

GeForce GT 730 Fanless Graphic Card - 902 MHz Core - 2 GB DDR3 SDRAM - PCI Express 2.0 x16

Please let me know if you have anything in mind and/or have better configuration.
 
This is a very similar setup to my own audio machine, I think you've got the makings for a solid workstation.

I didn't put a graphics card in my build, I find that the i7 has plenty of horsepower to do all of the audio processing and drive 2 monitors effortlessly. If your motherboard doesn't have enough video outputs for your needs, or if you're going to do video editing or something, then the graphics card is a good move. Otherwise, I'd skip it.

What kind of acoustical treatment are you going to use? If you stick to 120mm chassis fans and find a nice quiet CPU heatsink/fan (or even fanless CPU cooler) I don't think that it'll make an appreciable amount of noise. There'll be a little "whir", but I haven't had any rattles or such. I can hear my CPU fan in my room, but I have yet to have it cause any audible bleed into my acoustic or vocal tracks. Just food for thought...
 
I would personally go with a 500 GB SSD for programs and add a second 1TB or greater internal drive to back up your projects. Nothing worse than losing a project...

Backup, backup, backup....

And I agree with Tadpui, you do not need a graphics card with i7 if your motherboard supports the amount of monitors you wish to use. I am able to run 3 with my Z97 Extreme 4. Wasted money on a graphics card when I built my system. Gave it to a friend.

Cubase 8 uses AERO. W7 does not use system resources to run graphics. Or at least that is how I understand it.
 
Hi guys,

Many thanks for a quick responses.

Now, let me organize a few things in my head before buying the new PC.

Does the i7 motherboard has a VGA/DVI/HDMI outputs?


About the acoustical treatment, I am going to buy the PC from ADK pro audio, so they going to install their acoustical treatment.

As far as the hard drives, why do I need more than 256gb? (Cubase, 15 GB free HD space), UAD(4 gigabytes available disk space), Windows 7(20 GB).

About the extra hard drive. That's a good point.

BB
 
BrooklynBoy said:
Hi guys,

Many thanks for a quick responses.

Now, let me organize a few things in my head before buying the new PC.

Does the i7 motherboard has a VGA/DVI/HDMI outputs?


About the acoustical treatment, I am going to buy the PC from ADK pro audio, so they going to install their acoustical treatment.

As far as the hard drives, why do I need more than 256gb? (Cubase, 15 GB free HD space), UAD(4 gigabytes available disk space), Windows 7(20 GB).

About the extra hard drive. That's a good point.

BB
Click to expand...

It depends on the MOBO. Mine has 4 outs, but only 3 are useable at once.

As far as the SSD is concerned, unless you run another drive for samples, you can quickly run out of space on the OS drive. Best to get bigger and not run out. Especially since the price is only like $50 more for double the storage.

If you record your Cubase projects directly to internal HDD, then this is a bit less concern, though I have a new system build with SSD4 drums, SSD Trigger, and Addicive Drums. Who knows how many third party VSTi's I have. Melodyne, Waves, Soundtoys, PSP, Stillwell, Fabfilter....266GB free of 456 on my OS (C:) Drive.

It gets eaten up quick.

Always have a backup drive. Don't make the mistake I did....
 
So 500gb if I'm using tons of plugins and tons of VST. My arsenal is very big but of synthesizers and drum machines. So I will use them all the time.

Regarding the backup drive, can you be more specific how you define a backup drive?
 
jimmys69 said:
Cubase 8 uses AERO. W7 does not use system resources to run graphics. Or at least that is how I understand it.
Click to expand...

In modern Intel on-chip graphics, the graphics processing is provided by a different part of the processor than does all your other processing. Video RAM is taken from your main memory, though, although I've found I can set it to the minimum of 64MB for non-graphical applications like DAWs with no problems, even with two screens.
 
you are mostly on the right track, as has been said get an SSD, it makes a huge difference, you also don't need a 750w PSU, even 300w would be fine in your case, and ditch the graphics card if it's intergrated on your MB, waste of money for sure. Personally I think the i7 is the right choice, but i5 may be just as good or not far behind for less money and they are often easy to overclock and can be pushed further, if you want really extreme power then get an xeon or dual xeon, also bear in mind the RAM timings not just the clock speeds and make sure ram voltage matches your motherboard...very easy to overlook this.
 
BrooklynBoy said:
Does the i7 motherboard has a VGA/DVI/HDMI outputs?
Click to expand...

I didn't see that you mentioned specifically which motherboard you're using. Each one is different...but I'd bet that it has at least one DVI or HDMI or DisplayPort on it. It seems fairly standard to have 2 or 3 different ones, but on a micro ATX I'm not sure what is common. There's only so much real estate on one of those motherboards, different companies economize for space in their own ways.
 
Btyre2013 said:
you are mostly on the right track, as has been said get an SSD, it makes a huge difference, you also don't need a 750w PSU, even 300w would be fine in your case, and ditch the graphics card if it's intergrated on your MB, waste of money for sure. Personally I think the i7 is the right choice, but i5 may be just as good or not far behind for less money and they are often easy to overclock and can be pushed further, if you want really extreme power then get an xeon or dual xeon, also bear in mind the RAM timings not just the clock speeds and make sure ram voltage matches your motherboard...very easy to overlook this.
Click to expand...

You want to leave some headroom in your PSU for efficiency and so it's quieter. If you drop to 300W, you might have to drop to the lower quality range that are louder. I'd consider the CS range, which are gold rated and run at around 10db at 50% load or the RM range, which are the quiet-series, which are silent up to 40% load.
 
Hi guys, thanks again for the support and for the information.

For my understanding a graphic card that has a GPU helps yo reduce the CPU from the motherboard, regardless a graphic process.

I have got some info that 256gb ssdis enough for the Main hard drive, because when you do optimization to the computer, it will blocks the C file to get full.

3Tb and another 1tb backup I will take.

Now as far as for the power supply, does 550W is enough?

What about the case, wpuld you guys recommend a mid case or a rack?

Thanks again
 
In a studio setting, if you have the rack space, I'd recommend going with the rack case. Then it's tucked away in a rack, out of the way and you don't have to share desktop or foot space with it. Unless you ever need to take it with you somewhere, then it's a giant pain to pry it out of the rack.

I'm not sure what an average size for a rackmount case is, but mine is just huge. It wasn't my smartest purchase. Of course it's 19" across, and mine is a 4u height. But it's as deep as my entire leg is long. I have a feeling that there are shorter ones available...check the dimensions before purchasing :)

I'm using a 500W PSU, and it doesn't really break a sweat, it runs silently. Without a power-hungry graphics card you can get away with relatively little wattage. 500W may even be overkill, but it's always nice to have some overhead as was mentioned above. In this age of laptops and battery power, the i7 processors are very good at using only the juice that they need at each moment, so they don't suck a whole lot of power unless they're under a moderate or heavy load. I have yet to catch my i7 4770k at even 50% load during a tracking/mixing session. It might get there during renders though.
 
I have a PC power and cooling brand power supply, think it's a 480W. I've had it for years, and it's running a very power hungry i7 setup with no voltage drops. Your system certainly won't need any more than that. The sweet spot in pricing seems to be in the 500-600W range right now, as that's the range a lot of the quality aftermarket PSUs are being made/targeted for. Buy a quality power supply, no reason to skimp. They tend to run cooler (more efficiently) and thus quiet compared to cheaper models. One less loud fan to need to worry about.
 
A little food for thought...power supplies with more capacities will not hurt, especially as you keep adding more devices to your system over time. I like headroom in power supplies, like I do with audio interfaces...and power supply prices don't differ by too much. Also, if you are going to be working with A LOT of tracks (both midi and audio), you might consider a RAID-0 configuration for your 'data' drive, in addition to your system SSD and backup drive. Your disk I/O is the slowest piece of the computer's data path. Watch out for drives larger than 2TB, as they don't have a great reputation for longevity. Is some of this overkill? Yes, but will avoid possible upgrades in the future, especially if you will be working on audio for video, where the excess capacity will come in very handy. We, in our studio have two systems as I described for nearly 5 years, and have not needed to change anything but updates to the software, except for a few hardware glitches from normal wear & tear. I hope this helps.
 
I'm running a gtx 980 Ti, i72600K often overclocked to beyond 4gHz with a 550w PSU and it hasn't gone above 240 watts, my fan controller constantly monitors the PSU watt usage in real time, so it's running maxed out at just under 50% load.
 
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