Build a new computer for Z3/Vista 64 bit/RAMdisk

[Suteetat]

Hmm, I need a little help. My current server is a dual core with maximum of 4GB RAM which I found to be a bit insufficient for
using with Vista 32 bit with current setup with SFS 200, and XXHighend installed on RAMdisk so I am thinking of building a new
computer. With current computer, either I have to use smaller SFS to make XXHighend runs smoother but not with the sound quality
that I prefer or using smaller RAMdisk which I can load less songs before I get out of memory error. So I think I need more RAM hence
a new computer.

I think I will go with 8GB ram which hopefully will be enough. If not, I suppose I can always add another 8 GB later if I use 4GB RAM module.
I plan to use only case fans in my computer. CPU heatsink will most likely be Thermalright HR02 fanless heatsink.
Motherboard will be one with onboard graphic so I can eliminate another graphic card with a fan. As far as I know, that will leave me with
either Intel with 1156 socket ( I don't see any 1366 socket MOB with onboard graphic yet) or AMD with 890GX chip.
The trade off for not going with the more recent 1366 socket for Intel would be that I can use only dual channel DDR3 instead of 3 channel DDR3.
Does anybody think that tripple channel DDR3 is all that important or be useful to have for XXHighend? If I use MOB with tripple channel DDR3, I think I will need to add a graphic card with additional fan as well. I am not sure if it is worth the trade off.

Also, if I stay with 1156 socket instead of 1366 socket for Intel, I could actually get AMD 6 core CPU/890GX MOB for less.
I have no idea how power scheme in XXHighend would deal with 6 core or even if it is compatible. Does anyone know?

Sorry for the long winded question but basically, I would like to get opinion on:

1) 8 vs 16 GB RAM
2) dual channel DDR3/onboard graphic vs triple channel DDR3/graphic card/extra fan
3) 4core intel/AMD vs 6 core AMD, any issue with power scheme in XXHighend?

This computer will basically only for a dedicated music server only. Graphically, I just need something with HDMI out to connect to my monitor and that's about it.

Thanks in advance for any insight, opinion, help etc.

[Calibrator]

Just a quick note about using a M/Board with embedded graphics chip ..... I don't like them! It locks you into that performance for the life of the motherboard and there is no need for it, even in a dedicated music server.

Something like the Radeon HD4350 cards ( I use a HD3450 in mine ) are dirt cheap and most come with passive heatsink. An example is here ...

http://www.centrecom.com.au/catalog/product_info.php?sort=3a&products_id=36246

A HD3450 will be even cheaper if you can find one still in stock. Both have HDMI as you require.

I have simply used the drivers for the card and not bothered with the Catalyst Control Centre component.

Remember, the motherboard may not always be the basis for a music server, but may in the future be removed to become a games PC for example, and then you can simply put in a more powerful GPU as required.

Cheers,

Russ

[PeterSt]

Suteetat,

On the 6 Cores ... It may be beneficial to you once you (we) are able to spread IRQ affinities and stuff (which we momentarily cannot (yet)).

In XXHighEnd 4 Cores are explicitly addressed with the conversion processes. It is not all that hard to make that 6 or 8. So let's say by the time you can really use it, I can make it. Notice though that the only difference is that 6 tracks will process parallelly (for conversions) instead of 4 today.

Keep in mind that the speed of one core may be more important at some stage than "more cores". For example, the i8xx processors (1156) support hyperthreading per core, thus allowing for 8 cores for the native 4 core processor, but the speed per "thread" will be half now. This is where you will loose on it.

HTH,
Peter

[Suteetat]

Thanks for the reply so far.
It seems that may be AMD 6 core would make more sense at this time. Intel 6 core price is really way to high at this moment to really seriously thinking about it.
Now, it comes down I suppose to MOB with either 890GX or 890FX chipset. Basically, I can go with 890GX which has ATI Radeon HD4290 graphics on board or 890FX with better graphic card support.
 The only difference I see is that 890GX does not suport 4x ATI CrossFireX like 890FX which is something that I doubt I will ever need.
My main concern between the two choices has to do with on board graphic. Not so much about being stuck with it as I can always add a graphic card later
but about system resource usage. I think that the less system resource being used, the better it is for XXHighend as far as SQ is concerned. Will I reduce
system resource usage if I have dedicated graphic card as oppose to on board graphic chip? Certainly if I can find a fanless graphic card, it would be a viable
option, I think. Looking at local website, I could not find HD4350. The lowest ATI Radeon I could find was HD 4670 and all seems to have fan.

[Telstar]

Just a quick note about using a M/Board with embedded graphics chip ..... I don't like them! It locks you into that performance for the life of the motherboard and there is no need for it, even in a dedicated music server.

I disagree. The intel G45 has sufficient video power to play even videos (i do that), has no compatibilty issues (unlike older chipsets).
Probably you had bad experiences with non intel chipsets or much older ones which had horrible performance.

You can always disable it if you dont like it and add a discrete graphic card of any kind.
But i would use the pci-express slot for something more useful such as the soundcard or the OCZ Reviodrive/FusionIO (i'm getting the first in 50gb size for installing Vista on it).

[Telstar]

1) 8 vs 16 GB RAM

16GB. 12 at least in case of triple channel.

2) dual channel DDR3/onboard graphic vs triple channel DDR3/graphic card/extra fan

Fans are noisy. RAM speed matters for the ramdisk though, so go for the fastest ram having at least 12GB (so you can make a 10gb ramdisk). There are (few) mainboards with onboard graphics with hdmi port (like mine but its for older generation cpus)

3) 4core intel/AMD vs 6 core AMD, any issue with power scheme in XXHighend?

Intel. 6 or 8 cores would be really nice for a fast music machine.

[Marcin_gps]

- no additional GPU, I have a passive Radeon 5750, but it's out at the moment - really bad for audio...
- quad core is a must have right now, especially if you assign IRQ affinities (XXHE Engine on CPU1, sound card and interface on CPU2 and CPU3, almost everything else on CPU0) I am very curious if another 2 cores for sound card would bring further improvements...
- 8 or 16GB of RAM is necessary if you have large hirez collection and want to make use of RAMdisk, but that implies using 64bit OS, which I didn't check and don't know if is equal/better or maybe worse in terms of SQ

[Suteetat]

Fans are noisy. RAM speed matters for the ramdisk though, so go for the fastest ram having at least 12GB (so you can make a 10gb ramdisk). There are (few) mainboards with onboard graphics with hdmi port (like mine but its for older generation cpus)

I am curious about 10GB RAMdisk on 12 GB RAM computer. Now that XXHighend resides in RAMdisk but I assume that since XXHighend is a memory player,
eventually it will have to load wav file onto RAM outside of RAMdisk, is this correct?
So I assume that to have thing runs smoothly, I would also need pretty good size RAM that is not allocated to RAMdisk as well, presumably.

For now, I am thinking of going AMD route with 6 cores as Intel 6 cores would increase the cost significantly which means I am pretty much stuck with
dual DDR3 but because cost of AMD 6 core/MOB/ 16GB dual channel DDR3 is quite a bit less than Intel socket  1366/ 8GB triple channel DDR/MOB + graphic card,
AMD route probably make more sense for now.

[PeterSt]

eventually it will have to load wav file onto RAM outside of RAMdisk, is this correct?

Yes. But this is what we're all used to by now, and with 3GB of memory and an 1GB RAMDisk this works ok already (but the RAMDisk is too smal for a hires album).
So don't worry about that.

[Marcin_gps]

Fans are noisy. RAM speed matters for the ramdisk though, so go for the fastest ram having at least 12GB (so you can make a 10gb ramdisk). There are (few) mainboards with onboard graphics with hdmi port (like mine but its for older generation cpus)

I am curious about 10GB RAMdisk on 12 GB RAM computer. Now that XXHighend resides in RAMdisk but I assume that since XXHighend is a memory player,
eventually it will have to load wav file onto RAM outside of RAMdisk, is this correct?
So I assume that to have thing runs smoothly, I would also need pretty good size RAM that is not allocated to RAMdisk as well, presumably.

For now, I am thinking of going AMD route with 6 cores as Intel 6 cores would increase the cost significantly which means I am pretty much stuck with
dual DDR3 but because cost of AMD 6 core/MOB/ 16GB dual channel DDR3 is quite a bit less than Intel socket  1366/ 8GB triple channel DDR/MOB + graphic card,
AMD route probably make more sense for now.

I'm building dedicated music server next week. Initially I wanted to go with core i3, since it's 32nm, low tdp, integrated GPU and all, but now that I experienced better SQ on 4 cores, I don't want to go intel's way, because they don't have graphics starting from core i5, so I'll give Phenom X6 a try

[Suteetat]

I'm building dedicated music server next week. Initially I wanted to go with core i3, since it's 32nm, low tdp, integrated GPU and all, but now that I experienced better SQ on 4 cores, I don't want to go intel's way, because they don't have graphics starting from core i5, so I'll give Phenom X6 a try

Actually, you can get MOB with integrated graphic with 1156 socket for i5, i7.
http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=3568#ov
http://www.asus.com/product.aspx?P_ID=qWmZUAdNKeozTOXb&templete=2

However, I still think Phenom X6 is still the way to go as it is about 1/3 the price of 6 core Intel and I don't think that Intel i7 4 core 1156 socket offers
any benefit over AMD x6 core.
 
My last concern is the benefit of tripple channel DDR3. Certainly it would help XXHighend as reading and writing speed is quite a bit faster than
dual channel DDR. However, that would mean going with Intel quad core with 1136 socket. I have not seen any MOB with 1136 socket with integrated graphic yet.
If I can find fanless graphic card, this might make an interesting option as well.

[arvind]

Hi Guys,

I am glad we have this topic on the configuration of a computer suitable for XXHE. I am an audiophile who loves music with a high priority for good SQ, but have no clue about the computer hardware/software part of it. There was a time, over a year back, when I was on the verge of dropping CA & moving back to CD but Peter urged me to continue & I am glad I did as I can now hear that it is significantly better than CD. Thank you Peter.

My present set up is an old Sony Vaio laptop & with Peter urging me to replace it with a powerful PC desktop, to improve SQ, I decided it is time to take this step towards the ever elusive holy grail of SQ. Unfortunately most guys in the hardware field, those I know of at least, are not audiophiles. Consequently they are unaware of what constitutes an ideal configuration for CA.

Anyway what they have put together for me, by way of a suggestion, is as follows:
CPU- Intel i7 980x (6 cores/12 threads)
Mobo-Gigabyte GA-X58-BUD-9 (intel X 58 chipset)
DDR3 RAM 8GB (4GB for RAMdisk)
128 GB SSD Corsair (for the OS). Music is on an external HDD
Cooler Master PSU 750W(claim to be very silent)
ASUS graphic card 8400 NVIDIA
Vista 32 OS

I would really appreciate if some of you guys in the forum who are good at the hardware side could guide me on the suitability of this configuration.

I must admit I am one of those who is stupid in the computer hardware field. On the forum I read about setting IRQ affinity, dedicating cores for certain applications, etc, etc, but this is all over my head. I dont have a clue how to go about actually doing this. If you guys could put in a step by step fashion it would make it immensely beneficial for illiterate people like me.

Thanks for going through reading this sermon.

Arvind

[Marcin_gps]

I'm building dedicated music server next week. Initially I wanted to go with core i3, since it's 32nm, low tdp, integrated GPU and all, but now that I experienced better SQ on 4 cores, I don't want to go intel's way, because they don't have graphics starting from core i5, so I'll give Phenom X6 a try

Actually, you can get MOB with integrated graphic with 1156 socket for i5, i7.
http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=3568#ov
http://www.asus.com/product.aspx?P_ID=qWmZUAdNKeozTOXb&templete=2

However, I still think Phenom X6 is still the way to go as it is about 1/3 the price of 6 core Intel and I don't think that Intel i7 4 core 1156 socket offers
any benefit over AMD x6 core.
 
My last concern is the benefit of tripple channel DDR3. Certainly it would help XXHighend as reading and writing speed is quite a bit faster than
dual channel DDR. However, that would mean going with Intel quad core with 1136 socket. I have not seen any MOB with 1136 socket with integrated graphic yet.
If I can find fanless graphic card, this might make an interesting option as well.

I'm afraid you're wrong. The motherboard supports integrated graphics as long as it is integrated in CPU, but quadcore core-i5 doesn't offer one. (only dual cores i3 and i5 have intel hd graphics). http://www.intel.com/consumer/products/processors/corei5-specs.htm

i7 980x could be much better - 32nm, 12MB l3 cache, triple channel ddr (Phenom is 45nm, 6MB l3 cache, dual channel ddr), but the real question would it matter for SQ?

[christoffe]

Vista 32 OS

Hi Arvind,

only  (VISTA) 64bit OS can handle RAM sizes bigger than 4GB.

Best Joachim

[Marcin_gps]

True and wrong Ramdisk can use memory above 4GB in 32bit OS, leaving all system memory for Windows.
So, assuming you have 8GB of RAM installed, your OS utilise 4GB and 4GB goes to ramdisk. I'll check this myself tomorrow and let you know how it works. I suspect it could be even in terms of SQ, because ramdisk won't interfere with system memory.