Music Production PC ~1000 Euros (~800 pounds)

[kalniel]

Well, in my case, I already had a legitimate copy of Windows XP which I was upgrading from; I was installing it to a new hard-disk following a hard disk failure. I didn't see the point of installing XP again, only to have to install Windows 7 afterwards.

Yeah that's quite right - don't think you can use the upgrade disk from XP anyway. But the important thing is you had the license and you were no longer using/had not passed on/sold the copy of XP that you had before.

[herulach]

I suppose how important the noise levels are depend how loud you listen and whether you're using monitors, closed or open headphones. With my Grados (open) I can hear the disk spinning over the noise of 10 case/radiator fans, the PSU and the GPU as its quite a high pitch. Admittedly thats in a non deadened case. Spinning up and down is the most intrusive part of the noise, but reads etc are noisy enough to be audible in a quiet room, but not really with music on.

I really would be tempted to see if you can stretch your budget such that all your samples, and the maximum size of one or two active pieces of work are on the SSD with 30% or so headroom. Not only will that dramatically improve loading times it will be noticeably quieter.

As others have observed the extra money could come from the motherboard. high end boards tend to be designed with overclocking in mind which you can't do with that PSU. The only thing you do need to make sure of is decent cooling for the Voltage regulators (the motherboard heatsinks round the socket). Anything in the €100 range from Gigabyte/Asus etc should be ample without having loads of bling you don't need.

[Mate1989]

Thank you guys! Your advice is really helpful.

@herulach:

1. I'm using my pc speakers and my everyday in - ear headphones now (wrote it in my last post).

2. I must admit that I don't have a sample library now. But I'm sure I will get a lot of files in a very short time after getting this new machine. I don't know if the difference between having the sample library on a HDD instead of a SSD is that big. I know that SSDs are super fast but for loading samples which are no huge files isn't a HDD enough? I don't think that it's a noticeable difference between samples taking 1/1000 second to load with HDD or 1/10000 second with SSD. And the noise level is not that important to me as I will work with monitors or headphones. The case I'm going to get should kill most of the noise I think.

3. Any recommendations for another motherboard are welcome!

So I think an updated build would be a good idea to see where I can still improve my setup:

CPU:
Intel i7 4770 (Too powerful? Alternatives? Note that I wanna use this build for a couple years and I don't want to upgrade the parts every year or so.)

CPU cooler:
Noctua NH - U9B SE2

PSU:
520 Watt Seasonic S12II Bronze Non-Modular 80+ Bronze

Case:
Fractal Design Define R4

DVD drive:
Samsung SH - 224DB / BEBE

SSD:
250 GB Samsung 840 EVO (Do I need the Desktop - Kit version?)

Motherboard:
Asus Z87 - Pro (C2) Intel Z87 LGA 1150 (This is the one I chose initially but I will pick up another one if anybody has a recommendation as this seems to be too highend)

HDD:
Seagate Barracuda

RAM:
16 GB (2 x 8GB) Corsair Vengeance LP Red DDR3 - 1600

So thats the updated version.
Thanks for all the help!

Mate

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I would get a Xeon E3 1230 V3,a B85 motherboard and a low end graphics card like an R7 240 or R7 250.

Edit!!

What retailers are you using??

Also the Crucial M500 is cheaper than the 840 too.

[Mate1989]

Hi CAT-THE-FIFTH!

Thanks for your help!

1. The Xeon looks good to me! And I can save about 50 €.

2. The advice on the motherboard makes sense to me. Any recommendation which exactly?

3. Could you please explain why you would go for this low end graphics card? What about a Radeon HD 7750? It's almost the same price. Better / worse?

4. I'm gonna buy the parts here probably: www.mindfactory.de But if anybody knows a better retailer that ships to Germany I will appreciate the hint.

5. The crucial might be cheaper but is it also better? And maybe I will go for a bigger SSD if the other parts save me some money. I don't wanna spend as little money as possible. My main goal is to get a decent machine with not only the lowest quality parts. If it's gonna be exactly 1000 Euros I'm fine with that. As long as I can keep it a couple years and handle growing requirements. Of course it shouldn't be more than 1000 Euros.

Thanks for your help

Mate

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

The Xeon E3 1230 V3 lacks an IGP but has a lower TDP than the Core i7 4770,so should be easier to cool.

What motherboards are available to you??

This would do the job and supports the Xeon E3 1230 V3:

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/asus-...a%29-dvi-d-atx

An HD7750 would do the trick. Is it the GDDR3 or GDDR5 version??

The AMD cards have decent compute performance too:

http://forums.hexus.net/software/272...enchmarks.html

The Crucial SSD actually uses MLC NAND(more expensive) and the Samsung TLC NAND(cheaper),and Crucial makes decent SSDs too.

Edit!!

What PSU are you using??

Second Edit!!

This PSU would be fine:

http://www.mindfactory.de/product_in...ld_810304.html

Its only 360W but your system will not draw much power TBH!!

This 450W PSU is modular:

http://www.mindfactory.de/product_in...ld_822536.html

There are non-modular versions for 8 Euro less.

To put it in context I am running a Xeon E3 1220,8GB of DDR3,an H67 based mini-ITX motherboard,an SSD,an HDD and a GTX660 off an XFX PRO 450W(Seasonic is the OEM).

Under 3DMark the system consumes at most around 205W at the wall.

[satrow]

EDIT: (Typo and mistake)

The Seasonic 360W Gold runs a Xeon E3 1230 v2 8GB 1.25V RAM, HD 7850, 2x SSDs and a 2.5" HDD (no DVD) and Z77 Mini-ITX just fine. 170-180W draw when gaming, including 1920x1200 IPS. A 7750 would draw ~40W less?

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

My system consumes around 150W to 190W at the wall when running games.

Looking at the TPU numbers,I estimate the HD7750 GDDR5 should be consuming around 50W less than an HD7850 at the wall.

[Mate1989]

Thanks for all the information!

@CAT-THE-FIFTH:

1. So I will go for the Xeon CPU. What about a cooler for it?

2. I think the Asus B85 Plus will be just fine for me.

3. The HD7750 (http://www.mindfactory.de/product_in...l-_808128.html) is GDDR5.

4. Ok I'm not sure what the difference is but it sounds good to me (SSDs).

5. I'm not sure which of those PSUs to take. What's the difference between modular and non modular? And what about the noise?

6. Can I still use the Fractal Design Define R4 case with these parts?

7. Will I be able to use two monitors with these parts?

8. This machine is really supposed to be a music production pc in the first place.

Updated build:

Intel Xeon E3-1230v3 (http://www.mindfactory.de/product_in...OX_856397.html)
Asus B85-Plus (C2) (http://www.mindfactory.de/product_in...il_918672.html)
16GB Corsair Vengeance LP (http://www.mindfactory.de/product_in...it_796925.html)
360 Watt Seasonic G Serie 360 Non-Modular 80+ Gold or 450 Watt Seasonic G-Series Modular 80+ Gold or some silent PSU? Not sure about this one.
1024MB Asus Radeon HD 7750 Passiv PCIe 3.0 x16 (Retail) (http://www.mindfactory.de/product_in...l-_808128.html)
240GB Crucial M500 2.5" (6.4cm) SATA 6Gb/s MLC asynchron (http://www.mindfactory.de/product_in...SD_844176.html)
Fractal Design Define R4 (http://www.mindfactory.de/product_in...rz_807433.html)
Noctua NH-U9B SE2 (http://www.mindfactory.de/product_in...er_632608.html)
Samsung SH - 224DB / BEBE (http://www.mindfactory.de/product_in...lk_853099.html)
Seagate Barracuda (http://www.alternate.de/Seagate/ST10...oduct/963366/?)

What about the noise level?
What about cooling?

With the 450 W PSU and the old CPU cooler this is at 925 Euros. Is it worth the 50 Euros in comparison to my initial build? What are the benefits to the old version?

Thank you all for the help! I'm gonna order the parts as soon as the build is finished. And I will tell you how it works!

Off - Topic: http://www.amazon.de/gp/offer-listin...&condition=new Well that's an expensive HDD

[Mate1989]

Hi everybody!

So after all the advice on my build and talking to a friend this is what I'll go for:

Intel i7 4770
Gigabyte G1.Sniper Z87
16GB Crucial Ballistix Tactical DDR3 1600 CL8
580W Be quiet! Straight Power E9 CM 80+ Gold
Noctua NH - D14
Fractal Design Define R4
Samsung SH 224 DVD Drive
250 GB Samsung 840 EVO SSD
1 TB Western Digital Caviar Blue 64 MB SATA 6Gb/s

Ordered at mindfactory this will cost me 1022 €.

You all helped me a lot! THANKS!!!

I will order the parts today or tomorrow and I will tell you guys how it works!

[Mate1989]

Hi everybody!

So I assembled my machine a few days ago. The mainboard looks awesome! Just like the rest of the parts. First I opened up the case and took a look inside. There is a lot of space in this case. The case has two drive cages. One with five bays and one with three bays. The 5 bay cage is dismountable. So I took it off because I don't need so many bays. That comes in handy with cable management and air circulation. Installing the CPU was not too hard. But the cooler was a little bit difficult. It's really gigantic. I don't think that anybody who already built a computer will have troubles putting a setup like mine together. I wasn't sure about the fan cabling at one point but after booting everything seemed to work so I think I made the right decision. The case has two fans built in already. One in the front in the bottom position and one in the back in the top position which is the only fan position there. I'm not sure what the intake and what the outtake fan is but I will figure it out. I'm gonna get another fan soon so I will set them up as follows: Front fan with filter in bottom position taking the air in. Back fan in top position blowing the air out. And another filtered fan in the bottom of my case taking air in. If I can put the filter on the filter position on top of my case I will do so. But I have to check that out. This setup will create positive air pressure which slows dust coming inside the case. I'm pretty satisfied with the air circulation at the moment but I wanna improve it as much as I can. The RAM just fits beneath the CPU fan. I had to put the RAM on the mainboard before installing the CPU cooler. It was hard to put the mainboard with the CPU cooler and the RAM into the case cause it was so heavy. The case has some extra space to fit up to two SSDs into. That's really cool. Building in the other parts like HDD, SSD and PSU was easy. I installed Windows7 professional N which caused no problems. Everything was ok and working properly. After OS installation everything seemed to be ok. I optimized some settings for my SSD and installed my DAW which is Reason 7. I also installed my audio interface which is propellerheads balance interface (via USB 2.0). With my laptop and with my old computer this combination worked fine. But now with my new machine there is no sound coming out of my speakers... A friend has just the same problem. I can see that my Masterkeyboard is working cause I can see the input levels in Reason. And if I connect my speakers directly to my pc without the balance interface everything works great. I tried to connect it to all of my USB ports which also include USB 3.0. I downloaded the latest drivers for my interface and for my USB ports. I googled my problem and some people said that they just deinstalled their USB drivers and restarted the computer. And it worked like that. I tried that too but first I killed my mouse and my keyboard which also are USB devices. After rebooting using the reset button on my case nothing changed. I already flashed the BIOS to the newest version. The next problem is that I have mouse drop outs from time to time. They last for about 3 - 8 seconds. I tried all of my USB ports. And I can't get into the BIOS sometimes. The rest of the parts and functions is doing very well but those problems are really annoying. I will contact the GIGABYTE support. But I think I will have to replace the mainboard... I know it's a lot of text but I hope that some people can benefit from this and maybe some people can help me in some kind of way...

[kompukare]

I know it's a lot of text but I hope that some people can benefit from this and maybe some people can help me in some kind of way...

Well, it would have been a lot less of a wall of text with one or two paragraph breaks!

The BIOS should have USB keyboard/mouse support enabled by default. Personally I always make sure that any motherboard I buy also has PS/2 ports since otherwise even with the BIOS USB support turned on, I will eventually want to run a old rescue CD or something where the keyboard doesn't work. Newer is not always better...

Do you have any PS/2 mouse or adapter? But a lagging mouse sounds more like some hardware interrupt or something. Have you run Latency Monitor or dpclat?
http://www.thesycon.de/deu/latency_check.shtml
http://www.resplendence.com/latencymon

And are all devices in Device manager okay?