How would you build your music PC today?

[sima66]

I'm in the process of building my new music PC and I would appreciate any inputs or suggestions.......lessons from the previous mistakes! :-)
What MoBo, RAM (size - consider RAMDISC or not).....etc?

[sebna]

Ram OS is certainty cheap and efficient solution :)

If not RAMos then I would try to find MB which supports AVX2 for MQNs but also supports PPA CF and at the same time have easy enough to exchange clocks...

I know that Intel server board seems to work nicely with PPA CFs but clocks are not like on most consumer grade MBs and are tiny (do not think I have seen even one of those with changed clocks).

Other then that I guess the question is how crazy you want to go on PSU :)

I am pretty happy with my very simple PC as for Tirna standards seems like a nice balance of usability vs quality vs cost.

But ideally I would love the have all of the options which currently I do not have. I have one motherbaord which works well with PPA CF but no support for AVX2 :(. I have other MB which works with AVX2 but will not support PPA CF :)...

Cheers,
seb

[sima66]

Ram OS is certainty cheap and efficient solution :)

If not RAMos then I would try to find MB which supports AVX2 for MQNs but also supports PPA CF and at the same time have easy enough to exchange clocks...

I know that Intel server board seems to work nicely with PPA CFs but clocks are not like on most consumer grade MBs and are tiny (do not think I have seen even one of those with changed clocks).

Other then that I guess the question is how crazy you want to go on PSU :)

I am pretty happy with my very simple PC as for Tirna standards seems like a nice balance of usability vs quality vs cost.

But ideally I would love the have all of the options which currently I do not have. I have one motherbaord which works well with PPA CF but no support for AVX2 :(. I have other MB which works with AVX2 but will not support PPA CF :)...

Cheers,
seb

Thanks Seb,

No more CF! I had enough trouble with it......that's how you got it! :)
I'm happy with my current Zuma, but actually MQn is the reason why I need to get Haswell and start from the scratch.
As for the PS I will keep the ATX Teradak as is now.......for now!
No more clocks changing!

[tony]

Hurrah as they say in Father Ted(Chinese episode) Great to see some more money being spent on burning out mobos!

MSI H81M-P32L or equivalent. Nigels(formerly owed) two clock mobo touch wood still going strong. Nice and cheap.
When free time magically appears I will have a go maybe at one clock replacement on one of these. Of course I will make sure to invite Nigel up for a listening session on the day and move him straight into the workshop. I may buy a few spares just in case!
Nice thing is they are cheap.Work with ramdisk and agree forget CF card.

[sebna]

I got two PPA CFs :) - yours was the first one :) - they do give great sound quality. I did not do much comparisons but between PPA CF and USB stick was just massive difference.

Marcin from Jplay went through many storage types and claims CF in general is by far the best of them all and I can see why he is saying so. Once he established this he went through many types of CF cards as well and picked certain type as best of which he tested...

So you do not want to exchange any clocks? Just standard haswell capable MB? If so I would go for RAMos and if you can live with small storage I would not add any form of storage at all to minimize any power fluctuations to minimum. You could get 32gb of RAM which will leave you with about 22GB purely for music. You would load your OS to ram from USB which then can be unplugged and you are left with PC without any form of storage other then RAM itself. Still if you do not care for PPA CF, PPA MBs with one PPA clock are pretty stable and do not cause much hassle at all.

Keep in mind that I am just shearing my ideas but for real advice backed by countless hours of tinkering people like Pearse or Nige should be consulted :)

Cheers

EDIT:

Or if you do not want clocks you could go Intel server board with Xeon (with AVX2) and CF card ! - that is what I would do if I would not be interested in clocks :) (I am very tempted :))

[sima66]

Yeah Tony, you are the lucky one!
I guess that is not my time for upgraded clocks! :(
The MSI H81M-P32L looks OK, but I tried briefly and did not find on this part of the world!!!

My rough idea was to use a RAMOS (if we all agree that is worth and better that the SSD OS), buy a 16GB RAM, upload the OS from USB (or SSD) and still use my storage SSD.
Seb, I'm curious did you compared to load RAMOS from USB and from CF?

I'm also tempted by PPA MoBo with upgraded clock, but is a lot of money! :(

BTW, are there a better/worst clocks in a different mobo's?

[tony]

Yeah Tony, you are the lucky one!
I guess that is not my time for upgraded clocks! :(
The MSI H81M-P32L looks OK, but I tried briefly and did not find on this part of the world!!!

My rough idea was to use a RAMOS (if we all agree that is worth and better that the SSD OS), buy a 16GB RAM, upload the OS from USB (or SSD) and still use my storage SSD.
Seb, I'm curious did you compared to load RAMOS from USB and from CF?

I'm also tempted by PPA MoBo with upgraded clock, but is a lot of money! :(

BTW, are there a better/worst clocks in a different mobo's?

Will have a look they keep changing the name but if I send you a photo of the type they are all virtually the same just different number.
This should do fine
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00F42 ... 1_1&sr=8-1


I use SSD and just take the anker off it after ramdisk has booted.

Clocks on different mobo's i don't think even Nigel or Pearse has got to that level of investigation.

Easy option is PPA mobo with clock if that is affordable. You probably should just bite the bullet

[nige2000]

Yeah Tony, you are the lucky one!
I guess that is not my time for upgraded clocks! :(
The MSI H81M-P32L looks OK, but I tried briefly and did not find on this part of the world!!!

My rough idea was to use a RAMOS (if we all agree that is worth and better that the SSD OS), buy a 16GB RAM, upload the OS from USB (or SSD) and still use my storage SSD.
Seb, I'm curious did you compared to load RAMOS from USB and from CF?

I'm also tempted by PPA MoBo with upgraded clock, but is a lot of money! :(

BTW, are there a better/worst clocks in a different mobo's?

Will have a look they keep changing the name but if I send you a photo of the type they are all virtually the same just different number.
This should do fine
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00F42 ... 1_1&sr=8-1

the exact mobo is hard to find these days that on above isnt it

I use SSD and just take the anker off it after ramdisk has booted.

Clocks on different mobo's i don't think even Nigel or Pearse has got to that level of investigation.

there is a difference in clocks certainly but its not the biggest issue
the power supply to the clock is the priority

there is slight variation of sq between different mobos

Easy option is PPA mobo with clock if that is affordable. You probably should just bite the bullet

[tony]

Ok Nige will this do? Would have thought that the P33 is very similar and would be a cheap one to try. Some of the stuff is in a slightly different position but should be as tough

http://www.amazon.com/MSI-CSM-H81M-P32- ... si+h81+p32

[nige2000]

Ok Nige will this do? Would have thought that the P33 is very similar and would be a cheap one to try. Some of the stuff is in a slightly different position but should be as tough

http://www.amazon.com/MSI-CSM-H81M-P32- ... si+h81+p32

yea thats more like it
ive a p33 in my rather extensive dead pile i didnt even like it when it was working

intel server boards are interesting they have 4 pin clocks which i think would make them perfect for clock modding
id like to try one but there far too expensive for experiments

ive no clock modded mobos working atm all are dead
its a real miss