# Yet another slave PC build for review



## Jeff Tymoschuk (Jan 16, 2016)

Hey folks, my slave PC has died after a few years of distinguished service, so it's time for me to replace it. I'm going to be using the machine as a slave for VE Pro, mostly Kontakt-based instruments, some VIs (Spectrasonics/u-he/Arturia/PLAY if I get ambitious), and a bunch of the usual plugins. 

I spent some time on the boards looking at other peoples' builds, and came up with these components. The PC component world is big, scary and foreign, so I thought I'd turn to the smarties on VI Control for some opinions on what I've come up with. I'm not married to any of these parts, so any recommendations are greatly appreciated.

https://pcpartpicker.com/user/GreenWire/saved/

Or, in case that link doesn't work...

CPU: Intel Core i7-5820K 3.3GHz 6-Core Processor
CPU Cooler: LEPA AquaChanger 240 103.6 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler
Motherboard: ASRock X99 Extreme4 ATX LGA2011-3 Motherboard
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws V Series 64GB (4 x 16GB) DDR4-2400 Memory
Storage: Samsung 850 EVO-Series 1TB 2.5" Solid State Drive ... I also have three other SSD drives that I'll be bringing in from the old computer.
Power Supply: EVGA SuperNOVA P2 850W 80+ Platinum Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply
Optical Drive: Asus DRW-24B1ST/BLK/B/AS DVD/CD Writer

Also, do I need to have a separate Ethernet card in there to maximize my VE Pro usage, or does the ASRock's Gigabit LAN do the trick? 

Thanks for the help!

Jeff


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## chimuelo (Jan 16, 2016)

ASRock is the kind. Especially for DPC and NVMe M.2s.
Recently built a 240mm rig and @ 4.9ghz I barely go above 54C.
You'll be happy with ASRock resin based PCB.
They can run at higher watts 24/7.


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## Dracarys (Jan 16, 2016)

I wouldn't build a haswell rig since broadwell-e and skylake-e are very close and will offer new features, if you can wait until summer. Also, I would look into a Noctua fan for cooling, water cooling/overclocking is a headache and overkill unless you're rendering. I have a 3930k processor, 64gb RAM with no slave, my track count is 500+ with all SSDs containing intensive East West HW libraries, and my CPU never goes above 50% at stock (and even 6 of my SSDs are bottlenecked at SATA 2 speeds). Make sure your OS and DAW are on a SSD, it makes a huge difference contrary to several threads in this forum, at least in my experience, and my engineers.


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## rgames (Jan 16, 2016)

I think the ASRock X99 OC Formula is a better bet. It has 2x M.2 PCIe drive slots on the board and has shown extremely good DPC latency. It is more expensive but it's under $300.

I'd skip the water cooler. Fans are simpler, cheaper, more reliable and quieter. Water cooling might get you a *tiny* bit more overclock but I don't think it's worth all the negatives.

Also not sure why you want an 850 W power supply. For a DAW or slave I think 400-500 is plenty.

If the 2400 RAM is the same price as 1866 or 1600 then that's fine but I wouldn't pay extra for it. The higher speed doesn't do anything for you. Get whatever is cheapest.

For sample streaming, you'll get much better performance from two 32 GB i5 slaves in place of a single 64 GB i7 machine. So you might want to evaluate that option.

I'd go for M.2 PCIe SSDs before SATA SSDs. I think the costs are pretty comparable these days.

rgames


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## Dracarys (Jan 17, 2016)

rgames said:


> For sample streaming, you'll get much better performance from two 32 GB i5 slaves in place of a single 64 GB i7 machine. So you might want to evaluate that option.
> rgames



I'm still skeptical of this, despite all the helpful tests you've run, I believe a 6 or 8 core new i7, with 64gb - 128gb, multiple 500gb sata 3 ssds, will perform just as well, using two instances of Ve Pro, multiple cpu hungry FX, and condensed orchestral tracks. Slaves are becoming a thing of the past, and I think the only real positive here is saving money on 16gb dimm's. Also, the motherboard issues I see a lot of guys experiencing because this much ram on a non-server board is relatively new.

However, I'm not sure if slaves help with video.


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## chimuelo (Jan 17, 2016)

Best thing about Water Cooling is how you can get the optimal voltage settings going for the highest clock on Ring Bus, CPU and RAM.
Then you can fine tune by decreasing voltage.
On air only you top out sooner never getting optimal settings.
But you certainly don't need a 240mm just to run sustainable workloads.
I settled for a 1.2ghz jump on an i5 6500. Optimal on AIDA64 was 4.9.
400mhz more than I could actually use.


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## rgames (Jan 17, 2016)

Dracarys said:


> I'm still skeptical of this, despite all the helpful tests you've run, I believe a 6 or 8 core new i7, with 64gb - 128gb, multiple 500gb sata 3 ssds, will perform just as well, using two instances of Ve Pro, multiple cpu hungry FX, and condensed orchestral tracks. Slaves are becoming a thing of the past, and I think the only real positive here is saving money on 16gb dimm's. Also, the motherboard issues I see a lot of guys experiencing because this much ram on a non-server board is relatively new.


I have an i7 4930k (6 core/12 thread) and it streams the same number of voices as my i5 2500k (4 core/4 thread). I get about 1500 for VSL/LASS, about 700 for Cinebrass and something like 200 for PLAY (Hollywood Brass) on both machines. The 4930k runs at much lower CPU usage, of course, but the max voice count is still the same and has been for years - the i5 2500k is almost 5 years old. That's why everyone is still using slaves.

Slaves are only a thing of the past if you don't need that many voices. The vast majority of DAW users don't. But if you're writing dense orchestrations and/or fast-moving lines and/or using multiple mic positions then you'll eat up voices pretty fast. The only way to deal with that is multiple machines. Or bouncing tracks.

rgames


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## Vin (Jan 17, 2016)

It's a really solid build. I agree with rgames, though - I'd switch is that water cooling - get a Noctua NH-D14 or D15 instead.

850W platinum PSU is quite an overkill if you're going to build that exact machine - ~550-650W gold would be more than enough. What's the graphic card that you're going to use?


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## Jeff Tymoschuk (Jan 17, 2016)

Hey guys, thanks for the responses. I may be able to hold off a month or two to wait for the new chips, I've been using my MacPro master as the one and only for the last month or two, and with the projects I've got scheduled in the next couple of months I can probably make do. 

I'm fine to skip the water cooler, I'd been under the impression that they were quieter than traditional fans (which is the main idea behind me getting one). I don't really have grand ambitions of overclocking things though, so I'll check out the Noctua fans.

In my workflow most of the time I'm loading large templates per project so I can have access to whatever instrument combinations I need, but not generally using exceptionally high voice counts. I also have my Mac trashcan master to help shoulder the load, so that's why I'm thinking of just one slave PC. I've taken a little look at M.2 PCIe SSDs, but I don't think I can get the capacity I need at the price just yet, so I'll probably stick with the SATA ones.

I don't have a particular graphics card in mind, either, any recommendations on that? All I need it for is VE Pro and my synths, no high end gaming required or anything like that.

Thanks again, all this stuff is outside my pay grade, and I appreciate the assistance!


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## chimuelo (Jan 17, 2016)

Power Supply matching is really important and anyone using a Calculator like Asus offers should also read on the 80 Plus Certifications if you want a stable efficient DAW.
GOLD is great for audio since we dont use high sustained performance for long periods.
Make sure you see 80 PLUS and GOLD on any PSU.
Anything other than those certs use at your own risk.

Sure Bronze will work.
But when a PSU goes bad it will still work.
Your audio sounds like shit and you end up thinking you need a new sound card or CPU when actually its a non certified PSU that still provides power.
Just not enough.

I ended up with lots of extra parts once from my first days of building.


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## WorshipMaestro (Jan 18, 2016)

Lot's of great suggestions here! FWIW, here's my $.02:

X99 and 5820K is a great combination for a workstation. I built one and it rocks. Probably overkill and way more expensive than you need to spend for a sample streaming slave, unless you anticipate wanting to go to 128GB RAM at some point in the future. If you need a box now you might have a look at Skylake processors and mobos. A possible benefit is that you could run OS X on it if you wanted, which is much harder on the X99 platform.

I notice you don't have a case listed in your parts list. NewEgg has the Fractal R5 on sale right now for $80. My last 4 builds have been one R3, two R4's, and one R5. I probably won't build another computer in any other series of cases. They are just wonderful, and seriously quiet.

+1 on the power supply recommendations. If you shop around you can find sales pretty regularly on 80+ gold and higher supplies. Check around the web for reviews on how quiet they are though. Some of them can get pretty raucous under load.

I'd also go with water cooling. It is so easy these days with the all in one kits, they cool well and are QUIET. I'm a big fan eliminating all the high speed fans possible in a computer for audio use. I've been pleased with Corsair for this.


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## chimuelo (Jan 18, 2016)

Definitely Water Cool.
I am a newbie since 3 weeks ago.
Just finished another water cooled i5.
This time the i5 6400 @ 4.5GHz with NVMe ASRock Z170 mATX. Smoking fast...

3 x i5 CPUs for the price of 1 i7 6700k.
My revenge on Intel is complete....


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## ptsmith (Jan 19, 2016)

Jeff Tymoschuk said:


> I'm fine to skip the water cooler, I'd been under the impression that they were quieter than traditional fans (which is the main idea behind me getting one).


I was under the impression water cooling was quieter too. It's not?

You've got realize chimuelo that the vast majority of DAW users don't want to overclock like a gamer. I set my BIOS to auto-overclock and that's good enough for me. It's well within the limits of not running too hot and being reliable, which is more important to me than achieving max speed.


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## ptsmith (Jan 19, 2016)

Rgames, what do you think of the Sound on Sound article posted in your thread: http://vi-control.net/community/thr...ormance-in-your-daw.46807/page-3#post-3898922


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## kunst91 (Jan 19, 2016)

Is that RAM compatible with the AS Rock motherboard?


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## Jeff Tymoschuk (Jan 19, 2016)

WorshipMaestro said:


> Lot's of great suggestions here! FWIW, here's my $.02:
> 
> 
> I notice you don't have a case listed in your parts list. NewEgg has the Fractal R5 on sale right now for $80. My last 4 builds have been one R3, two R4's, and one R5. I probably won't build another computer in any other series of cases. They are just wonderful, and seriously quiet.


 
Thanks for the recommendation on this, I had been planning on using my old case, but this looks pretty great.


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## Jeff Tymoschuk (Jan 19, 2016)

kunst91 said:


> Is that RAM compatible with the AS Rock motherboard?



Whoops, that would've been a bad thing to miss, thanks for pointing it out.


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## benatural (Jan 19, 2016)

I can vouch for the noctua cooler. Not silent, but also not really that noticeable in the right case. Speaking of, I use a nonoxia deep silence 5. It's heavy but also pretty quiet.


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## prodigalson (Jan 19, 2016)

wow, this is almost part by part exactly the same build I've been come up with recently. 

One question for the experts here and apologies if it's stupid but is it necessary to have a wired network card and a sound card in the slave?


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## WorshipMaestro (Jan 20, 2016)

prodigalson said:


> wow, this is almost part by part exactly the same build I've been come up with recently.
> 
> One question for the experts here and apologies if it's stupid but is it necessary to have a wired network card and a sound card in the slave?


Wired network yes, sound card no for slaves. And I'm not an expert - I've just learned some things through a LOT of trial and ERROR.


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## Jeff Tymoschuk (Jan 21, 2016)

Alright, one more crack at this. I'm pretty much ready to rock, I decided not to hold out for the new Intel chips, here's the revised parts list, now in fancy Canadian dollars!: 

https://ca.pcpartpicker.com/user/GreenWire/saved/#view=GR8G3C

CPU: Intel Core i7-5820K 3.3GHz 6-Core Processor
CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-D15 82.5 CFM CPU Cooler
Motherboard: ASRock X99 Extreme4 ATX LGA2011-3 Motherboard
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws V Series 64GB (4 x 16GB) DDR4-2133 Memory
Storage: Samsung 850 EVO-Series 1TB 2.5" Solid State Drive
Case: Fractal Design Define R5 (Black) ATX Mid Tower Case
Power Supply: SeaSonic 520W 80+ Platinum Certified Fully-Modular Fanless ATX Power Supply
Optical Drive: Asus DRW-24B1ST/BLK/B/AS DVD/CD Writer

The ASRock motherboard has 1 x 10/100/1000 Mbps onboard LAN, is that sufficient to be running a big VE Pro session over LAN, or should I look at adding an Ethernet card?

Thanks again for all the help, folks, it's much appreciated.


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## rgames (Jan 23, 2016)

Onboard LAN has always been sufficient for me so I'd say first try it out and see if it's an issue. I bought an Intel card for my slave and it performs the same as the onboard Realtek. That's mature technology, so unless you're an enterprise user you don't need expensive network connections.

rgames


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## Jeff Tymoschuk (Jan 23, 2016)

Great, thanks Richard, I'll give it a shot. Parts are ordered now, looking forward to getting it all going!


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## ptsmith (Jan 24, 2016)

I was just looking on anandtech at a DPC latency comparison for X99 MB's. The MSI X99A SLI PLUS was the clear winner. I don't know how good it is otherwise, but seems to be really good on DPC latency.


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## mirrodin (Jan 24, 2016)

Interesting, especially considering that we're talking about microseconds and not milliseconds. I'm curious how the latency comparisons are calculated, it's been a while since I've seen Anandetch's articles. I know Hothardware has pretty well documented benchmarking articles, but DPC latency is only one overall facet versus stability. 

Microseconds difference between Clean bare-bones OS installs with no real-world load don't really equate to much when suddenly you're installing things like VEPro or Bidule & .net framework redistributables, and/or graphics processing overhead when remote-desktoping.


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## ptsmith (Jan 25, 2016)

Mirrodin, According to this, DPC latency has a big impact on real time audio: http://vi-control.net/community/thr...e-vs-real-time-performance-in-your-daw.46807/


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## gsilbers (Jan 26, 2016)

I have the asrock extreme4, 5820k and 128gb ram. pretty cool.
everything works fine. I used a rack case that had some challenges but so far so good.


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