# VEP7 Slave Build 2020...Is this a good build?



## Synetos (Mar 5, 2020)

I need to build a new VEP machine that will be dedicated to hosting only. I already have an extra graphics card, so I did not put one in here.

VEP SLAVE PC
Intel Core i9-10980XE 3 GHz 18-Core Processor
Noctua NH-D15 CHROMAX.BLACK 82.52 CFM CPU Cooler
Asus Prime X299-A II ATX LGA2066 Motherboard
CORSAIR Vengeance LPX 256GB (8 x 32GB) 288-Pin DDR4 SDRAM DDR4 3200 (PC4 25600) Memory
Samsung 970 EVO Plus 2 TB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive (for Samples)
Samsung 970 Evo 1 TB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive (For OS)
Corsair Air 540 ATX Full Tower Case
Corsair HX Platinum 1200 W 80+ Platinum Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply

I appreciate the collective wisdom here, so thanks for sharing.

Edit: I went a little overkill on the power supply and high air flow case so I can OC if desired.


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## Manaberry (Mar 5, 2020)

The PSU is overkill indeed. 1000W would be enough, with OC. I do have a 750W PSU, it does the job.
I do have the 10980, all cores cranked up at 4.4Ghz. It's an absolute beast.

Is there any dust filter coming with the case? On my side, I went for a Phanteks with Kraken x62.
I have absolutely no need to open and clean what's inside because the dust is filtered at the front of the case. It's perfect when the PC is always on.


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## JohnG (Mar 5, 2020)

That is quite a computer!

In the Ancient Times, some software placed a ceiling on the number of samples you could load. That would be the only thing worth researching -- PLAY, Kontakt, and the individual players for various libraries. I'm not sure if those ceilings persist.

Agree with @Manaberry that the PSU seems excessive, but better safe than sorry. Personally I think a 1 TB boot drive is massive overkill in capacity and, on top of that, I'd just use a regular SATA III slot for it, saving the M.2 spaces for samples. I am under 100 GB on the C: drive for each of my PC slave computers.


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## José Herring (Mar 5, 2020)

Great machine. 

You will have to be smart though on how you configure VEPRO as far as the plugins go. The single Thread performance of the chip is fairly low compared to other chips. So, it's going to rely a lot on multi processing. If you load up too many powerful patches in one instance of a plugin it will run on one core and that beast of a machine will crawl on its knees. So spread out your most demanding patches over several instances of your plugins. For example don't put all your JXL brass with multi mic positions all in one Sine Player. Spread it out over 5 players ect..


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## Synetos (Mar 5, 2020)

Manaberry said:


> The PSU is overkill indeed. 1000W would be enough, with OC. I do have a 750W PSU, it does the job.
> I do have the 10980, all cores cranked up at 4.4Ghz. It's an absolute beast.
> 
> Is there any dust filter coming with the case? On my side, I went for a Phanteks with Kraken x62.
> I have absolutely no need to open and clean what's inside because the dust is filtered at the front of the case. It's perfect when the PC is always on.



Thanks for your thoughts!

The case is very nice! I build my 6800k with it. It has filters on all intake fans. I have used liquid coolers, but actually seem to get better results with this particular Noctua.

I originally had 1000w PS, but for the $39 I will get the bigger one in case I run a highend graphics card. I might end up turning it into my single DAW machine, then need to be able to drive several 4k monitors.


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## Synetos (Mar 5, 2020)

JohnG said:


> That is quite a computer!
> 
> In the Ancient Times, some software placed a ceiling on the number of samples you could load. That would be the only thing worth researching -- PLAY, Kontakt, and the individual players for various libraries. I'm not sure if those ceilings persist.
> 
> Agree with @Manaberry that the PSU seems excessive, but better safe than sorry. Personally I think a 1 TB boot drive is massive overkill in capacity and, on top of that, I'd just use a regular SATA III slot for it, saving the M.2 spaces for samples. I am under 100 GB on the C: drive for each of my PC slave computers.



Thanks John. My sample libraries will all fit on the 2TB. I may end up using it as a single box, so I wanted i bit more horsepower on the boot drive if I am running DAW, etc. But, I agree that it is larger than I need. Generally, I put 512 on boot drive. If I out grow the sample drive, and dont use for a DAW, then I might actually do as you suggested and boot off a SSD.


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## Synetos (Mar 5, 2020)

josejherring said:


> Great machine.
> 
> You will have to be smart though on how you configure VEPRO as far as the plugins go. The single Thread performance of the chip is fairly low compared to other chips. So, it's going to rely a lot on multi processing. If you load up too many powerful patches in one instance of a plugin it will run on one core and that beast of a machine will crawl on its knees. So spread out your most demanding patches over several instances of your plugins. For example don't put all your JXL brass with multi mic positions all in one Sine Player. Spread it out over 5 players ect..


I had a 7980XE for about 2 weeks and learned that the hard way. I brought the thing to its knees on one Instance loaded up with just a handful of Omnisphere and Keyscape samples. That was running stock and had turbo boost on, etc. When I OC'c it to just 3.5, spread the VSTs out over 4 Instances, that all cleared up. 

I did decide to start it with just 128GB/ 4/32's. I never needed the 128GB I had in my other machine, so might as well hold off on that. 

I am stoked to see how well it will perform.


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## Synetos (Mar 5, 2020)

I will say, I came very close to building an AMD box, but Intel went above and beyond on the warranty claim for the dead 6950x. I will continue to be loyal. They earned my business for a long time to come.


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## JohnG (Mar 5, 2020)

Synetos said:


> Thanks John. My sample libraries will all fit on the 2TB.



I wasn't talking about storage -- I'm talking about holding all that in RAM, or rather in the player/host itself. In the past, there were limitations on how much you could put into RAM on some software engines/DAWs. Possibly that is now in the past, but I guess, considering the cost and the 256 GB, I would try to confirm that.

You don't want to have some player glitching out on you because you've loaded 10 million samples.


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## Synetos (Mar 5, 2020)

JohnG said:


> I wasn't talking about storage -- I'm talking about holding all that in RAM, or rather in the player/host itself. In the past, there were limitations on how much you could put into RAM on some software engines/DAWs. Possibly that is now in the past, but I guess, considering the cost and the 256 GB, I would try to confirm that.
> 
> You don't want to have some player glitching out on you because you've loaded 10 million samples.


Okay, now I see what you mean. I actually reduced it to 128GB now.

Arrg! I waited too long and now I cant find the stupid processor. Best Buy has them...not anymore. Everyone appears sold out :(


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## JohnG (Mar 5, 2020)

Synetos said:


> Okay, now I see what you mean. I actually reduced it to 128GB now.



whoa -- not trying to talk you out of 256! It sounds great. Just hoping someone (maybe on the forum here?) can confirm for you that you won't be a little _too_ ahead of the tech curve on this.

It may be no problem at all now.


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## Synetos (Mar 5, 2020)

JohnG said:


> whoa -- not trying to talk you out of 256! It sounds great. Just hoping someone (maybe on the forum here?) can confirm for you that you won't be a little _too_ ahead of the tech curve on this.
> 
> It may be no problem at all now.


No worries, you didn't. I had already decided that i would start with 128 in 32GB modules, then I can add more if I really need it. I was just getting click happy with my build  Saving $650 is good, unless RAM prices go stupid high again.


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## JohnG (Mar 5, 2020)

Synetos said:


> unless RAM prices go stupid high again.



Sadly, the disruptions out there could mean anything -- shortages or lack of buyers, or even both.

I hope it's not as bad as some people are forecasting.

John


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## Synetos (Mar 5, 2020)

JohnG said:


> Sadly, the disruptions out there could mean anything -- shortages or lack of buyers, or even both.
> 
> I hope it's not as bad as some people are forecasting.
> 
> John


From my digging around, this CPU shortage thing has been going on for a while on the 10980XE. I didnt even consider a supply issue, until I went to buy parts to build this new Rig


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## Dominik (Mar 7, 2020)

JohnG said:


> That is quite a computer!
> 
> In the Ancient Times, some software placed a ceiling on the number of samples you could load. That would be the only thing worth researching -- PLAY, Kontakt, and the individual players for various libraries. I'm not sure if those ceilings persist.
> 
> Agree with @Manaberry that the PSU seems excessive, but better safe than sorry. Personally I think a 1 TB boot drive is massive overkill in capacity and, on top of that, I'd just use a regular SATA III slot for it, saving the M.2 spaces for samples. I am under 100 GB on the C: drive for each of my PC slave computers.


I would put in a m.2 adapter if the motherboard does not support enough m.2 ports. I agree that 1TB for system is overkill


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## longaker (Mar 7, 2020)

Ive been looking at a very similar build. Any luck finding the 10980xe in stock? Was holding out for 10900k to see comparison. Higher clocks or more cores... hard to decide, but if 10980xe can be oc’d to 4.4+ on all cores that sounds wickedly awesome and best of both. I have an apollo x8p interface which requires Thunderbolt 3, your MB supports it onboard. Good choice. USB4, which integrates Thuderbolt 3 is coming very soon too, that will open up AMD i/o. Have you looked at Fractal or BeQuiet cases?


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## Synetos (Mar 11, 2020)

longaker said:


> Ive been looking at a very similar build. Any luck finding the 10980xe in stock? Was holding out for 10900k to see comparison. Higher clocks or more cores... hard to decide, but if 10980xe can be oc’d to 4.4+ on all cores that sounds wickedly awesome and best of both. I have an apollo x8p interface which requires Thunderbolt 3, your MB supports it onboard. Good choice. USB4, which integrates Thuderbolt 3 is coming very soon too, that will open up AMD i/o. Have you looked at Fractal or BeQuiet cases?


I've had no luck finding a 10980XE. I did a bit more reading, and it appears it is only about 1% faster than the 9980XE. The real difference is the price. Maybe Intel is holding out distribution of the 10980XE until the stock of the more costly 9980XE is depleted? If I really wanted to move forward, the 9980XE would be fine.


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## Potatistoppen (Mar 11, 2020)

Synetos said:


> I've had no luck finding a 10980XE. I did a bit more reading, and it appears it is only about 1% faster than the 9980XE. The real difference is the price. Maybe Intel is holding out distribution of the 10980XE until the stock of the more costly 9980XE is depleted? If I really wanted to move forward, the 9980XE would be fine.


I actually built a PC with very similar specs as your opening post. I waited for the 10980XE since 25th of November last year and it still has not come into stock. I gave up and got a 10940X, running at all-core 4.5 GHz on a Noctua NHD15-S. It has 256GB ram and my template uses 140 GB at the moment. I went with the ASUS Prime X299 Deluxe II for the Thunderbolt ports. 

I did not want a 9980XE because they don't officially support 256GB ram (however I think they can do it). 

Just ask if you want to know anything more about the PC. I am working on a small Youtube video on the build which I will upload soon.


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## Synetos (Mar 11, 2020)

Potatistoppen said:


> I actually built a PC with very similar specs as your opening post. I waited for the 10980XE since 25th of November last year and it still has not come into stock. I gave up and got a 10940X, running at all-core 4.5 GHz on a Noctua NHD15-S. It has 256GB ram and my template uses 140 GB at the moment. I went with the ASUS Prime X299 Deluxe II for the Thunderbolt ports.
> 
> I did not want a 9980XE because they don't officially support 256GB ram (however I think they can do it).
> 
> Just ask if you want to know anything more about the PC. I am working on a small Youtube video on the build which I will upload soon.


Oh, cool! I started to wonder if the 10980XE will get released when the 9980XE inventory is gone?

I priced out other CPUs as well, then figured I would try to get by with what I already own. It doesnt take away my desire to have a single big VEP slave though. My 5960x OC at 3.9 is working fine. But I really like having VSTs all loaded up on not on my DAW machine.

I am interested in your PC build. Please share your video link and specs when you have it done.


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## Potatistoppen (Mar 14, 2020)

Synetos said:


> Oh, cool! I started to wonder if the 10980XE will get released when the 9980XE inventory is gone?
> 
> I priced out other CPUs as well, then figured I would try to get by with what I already own. It doesnt take away my desire to have a single big VEP slave though. My 5960x OC at 3.9 is working fine. But I really like having VSTs all loaded up on not on my DAW machine.
> 
> I am interested in your PC build. Please share your video link and specs when you have it done.



Here is my build timelapse video:



There were some problems setting the system up. The Q-installer, which is an ASUS utility program that comes with the motherboard did not work properly. I could not boot because of a faulty Wi-fi driver. Some hard drives gave a GPT corruption error, preventing startup. This was because of a bug in the latest Bios version. All of this could be solved with some Googling but building this was actually a lot more troublesome than previous builds I have done.

The overclocking took a long time to tweak. There are many different programs and difficult to know which one takes priority. I used Intel XTU to tweak settings without having to restart the computer, but there was also a factory overclock from the UEFI, as well as in ASUS AI suite (which I deleted as soon as I could). Windows 10 also has some performance settings in energy saving options.

When I finally had my stable settings, I overclocked to 4.5 GHz on all cores and put the mesh at 2.8 GHz with 1.120V Vcore and 0.900V cache voltage in the UEFI Bios. I put the Vin voltage at 1.9V. I stole the XMP settings for the RAM (to put it at 3200 MHz) and manually entered the numbers because simply enabling an XMP profile caused the CPU to overclock as well.

I disabled the Turbo Boost 3.0 because 4.8 GHz for a few seconds with massive heat development feels mostly like a marketing gimmick for me and is not very useful.

This video helped me a lot in gaining confidence to overclock as it was something I had not done a lot before:



The fans are inaudible when doing DAW work, but they sound like an airplane and the temperature jumps to 80-85°C when video rendering because of the high power consumption of this CPU at these clock frequencies. That the system is super quiet when I am in Cubase is all that matters for me though. If I only did DAW work I could run at 4.6 GHz, but the temperature was too high (90°C+) when video rendering so I turned it down to 4.5 GHz to be safe. 

To keep power consumption and temperature down, at first, I had 5% minimum processor state. This did not work well, leading to pops and clicks in Cubase with just a single track so I raised it to 100%. From then on all sound problems disappeared.

When running Latencymon The Nvidia GTX 1060 is the main offender, with dxgkrnl.sys and nvlddmkm.sys but I have not noticed a real-world impact on performance because of this.

Other than that, I did all the usual tweaks for real time audio optimization in Windows 10 such as disabling Bluetooth and Wi-fi.

I first set AVX offset to -6 to be safe regarding temperatures when rendering. I noticed a dip in frequency when running Cubase (to 4.3 GHz for some reason) So I turned it off again. When I did a 3D render with Blender the max temperature was 92°C, which is too high in my opinion, so I will not 3D render with these settings. Instead I will render with the graphics card or use a different Intel XTU profile for Blender with some AVX offset or general lower clock speeds. Video rendering still works well with no AVX offset.

I wanted Thunderbolt ports on the motherboard, and because of this I got a lot of other extravagant features I did not ask for, such as the OLED screen on the motherboard, a PWM fan hub and some extra temperature sensors etc. The 5 Gigabit LAN port is nice to have though.

If I didn’t need more than 128 GB RAM, I would go for a 9900K or upcoming 10900K, though these platforms are a bit on the low side also regarding the amount of PCI lanes provided (of course this depends on individual use cases).

All in all, this is a power hungry and hot CPU but it performs well for DAW related tasks and will do for the foreseeable future. Though really it is a 14nm node from 2015 and very similar to the Skylake-X CPUs from 2017 except for some architectural tweaks. I look forward to seeing the CPU development from AMD and Intel in the upcoming years.


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