# About to pull the trigger on building a new DAW PC and would love y'all to look it over first



## AlexRuger (Apr 25, 2020)

-i9-9900K
-Gigabyte Designare Z390 motherboard
-Corsair Vengeance LPX 32GB RAM DIMMs. 64GB to start, up to 128GB down the line after a gig.
-Gigabyte GeForce RTX 2070 GPU
-Samsung 970 EVO M.2 system drive
-Noctua NH-D15 CPU cooler
-Corsair HX1200 PSU
-All wrapped up in a Fractal Define R6 case

Any experiences with any of these combos? Good/bad/suggestions?

Thanks in advance.


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## easyrider (Apr 25, 2020)

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Any reason you need a RTX 2070 Super? Will you be gaming?

What about storage? You have only included one System 500GB NVME drive...


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## AlexRuger (Apr 25, 2020)

Only included the one system drive because mentioning all the other storage isn't worth mentioning. Drives are drives.

I'm mostly interested in hearing about experience with this CPU/Mobo/GPU or any combos of them.

Regarding why I'm going with such a monster GPU: I run 4 displays and that's the best-reviewed one that come up. Shrug. I'm not particularly knowledgable about GPUs, definitely my biggest blind spot in PC building.

Still trying to stay in the Intel realm, as I've seen overall better results with Intel in the audio realm in terms of latency and voice count.


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## easyrider (Apr 25, 2020)

AlexRuger said:


> I'm mostly interested in hearing about experience with this CPU/Mobo/GPU or any combos of them.
> 
> Still trying to stay in the Intel realm, as I've seen overall better results with Intel in the audio realm in terms of latency and voice count.




Then your 9900k build will be fine...It will work....Nothing more else to say...I built a 9900k system had it 2 weeks..then built a X570 3900 X in its place...Never looked back...Looking forward to a bios update an upgrading to a 4900 x soon....9900k is a hot power hungry chip that only has 8 cores...and your system will not allow for further CPU upgrades...


Go for it!


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## Gerhard Westphalen (Apr 25, 2020)

I'm currently running a 9900k and it's great. I can only really make it suffer when I'm mastering at higher sample rates with a few plugins. Perfect for mixing. Can't really comment on composing but I think I've ran a couple of mockups on this computer. No clue how it compares to AMD.

I have one of the lower profile Noctua coolers and 2 Noctua case fans all using the low noise adapters. Not much air moves through it but temps have been fine under load. For all intents and purposes the computer is silent. Transformers in some of my gear buzz louder than the computer. 

That graphics card is unnecessary unless you're doing any gaming. You can throw in 1 or 2 much cheaper ones as long as they have enough outputs. Having a bunch of screens doesn't consume much GPU power. When I was running 6 monitors I had a $100 card and 2 $30 cards. Worked fine. Nowadays I would use the onboard one but I do ocasionally do some gaming so I need more power.


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## Jeremy Gillam (Apr 25, 2020)

I have a very similar build - same CPU, cooler, case. NVIDIA GPU, Corsair PSU. Windows 10 1909. My soundcard is the RME Babyface Pro. It's been really great for Cubase, I can barely choke it with pop mixes with hundreds of tracks and lots of plugins running, and composing sessions with many Kontakt instances in the DAW run smoothly too (I don't bother with VEPro). I think you'll be very happy, though if there's a new Intel CPU on the way it might be worth considering.


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## jcrosby (Apr 25, 2020)

AlexRuger said:


> -i9-9900K
> -Gigabyte Designare Z390 motherboard
> -Corsair Vengeance LPX 32GB RAM DIMMs. 64GB to start, up to 128GB down the line after a gig.
> -Gigabyte GeForce RTX 2070 GPU
> ...


Any chance you were planning to hackintosh this? This is one of the most popular hac builds out there. (Minus the Nvidia card. Radeon for a pain free hackintosh.)

I run this build and it does 155 tracks in the latest Logic benchmark, and can play 200+ Kontakt patches playing 3 notes of sustained polyphony without maxing out the CPU. (Patches ranged from Forzo & Novo to Gravity to 8Dio... CPU hit was between 85 and 90% on Logic's meter.)


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## AlexRuger (Apr 25, 2020)

Nope, no Hackintosh. I am considering an AMD card due to apparent issues with Nvidia and audio applications, so the GPU isn't set in stone yet.

What buffer are you all running at?


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## shomynik (Apr 26, 2020)

AlexRuger said:


> Nope, no Hackintosh. I am considering an AMD card due to apparent issues with Nvidia and audio applications, so the GPU isn't set in stone yet.
> 
> What buffer are you all running at?



As Im running 3 hi-res display setup (4k + 2x1400p) and knowing about nvidia driver issues, I went with two AMD GPU cards, vega 56 and rx 5700 - went through hell with both of those until finally settled with rtx 2060 and never looked back. My system was never stable as it is now (GPU is not the only reason for that ofc).

Both of my AMD cards had issues with multi monitor setup. So if you decide to go AMD route, and you don't game, then you might wanna check their workstation cards like firepro series. That's what I would do next as I really wouldn't waste my time anymore with their gaming cards. Just an idea, I don't have any expirience with firepro cards yet.


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## jcrosby (Apr 26, 2020)

AlexRuger said:


> Nope, no Hackintosh. I am considering an AMD card due to apparent issues with Nvidia and audio applications, so the GPU isn't set in stone yet.
> 
> What buffer are you all running at?


My results were at 128. These CPUs handle very high loads at lower buffers like butter. My results are the same at 128 and 1024 with an armed MIDI track selected in Logic. 64 and below you start to see more of a hit however, but the 9900k's are really rugged for 'real time' tasks.


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## steveotenors (Apr 26, 2020)

Hi Alex,
For what it's worth, I've just finished building (with tweaks to come) a small form factor 16 core, 128GB ram sequencer around an AMD Ryzen 9 3950x. It's my first experience with AMD and so far it has been very positive. It runs a bit hot, which I'm sorting out, partly because I've purposefully built it in an 8L case for portability, but were I building it in a larger case like the Fractal you linked, it wouldn't be difficult to cool with the Noctua you linked. When I was putting the build list together, I learned that AMD has stepped it up in a big way in recent years, and is very on par with Intel. My motherboard's latest BIOS update is even specifically for compatibility with UAD drivers, so AMD compatibility is very much in the audio production game for your purpose.

So just a +1 for an AMD cpu in case you were on the fence at all. If you felt comfortable with the build possibilities, you might get some more bang for your buck after looking into it. To be fair, it's a new build with much experimentation to come, and I purposely plan to keep it light and agile, but even so it packs a serious punch and I'm sure it will be able to handle most things I throw at it. There are many folks better than I am at pc builds, and I am very happy to be corrected on information, but wanted to offer my own experience so far in case it helps open your possibilities a bit.

Haven't posted before, but for context I'm pretty sure I have a facebook request from you I've been meaning to accept...
Steven

*edited for grammar


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