# What do you think of this build for a single machine DAW?



## marcodistefano (Sep 7, 2018)

Hi All,
I am about to build my new PC which will be my single machine DAW.
If needed I could reuse my current PC with 32Gb to create a rig (so can have 160 Gb in total) but I believe will not be necessary.

The PC shall also serve me to do video editing and enjoy some video games like Battlefield V  (for which purpose I already own a good video card)

So these are the main components I have in mind:

Core i9 7940X

Mobo Asrock Fatal1ty XE

128Gb RAM G.SKILL TridentZ 3200 (OC)

I will take a CPU water cooler and 860W of PSU.
Everything is in SSD.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts/experience
Marco


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## Bender-offender (Sep 9, 2018)

See this thread:
https://vi-control.net/community/threads/weaker-cpu-128gb-ram-or-8700k-max-64gb.74748/

There’s some new i9s coming out this week so maybe wait a bit. In my opinion, for the price of the 7940x you could buy two 8770ks (or even 9900ks) and have much more processing power between a couple of slaves versus one DAW machine. Like I said in the above thread, you’ll most likely run out of CPU before you do memory.


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## Andrew Aversa (Sep 9, 2018)

860w PSU is almost definitely overkill unless you have 2x video cards in there, PLUS serious overclocking...

Also IMO unless you really enjoy the look of it, watercooling is a _total waste of money_. The best air coolers perform equally well (if not better) and are actually *quieter* with less maintenance required (zero!), no chance of leaks, and less cost. Something like this:



You can find many comparison charts online, but even watercooling gurus like Jayz2Cents on YouTube who make video after video on watercooling have to admit... air coolers like this actually perform better.


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## chimuelo (Sep 9, 2018)

Great video.
I’ve been hoping for their 1U HSF get as good as their tower chassis coolers.

I bought a rather quiet 1U Server water loop, I had to try it.
Louder, more expensive and hotter than my Dynatron HSF.
They specialize in tight spaces.

I might try the Noctua 1U next build.
I’ve got a single tower PC just for HTPC and video rendering.
The Noctua lets me run this box @ 4.6GHz for 4 years now.

Great coolers.

X Series boards give you more headroom on large projects.
Fast is good but X Series Intels @3.6 or higher have such bandwidth I don’t see how you could ever run into power issues.


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## Mikelo (Sep 13, 2018)

Large air coolers do have their negatives though, size is one of them. Big coolers such as the Noctua or Be quiet Dark rocks can obstruct ram slots.


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## Mikelo (Sep 13, 2018)

Personally I like AIO's


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## Andrew Aversa (Sep 13, 2018)

But it isn't really a problem, since you can just get lower-profile RAM. Unless you're getting "gamer" RAM, of course 

AIOs are fine but still more noise and worse performance than large air coolers.


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## GtrString (Sep 13, 2018)

Dont save on the PSU, as your system will be more quiet if the PSU dont have to work so hard. For music production, big m* PSU’s are valid overkill.


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## Mikelo (Sep 14, 2018)

zircon_st said:


> But it isn't really a problem, since you can just get lower-profile RAM. Unless you're getting "gamer" RAM, of course
> 
> AIOs are fine but still more noise and worse performance than large air coolers.



Yep true, sorry forgot to mention tall profile memories.
I guess it's an aesthetic choice over function having an AIO, unless you are going for extreme overclocking. But personally I must admit, I'm a lover of aesthetics. I like window panels pcs that show off your moneys worth and unicorns being blending in fans!
But on a side note, it's also important to remember that large air coolers won't fit all ATX cases, so picking one that fits is something to think about.


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## marcodistefano (Sep 14, 2018)

Thank you all guys,
the built is done with the specs above

Components

CPU: i9 7940X
MOBO: Asrock Fatal1ty i9 Professional Gaming XE
RAM: G.Skill 128GB 3200Mhz Trident Z
CASE: BeQuiet! Dark Base 900 Pro rev2
Cooler: BeQuiet Silent Loop 360mm
PSU: BeQuiet! Dark Power Pro 11 1000W
GPU: Geforce GTX 950
SSD: 4 Tb with Samsung EVO 750, 850 and 860
Windows 10 Pro

Built went super fine and now installing all the software needed to come back making music.
I will share soon the results!

Marco


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## Mikelo (Sep 14, 2018)

marcodistefano said:


> Thank you all guys,
> the built is done with the specs above
> 
> Components
> ...



Sounds awesome! I think you can fly to the moon with those specs!


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## marcodistefano (Sep 14, 2018)

Mikelo said:


> Sounds awesome! I think you can fly to the moon with those specs!


If I could load tons of VST and still have a good latency to play with I would already be very happy


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