# Vi Slave off the shelf or self build



## jim50hertz (Nov 25, 2017)

Hi all,

Looking for a little confirmation before I take the plunge.

I'm using an early 2011 MacBookPro with ProTools as my studio machine.

I've subscribed to Composer Cloud X and am looking to build/purchase a slave for VIs.

I'm looking at this https://www.overclockers.co.uk/ocuk-symphonia-plus-silent-audio-workstation-intel-core-i7-8700-3.2ghz-4.6ghz-turbo-fs-192-op.html (audio pc) as the basis for my build and will upgrade the SSD for sample storage and boost the RAM to 64gb.

I'm a mac guy so this is all a bit new to me.

Am I good to have a system drive as a 7200rpm standard HD or should i just go with a smaller SSD for speed and noise?

Any other thoughts/comments most welcome!

I apologise if this has been covered a million times before ;-p


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## Prockamanisc (Nov 25, 2017)

You know how like, some cultures will send out their teenagers into the woods to kill a bear so that they can come back to the village as a man? That's basically what building a slave is.


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## jim50hertz (Nov 25, 2017)

Ok cool, let me check that I have this right...

1. Go to woods
2. Kill bear
3. Return as a man
4. Set up orchestral template 
5. Embark on wildly successful composition and bear killing career

Did I miss out anything vital? Do I need to adjust the ASIO drivers in the bear before I kill it?


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## Mihkel Zilmer (Nov 25, 2017)

Hi Jim,

There's really nothing to building a PC - lots of excellent video tutorials out there. It does take a bit of time to do the research though, so another other option is buying all the components separately and taking them down to your local computer store, which I am sure will offer some sort of assembly service.

A system drive won't make a big difference in a sample server machine. Just make sure all the libraries are housed on SSDs. 

As for that pre-built system you linked to, in my opinion the 3.2GHz base clock they mention is a bit slow for a sample server. I also think 6 cores is overkill - you will hit bottlenecks elsewhere before you max out the CPU. For hosting samples with VEPro I would choose a 4 core CPU, not necessarily even the most recent generation, and with a base clock closer to 4GHz.


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## jim50hertz (Nov 25, 2017)

Thanks Mihkel

Exactly the kind of information I was hoping for.

So a faster base clock is more important than more CPU cores for this application?

I still need to understand the sources of ‘bottle necks’ in these types of server.

A machine built around this perhaps?

https://www.overclockers.co.uk/intel-core-i7-7700k-4.2ghz-kaby-lake-socket-lga1151-processor-oem-cp-62g-in.html (i7700k 4.2gHz)

Is it worth overclocking this CPU?


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## Mihkel Zilmer (Nov 25, 2017)

You're welcome Jim,

There's a lot of variables, perhaps most importantly how efficiently the sample library has been scripted.

The real limitation you will encounter is the voice (polyphony) count you can get out of a single machine. This result does not actually scale with CPU power too well at all. You are most likely going to hit the voice count ceiling, and start getting audio dropouts before you max out your CPU. Hence my suggestion of not even needing the most current or fastest CPU - many people have VEPro machines 3-4 years old in their rigs that work perfectly well.

Where exactly the actual bottleneck lies is something I can't comment on - I'm not an expect on the finer details of computer engineering. Drive speed seems to make a very big difference, so my guess is there's a link there. But as far as I know no one has tested libraries in VEPro setups off of something really fast like a NVMe drive - most people use regular SSDs because they are far more affordable and because sample libraries take tons of space..

Another thing to consider is that two cheap VEPro servers are nearly always guaranteed to outperform a single, very high spec machine. The sweet spot for value for money is somewhere around the specs I mentioned above.

Edit: the i7700k you mentioned is a perfect candidate - I know quite a few people around here use it.


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## jim50hertz (Nov 25, 2017)

Thanks again Mihkel

Very interesting regarding two slaves being better than one.

I’ll investigate a system based on the i7700k then.

Best

Jim


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## Gerhard Westphalen (Nov 25, 2017)

IMO there's a certain point where getting a prebuilt computer is a lot cheaper. I think you're right around that point so I'd suggest looking into options like Dells. Unless you need something like 128GB, it'll probably be cheaper. Right now I think that turning point is around $1500 without the price of drives. It's not worth building your own if you're below that.


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## jim50hertz (Nov 26, 2017)

Thanks! A good suggestion.

Unfortunately I can’t find anything this side of the pond that won’t require extensive modding out of the box to get the RAM and SSD provision up to snuff. 

I’ll keep looking though.

I’m lucky in as much as I have a gamer colleague who’s keen to help with any scratch build.


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## Gerhard Westphalen (Nov 26, 2017)

jim50hertz said:


> Thanks! A good suggestion.
> 
> Unfortunately I can’t find anything this side of the pond that won’t require extensive modding out of the box to get the RAM and SSD provision up to snuff.
> 
> ...



There must be something like an i7700 with 32GB or 64GB and OS on an SSD from a normal PC company. There's nothing to mod aside from putting in your other hard drives. 

Anything like Dell, Asus, Acer, HP. Amazon often has some good deals (like getting cheaper than directly from Dell and with better options).


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## gsilbers (Nov 26, 2017)

jim50hertz said:


> Thanks! A good suggestion.
> 
> Unfortunately I can’t find anything this side of the pond that won’t require extensive modding out of the box to get the RAM and SSD provision up to snuff.
> 
> ...



there is also some of those gamer pc building sites like Magicmicro. It helped me figure out all the parts i need to buy and that i didn't forget anything and if they where compatible. i ended up overdoing it but it was worth it. i got a 128gb ram pc using i7 920k even though the spec for i7 is up to 64gb. huge risk and also decided to do rack mount pc case which is much smaller. even though i have never done it and always worked w macs i made t happen. 
before that i bought one of those sites that u ca build your own and learned that i needed more Power supply power and also i don't need a fancy video card. 

as for the bottleneck you might want to see some of @whinecellar videos
https://vi-control.net/community/th...r-own-pc-slave-thread-esp-for-mac-guys.29666/


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## jim50hertz (Nov 26, 2017)

Thanks guys I’ll check all this out


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## InLight-Tone (Nov 26, 2017)

Prockamanisc said:


> You know how like, some cultures will send out their teenagers into the woods to kill a bear so that they can come back to the village as a man? That's basically what building a slave is.


That's old school, slaves are completely unnecessary specially in Cubase if using disabled instrument tracks and m2 drives.

Killing bears to prove manhood is so passe. Plant me a 1000 fruit and nut bearing trees and I'll take notice...


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## JohnG (Nov 26, 2017)

I would NEVER buy a Dell / HP / other pre-built computer, unless it is specifically built to be a music computer by a company that specialises in that field.

The off-the-shelf-at-Best-Buy computers are cheaper for a reason -- they always incorporate something bad, whether it's a crap motherboard, a crap power supply, not enough fans, or some other bad hardware. Moreover, they always come with a torrent of bloatware. 

I bought four or more of those when I started and all of them burned out in a couple of years.

Build it yourself or go to VisionDAW.com or one of the other reputable places.


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## Sami (Nov 26, 2017)

There is no factual difference between the 7700k and the 6700k, so if you're gonna find a 6700k cheaper, go for it, the motherboards are a bit cheaper as well (z170 instead of z270). All 3 of my slaves have 6700k CPUs and they run like charms (1 for Orchestral Tools, 1 for Spitfire, 1 for all the rest, including EastWest stuff)


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## Mihkel Zilmer (Nov 26, 2017)

InLight-Tone said:


> That's old school, slaves are completely unnecessary specially in Cubase if using disabled instrument tracks and m2 drives.



I think you are overgeneralizing a bit here. Other peoples needs and working conditions won't necessarily match yours.

Even when using only disabled tracks a single computer can run out of resources in some situations. For example when using 3-4 microphone positions and/or working in surround, using libraries that are resource hungry. If you then write large scale and densely orchestrated material, throw in a few synthesizers, put audio plugins on all of your stems...

I've never seen anyone pull this off on a single machine, and I from what limited testing I've done myself (on a 6900k overclocked to 4GHz) my computer doesn't even come close to being able to handle those conditions. 

However, everyone has different needs - what you describe might be perfect for yours.


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## Living Fossil (Nov 26, 2017)

Mihkel Zilmer said:


> Even when using only disabled tracks a single computer can run out of resources in some situations. For example when using 3-4 microphone positions and/or working in surround, using libraries that are resource hungry. If you then write large scale and densely orchestrated material, throw in a few synthesizers, put audio plugins on all of your stems...



According to the benchmark chart that you posted recently, the i9 machines (7900x etc) seem to be really powerful.
In combination with 128 GB Ram it seems they could be great workhorses.

Edit: i'm refering to this thread, post #6
https://vi-control.net/community/threads/poll-which-cpu-should-i-go-for.66195/#post-4147657


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## Gerhard Westphalen (Nov 26, 2017)

JohnG said:


> I would NEVER buy a Dell / HP / other pre-built computer, unless it is specifically built to be a music computer by a company that specialises in that field.
> 
> The off-the-shelf-at-Best-Buy computers are cheaper for a reason -- they always incorporate something bad, whether it's a crap motherboard, a crap power supply, not enough fans, or some other bad hardware. Moreover, they always come with a torrent of bloatware.
> 
> ...



One built for music is no different than any other aside from being able to charge more for a "specialized computer."

They're able to get lower prices by having cheaper parts with fewer bells and whistles but I've never had that be a problem. Bloatware is a problem but easy to get rid of. My 10 year old Dell which is on 24/7 is still running fine without having any hardware ever fail.

I've installed Dell computers at 2 studios and neither have had any issues. On the other hand, my Rain DAW PC and my custom built PC both have had performance issues which no one has ever been able to diagnose or fix (and I've hired DAW "experts" to take a look). Even hardware dying on these computer. I think I replaced 3 ram sticks in the old Rain PC and the custom PC killed 3 motherboards and took a month to get working at the shop I had it built at. Nothing like this has ever happened to any of my Dells (I think we have 4 in the house).

Guess what type of slaves they're using at Remote for Hans... not VisionDAW or custom. They use Dell and HP (although they're using the higher end servers which still use the "cheaper" custom parts).

I'd be curious to hear what "burned out" in yours.


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## JohnG (Nov 26, 2017)

Gerhard Westphalen said:


> I'd be curious to hear what "burned out" in yours.



Most of my problems seem to come up in motherboards, but that could be an artifact not of a bad motherboard alone, but also owing to underpowered or bad power supplies / insufficient cooling / case design.

I'm happy for you that you have had success with Dell. I personally have had terrible results with "real good deal" PC manufacturers, including both Dell and HP. Furthermore, I don't agree that it's "easy" to get rid of some kinds of bloatware, ESPECIALLY with Dell. 

As far as an implicit endorsement from Hans Z's people, it's worth noting that they have people able to spec out computers better than the average v.i. control newbie, especially a non-expert seeking to save money. Moreover, do you know for certain what they actually use the Dells for? Years ago, they used to order computers specifically for tasks (like hosting iTunes) that were not necessarily the same as those they order for serving samples. 

If you build a computer yourself, you can choose high quality components for everything and you know exactly what you are getting; typically this is not so with mass-market PCs.

The other alternative, of PC makers who design and build purpose-built music PCs, offer good quality components that _work together_. The other benefit is that they give an overall warranty, something that can be voided (and often is) by do-it-yourself people. Mind you, I build my own, but some of the modifications I make undoubtedly put the warranties for the parts in jeopardy. If something goes wrong, you are often at the mercy of the company from whom you ordered components.

I don't have any experience with Rain DAW; I've heard the name, but maybe it's not in the USA?


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## Mihkel Zilmer (Nov 26, 2017)

Living Fossil said:


> According to the benchmark chart that you posted recently, the i9 machines (7900x etc) seem to be really powerful.
> In combination with 128 GB Ram it seems they could be great workhorses.
> 
> Edit: i'm refering to this thread, post #6
> https://vi-control.net/community/threads/poll-which-cpu-should-i-go-for.66195/#post-4147657



I have no first hand experience with the new i9's, so I don't know how they much more powerful they would be in a real world situation, but those test number do indeed suggest a nice gain over the previous generation.

Still, even that might not be enough power for some uses. Having 3 mic positions active in a Spitfire or Orchestral Tools library can eat up a* lot *of voices. Some of the biggest culprits are adaptive legato patches and fast repetitions of short notes. Of course it's very material dependent, but for example I just played a fast staccatissimo repetiton with Trumpet 1 in Berlin Brass with 3 mics on - the voice count almost reaches 100. And that's just one instrument.. 

The RAM limitation of a single machine is another factor. Sure, if you are using disabled tracks, then 128GB is all you would ever need. But if you like having a lot of stuff loaded and ready to go then 128GB runs out pretty quickly..


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## Gerhard Westphalen (Nov 26, 2017)

JohnG said:


> As far as an implicit endorsement from Hans Z's people, it's worth noting that they have people able to spec out computers better than the average v.i. control newbie, especially a non-expert seeking to save money. Moreover, do you know for certain what they actually use the Dells for? Years ago, they used to order computers specifically for tasks (like hosting iTunes) that were not necessarily the same as those they order for serving samples.



I was in the machine room of an RCP composer who's name shall be undisclosed a couple of months ago and if I remember correctly, the slaves were all Dell (or HP? don't remember but was told they generally use either). I'm not sure if he's still running any of the old Boxx computers for the older libraries. The Cubase PC may have been custom.

Junkie XL is all Dell.



JohnG said:


> I don't have any experience with Rain DAW; I've heard the name, but maybe it's not in the USA?



They were American but closed. The UK division carried on for a bit but eventually closed and the owner opened Molten Media Technology. As far as I can tell, they were one of the best. They had clients like the Cirque du Soleil Beatles LOVE show which ran all of the master Beatles recordings off of a Rain during the performances. I had a number of performance issues with that computer which they weren't able to fix despite months of correspondence and remote login session. Eventually, after a year of daily troubleshooting, I found a tweak in the registry which fixed it. Shortly after that I got my new custom PC and that tweak didn't fix the issue. To this day, VEP has spiking issues even with blank instances and without VEP I usually get 1 spike per day when running an essentially blank session. I expect a computer to have absolutely no spikes whatsoever. Maybe I'm expecting too much from a computer.


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## JohnG (Nov 26, 2017)

Well, I have never had any problems with computers I built, and had endless problems with the off-the-shelf ones. VisionDAW makes computers in CA here; @Nick Batzdorf has one and says it's solid.

Interesting about the server Dells. It would be interesting to learn their specs. And maybe they don't come with a thousand "free" programs, like the consumer ones.


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## Nick Batzdorf (Nov 26, 2017)

Actually, I have two - one I bought from VisionDAW in 2003 I think (still works), and another I got from a forum member this year (it's about 2009 vintage - still a baby). They do a good job.


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## Piano Pete (Nov 26, 2017)

Having built a decent amount of systems for others and for myself, I would say that if you want to save some cash: build your own. The best way to do this is to take advantage of holiday sales, and the Christmas and February tech sales are right around the corner. You really can get a great performance to dollar ratio. (I believe I have already made a post about thrifty tech shopping somewhere.) If you have the cash and want to avoid any potential for frustration (which there really shouldn't be) then go for a prebuilt.

In my experience, you should not have to do a whole lot of tweaking or registry editing in most scenarios. For Composer Cloud X, it really should not be a monumental task to get it going. It should be mostly a plug and play experience. If you have a lot of stuff going on in each of your computers and you are fighting for everything you can get, that is another discussion. Rules to live by: always build/buy something to grow into. I typically like to shoot for a 5-7 year lifespan for my hardware. A little more money upfront may save you more down the road.

I will post this now, but building a system for audio can sometimes be finicky for no apparent-logical reason, and as such, I cannot promise that you will not run into any issues. If you run into a problem, this website and a multitude of other places are full of people willing to help. If you put together a decent pc, the tasks that you may have to do are: removing bloatware, putting it into performance mode (one button in settings), and possibly having to choose the "perfect" graphic/networking drivers (only do this if you run into DPC problems). As per the last part, I have not had any real issues with either Nvidia or Radeon products over the past year (for a slave you can just slap in a cheapo-graphics card) and the most up-to-date drivers have been working for me. For my personal setup, I do have to use a specific network driver on my master computer, but unless you run into a problem with DPC latency, you wont have to touch those.

While you can really streamline a computer for audio, be careful when you start going into windows processes/ making registry edits. These sort of actions can be avoided in most scenarios, and in my opinion, these should be used as a last ditch effort. If you ever get to a point where you just cannot figure out what you can do to fix a problem, hit up the forums before/while doing anything.

Other than that, slap it together like legos and watch it purr to life! Also, if you do not have at least 60% RGB coverage then you are simply doing it wrong. Heck, slap them into a server-rack; it is like looking into the face of God....  (dont waste money on RGB stuff)


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## Mishabou (Nov 26, 2017)

JohnG said:


> I would NEVER buy a Dell / HP / other pre-built computer, unless it is specifically built to be a music computer by a company that specialises in that field.
> 
> The off-the-shelf-at-Best-Buy computers are cheaper for a reason -- they always incorporate something bad, whether it's a crap motherboard, a crap power supply, not enough fans, or some other bad hardware. Moreover, they always come with a torrent of bloatware.
> 
> ...



I've used Dell and HP workstations for over 10 years with PT and CB and never had any problems. Basically plug and play with a few minor OS tweak. I did try the VisionDaw route and actually had more problems with them.


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## JohnG (Nov 26, 2017)

Anhtu said:


> *workstations*



The key word -- "workstations" -- apparently. Interesting. 

My problems were with dirt cheap regular computers. Don't buy those.


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## jim50hertz (Nov 27, 2017)

Piano Pete said:


> Having built a decent amount of systems for others and for myself, I would say that if you want to save some cash: build your own. The best way to do this is to take advantage of holiday sales, and the Christmas and February tech sales are right around the corner. You really can get a great performance to dollar ratio. (I believe I have already made a post about thrifty tech shopping somewhere.) If you have the cash and want to avoid any potential for frustration (which there really shouldn't be) then go for a prebuilt.
> 
> In my experience, you should not have to do a whole lot of tweaking or registry editing in most scenarios. For Composer Cloud X, it really should not be a monumental task to get it going. It should be mostly a plug and play experience. If you have a lot of stuff going on in each of your computers and you are fighting for everything you can get, that is another discussion. Rules to live by: always build/buy something to grow into. I typically like to shoot for a 5-7 year lifespan for my hardware. A little more money upfront may save you more down the road.
> 
> ...




Thanks Pete, food for thought here. And thanks to you all for the experiences and perspectives.

Pete what is RGB coverage?


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## Piano Pete (Nov 27, 2017)

A lot of computer parts nowadays are slathered in enough rgb LEDs to make even the most beautiful unicorn jealous.

When you are looking at performance parts, just pay attention to what you are buying. A lot of it is marked up for looks. You cannot really get around this on the motherboards (I tend to stick with Asus gear out of personal preference but avoid their ROG hardware because of this), but fans, cases, ram, power supplies, and everything else are typically marked up for aesthetics. Once you get a direction for your build, just compare the specs of the different types of hardware to evaluate the cost. Make sure you are paying for the technical needs of our build and not extraneous fluff.

--Edit-- 
Random thoughts that people tend to overlook:

A thing I notice a lot of people skimp on to save a buck: the power supply. Grab yourself something with a good efficiency rating and wattage to spare. I say this because a friend of mine is temporarily out of commission as he had two power supplies go on him. 

Finally, just make sure your Cpu/MB have the correct pci-e lanes available. All CPUs and MBs have a maximum on this. If you buy a cpu with more than the MB supports, you just wasted money. Also, if you are not using a lot of PCI-E devices, you may be able to save some money by purchasing a CPU/MB combo that supports less PCI-E devices.


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## Minzingag (Nov 27, 2017)

Gerhard Westphalen said:


> Junkie XL is all Dell.



Maybe some are VisionDaw?


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## Gerhard Westphalen (Nov 27, 2017)

Minzingag said:


> Maybe some are VisionDaw?




His new ones are VisionDAW but the ones he used from RCP are the Dells. The ones from the other rigs look like they aren't VisionDAW either. I suspect however set it up just went with VisionDAWs in order to not worry about setting anything else up.


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## Nick Batzdorf (Nov 27, 2017)

To clarify my posts about VisionDAW - of course you can save money by building machines yourself.

VisionDAW is a VAR - value added reseller - and VARs make their living doing research, testing components, and putting together computers.

In addition to the two VisionDAW machines, I have my first Giga PC - a very generic P4 I bought in 2003 from the place that built Remote Control's machines in those days (it was in the West SF Valley somewhere). It still started up last time I checked a couple of years ago. Same with the other two rack P4s in my machine room/garage, but I bought those from a studio years ago, and they were custom-built too.

So it's not like you have to buy from a VAR, it's that the premium they charge can be worth it.


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## synergy543 (Nov 27, 2017)

Running a Hackintosh on a souped up $699 Dell 8900 and its been performing quite nicely. Total cost with PS, 64G RAM and a boatload of SSDs jacks the price up, the but basic unit is a stock Dell. What I like best are the many USB 3.0 connectors.


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## jim50hertz (Nov 30, 2017)

So how fast should my 64gb of memory be? 3,000MHz minimum?

Like this?

Memory [URL="http://"][/URL]


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## Mihkel Zilmer (Nov 30, 2017)

The general consensus is that RAM speed is one of the least important considerations for an audio workstation - it makes very little to almost no practical difference for performance.


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## Nick Batzdorf (Nov 30, 2017)

Usually there are RAM specs for the motherboard.

With Macs it's exact - you only use the exact kind they specify.


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## jim50hertz (Dec 2, 2017)

Ok, I've specc'ed a system. Any opinions on this?


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