Post Your Computer Build

Hey guys, here's my current build. I definitely know a lot more about computers than I do audio so hopefully I can help return some of the advice that I've been given with audio advice as computer advice.

CPU: i5 4670k (@4.4 Ghz)
CPU Cooler: Noctua D14
Motherboard: Gigabyte Sniper M5
RAM: Samsung 30nm 16GB (Overclocked)
Graphics Card: EVGA GTX 980 SC (Overclocked)
Power: Seasonic G650
SSD: Samsung 840 Evo 250GB
Hard Drive: Toshiba 3TB
OS: Windows 10
Case: Silverstone TJ08-E
Keyboard: Filco Majestouch 2 TKL (MX Blue, PBT Caps)
Mouse: Zowie FK1
Mouse Pad: Steelseries Qck+
Monitor: Crossover 27Q (27"1440p)



Runs great, dead silent and can still run all games I play maxed out at 60 FPS. Will put up some better pictures later.

 

Nice build!

 

Thanks! I've been through a few different revisions and definitely get the itch to upgrade at times or put it all under water but it works so well as is I just have to keep telling myself to leave it alone.

 

Here is my current rig configuration.
https://pcpartpicker.com/user/StandUp713/saved/#view=Ds6dnQ

 

@BrettMatthews Are your Noctua fans still silent at full speed?

 

IMHO the NF-P14 is a terrible fan. I've owned it three times and it's been an obnoxiously loud underperformer each time. Totally ruined the D14 for me.

The NF-P12 is okay though, and the NF-F12 is pretty good too. Noctua's heatsinks are top-notch but IME their fans are far from the best.

I decided to sell my 980 Ti for $550 recently and move down to a 750 Ti for now. The 980 Ti sales were making me nervous but Pascal sure is taking its sweet time.

 

Seriously, I just want confirmation on the prices, is that really too much to ask for?

 

I am not actually sure as they never get up to full speed. But from what I remember when I did some stability and bench testing it was still very quiet, and my computer sits up on my desk beside me. When gaming they are dead silent, you can hear the GPU a little bit depending on the game, but temps and noise on the ACX2.0 are very good compared to the reference cooler I had on my last GPU.

I bought the SE2011 version of the D14 since it has PWM fans (standard version doesn't) and when I bought it from NCIX they were including the 115X mounting kit for free. So the PWM makes a big difference though.

 

I had the PWM version of the NF-P12 running in my last build, attached to a mid range 6 pipe heatsink (Thermaltake Contac 29, known for punching well above its weight) and it tamed my 1GHz overclock on the i5-750, keeping it below 60c without making almost any noise. At full speed I could hear very very faintly that something had changed, but it was a minute difference in sound.

The NF-A15 PWM's can be quite noisy when pushed hard, and I feel I have to push them in order to make up for the gap between the CPU die and the IHS that most Intel chips have since they changed from solder to thermal paste. My i5-750 has solder in it but my 6700k does not, and it is overclocked to 4.6GHz.

I was just wondering if mine were faulty considering the NF-P12's silent ability. It seems not.

 

Yeah it really sucks that intel stopped soldering the IHS to the die after the 2500k/ 2600k, they ran so much cooler than the current chips.

Now you can delid the chips and replace the TIM they used and remove the glue (the glue is the real problem that causes the gap) and that lowers the temps a good amount.

Or you have to step up to X79/ X99 chipset if you want soldered dies. But then costs start going up pretty quick and if you aren't doing a lot of encoding is generally not worth it. Doesn't stop me wanting to do an X99 build though! Haha

 

The slower clock speeds aren't a huge issue for me on x99, but the extra ram slots are nice. I run a vm in the background with 16 gb of ram and 4 threads for a game server, causes no problems with gaming.

 

I was hugely tempted to go with a 5820K instead of a 6700K last year (specially when the latter was tough to find in stock), at the time the price difference wasn't much and right now I think it's basically at parity, unless you want a fancier X99 board... Couple things eventually made me decide to skip HEDT and the two extra cores tho.

Even despite the soldered IHS it's gonna run hotter, 2-4 extra cores duh... X99 mobos also seemed more finicky overall, Z170 mobos seemed really stable out of the gate. Ultimately I realized that I still don't have a large need for the extra cores either.

LR isn't super well threaded, and that's just about my most demanding usage case outside of gaming, both still seem to favor clock speed over extra cores (even 400MHz differences, Pudget Systems has some interesting testing on this). So I went Skylake/Z170 for the cooler temps, for the more modern platform (3.1, M.2, etc), for the more fun OC, and to save a buck.

You can get things like USB 3.1 and even multiple M.2 slots on X99 if you spend a little more on the mobo tho, and even tho it's a dead end socket the vast majority of people tend to upgrade mobo/CPU together.

At least w/X99 you always have 8 core parts as an option. Can't go wrong with either really, just gotta know what you really need. 4-5 years from now if Intel is STILL sticking to quads on their mainstream platform I'd probably not be able to ignore HEDT. For heavy video work it's absolutely worth it. Their manufacturing process is hitting more and more obstacles tho... Tick tock and Moore's are out already.

I wouldn't be surprised if my Skylake build lasts me even longer than the Sandy one, which I could really still be using.

 

I've had a 4.5GHz 1.3v 2500k, 4.4GHz 1.25v 2700K, 4.3GHz 1.25v 3770K, 4.4GHz 1.12v 4790K, and my 4.4GHz 1.23v 5960X runs cooler than all of them (based on the package temperature).

The large surface area of the die does wonders for heat dissipation.

 

Kinda depends on the bin you get... You can get away with 4.4 @ 1.23 but maybe it needs 1.3 for 4.5, or someone with slightly worse luck might need higher voltage even for 4.3-4.4. I get your point tho, temps aren't necessarily a huge differentiator.

For the clock speeds I wanted to hit it definitely seemed like Haswell would've run hotter, unless I got lucky I would've likely just settled on lower speeds to rein temps in. Nothing necessarily wrong with that, for a well threaded workload an extra 200-400MHz can obviously be insignificant compared to the extra cores...

Even for a poorly threaded workload it's not much (5%), but coming from a 2500K I just wanted to be able to hit a certain OC... IPC does add to that clock speed difference tho. Ultimately it's probably pointless rationalization and focusing on epeen/#'s really.

 

Okay all, question on sound cards.

I currently use USB for audio and have the Wyrd/Regen units on the way from the loaner program to play around with.

Instead of going that route, is it viable to add a soundcard to my build, instead, to take advantage of optical out? I have no idea if this would give any sonic improvement at all. It seems like the price is about the same as it would be to add a usb decrapifier, but I don't really see much talk about this...

Are any of you using PCIe soundcards in your build?

 

I have one, a SB ZxR, but you need to disable all effects and DSP on it. The DSP does strange stuff to audio, it's really not worth it. The good thing is the noise floor is really low, the shielding does a pretty good job on that card. Optical from a computer mobo (mine has one, not sure about what your mobo offers) is marginally better than USB in my subjective listening 15 months ago, but I personally put that down to less noise at 8kHz from USB packets. Of course, back then I had a Bifrost as my primary DAC which is probably a bit more susceptible to USB insanity than my Yggdrasil.

 

That card looks cool, but I'm definitely not wanting to drop $250 on something. No optical out on my MB, so I'm stuck with USB unless I go this route. I have a Bifrost 4490 with gen2 USB.

 

I'll be going that route as soon as I'm done moving to my new place, and I fully intend to compare it with USB... I have a Xonar STX I'll be using which is overkill for SPIDF but I've had it for a few years so might as well use it (used to be my source and amp).

I'm gonna do coax SPIDF rather than optical tho, from what I've read it's generally less of a hassle and the only advantage to optical is electrically decoupling the PC from the DAC, would love to hear any opinions on the too tho.

I'm also surprised that (potentially cheaper) PCI-E cards aren't talked about more as alternatives to USB and pricey USB/SPIDF converters... I mean there's a huge range of sound cards, from cheaper ASUS/Creative/etc stuff to pricey pro stuff.

I've seen a couple mentions of Juli@ cards here and there, but that's about it...

I think part of the reason for that might be a lot of people are running laptops, so internal cards just aren't an option, while others probably balk at any part of their audio chain being an internal component on a PC... But still, I'd welcome more discussion on this.

 

AFAIK if you're just using the coax or optical SPIDF of a card you really don't have to spend more, at least when looking at the consumer stuff... A $50 ASUS DG or DX or whatever the low end model is should do the same in this regard as higher end cards (ditto Creative). The pricier ones have better headphone amps and analog stages but the base DAC and digital output should be similar if not identical.

 

I should note, the reason I intended to go with SPIDF to begin with was more for convenience than anything... I do like using Dolby Headphone DSP for gaming and my particular card will only output that out it's headphone amp and SPIDF... It's actually part of the reason I even started looking at external DACs quite a while ago.

I didn't wanna plug in my Asgard into the STX's own amp, RCA out wouldn't do DH, ergo SPIDF was my default choice.

Going STX (SPIDF) -> DAC -> amp just seemed simpler that having two different connections active and switching between them or hooking up my headphones in different places depending on what I'm doing. That fact that it could potentially have an advantage over USB is just like,a bonus.