Building a recording PC - need some recommendations

[paulman]

Since nothing can ever be as easy as expected, my recording is now sidelined again due to computer issues. So I'm building a new one, and trying to do it as quickly as possible. I've got parts pieced together on PCPartPicker.com, but I don't really know how to make a wise choice on a motherboard and graphics card.

The processor I'm getting is the Intel Core i9-9940X 3.3 GHz 14-Core. I tried to put the Amazon link here but it won't post.


This PC is ONLY for recording. No video or anything else. So I don't want to go overboard on a motherboard and graphics card that have way more (and cost more) than I need. Looking at specs does little for me. I need a person who is knowledgeable on computers and recording to spell it out for me. I am reaching my ADD breaking point looking at computer specs that I barely understand. I know enough to put parts together, but making a wise and economical decision on this is beyond my capabilities. All I know is that I need a motherboard with Thunderbolt 3, I need to be able to run two monitors or TVs, and I need the graphics card to be one that won't add a lot of heat and block airflow in the case.

[CrowsofFritz]

I think with PC you can only get USB C connectors. Not thunderbolt. Thankfully you can buy a Thunderbolt to USB C adapter and things should work no problem.

Can I ask why you need thunderbolt?

[rayc]

I had one built a copuple of years ago. I had to go with W10 as W7 wasn't for sale.
I have
a fairly basic graphics card
a fairly fast processor
1 x HDD and
1 x SSD
LOTS of RAM, and slots for more
USB & C
an old TV screen.
Have you looked at Tadpui's YOUR HOME RECORDING ep on putting together a PC?
He's the one to ask &/or vommitHatSteve.
Getting the Thunderbolt will be the only hiccough.

[paulman]

I think with PC you can only get USB C connectors. Not thunderbolt. Thankfully you can buy a Thunderbolt to USB C adapter and things should work no problem.

Can I ask why you need thunderbolt?

No worries there, plenty of motherboards have Thunderbolt. The one I have right now on my build list on PCPartPicker has Thunderbolt 3. But I just picked it out of many choices, and I don't really know what would make one mobo more suitable than another for my purposes. Just don't want to spend more money than necessary, though I will spend it where necessary.

I need thunderbolt because that's what my interface uses.

[paulman]

Have you looked at Tadpui's YOUR HOME RECORDING ep on putting together a PC?

I will check that out.

[CrowsofFritz]

I think with PC you can only get USB C connectors. Not thunderbolt. Thankfully you can buy a Thunderbolt to USB C adapter and things should work no problem.

Can I ask why you need thunderbolt?

No worries there, plenty of motherboards have Thunderbolt. The one I have right now on my build list on PCPartPicker has Thunderbolt 3. But I just picked it out of many choices, and I don't really know what would make one mobo more suitable than another for my purposes. Just don't want to spend more money than necessary, though I will spend it where necessary.

I need thunderbolt because that's what my interface uses.

Interesting, I couldn’t find thunderbolt on the filter in PCpartpicker.

Well, pretty much all motherboards today that handle the i9 will be more than suitable for your needs.

The graphics card doesn’t need to be strong, either, as you’ve said. Go with a low profile card so it takes up less space and gives off less heat. Something like a GT 1030 should be more than enough.

[Tadpui]

I don't know much about Thunderbolt in the PC world. it's an Intel technology, so I'm surprised that it hasn't seen a higher adoption rate on PC hardware. Microsoft's support of it (and FireWire before it) used to be abysmal, but maybe they've gotten better at it.

So your processor is labelled with an 'X', meaning it is unlocked. That means that you can overclock it. If overclocking isn't a goal for you, you can save a few bucks and look at non-X versions of CPUs in your price range. If you do want to overclock, then you'll need a motherboard with a chipset that allows for overclocking.

Boards that support the LGA 2066 socket seem to be pretty expensive, as well as the CPUs themselves. Usually for each CPU series there's a "premium" line of motherboards with chipsets that have all of the fancy overclocking and power-use features, and a more modestly priced chipset that is more basic and affordable. But socket LGA 2066 seems to only have the X299 chipset right now, which seems to have premium features, and therefore premium prices.

I have to admit, I'm struggling to see the value/dollar in a $900 CPU that'll have to be paired with a $400 motherboard. 14 cores at 4.4 GHz is nice (matter of fact, it's awesome!), but that's a heck of a premium to pay. If you're just doing audio and not editing/rendering/transcoding video, you can get away with 6 or 8 cores and be in great shape.

If you're looking for high core counts for about half of that price, I'd steer you towards AMD Zen 2 chips and their motherboards. They don't have quite the single-core performance of Intel's current offerings, but they offer lots of cores at very respectable speeds. And for a lot less money. I just don't know if the AMD ecosystem supports Thunderbolt. I'll go fish around and see.

*edit* it appears that AMD boards supporting Thunderbolt is a very new thing (as of Feb 2020), so there are only 2 motherboards in existence that support both AMD and Thunderbolt. One is a mini ITX board from ASRock, and the other is a board for Threadripper. Neither of those are going to be a great choice, IMO. So, Intel it is!

[paulman]

*edit* it appears that AMD boards supporting Thunderbolt is a very new thing (as of Feb 2020), so there are only 2 motherboards in existence that support both AMD and Thunderbolt. One is a mini ITX board from ASRock, and the other is a board for Threadripper. Neither of those are going to be a great choice, IMO. So, Intel it is!

I've been through this exact research and thought process. I wanted to go AMD, but this is why I landed on Intel.

Thank you for the input, I will have to digest it and see what I come up with. I do need a lot of processing power (and memory) for what I do, but I don't know if I'm going to get into overclocking unless I can do it without increasing noise. I'll take another look at things based on what you've told me. I've chosen a fanless power supply (it's expensive, but all reviews say you get the silence you're paying for), and I just found what I think is the perfect graphics card - not too much, not too little, and fanless. I'll post my build list when I finish researching.

[paulman]

Interesting, I couldn’t find thunderbolt on the filter in PCpartpicker.

Well, pretty much all motherboards today that handle the i9 will be more than suitable for your needs.

The graphics card doesn’t need to be strong, either, as you’ve said. Go with a low profile card so it takes up less space and gives off less heat. Something like a GT 1030 should be more than enough.

Yeah, it's annoying that there's no Thunderbolt filter on the site. I had to use Google, then check to see if what I found was on the list of compatible motherboards on PCpartpicker.

I found a perfect graphics card, and it's exactly what you suggested.

[Lt. Bob]

perhaps it might be time to look at a different interface?

[paulman]

perhaps it might be time to look at a different interface?

Nope. Love my interface. It's more important than the computer. Getting Thunderbolt is not an issue, other than the AMD thing. There are plenty of motherboards with Thunderbolt, that's not even one of my concerns. I'm just trying to make sure I'm not getting more than I need.

I use Universal Audio. I'm all in on them and their plugins. Changing that would be throwing away more money than the cost of the computer I'm building.

[paulman]

Ok, I went ahead and ordered everything. Although I don't think I'll be overclocking, I stuck with the processor and motherboard I'd had on the list all along. I've read that parts built for overclocking are more able to handle the constant barrage of information that is involved in recording/mixing. They hold up longer. Gonna be ten days or so before everything is here, so I guess in the meantime I'll try to finish the recording I've been working on with my Mac. It keeps crashing, but the damn recording is almost done.


CPU: Intel Core i9-9940X 3.3 GHz 14-Core Processor
CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-D15 82.5 CFM CPU Cooler
Motherboard: Asus Prime X299-Deluxe II ATX LGA2066 Motherboard
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws V Series 64 GB (4 x 16 GB) DDR4-3200 CL16 Memory
Storage: Samsung 970 Evo 500 GB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive
Video Card: Gigabyte GeForce GT 1030 2 GB Silent Low Profile Video Card
Case: Cooler Master Silencio S600 ATX Mid Tower Case
Power Supply: SeaSonic PRIME Titanium 600 W 80+ Titanium Certified Fully Modular Fanless ATX Power Supply
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 10 Home OEM 64-bit

[CrowsofFritz]

Looks great! I didn’t realize solid state drives were that cheap now!

[Tadpui]

That'll be a monster system, for sure. I would have suggested going with a CPU that uses the LGA 1151 socket, which would have brought the cost of the CPU down considerably (more in the $350-$500 range), and given many more options for motherboards in a more reasonable price range ($100-$200). But I couldn't find much that supported TB3 out of the box, and I couldn't find an add-on TB card that supported a modern chipset (they were all specified for older chipsets like Z170 and X99, which are old news in today's market).

Thunderbolt is just a tough ask for a PC today. There's just not much out there that supports it. Hopefully that changes and people outside of the Mac ecosystem won't have to buy top-budget components just to use one of today's greatest means of connectivity.

[paulman]

Looks great! I didn’t realize solid state drives were that cheap now!

I was going to put three of them in there, but I decided to stick with my Thunderbolt swappable drive bay that I've been using. It's got two slots, and I use one for recording and one for samples. I read it's faster with Thunderbolt, and since that means I don't have to spend any more money, it works out perfectly.

[paulman]

That'll be a monster system, for sure. I would have suggested going with a CPU that uses the LGA 1151 socket, which would have brought the cost of the CPU down considerably (more in the $350-$500 range), and given many more options for motherboards in a more reasonable price range ($100-$200). But I couldn't find much that supported TB3 out of the box, and I couldn't find an add-on TB card that supported a modern chipset (they were all specified for older chipsets like Z170 and X99, which are old news in today's market).

Thunderbolt is just a tough ask for a PC today. There's just not much out there that supports it. Hopefully that changes and people outside of the Mac ecosystem won't have to buy top-budget components just to use one of today's greatest means of connectivity.

It costs less than my Macbook Pro and has better specs, so as long as I get this thing running successfully I think I'll be pretty happy with it. I want to make sure I never run up against a wall, as far as what the system can handle. If I don't achieve that with this build, at least I can always upgrade as opposed to not being able to do anything to my Macbook.

[Tadpui]

It costs less than my Macbook Pro and has better specs, so as long as I get this thing running successfully I think I'll be pretty happy with it. I want to make sure I never run up against a wall, as far as what the system can handle. If I don't achieve that with this build, at least I can always upgrade as opposed to not being able to do anything to my Macbook.

Oh heck yeah, that beast of a machine will be good to go for many years to come. I think all it'd cost you to overclock and get 5 GHz across all 14 cores would be some liquid cooling and maybe a new case to accommodate it. I don't think that you'll hit any limitations with a DAW any time soon!

[vomitHatSteve]

I'm noticing a couple concerns I'd have with this build.

1) That $500 power supply is almost certainly overkill. You probably need about 600 watts. But besides that, the biggest concern is that all the connectors match. You need one SATA connector for every peripheral you'll attach (hard drives, cd burner, etc). Plus you need to make sure there are enough 4 and 6 pin connectors to match the motherboard. There shouldn't be any reason you can't solve all that for $100 or less. (Or possibly even use your old PSU)
2) Do you need a new case? Usually, you can just recycle the old one.
3) Does that graphics card match your monitor setup? You'll need one DVI monitor and one HDMI monitor, which means you're probably not using a matching set.

[paulman]

I'm noticing a couple concerns I'd have with this build.

1) That $500 power supply is almost certainly overkill. You probably need about 600 watts. But besides that, the biggest concern is that all the connectors match. You need one SATA connector for every peripheral you'll attach (hard drives, cd burner, etc). Plus you need to make sure there are enough 4 and 6 pin connectors to match the motherboard. There shouldn't be any reason you can't solve all that for $100 or less. (Or possibly even use your old PSU)
2) Do you need a new case? Usually, you can just recycle the old one.
3) Does that graphics card match your monitor setup? You'll need one DVI monitor and one HDMI monitor, which means you're probably not using a matching set.

The power supply was $309, and it is 600 watts. It's not overkill, because it's fanless and silent. It has nothing but rave reviews that say the only drawback is the price, but that you get what you pay for in silence. Silence is as important as processing power when I've got the PC in the same room as the mics. Every choice I made was with that in mind.

I'm coming off a Macbook, not another PC. So I don't have any old parts. My current monitor setup is my Macbook monitor and an ASUS monitor that I connect with HDMI, but I'm pretty sure (not in front of it right now) it has DVI too. Another cheap monitor just like it would do fine.

Thanks for the connector advice. I'll get into that when everything gets here so I can see exactly what I need.

[WhiskeyJack]

That thing is a behemoth [mention]paulman[/mention] Holy Smokes!! Like VHS steve said as long as all the parts can join up you shouldn't have too much of an issue for power.

I didn't even know there was such thing as an i9