Advice Needed on PC for DAW

collybyrne

Hi guys. I'm looking into getting a desktop for running Pro Tools 11 (non-HD version) and was hoping for some advice on component choice. I've listed out below the components from a sample build on hardwareversand (sorry but I couldn't get fluffy's script to work). I started with the Intel gaming PC on their website and increased the RAM and decreased the graphics card.

1. What is your budget? €1,500 max

2. What will be the main purpose of the computer? DAW (specifically pro tools)

3. Do you need a copy of Windows? Yes

4. Can you use any parts from an old computer? No

5. Do you need a monitor? Yes

5a. If yes, what size do you need. 27"

6. Do you need any of these peripherals? No

7. Are you willing to try overclocking? No (as my preference would be for a quiet machine with less cooling if possible)

8. How can you pay? Credit Card/Laser

9. When are you purchasing? Next month or two

10. If you need help building it, where are you based? Co. Louth (am thinking of having hardwareversand build as €30 doesn't seem like much for saving me the hassle)

The components I've selected are as follows:

- Intel Core i7-4790 Tray (Art-Nr.: HV20T479DE)
- ASUS Z97-PRO, Sockel 1150, ATX (Art-Nr.: HV1150UGDE)
- Scythe Katana 3, 9ur für Intel-CPUs (Art-Nr.: HV30SC06DE)
- 16GB-Kit Corsair Dominator Platinum PC3-12800U CL9 (Art-Nr.: HV20CS07DE)
- Nanoxia Deep Silence Two Anthracite (Art-Nr.: HVR630L8DE)
- be quiet! Pure Power L8 CM 630 Watt (HVR630L8DE)
- Gainward GeForce GT 610 SilentFX, 1GB DDR3, VGA, DVI, HDMI (Art-Nr.: HV1025WODE)
- Seagate Barracuda 7200 1000GB, SATA 6Gb/s (Art-Nr.: HV13SB71DE)
- Crucial M500 240GB SATA 6GB/s 6,4CM (2,5") 7mm (Art-Nr.: HV12CZS9DE)
- LG GH24NS bare schwarz (Art-Nr.: HV207GB4DE)
- TP-Link TL-WDN3800 (Art-Nr.: HV25TWM6DE)
- Samsung Monitor S27C650D (Art-Nr.: HV0648895401DE)
- OEM Microsoft Windows 8.1 Pro 64-bit inkl. Vorinstallation (Art-Nr.: HVSE8PW6DE)
- Rechner - Zusammenbau (Art-Nr.: HVZPCDE)

Total build cost €1,392.55

I would love to hear any advice or suggestions particularly if they can save me some money! Also if anyone has any experience with running pro tools on windows or Mac and would like to chip in with their opinions on which is the best solution I'd love to hear them. Thanks a million!

the_syco

collybyrne wrote: »

- Rechner - Zusammenbau (Art-Nr.: HVZPCDE)

Would advise building it yourself. Shipping the PC over with the graphics card installed has caused issues with people (mainly as although it's connected, the heavier heatsink part can usually move about a bit).

collybyrne

the_syco wrote: »

Would advise building it yourself. Shipping the PC over with the graphics card installed has caused issues with people (mainly as although it's connected, the heavier heatsink part can usually move about a bit).

Cheers . To be honest I'm not even sure if I need the graphics card. I have no intention of ever using it for gaming so the onboard graphics may suffice for my needs.

Dravokivich

collybyrne wrote: »

Cheers . To be honest I'm not even sure if I need the graphics card. I have no intention of ever using it for gaming so the onboard graphics may suffice for my needs.

Theres a lot of graphics in daws. All those track lines need to be generated by something as well as analysing toolsets. Better off not using the cpu for it.

collybyrne

Thanks this is exactly the type of advice I was looking for. Could you comment on the suitability of the Graphics card I've selected?

Dravokivich

collybyrne wrote: »

Thanks this is exactly the type of advice I was looking for. Could you comment on the suitability of the Graphics card I've selected?

You don't need a high end one. It's just so you don't clutter up the work being done on the CPU.

I've an ATI 64XX in mine, but I use Sonar Cakewalk, along with and AMD CPU. So can't really advise too much on your build overall for your need.

Also I've noticed alot of people tend to use Nvidia 210GT's. Just things on the low end of the scale.

ProTools is known to have had issues with hardware compatibility and with 64bit installs. So I'd advise looking for ideas on specific builds by checking what people on ProTools forums use.

collybyrne

Dravokivich wrote: »

You don't need a high end one. It's just so you don't clutter up the work being done on the CPU.

I've an ATI 64XX in mine, but I use Sonar Cakewalk, along with and AMD CPU. So can't really advise too much on your build overall for your need.

Also I've noticed alot of people tend to use Nvidia 210GT's. Just things on the low end of the scale.

ProTools is known to have had issues with hardware compatibility and with 64bit installs. So I'd advise looking for ideas on specific builds by checking what people on ProTools forums use.

Thanks a million. I've been doing as much research as I can on a couple of different DAW related forums and I'm happy enough that the system I've spec'd will run Pro Tools pretty comfortably. I'm here really to get advice on whether I've over spec'd or if I've missed anything that would be obvious to a PC expert.

Dravokivich

As long as the chipset on your motherboard is in the pipeline for upgraded CPUs, you're doing fine.

You haven't over spec'ed anything. And when it comes to production PCs, that's what you should be looking to do anyway :P

In general some people might think the amount of ram is a waste, but you'll need it for plugins.

collybyrne

Thanks again. I've got a few other questions on this that I probably should have put in my original post, like

- Do I need the network adapter for connecting to the wifi router at home? Is the one I've selected ok or is there a better one that doesn't have two antennae sticking out the back!

- Is it possible to integrate a thunderbolt interface for use with certain audio interfaces? Would I be better going for a different motherboard that already has this?

- Is there a better option for buying Windows if I decide to do the build myself? And is Windows 8.1 the way to go or should I stick with Windows 7?

Dravokivich

The OS you decide on should be based on what your DAW and the audio device you look to get needs.

Don't bother too much with thunderbolt. There aren't many devices out right now that make use of it and those that do, do so with adapters for fireware devices, that tend to also support USB connectivity too. By the time they are plentiful and come down in price, you'll be able to get an expansion card cheap enough for'em.

collybyrne

That's great. Just found a guy on adverts this morning selling custom PCs at great prices. I'm not allowed post a URL to his profile but his username is Lukas1 and he's based in Dublin 1.

Is anyone here familiar with him or his work?

BloodBath

They aren't bad but you could do better. I was selling PC's on adverts that were better value. I'm sure you could get someone to help.

I refined your build a bit anyway. You might as well grab a nice 2560x1440 monitor with that budget. Add windows and a DVD if you need it.


Total build cost: €1,279.89 + €11.99 shipping
16GB Kit Crucial Ballistix Sport Series DDR3-1600, CL9 €124.89
MSI N750Ti TF 2GD5/OC Twin Frozr Gaming, GeForce GTX 750 Ti, 2GB GDDR5, VGA, DVI, HDMI €130.15
Intel Xeon E3-1231v3 Box, LGA1150 €225.51
Deepcool Lucifer CPU-Kühler - 140mm €34.88
Crucial MX100 SSD 256GB (2,5", 7mm) €90.90
WD Blue 1TB 6Gb's €48.42
Nanoxia Deep Silence One Dark Anthracite, ATX, ohne Netzteil €85.21
Corsair CS Series Modular CS550M 550W ATX 2.3 €62.11
ASRock H97 Pro4, Sockel 1150, ATX €74.99
TP-Link TL-WDN3800 €20.84
BenQ GW2765HT €381.99

collybyrne

BloodBath wrote: »

They aren't bad but you could do better. I was selling PC's on adverts that were better value. I'm sure you could get someone to help.

I refined your build a bit anyway. You might as well grab a nice 2560x1440 monitor with that budget. Add windows and a DVD if you need it.

Thanks a million I really appreciate you goin to the effort. Just a couple of questions and excuse my ignorance with this stuff!

- Why the xeon over the i7? Is it just price?
- Would there be any concerns over noise with the fans on the graphics card and the additional CPU cooler fan? As this is for DAW usage noise is a concern for me. I don't need total silence but fairly quiet if possible.
- Should I consider a more powerful PSU or is the 550kW plenty?

BloodBath

The xeon is the same as the i7 in terms of performance. It just doesn't have the IGP and it doesn't support overclocking. You don't need the igp with dedicated graphics and you said you aren't overclocking.

The point of the big fans and coolers is to reduce heat and noise. You can run the fan speeds really low to make them silent inside a decent case. You will have to customise the fan profiles to do this properly but the whole point is silence. The GPU is a very low power consumption model which means it doesn't generate much heat and has an excellent cooler meaning you can keep the fan speeds low and quiet.

A 550w is loads. That PC would only use about 200w of power under full cpu and gpu load. Maybe 50w under normal conditions.

collybyrne

BloodBath wrote: »

The xeon is the same as the i7 in terms of performance. It just doesn't have the IGP and it doesn't support overclocking. You don't need the igp with dedicated graphics and you said you aren't overclocking.

The point of the big fans and coolers is to reduce heat and noise. You can run the fan speeds really low to make them silent inside a decent case. You will have to customise the fan profiles to do this properly but the whole point is silence.

A 550w is loads. That PC would only use about 200w of power under full cpu and gpu load. Maybe 50w under normal conditions.

Brilliant thanks a million. This looks like a much nicer solution than what I had and for less money as well. Do you have any suggestions for getting a copy of Windows for better value than on HVS? I've seen codes you can buy on Reddit but I presume I'm going to need a disc on a new build?

BloodBath

No problem.

You could try buying a key off of reddit, plenty have with success. It means you have to install windows from a usb stick then or borrow an installation disk.

There's guides online on how to do that. You just need a 4gb or larger usb memory stick.

If you don't want to do that just grab one off HWVS, make sure it's the english version and grab a dvd drive.

I used geizhals.de to get the discounted hardwareversnad prices shown as well. You need to search each part and select HWVS from the list of sellers and add each to cart. Repeat.

collybyrne

Bloodbath when I click on the links you posted on the last page almost everything shows up 5 or 6 euro more expensive than your post says? Is there a reason for this or do HWVS prices change quite regularly?

PaulRyan17

You should note that PT requires a lot of horse power to run it. Requires far more compared to Ableton or Logic Pro. Ive read in numerous articles that it can freeze and crash quite often. You should be able to run it fine but that will depend on how many plugins you are running and how often you are bouncing to audio to save some horse power etc.

collybyrne

PaulRyan17 wrote: »

You should note that PT requires a lot of horse power to run it. Requires far more compared to Ableton or Logic Pro. Ive read in numerous articles that it can freeze and crash quite often. You should be able to run it fine but that will depend on how many plugins you are running and how often you are bouncing to audio to save some horse power etc.

Thanks Paul. Yeah I've done a bit of reading up on it and generally an Intel quad core processor with 16GB of RAM seems to be able to run it quite successfully. I know it can be fussy about which graphics cards are compatible also but from what I've read it appears most NVIDIA models seem to work ok.

Do you use PT yourself?

BloodBath

Colly I answered your question already in the post above it.

collybyrne

BloodBath wrote: »

Colly I answered your question already in the post above it.

So you did my apologies!