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Suggestions for Intel Motherboard?

mkawa

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in case you just need someone to decide for you at this point, go with intel for the igpu, 9700 for 65w tdp, 32gb dram for longevity, z390 aorus master for reliability. CM hyper212 evo for quiet. bam, done.

if you have an AMD itch, the 3600 sticks to or below its tdp while offering a bit more single thread oomph, if you want more oomph, the 3700x maxes out your adobe performance at a pretty strict 95w tdp. you will pay more for a good board. i suggest an asus x570-f if you need wifi, x570-e if not. you have to get a discrete gpu; i think a 2060 super is a superb value. the founder's edition or a dual fan from gigabyte or msi are both good bets. same 32gb dram, although the wraith max that comes with the 3700x is comparable to the hyper 212.

on the intel side, if the igpu doesn't meet expectations, same rec, get the 2060 super. at a lower price point, consider the extremely tried and true rx560 or a 1050 ti.
 
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The owner of TotalDAC uses cubox mini computers in his DAC and network streamer because they have very low noise overall.

I have a gigabyte z390 I Aorus mini ITX board with a six core i5 9600 with a giant heatsink and fan the ZALMAN CNPS9900MAX-B, which is almost as big as the motherboard. Fairly quiet but there are much quieter heatsinks.

Check out this link to find the quietest heatsink that is the most effective: http://www.frostytech.com/top5heatsinks.cfm
 
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amirm

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Check out this link to find the quietest heatsink that is the most effective: http://www.frostytech.com/top5heatsinks.cfm
I looked up the #1 which has no noise. I was shocked by the picture:

maxresdefault.jpg


How the heck do you find space and secure these beasts?
 
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Haha, I didn't realize it was that big. My Zalman is about as big in circumference as the on on the left. I think the right one would still fit in a good size ATX case as it looks as big as an ATX motherboard. The mounting brackets are remarkably strong and will easily hold but you have to be careful in moving the case as you might risk breaking the motherboard.
 

lex62lex

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I looked up the #1 which has no noise. I was shocked by the picture:

maxresdefault.jpg


How the heck do you find space and secure these beasts?
I would really not advise using those things. I don’t know how they find enough clearance to actually fit those thing on a motherboard or in a case, and the weight of those massive coolers could bend your motherboard and destroy it. I know I am biased but the reason I love noctua is because they have the best fan out there. The NF A12x25 has great cooling performance at a noise level that is as silent as a fan gets, and that is out in the open. And the bigger ones included in the NH D15 are really nice as well.
 
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Yeah Noctua is really the best option as the fanless heatsinks still get very hot. I just went with the Zalman because it was on sale for $20 and scores only slightly worse than a Noctua Nh d14 as far as heat dissipation but the NH D14 is quieter on the highest fan setting by almost 10 decibels.
 
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You could also limit the clock speed of your CPU as you really do not need to have all cores running at maximum frequencies to get great performance out of a new i5 or i7 CPU.
 

HammerSandwich

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You could also limit the clock speed of your CPU as you really do not need to have all cores running at maximum frequencies to get great performance out of a new i5 or i7 CPU.
Bad idea, because:
My Audio Precision software is a dog and uses only two threads and only one dominates CPU wise.

Which will also keep power consumption in check. With a sub-100W CPU running 2-3 threads, any not-crap tower cooler with a good 120mm fan running ~600RPM will work well. The best cooler for that CPU & fan would reduce temps maybe 5C or 3dB. (Assuming non-pathological venting in the case.)
 
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Bad idea, because:


Which will also keep power consumption in check. With a sub-100W CPU running 2-3 threads, any not-crap tower cooler with a good 120mm fan running ~600RPM will work well. The best cooler for that CPU & fan would reduce temps maybe 5C or 3dB. (Assuming non-pathological venting in the case.)

Didn't see that part about one core, two threads. In that case the CPU will take care of the throttling of the other cores to keep temps down. I hardly ever use all cores maxed out unless I am playing a game. Otherwise I never hear my CPU fan at all.
 
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mkawa

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your fastest single core is going to be intel with an overclocked 9900k 9600k or 8700k at 5 to 5.2ghz. I am happy to make this happen while staying in your noise envelope (eg using a nice aio water cooler). just say the word! :)

your best amd option will be a 3800x with a good cooler and fast ram. these have the best binning of any zen 2 product. however, single core you are still giving up some performance vs intel.

if I were in your situation, I would definitely go with intel.
 
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Water cooled solutions are not worth the hassle to me for the relatively small overclocking benefit. Depends on what you are shooting for but the 9600k is already very efficient.
 

BigVU's

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MSI Z390 ACE. Has better power phase distribution. 13 phases to help deliver power to that i5 or i7 or i9 Gen 9 CPU. I went with the i5 as I didn't really care about the multitasking. As work station you may want the i7. Over clocks on all chips very easily. From a cost/price this combo is right. Any further up its for show, any less you may not be getting what you can.

Of course you could get ridiculous in these things...
 
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amirm

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An update. I got worried that I would build this new computer and it would be no faster because AP software was doing something stupid like looping waiting for usb data. So I thought I buy a PC I could return to quickly test this. As it happens, I was at Costco and they had an open box Dell XPS8930 with Intel i9-9700 CPU and 1050 ti (I think) graphics card. 16 Gigabytes of RAM. NVME 256 GByte SSD by Toshiba and 1 Tbyte hard drive. They had $150 discount which brought the price down to just $950.

I bought it and quickly tested it. It makes a big difference in performance. AP software is about twice as fast. A bit of hesitation I had here and there with Photoshop and Lightroom are gone.

The machine is essentially silent in normal use even with AP software running. A very large fan on top is the main source of ventilation. CPU cooling is insufficient for sustained multi-core use. After about 5 seconds of stress test, the fan goes to max making a low frequency hum. But then the CPU scales down from 4.5 GHertz down to 4.0 and the fan shuts down and keeps going at this rate will all cores active.

The motherboard ID is strange but says it is 370 based.

I am going to stay with this since it is a known quantity as far as testing goes. And lets me spend my time testing more audio gear than building and testing computers.

As usual, it is a ton of work to migrate things to the new machine. Have the basics up and running enabling me to do the review I post earlier.
 

mkawa

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sure you don't want me to duplicate that computer with better cooling and more reliable motherboard and power supply? i can just send you a working and tested box. reliability of dell desktops is uhh.. not great.

i figured this cpu setup would work well for you though ;)
 

BigVU's

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Eww Pre-built.

I do understand your last comment though and if a quick self build is not in your realm at this point then yes, Costco takes all things back. :)

Amirm said "The motherboard ID is strange but says it is 370 based. (board manufacture basic - some proprietary.) 370 older chip set layout some wont work well with Gen 9 cpus.

I am going to stay with this since it is a known quantity as far as testing goes. And lets me spend my time testing more audio gear than building and testing computers. :cool:

As usual, it is a ton of work to migrate things to the new machine. Have the basics up and running enabling me to do the review I post earlier. "


A simple build though wouldn't be too time consuming - with the Z390 and i9 and an easy SSD install it would can be a keeper for some time. There are quiet fans out there as well to handle any stress test with a whisper. Just my two pennies... not sure how demanding the audio test software and equipment interfaces are so can't comment that any of this would have been better over box store models.
 
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amirm

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I have built countless PCs including the one I just replaced. Indeed I have not bought a prebuilt one since I bought the original IBM PC back in 1982!!! So it is not lack of knowledge or ability. It is just that this thing had Windows on it, powered it on and 5 minutes later I had my AP software running on it. It is also a compact and more attractive package due to its custom chassis.

But yes, Costco has 90 day return policy. So I can still be convinced otherwise. :)
 

BigVU's

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I certainly am not questioning your knowledge, ability to build a pc! lol that would be silly on my part! no no..

I think as you stated - power on and start testing. I don't know that any self build would provide any more reliable data from your testing. Again not sure what those demand or if there is a time to produce results from test factor. I think the biggest lift in any system in terms of access is SSD - read writes in my experience have been of notable difference.

Cheers and thank you for all you do in this community of audio!
 

mkawa

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since i have access to microcenter, let me quote out at that pricing. i'm also going to include a 0$ cost for the stuff i have lying around that i will toss in as a donation (in addition to my build time). tax out here is 5%.

9700k - 300$ + tax - 30$ combo discount
z390 designaire (for the tb3) - 270$ + tax
z90 aorus master (if you want to get tb3 separate or skip the tb3) - 290$ + tax
inland 1tb nvme ssd - 100$
silent cpu cooler - free
seasonic focus platinum 850 - free
16gb dram - free
mastercase h500 (ultra-quiet 200mm fans) - 120$ + tax
a bunch of random 256gb sata ssds i have lying around unused - free

i could also ship it to you without a case and there is plasticity in parts that are purchased.
 

mkawa

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i can literally go out and purchase the parts today if you decide that quickly ;)
 
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