PC shopping spree!

[Amicus717]

Hi folks,

I'm embarking on a little studio rebuilding adventure, and am looking for a bit of advice. 

Some background: My girlfriend and I are buying a house together, so I just sold mine, and the crazy real estate market pumped the sell price into the stratosphere. Most of that profit is just being dumped into the next house (because the crazy sell price will mean a rough purchase price on the next house). But I'm carving off a small chunk of that profit, and plan to build a proper home studio in the new place. 

This is something I have been looking forward to for a long, long time. I've been a single parent raising three kids alone for the past 17 years, and its been really rewarding (and totally worth it), but also rather a slog -- at one point, just to keep the mortgage paid and the lights on, I worked four jobs at the same time (my day job, an evening retail job, a Saturday job at a tire store, and a Sunday job at church). But I got my kids safely to adulthood, and now they're finishing up their education and getting started on their lives, and after almost two decades of hard work and sacrifice, I'm rewarding myself with a fun - and thoroughly ridiculous - shopping spree.

My plans include: 

a) a purpose built, spare-no-expense studio room that will be properly treated and furnished for audio
b) a beast of a new audio computer, built with all the trimmings and custom-tailored for VST instrument use (including a new audio interface and new monitors) 

The audio computer part is where I'm running into questions. I have built my own systems for many years, starting back in the Intel 386/486 days, including gaming PCs, music PCs and just about everything else. So I do consider myself something of a power user/builder. But the current tech landscape is a bit murkier than I remember in terms of building specifically for audio, and I'd be curious to see what folks think of the setup I am compiling. I have not purchased any of this yet, although I plan to start at the end of April. 

The core of the system will be:

Intel Core i9-11900K CPU
ASUS Prime Z590-A LGA mobo
ASUS ThunderboltEX 3-TR expansion card
128GB (4x32GB) DDR4 3200MHz

I'm trying to figure out the best HD/SSD configuration for a heavy sample user like myself. I figure some variation on this theme might work: an M.2 drive for the OS, a couple of large SSD (or M.2) drives for samples, and a nice big platter drive for storage (I already have a NAS on my network that I use for back-up). 

I'm also trying to figure out what power supply brands are currently considered top-shelf; I'm a big believer that the power supply is one of those key components that make a huge impact on system stability and durability, and I want to make sure I get a good one, properly spec'd for my system's power consumption. 

As for the audio interface: even though I have been an RME user for the past few years, I am really drawn to the Presonus Quantum 2632 with its uber-low latency and (apparently) great sound and build. I've heard nothing but good things about it's performance and stability, and it seems specifically built for all-VST dudes like me. 

I'd really appreciate any thoughts on the above components. I was originally looking at the Gen 10 Intel CPUs, but if I'm reading the specs correctly, the Gen 11 CPUs allow me to use memory with a higher clock speed. Is the RAM clock speed upgrade (3200Mhz instead of 2666Mhz) going to make much of a difference? Also, while the Gen 11 CPUs have a smaller core count than Gen 10 (the 11900K has eight cores instead of the ten cores found in the 10900K), I've read that the Gen 11 CPUs are more efficient and faster on a core-vs-core basis, and this kind of speed and power matters more than pure core count when it comes to audio. 

A detail worth noting: I'm also a Vienne Ensemble Pro user, and intend to also properly implement a multi-PC VEP setup in the new studio. I've got a couple of decently spec'd i7 refurb PC's that I picked up from a friend of mine (they are off-lease corporate workstations), and I intend to farm out some of my sample libraries to them. 

Oh, and also: screens! I've heard and seen folks using 4K HDTVs as main image monitors, and am wondering if anyone here does that, and if so what brand/models do you recommend? I know there are potential issues with input lag and chroma subsampling when it comes to using TVs as computer monitors, but I love the idea of tons of screen  real estate for my rather large orchestral template. 

Thanks,

Rob

 

Edited April 4, 2021 by Amicus717

[Bapu]

I have nearly that same config. I just don't have an M.2 drive for OS (I use 1TB SSD) and a 8TB samples drive and 2TB projects drive. And I have Z490-A.

I use a 750W PSU. No problems.

[Amicus717]

Thanks, Bapu! Yeah, I read through the specs on your system, and its looks like a monster. I assume in whatever task you are running, it's pretty perky across the board?

Do you know which make of PSU? I've had a few people tell me that different brands can be really different in terms of quality (and one tech dude at the local computer superstore told me that even within specific brands, different classes of PSU  can be really variable as well -- he was citing Corsair PSUs, in that particular case, saying in his experience some of them were great, some of them were quite unreliable).