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Feedback on a new DAW build


hockeyjx

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The time is coming to build a new DAW! I'm starting to spec out what I want, and would appreciate feedback from those who have recently built one.  Thanks in advance folks!

Here are a few thoughts on what I want:

Silence is paramount, so I'm probably going water cooled this time. Also a silent power supply.
Not sure if I want to go rackmount or traditional tower, but really don't want or need a fancy case. I have a soundproofed case (Corsair I believe), and I may use that.
I am going to get a 500GB NVMe OS drive with in the ballpark of  Sequential IO: 3,470/3,000MB/s  (that is the WD Black spec, but Samsung is in the mix). Depending on the board, I may get 2 SSDs or a 1TB NVMe for storage.
WIN10 Pro
The Board???? I have never have had a problem with ASUS, but am open to suggestions. It doesn't have to be THE latest, but close. I may do video editing at some point, but would disable the card for audio.
Processor: Current best mix of of price and performance. Never came near maxxing out a CPU in recent years. Intel only.
Memory: I am thinking 64GB to start, and expandable to 128GB from the board.
What am I missing?

Again, any advice is appreciated!
 

Edited by hockeyjx
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"What am I missing?"

A processor ?  Everything sounds pretty incredible - 64 gb  going to 128 gb memory ?  I can't really fathom that, I've never pushed my 12 gb over the hill. Sounds like you could run a good sized orchestral rig with lots of bells and whistles. What kind of music ?

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4 hours ago, RBH said:

..64 gb  going to 128 gb memory ?  I can't really fathom that, I've never pushed my 12 gb over the hill...

Me neither, except on one occasion while when doing some video rendering. I have 16GB, which is more than adequate for sound production, but if I was planning to do more video work I would probably upgrade to 32GB. The OP did mention video editing, so that may be relevant here.

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18 hours ago, RBH said:

"What am I missing?"

A processor ?  Everything sounds pretty incredible - 64 gb  going to 128 gb memory ?  I can't really fathom that, I've never pushed my 12 gb over the hill. Sounds like you could run a good sized orchestral rig with lots of bells and whistles. What kind of music ?"
 

That's what I wanted feedback on. I will get an Intel I9, but I was polling out to see the best performance/price point.

As mentioned, this will be an everything box, so I'd like it to be robust. But I will use more Virtual Instruments musically for sure :)

Edited by hockeyjx
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5 hours ago, W.j said:

I would say the best performance for price would be AMD ryzen at the moment. 

I would like to know if anyone else has had any experience with the new ryzen 9 3900x?

I think the issue with AMD/Ryzen is that some plugins don’t work well. Benchmark performance on the top of the Ryzen line is definitely blazing though.

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I've built 2 systems over the years with AMD, and each time I regretted it. I know the Bakers work with Intel, and I've had better performance/longevity with the them. So I'm not rocking the boat on that part of the equation.

Just not sure which I9 to go with.

 

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Water cooling comes with fans too and often they are small. I'm using a Noctua  nh d15 and can warmly recommend it if you want a silent system and if your case allows it (it's huge).  It keeps my CPU below 50C when running Cakewalk.

I had a silent power supply (Corsair) which died in a year due to insufficient cooling (semi passive).  So now I have a Seasonic which is very silent but keeps the fans running at all times.

As far as Ryzens, I switched from Intel to Ryzen 2700x last year and never had any issues with it. Now I'm using 3700x and it's looking good also.

Edited by lmu2002
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Hi Billy it strange you say that about plugins I haven't heard that before. I haven't had any problems with plugins.

I had a few issues with other daws I tried a few when sonar went under. Cubase was bad I could only have one izotope breaktweaker and it was using more than half the cpu power of my old fx 8350. But I think it doesn't use plugin balancing the same way as sonar because I could 4-5 breaktweakers in one project with sonar. 

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