Build advice

Kruu

Kruu

Kruu

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Joined
23 Jan 2022
Posts
7
Location
Stafford
Hi I have specced the following for a build. I am using the machine primarily for audio production and a bit of gaming secondary. I only need to house a graphics card and FireWire card for my audio interface in the PCI slots.

As such, I need raw processing power so have settled on:
Intel 12900k cpu
GIGABYTE Z690 UD DDR4 motherboard
PATRIOT VIPER STEEL 64GB DDR4 3600MHZ
Radeon 6500xt

Don't need 4k gaming yet, got 2 monitors and no storage as I will reuse existing drives. I got the graphics card already.

I'm very experienced with electronics and soldering, however, I've never actually done my own pc build from scratch. As such, the gaps in my knowledge of PCs are related to hardware compatiblity and part specs. For instance, I'm not sure what cooler I should use. I'd much rather a good air cooler but I am not certain this is going to be suitable for an i9 which will be made to work hard at times.
Also is the modestly priced motherboard going to be suitable for this chip?
I have a Corsair 600W psu, is this going to be suitable or I would I be better off upgrading that too?

I have chosen to stick with ddr4 for now, I can always upgrade the motherboard in future if needed. I want to try and come in around £1000 but obviously I have to be realistic as this is a more high spec build.
Can anyone recommend:
Budget ATX case that will house all this lot, a good cooling system, preferably air cooled, advice on power specs, also thoughts on motherboard suitability and can I do better on ram?
Thanks
 
I'd save on the 12900k by getting a 12700k if doing DAW. As for a cooler the Artic 280mm AIO is a good unit at a reasonable cost.

I'd your more but I'm in my phone and I hate it! :)

Edit: Back at a proper keyboard.

Yeah the 12700K with DDR4 makes more sense for DAW (DSP/Instrument dependant) without the DDR5 route, as like you said you'd change your board to go DDR5, but DDR5 offers a significant uplift in parts of a DAW (instruments).
So you'd bet better of spending less now, as a premium 12900K will drop the extra cost very fast, and moving a board/CPU/RAM combo is much easier that just moving a board/RAM that will be out of date. You've got Raptor Lake/Z790 due out by the end of this year, and DDR5 should have lost most of its premium by then, it will still be more, but not 400% more, plus no 32GB DDR5 DIMMs yet which is annoying.

I did the spec below yesterday for someone else, but it would suit your work load as well.


CPU: Intel Core i7-12700K 3.6 GHz 12-Core Processor
CPU Cooler: ARCTIC Liquid Freezer II 280 72.8 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler
Motherboard: MSI PRO Z690-A WIFI DDR4 ATX LGA1700 Motherboard
Memory: Patriot Viper Steel 64 GB (2 x 32 GB) DDR4-3600 CL18 Memory
Storage: Western Digital WD_BLACK SN750 SE 1 TB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive
Storage: Western Digital WD_BLACK SN750 SE 1 TB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive
Case: NZXT H510 Flow ATX Mid Tower Case
Power Supply: Corsair RM (2019) 850 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply

Total: ~£1250

You could easily swap out the SSD's for something bigger, or just dump them if you don't need them. If you want to go air cooling, swap out for a Dark Rock Pro 4 or Noctua D15 equivalent.
 
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Thanks man, I'm planning on running a lot of CPU and RAM hungry vst plugins, so the extra threads and cores of the i9 are going to be more suitable for my use case.

That cooler is a good price tbf, I will consider that if an air cooled option is a non starter.
 
Kruu said:
Thanks man, I'm planning on running a lot of CPU and RAM hungry vst plugins, so the extra threads and cores of the i9 are going to be more suitable for my use case.

That cooler is a good price tbf, I will consider that if an air cooled option is a non starter.
Click to expand...
How many cores do you need ?

Maybe a 5950x would be better with 16 full cores 32 threads.
 
Kruu said:
Thanks man, I'm planning on running a lot of CPU and RAM hungry vst plugins, so the extra threads and cores of the i9 are going to be more suitable for my use case.

That cooler is a good price tbf, I will consider that if an air cooled option is a non starter.
Click to expand...

I'd say that if you aren't exceeding the 64GB then I'd be surprised how much extra they'll offer, and if that is the case I'd suggest biting the bullet and going with DDR5 now as it make an absolutely huge difference in performance terms.

My though was that £200 spent on the i9 would be better spent later down the line, as I said if you are going to swap out the board later to get DDR5 and the extra performance on offer the 12900K would likely only be worth ~£50 more than a 12700K second hand, and the boards on its own not that much.

I know you've said you at about £1k budget, how fixed is that?
 
Kruu said:
I have a Corsair 600W psu


I want to try and come in around £1000
Click to expand...
What's the precise model and age?
Corsair's brand sticker doesn't mean automatically anything else than it not being some fire hazard.
Beyond that they've got some pretty low quality generic PSUs in their range.


Kruu said:
Thanks man, I'm planning on running a lot of CPU and RAM hungry vst plugins, so the extra threads and cores of the i9 are going to be more suitable for my use case.
Click to expand...
Suspect those slower performance E-cores might not even be that good for audio use.
Because at least for real time work would be best to have consistent performance when threads are juggled between cores.
 
Hi and thanks both for taking the time to share your knowledge.
I was going to go with ddr 5 but with current prices I thought maybe its a bit too much outlay at the moment. I will be using a lot of ram, 32gb might be just about adequate as many of the kontakt libraries I use are huge. To be fair as my current fx8350 struggles now I am fairly used to being economical with managing CPU loads by freezing tracks etc.
I'm sure the performance boost of ddr 5 would definitely be beneficial and much better for what I need, but it's trying to keep costs down reasonably while getting a good upgrade. I did consider the 5950x but that build is significantly more expensive. The budget is a little flexible I am thinking the money saved on i7 over i9 could go towards DDR 5 ram, as the DDR 5 compatible motherboard is not much more...
 
EsaT said:
Suspect those slower performance E-cores might not even be that good for audio use.
Because at least for real time work would be best to have consistent performance when threads are juggled between cores.
Click to expand...

They actually do make a decent difference, just not £200 more on the 12900K vs 12700K.
 
Corsair c600xm I think, it's fairly old and I think people didn't rate it too well at the time lol.

Yes I thought about the e cores but as these CPUs are fairly new I've not heard about specific audio use cases as yet. I think 12th gen would be better than 11th gen and specs wise it's similar to 5950x. Interesting point you raised, I was hoping for more certainty but it's more a can of worms!
 
Kruu said:
Hi and thanks both for taking the time to share your knowledge.
I was going to go with ddr 5 but with current prices I thought maybe its a bit too much outlay at the moment. I will be using a lot of ram, 32gb might be just about adequate as many of the kontakt libraries I use are huge. To be fair as my current fx8350 struggles now I am fairly used to being economical with managing CPU loads by freezing tracks etc.
I'm sure the performance boost of ddr 5 would definitely be beneficial and much better for what I need, but it's trying to keep costs down reasonably while getting a good upgrade. I did consider the 5950x but that build is significantly more expensive. The budget is a little flexible I am thinking the money saved on i7 over i9 could go towards DDR 5 ram, as the DDR 5 compatible motherboard is not much more...
Click to expand...

64GB DDR5, heck even 32GB of 5200MHz is going to cost you £300+ vs £100 per 32GB for the DDR4. I wasn't saying buy DDR5 I was saying that keeping the system cost down now, means moving to DDR5 sooner rather than later is less of an outlay, and loss.

And if you are coming from an FX8350, the 12700K will feel like a rocket ship, heck, a 10400f would feel like a mahoosive upgrade. I think you need to strike a good balance on your budget, and having the ability to stretch your legs with RAM (64GB vs. 32GB) is going to be much more beneficial to you.

Look at the core costs, 12700K/DDR4 64GB/Z690 will cost you ~£375/£220/£200 = £795, just the 12900K is going to add 25% cost to that £795, and if it isn't offering 25% extra performance all of the time, and will take a larger loss when selling on then it isn't great when you are trying to stick to a reasonable budget.

Lets say in Jan 2023 you have the opportunity to move to DDR5, you may be able to get 64GB DDR5 6000MHz for ~£350 instead of £800+, and a new Raptor Lake 13700K, and board for the £375/£200, so another £925, take of the £200 saved from not getting the 12900K now, you are at £725, and then selling your 12700K/DDR4 64GB/Mobo will net you at least £350, so you'll spend another £375 over the 12 months, but you'll also have the option to not bother and just swap the CPU if you feel it will make more difference that swapping the whole system, not to mention you'll be much more familiar with the strengths and weaknesses of the system, and there will be much more community knowledge to share as well.
 
Sorry, I misunderstood what you meant there as regards to ram, I didn't see your earlier edit to your 1st post and having just read that and the spec you outlined that's pretty good.

As for i7 I get what you're saying there that the extra cost doesn't justify what you get in terms of performance and depreciation.

So, I'll stick with the gigabyte motherboard I specced a cheaper case and no drives. Otherwise your part selection is just under budget with delivery. There's no way I'd come in under 1k with the i9 and a new psu.

Many thanks all for your input
 
You absolutely do not need a 12900K for music production. What software do you use?

As you're coming from quite an old system - what Firewire card do you have currently? PCI is long gone these days, all the slots are PCI Express which is not compatible with old PCI stuff.
 
Yes an i9 is top line, you can open any daw with a celeron but good luck running multiple instances of plugins. I've used an i5 which I got 4 or 5 years out of in the past and my current pc is from 2013 so you are quite right that a 12900K is not strictly necessary. My reasoning is that if I get a behemoth processor maybe in 8 or 9 years I can still work comfortably without upgrading, like I have with my current machine. Given that vsts are getting more power hungry with analog modelling and 4x oversampling, a i9 would perhaps give me the grunt needed going forwards and give me the confidence it can take whatever I throw at it in the future. I think the i7 would also be adequate, as would a next gen Ryzen 7.

My FireWire card is pcie but it runs on windows legacy drivers. Hence I do not want to upgrade from windows 10, as my audio interface will no longer work. I'm crossing my fingers that it would work on this proposed new build if I'm honest.
 
Kruu said:
Corsair c600xm I think, it's fairly old
Click to expand...
Definitely time to change that.
Even Corsair themselves don't trust it for more than 3 year warranty worth.
And actually because of grossly undersized primary/bulk capacitor it doesn't even technically qualify for ATX standard with sub 7ms hold up time vs. required minimum of 16ms.


Kruu said:
My reasoning is that if I get a behemoth processor maybe in 8 or 9 years I can still work comfortably without upgrading, like I have with my current machine.
Click to expand...
With competition back even the most expensive CPU will be performance wise at best mediocre well before that.
 
Fair comment, I am going with a new 850W

My fx8350 wasn't really a top line CPU but it was the first ever 8 core chip and has given me years of good performance for audio work, it does overload these days so it's time to upgrade. Yes, some software eventually comes out that taxes older CPUs but for your general bread and butter audio work you need lots of cores/ threads to run lots of processes. I've made do with low spec machines in the past, I'm getting myself something half decent this time. If I could wait I'd opt for raptor lake with the higher l2 and l3 cache speeds and ddr5. Hell, it would be nice to wait for a quantum computer but you have to accept whatever you buy is obsolete by next year. If I don't want to hold out for all that time or there is a massive jump in CPU use for next generation software I can swap out motherboard ram and CPU as journey suggested.
 
Kruu said:
Fair comment, I am going with a new 850W

for your general bread and butter audio work you need lots of cores/ threads to run lots of processes.
Click to expand...
650W is well enough when you don't have power hungry graphics card.
Despite of Intel's real TDPs pushing 250W, graphics cards are still bigger power hogs.

That number of cores and threads is where advance can keep going on easily.
Because its comparatively far easier to add more cores than increase performance of individual cores lot.
With smaller manufacturing node AMD will propably increase number of cores in single chiplet/CCD to 10 in Zen4 with top model becoming 20 cores/40 threads.
While 12 core CCD isn't very likely, it might be also possible depending on how much transistor count of single core increases in Zen4.
Chiplet design gives lot more flexibility in that with smaller die size than in monolithic CPU.


Bulldozer or more fittingly Faildozer (came near killing AMD) was at best mediocre when new.
It was basically four weakish cores and four halfs of core and only good for converting lots of eletricity into lots of heat.
Hence there were very few things in which four Intel's lot stronger cores didn't outperform it.
 
I would rather take the Ryzen 9 5900X.
And definitely not the Radeon RX 6500 XT since it's a very low-end card with terrible performance, limited to only four PCIe lanes, and without hardware codec acceleration. It is built for notebooks with the central processor to have integrated graphics and this one to act purely for 3D acceleration..

My basket at Overclockers UK:
Total: £1,527.24 (includes shipping: £12.30)
​
 
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