I've just built a new PC using a Fractal Design Define S [one without a window] case and a Noctua D14 cooler and it's virtually silent, easily the quietest PC I've ever built/owned. The dampening material they use in the case really does seem to make a difference, as does the design of the case and cooler fans I reckon. The case was a dream to build into, they really have put a lot of thought into where things like drives fit and stuff like cable management options. Plus it's a very sexy looking minimal black design. I've nicknamed it 'The Obelisk' as in the 2001 Kubrick film.

 

I did the same, and I'm glad I did!

 

Get a 6 core Intel i7 (if you want really good performance. High virtual Instrument count and other CPU intensive plug -in count) with a compatible Motherboard with at least! 32GB RAM and a good SSD for the main system HD. You can make it a Hackintosh to use Logic as well as a Windows based PC to use FL Studio maybe.

 

@Cav Emp take a look at this site if you want to build your pc.

 

I'm happy to report that thanks to the advice and information sources provided by you kickass people I think I've found a happy medium.

I still don't feel like learning to build a PC. But - There's a shop not terribly far away who will build a PC. Their fee basically gets totally absorbed by the higher quality of parts I'm getting for the same price as a Dell/HP/whatever.

Thanks everyone. Seriously I'd be clueless in so many ways without this community.

 

Great!

Make sure to burn in your usb ports slowly to get the best possible audio quality

 

yes and also make sure your cables run downhill with and in a straight line for optimized download speed!

 

Ohhh lordy. I think you guys will get a kick out of this...

Local shop didn't work out. I found an online build-your-own PC place that had mostly good reviews. Then I talked to their support. I asked if there is a significant difference between the i7 6700 and the 6700k if I don't intend to overclock. This stuff is a lot of money for me and I don't want to risk shortening my chip's lifespan just for a little extra juice. Instead of answering the question regarding their relative performance without overclocking, she just told me that I should OC and get the 6700k. However, since the overclocked chip will get hotter than normal, she suggested I buy their "Intel copper heavy duty CPU fan" for only an extra $49

Then she recommended a bunch of other stuff for my overclocked system (lol), such as:

• add thermal paste (which most heatsinks have pre-applied) for $20.
• Add non-name brand heat spreaders ($48) to the non-name brand RAM (the only kind they offer. Over $5/GB).
• "Professional Wiring" - She began by saying that although all of their systems have great wiring, it would be better to get the Professional Wiring service (aka... cable management) in order to improve airflow inside the case. Given that she estimates this will take their techs 2-3 hours it's practically a steal at $35
• And since I'll obviously need to buy a few more 100% markup items, she suggested more fans "if my budget allows". I had a look at their fans. Lucky for me, I can get their house brand case fan for only $15 (aka the same price as a Corsair or Thermaltake). Hmmm.. off-brands are dodgy though. Maybe I'll go with the "Masscool ULTRA HIGH PERFORMANCE HARD DRIVE COOLING FAN" for just $45.

What do you think guys? Should I do it?

Edited - for our non-native English speaking friends. I'm being sarcastic. I'm pretty dumb with computer hardware but not that dumb. See below post. You guys (and the fine folks at computerlx.com) have convinced me to build my own PC

 

Last edited: Jun 17, 2016

As the old saying goes .. buy cheap, buy twice

 

Anyways. You win, Audiosex. I'm building my own. Many of my parts have already been delivered and I'm about a third of the way through it. Here's what I ended up getting...

Asus Z170-K
Intel i7 6700
Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo
Corsair Vengeance 16GB DDR4 2400
WD Black 2TB
Samsung EVO 850 SSD 250GB
Corsair AF140 Quiet Edition
Corsair CX500
Corsair Carbide 200R

edit: and a run of the mill Asus optical drive. I'll think about a GPU but for now I don't really need/want one.

 

That's the problem with going to shops , they always try and up-sell regardless of what you really need. It's just like car mechanics/dealership.
Look at it a different way. Are capable and comfortable with overclock and all that entails on your own? If not, then you won't be able to trouble shoot problems on your own, when they arise or turn of overclocking if you want. So you will have to pay more money in the future for these services. Thus wasting more money.

But hey it's your money. Also did you ask what they are going to overclock it to versus the stock speed, because paying for a couple more hz might not be worth it.

 

Yeah it was just a joke man. Sorry if I wasn't clear enough about my sarcasm. I'm not paying a fortune for their shitty second rate parts. I really didn't want to take the time to learn to build it but given the nature of resellers there's not much choice. The Asus Z170 series and especially the 6700k chips are supposed to be great overclockers but it's not my thing. I'm not savvy enough to troubleshoot it, as you say, and to me it just seems like an unnecessary risk A skylake chip and an SSD is going to be blinding speed compared to what I'm used to. I'll be plenty happy with that.

Really appreciate you and everyone else who has been contributing your 2 cents all along the way. It took me a while but you guys have shown me the light. I've done some reading and watching about building a PC. It doesn't look that hard, I'll be okay.

 

Wait a sec, let me ask my bro, he's a MS computer science/computer engineer...for all we know, it may be worth waiting for the new intel or AMD versions of the 14nm CPUs early next year, then again he may say wait until then to get the "old" faster cpus then for cheaper, cause of the new chips... Then again, my bro may just curse at me for asking stupid questions...it's 50/50...either way, I've both built computers (but towers, not laptops...) and bought computers cause I was lazy, and didn't want to have to look up the exact specs to make sure this part or that part was compatible...and sometimes some 3rd party well reviewed computer builders are really close to retail building your own (htf, I can only assume volume part pricing...I'll ask about those computer builders...)

First rule of computer club: Laptops always way more expensive for the same power than towers.
Second rule of computer club: Idk, too early in the morning to be thinking...I've never seen anyone build their own laptop...I've repaired my kids, breaking the keyboard, and upgraded memory, then learned that's about all you can do, can't change cpu/mobile gpu...

My bro did build my first i7 tower, must be at least 8 years ago or more now, but after I added a self contained CPU water cooler, changed memory, GPU, power supply, said, hmmm, new motherboard chipset looks good, so lets replace the motherboard and it's not that expensive...I realized it really isn't that hard, but I did once get the wrong power supply cables to a super powerful GPU I bought once and the 2-3 days I had to wait for the replacement had me like spiderman, climbing the walls. I think I did hang on the ceiling for a while at night.

Also, I'm pretty sure I bought my laptop from Newegg, not Amazon, but then again Idr, I know you should compare prices between them though, I always had Amazon Prime cause 2 days shipping free, was just a no brainer to a guy in NYC without a car. I think I'm forgetting another computer selling website too, fungo.

Texting my bro now.

One thing for me: So GPUs are not used in the DAWs? The great and powerful Cubase/PT/Reaper etc., except for running 4 monitors? Nothing for plugin support or whatever? That seems bizarre comparing a computer game run on a CPU and one run on a CPU/GPU combo? What exactly is going on? Cause then the best computer for DAWs are servers, not workstations. In the sciences, e.g., Bioinformatics, they use PCs with Titans in them to make supercomputer level power to search DNA databases...so I'm confused why give up on GPUs as a calculation adjunct?

 

Last edited: Jun 17, 2016

My Creation Station has been very good to me. http://www.sweetwater.com/creation_...=b&network=g&gclid=CJDDhYD6rs0CFQsDaQodwzYGaA

 

Ok, my bro says the new 14nm CPUs from either AMD or Intel are almost exclusively about reducing power consumption than processing speed. So you should get the best bang for the buck irrespective of the new CPUs.

Idk if it matters to you guys on a consumer level, but engineering wise, they are running into problems now using the current tech, so advances will either slow like this and concentrate on power consumption reductions, or they'll add shinny lights to make ppl go "Oooo," cause unless they expose the military chips that are 3D designs, we are near the limit of 2D tech on silicon.

 

Last edited: Jun 17, 2016

Nice. Thanks for that. Sort of confirmed my suspicions. Nice fella in this thread pointed out that the new Broadwell chips just came out so I looked em up to see what the deal is. Looked to me like the same as the Skylake i7 with better integrated graphics ... like you said, not really that wowed by it for the extra money.

 

I'm getting ready to do this too, but planning on just upgrading the MOBO, CPU, and RAM. I've already upgraded the system HDD to a 250GB Samsung SSD, and running the audio drive on a mirrored RAID, 2 1 TB WD Blues. I'm thinking 6700K for the CPU. I use Nebula a lot, and figure that since every track ends up going to the Master Bus also with some Nebula instances on it that will tie the audio processing to the same core. Don't know if that's true (using Sonar Platinum), but all of my research seems to point at that as being the case. This is why I'm going with the faster 6700K versus the 6 or 8 core CPUs. I'm hoping that project load times will be faster (current motherboard only supports SATA2) as well as being able to better work on more unfrozen tracks concurrently. Current system is bogging down with 90 - 100% CPU on the first core. It's an AMD Phenom II processor.

 

I haven't been able to boot it up yet on account of my CPU still being in shipping, but my Z170 series Asus mobo looks like a futhermucker for the price. $135 to run a Skylake chip with DDR4 ram, SATA III, M.2 if I decide to get it, USB 3 and 3.1... much more.

Found my stuff on pcpartpicker.com per the suggestion of one of the awesome guys in this thread. I would just name my price range and specs, narrow the search to stuff with 4 or 5 stars, and then only consider parts with lots of reviews.

 

What do you think of this mobo so far? Specs look pretty awesome. I wish it had built in Bluetooth. Which version have you got?

 

I got the Z170-K. I'm very happy with it. It also comes with some nice bundled software that allows you to adjust overclocking settings with next to no effort (or knowledge really). If I had it to do over again I would pony up the extra 20 bucks and gotten the Z170-A with a couple more bells and whistles, but as far as horsepower and reliability, I find it hard to complain

Only hiccup is: if you're planning on booting from a Win 7 USB initially, it has some issues. The disc that comes with it offers a tool to create a Win 7 bootable USB stick that will work with the Z170's USB3 ports, but wasn't much help considering I didn't have it/know about it until after I already had the OS up and running