Audio Production System General Questions

[fonze1983]

Happy belated new year,

It's been a few years since i built a PC so I feel a bit out of the loop with CPU, motherboard hardware.

I have decided that it is time to build a new audio production PC and I have a couple of questions regarding hardware.

I have a powerful external soundcard that would need to work well with my set up - but i dont think there is anything I really need to worry about in that department:

Soundcard: http://www.motu.com/products/motuaudio/ultralite-mk3/summary.html

My thoughts so far are; To go with a LOT of processing power and cut back on the GPU as I dont have the need for graphical processing.

Whilst searching the forums I noticed some vague posts, posted back in June regarding the i7 920 processor being good at audio processing though i didnt delve deeper into this comment. Also, I don't need many features on the motherboard.. I want it to work well with the processor and RAM but I don't need any "fluffy" marketed features like SLI or 8 channel Audio.

At current i have no budget limitations

I would really appreciate some guidance on this.

Cheers
Tom

 

[Kewlx25]

Any i7 will be plenty enough power. My 2.66ghz i7 has enough pull to do double realtime 1080p encoding and still only be at 40% cpu. I could only assume audio is that much easier.

note: video streams are 30fps and I can encode 55fps @ 40% cpu at 1080p with all quality settings at max on most codecs. My HD is the bottle neck. This means I could theoretically take a BlueRay video stream, decode it, re-encode it and decode it again in real time. And I have the "low end" cpu. Imaging the new 6 core monsters coming on this year.

 

[fonze1983]

Thanks Kewlx25

Can i just clarify that i wont have the need to process video on the system and hence why i said in my firstpost that i will cutback on my GPU and push all my money towards the MB, CPU and RAM.

However, if your i7 can process that much video data with only 40% used then it should handle audio no problems.

Thanks for the respose. Will take a look at some of the latest i7 processors. Does anyone have any suggestions on a motherboard?

Many Thanks
Tom

 

[Kewlx25]

fyi, AMD's new 6 core cpu is slightly slower than the i7, but it actually uses less power to get the same amount of work done. Not to mention than it also should be plenty of power. save some electricity and AMD has a better track record for re-using sockets.

 

[verndewd]

Thanks Kewlx25

Can i just clarify that i wont have the need to process video on the system and hence why i said in my firstpost that i will cutback on my GPU and push all my money towards the MB, CPU and RAM.

However, if your i7 can process that much video data with only 40% used then it should handle audio no problems.

Thanks for the respose. Will take a look at some of the latest i7 processors. Does anyone have any suggestions on a motherboard?

Many Thanks
Tom

I have protools and cakewalk broham

64 bit os
8gb ddr3
i7
and mobo
if you are using the cpu for sofware dsp, overclock mildly a dedicated dsp will ensure low recording and signal processing latency. could help you trim the ram to 6gb or less depending on the card but I like going over just for headroom.

I owouldnt do an AMD for recording unless you need to save money, in that case a phenom 2 955 or 965 and 8gb.

Intel has 4 physical cores and 4 virtual cores or 8 threads versus AMD's 4, in latency thats a number that counts.