Design a PC/Server for ROON and HQ Player

[tsaett]

Sure, my observations are stereo only.

Multichannel is of course even more demanding and you certainly would need a powerful graphic card then.

[MarcinGD]

I'm thinking to buy already for the future something. At the moment I have Black Dragon so max DSD128. But I'm planning to go T+A road and then I would like to try DSD512. As 6700 is 65TDP and adding GTX960 or in the near future as cards are slowly coming out GTX1060 should help with CUDA offload to cool things down.

 

Maybe You should try to add GTX960 as people will start to sell this out to go for Pascal.

 

I have at the moment 2x FC8 EVO with i5-4590T. There is i7-4790 but it keep the price high even on used items market so I prefer to go for skylike anyway with new mobo and leave second one to try NAA option.

[bibo01]

In my CAPS v4 with HDPlex H5 I could only handle 512 (but with simultaneous room correction) by adding 2 long additional heatpipes from the CPU to the left heatsinks intended for graphic cards.

Otherwise the CPU eventually heated up after 2 hours or so.

Keep in mind that the CPU I use is an 80TDP one and works at 3,9GHz (turbo) while the 6700k is considerably more than that.

 

512 is immensely computing-intensive and nowhere near 128. The main problem for the CPU is changing source material, as the most heat must be dissipated when the CPU sets up the filters. So if you only have Redbook source files you may be ok, but if you have lots of different ones (like I do) and like to skip through your library, the case will eventually heat up too much.

 

With my additional pipes I can let the CAPS play on a whole day without issues, so I recommend this to all who want to go 512 fanless. With an 6700k however you might want to use rather 4 instead of 2 pipes.

You do not need a graphic card if you use a 6700k, there is only one real world scenario where the 6700k will not suffice and that is upsampling DSD128/256 source material to 512 and doing simultaneous room correction. For all other cases the 6700k on it's own is more than enough.

 

Would you please be able to post a picture of inside the HDPlex?

I am not sure I understand how you add 2 or 4 extra heat pipes...

[tsaett]

Bibo,

due to the cpu socket location on the supermicro board, the HDPlex heatpipes are only reaching about 75% of the mounting platform. The remaining 25% facing the left case side are holding the two additional pipes.

 

Well, if I think about this now, it could be due to this circumstance, that the cpu overheated (not 100% heat dissipiation surface used). But the outer heatsink already got so immensely hot, that I would not want to raise that heat further.

Therefor I think I found an elegant way to solve this.

 

Marcin,

I have the Xeon equivalent to the 4790 installed, the 1271v3.

My tests were also with the T+A, it's an awesome machine!

[bibo01]

Bibo,

due to the cpu socket location on the supermicro board, the HDPlex heatpipes are only reaching about 75% of the mounting platform. The remaining 25% facing the left case side are holding the two additional pipes.

 

Well, if I think about this now, it could be due to this circumstance, that the cpu overheated (not 100% heat dissipiation surface used). But the outer heatsink already got so immensely hot, that I would not want to raise that heat further.

Therefor I think I found an elegant way to solve this.

 

Marcin,

I have the Xeon equivalent to the 4790 installed, the 1271v3.

My tests were also with the T+A, it's an awesome machine!

 

So, if I understand you correctly, out of 8 heatpipes six are going to the right side of the case and two to the left, Right?!

[tsaett]

Bibo, I'm sorry I can't take pictures because I'm not at home for 2 weeks, touring your home country.

All 8 stock pipes are installed, but because the cpu socket is located too far towards the left chassis side, the pipes don't reach to the outer limit of the copper block. So there is some unused space free where I could place 8 additional pipes if I wanted to, but I went with 2 as they suffice.

Hope I made things clearer now.

[drabbis]

so like most people, if you run tidal, roon, hqplayer to a 6700k with no gpu, in stereo, no room correction, using high end filters what percent does that run the cpu?

[drabbis]

sorry forgot to add at dsd512

[tsaett]

About 30% with redbook.

This seems like not much, but with HQPlayer 50% equals almost 100% actual load.

[drabbis]

how are most of you choosing between using a Ethernet vs usb, ie microrendu vs jcat usb/regen for data to the dac?

[MarcinGD]

I am upgrading my I3 3220t dual core to an I7 3770s quad which I intend to use in my Streamcom FC5 fanless case. The I7 has a tdp 65w and my case can handle up to 95w. I'll be installing the new CPU this weekend so we will see!

 

Hay tboooe. I just upgraded to 4770s and Fc8 gets extremally hot in summer weather. With ambient temp. around 28 degree C it gets even 85 degree C after one hour of playing upsampled various files to DSD128. I needed to go down with the clock to 2Ghz it's OK for now but if I want to go with DSD512 I will need to look for some other case.

[tboooe]

Hay tboooe. I just upgraded to 4770s and Fc8 gets extremally hot in summer weather. With ambient temp. around 28 degree C it gets even 85 degree C after one hour of playing upsampled various files to DSD128. I needed to go down with the clock to 2Ghz it's OK for now but if I want to go with DSD512 I will need to look for some other case.

 

Hi Marcin. I only upsample to DSD256 but it seems my FC5 can handle the heat. The heatsink definitely gets warm but I can comfortably touch the case. I havent measured the actual temperature though. How many cooling pipes are you using? I'm using 4.

[MarcinGD]

Hi Marcin. I only upsample to DSD256 but it seems my FC5 can handle the heat. The heatsink definitely gets warm but I can comfortably touch the case. I havent measured the actual temperature though. How many cooling pipes are you using? I'm using 4.

 

I'm using all 4 pipes also. I think that I will need to go for FC10 case or hdplex to keep it fanless. Or wait because winter is coming

[tboooe]

I'm using all 4 pipes also. I think that I will need to go for FC10 case or hdplex to keep it fanless. Or wait because winter is coming

 

Have you tried just removing the top from the case to see if it helps?

[MarcinGD]

Have you tried just removing the top from the case to see if it helps?

Yes it helps but not when I use max CPU clock.

[tboooe]

Yes it helps but not when I use max CPU clock.

 

Strange. I can use max cpu of my 3770s, no overclocking. Perhaps you can look at it there is enough thermal paste on the heat block and pipes? I did use 2 tubes to make sure I had a good contact.

[NAIDIVER]

I have not decided yet for a new machine. Old machine's case is something from Antec's line.

 

For new MoBo I was planning to use ASUS Sabertooth Z170 Mark 1.

 

For PSU I was thinking the fanless Seasonic too.

 

Hi, Miska

If you have time, please drop by and comment a little bit here

http://www.computeraudiophile.com/f28-highend-audiopc-sponsored/my-music-server-cant-see-storage-drive-it-possible-causes-audiophile-optimizer-29510/

 

I don't know what is happening to my machine. May be other factors besides AO.

I'm so worried about it..

Thanks

[juanitox]

do you think this kind of exotic clock ( newclassD neutrino clock) for the mobo would worth the cost for a dedicated Audio PC with linear PS

[Miska]

Now Nvidia is starting to roll out their newest Pascal-generation GPUs on the Quadro-series:

New Quadro Graphics Built on Pascal Architecture | NVIDIA

 

Let's see how the price/performance fares out...

[blue2]

Hi Miska

 

Is there any need to include a graphics card in a new PC for HQPlayer? It would make the build cheaper to use just the Intel i7 6700K which will do all DSD/PCM upsampling to DSD512 (cheaper case, cooling and PSU).

 

According to https://developer.nvidia.com/cuda-gpus the NVIDIA TITAN X, GeForce GTX 1080, GeForce GTX 1070, GeForce GTX 1060 have Compute Capability 6.1 and GeForce GTX 980 Ti, GeForce GTX 980 (Jussi), GeForce GTX 970, GeForce GTX 960, GeForce GTX 950 Compute Capability 5.2 So it looks like even the latest cards don't give more than +20% performance but there's a big price difference!!

 

If I did want to upgrade to DSD1024 or something else in the future, I'd need a new DAC and probably a new PC so no need to build for graphics upgrade capability? Or would you recommend building the PC capable of taking a CUDA GPU which would enable the 6700K to cope with DSD1024? "Poor man can't afford to buy cheap!"

 

Thanks

[Miska]

Is there any need to include a graphics card in a new PC for HQPlayer? It would make the build cheaper to use just the Intel i7 6700K which will do all DSD/PCM upsampling to DSD512 (cheaper case, cooling and PSU).

 

Depends on what you want to do exactly. If you need digital room correction, or matrix processing, you can get quite a bit of extra boost from a GPU.

 

According to https://developer.nvidia.com/cuda-gpus the NVIDIA TITAN X, GeForce GTX 1080, GeForce GTX 1070, GeForce GTX 1060 have Compute Capability 6.1 and GeForce GTX 980 Ti, GeForce GTX 980 (Jussi), GeForce GTX 970, GeForce GTX 960, GeForce GTX 950 Compute Capability 5.2 So it looks like even the latest cards don't give more than +20% performance but there's a big price difference!!

 

Compute capability doesn't directly translate to performance, it is just an architecture version number indicating certain feature set.

 

In addition to pure performance, the newer Pascal generation (1000-series) gives better power/performance ratio because it uses smaller manufacturing process and lower voltage.

 

If I did want to upgrade to DSD1024 or something else in the future, I'd need a new DAC and probably a new PC so no need to build for graphics upgrade capability? Or would you recommend building the PC capable of taking a CUDA GPU which would enable the 6700K to cope with DSD1024? "Poor man can't afford to buy cheap!"

 

I would recommend to get started with just 6700K, but get a case big enough so it can house at least GTX 1060. You can then add GPU later and swap PSU if necessary.

[jabbr]

@Miska, for ultimate performance, say i7-6900k with watercool/overclock or i7-7700k? ... along with Pascal

[lmitche]

I read a report last night that the next top of the line I7 processor 7700k has a single thread performance increase of 40%.

[Jud]

I read a report last night that the next top of the line I7 processor 7700k has a single thread performance increase of 40%.

 

Sounds very interesting, but I wonder what price increase goes along with that. Or perhaps it will slot in about where the 6700K was, and the price of the latter will drop....

[lmitche]

Intel usually ends up pricing the fastest part at the previous price point of the prior top model in each cycle.