Design a PC/Server for ROON and HQ Player

[Bullwinkle]

19 minutes ago, tboooe said:

Are there any other motherboards I should consider that has comparable high quality components?

Agree with Imitche... you'll want the 270 chipset. Do you have a particular form factor in mind?

[tboooe]

1 minute ago, Bullwinkle said:

Agree with Imitche... you'll want the 270 chipset. Do you have a particular form factor in mind?

Thanks guys.  I totally missed the 270 chipset requirement.  

 

As for form factor I would stick with some sort of ATX so I can use my HDPlex ATX linear power supply.  The only real requirement I have for the mobo is for it to have really good board components (caps, etc).  

[Bullwinkle]

Does your (existing or intended) chassis rule out full size ATX?

[tboooe]

2 minutes ago, Bullwinkle said:

Does your (existing or intended) chassis rule out full size ATX?

I currently have a Streacom FC5 chassis which supports a full size ATX.  I may upgrade to a FC9 which only supports up to a micro-ATX.  I like the FC9 because it allows me to add more half height PCIE cards. If the best mobo is only available in full size ATX then I will stick with the FC5 I have now.

[Bullwinkle]

After doing some research I recently bought the Supermicro c7z270-CG-L, but partly due to its relatively attractive price (~$150; you can spend more on Supermicro boards within that same family, but I'm a cheapskate though I like quality). It is a full ATX board and has high quality components and engineering. Supermicro also has some micro-ATX boards based on the various 270 family chipsets (and the 250 chipset) and all of those will support Intel Optane (you also need a supporting processor but the i7-7700 is one). All will have great components and engineering. They are listed in the lower part of the top panel on this page:

 

https://www.supermicro.com/products/motherboard/Core/index.cfm#1150

 

 

[mirekti]

52 minutes ago, lmitche said:

You will likely want a z270 motherboard with an i7-7700 to enable the full set of capabilities like optane memory support.

 

I read about optane, but don't quite understand the benefits. My board is Z270 ITX with Intel i7-7700 with Samsung SSD.
Should I for some reason migrate to Intel Optane SSD and could you estimate how much would this be helpful for upsampling in HQPlayer?

[tboooe]

6 minutes ago, Bullwinkle said:

After doing some research I recently bought the Supermicro c7z270-CG-L

Thank you!  I will check this out.  There are just so many mobo choices its hard to know where to start and which ones have quality components. 

[Bullwinkle]

12 minutes ago, mirekti said:

Should I for some reason migrate to Intel Optane SSD and could you estimate how much would this be helpful for upsampling in HQPlayer?

Hi mireki, my answers (which are educated guesses) are "not right now" and "not very" though I would be delighted to be schooled. My sense from reading this thread is that DSD upsampling isn't particularly demanding on disk IO (so your SSD is very unlikely to be a bottleneck), though it seems to me people have plenty of ram installed so swapping is unlikely an issue. The sense I get is that, right now, the number of memory channels used by the processor, and the processor's amount and types of cache memory, have been observed to have more impact.

 

Mostly, I (and maybe imitche too) am thinking about the future... for a relatively small handful of dollars right now, I can choose a mobo and processor combo that can use the Optane tech, should that be valuable for some new task around a future corner. It's purchasing option value for a very small price premium. But I don't think that right now anyone should be buying super-expensive Optane SSDs.

[baburh]

Hello everyone, I need help. 

 

I have a single PC CAPS v3 Zuma (i7-3770T, SOtM tX-USBexp, SOTM SATA filter, Streacom FC5WS EVO case, Samsung SSD..) powered by a 3 rail Paul Hynes Linear supply. It is a dual boot setup with Win10 and WinServer 2012R2 both running Jriver. It's 4 years old. I m about to upgrade the hardware in order to be able venture into more resources intensive software: HQplayer, Dirac Room correction etc.

 

I would like to keep as many components unchanged as possible like the case, ssd, SOTM and definitely the linear power supply.

 

I already have a brand new CPU: i7-7700T in hand. Could you please guide me with the motherboard and the rest? I m not considering to add a graphics card for now as I do not have high end DSD capability. I have the Meitner MA1 and have not upgraded to the new version just yet. Do you think the i7-7700T will handle upsampling to DSD128?

 

Your comments most appreciated. 

[tboooe]

7 minutes ago, baburh said:

Do you think the i7-7700T will handle upsampling to DSD128?

 

Are you doing convolution at all?  My old i7-3770s can do DSD512 with convolution but the CPU load is about 70-80%. The i7-7700T can do DSD128 easily.

[Urs]

2 hours ago, tboooe said:

 

 

Hi guys, just curious if you have found out more about whether or not the cooling fans on this motherboard can be left off?  I want to upgrade my fanless server to an i7-7700 (I currently have an i7-3770s) and need to find the best motherboard possible.  @Miska has pointed out that this board has some high quality components.  

 

Are there any other motherboards I should consider that has comparable high quality components?

The cooling fans (little MB fans) are not necessary. I am using this board since late 2015, without those fans and even better... without the slightest problems.

[baburh]

No convolution, not yet. Will definitely try with the new setup. 

[Miska]

Nice new GPU generation from Nvidia - Volta. I wonder how much that card would cost... Would be perfect CUDA engine.

 

http://hothardware.com/news/nvidia-debuts-tesla-v100-volta-gpu-dgx-1-at-gdc-2017

 

My guesstimate for timeline of new Volta-based GeForce cards is around Q1/18.

[tboooe]

@Miska what is your preferred mobo at the moment?  I dont intend to use Cuda.  The CPU will be i7-7700 for DSD512 and 2 channel convolution.

[mikicasellas]

This is so far what i have been planning in order to build a powerful PC for HQplayer:

 

* Intel 7th Gen i7-7700K Intel Core Desktop Processor

* Samsung 850 EVO Solid State Drive (SSD), 500 GB, M.2, 3.5"

* Asrock H270M-ITX/ac Intel H270 LGA1151 Mini ITX - (DDR4-SDRAM, DIMM, 2133,2400 MHz, Dual, 4GB,8GB,16GB, 32 GB

* ASUS STRIX-GTX1080-A8G-GAMING Graphic Card GeForce GTX 1080 8GB

* Corsair Vengeance LPX 32GB DDR4 3200MHz memory (DDR4, PC/server, 288-pin DIMM, 4 x 8 GB, Intel X99, Intel Skylake

* Corsair SF600 High Performance SFX Power Supply 

* NZXT S340 - (Full-Tower, PC, 2.5, 3.5", 120, 140 mm, ABS, SECC, 1x 120 mm)

 

Is anything left to take in count, is this config good enough to perform DSD512?

[Miska]

21 hours ago, tboooe said:

@Miska what is your preferred mobo at the moment?  I dont intend to use Cuda.  The CPU will be i7-7700 for DSD512 and 2 channel convolution.

 

I am using Gigabyte Gaming G1 series boards because of their DAC-UP USB ports...

 

For example something like:

http://www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard/GA-Z270X-Gaming-5-rev-10#kf

 

Or smaller microATX size:

http://www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard/GA-Z270MX-Gaming-5-rev-10#kf

[tboooe]

48 minutes ago, Miska said:

I am using Gigabyte Gaming G1 series boards because of their DAC-UP USB ports...

Thank you @Miska since this is a gaming mobo are you concerned at all about noise?  From my very limited understanding of gaming mobo dont they have more powerful graphics, soundcards, and LEDs which can of course increase noise?

[Bullwinkle]

I have heard that several of the players have something similar: Asus has its "TrueVolt" and MSI calls it something like "USB Audio Power;" and I have wondered whether any of these are worth anything... but do not know.

[Miska]

44 minutes ago, Bullwinkle said:

I have heard that several of the players have something similar: Asus has its "TrueVolt" and MSI calls it something like "USB Audio Power;" and I have wondered whether any of these are worth anything... but do not know.

 

At least some people used to tape USB connectors to disable the +5V line. But the older Gigabyte Gaming board I have seems to have BIOS configuration option for that, so easier for those cases. The option only applies to the DAC-UP port.

 

I have not checked which ASUS boards have it, I need to investigate more. I have one PRIME-series Z270 chipset ASUS board running on the fanless machine with i5-7600T CPU. It is connected to Holo Spring via USB3 at the moment.

 

Other than that, the Gigabyte Gaming and UltraDurable series have better electrolytic capacitors with longer MTBF. Good for machines that are running for long periods of time.

[Miska]

1 hour ago, tboooe said:

Thank you @Miska since this is a gaming mobo are you concerned at all about noise?  From my very limited understanding of gaming mobo dont they have more powerful graphics, soundcards, and LEDs which can of course increase noise?

 

Graphics is in the 7700 CPU, not on the mobo. It has audio on the mobo like most other boards too, but it is just better isolated with metal can and replaceable opamp. I don't need or use the onboard audio, so it doesn't matter. It can probably be disabled from BIOS configuration like many other onboard peripherals too. LEDs can be configured too. I usually leave the connector leds on in static mode (constant on).

 

Overall, Gigabyte has the fancier and better quality components in those gaming models.

 

Intention of the DAC-UP port is to reduce the noise for those particular ports (yellow connectors on Gigabyte mobos).

[volpone]

31 minutes ago, Miska said:

 

Graphics is in the 7700 CPU, not on the mobo. It has audio on the mobo like most other boards too, but it is just better isolated with metal can and replaceable opamp. I don't need or use the onboard audio, so it doesn't matter. It can probably be disabled from BIOS configuration like many other onboard peripherals too. LEDs can be configured too. I usually leave the connector leds on in static mode (constant on).

 

Overall, Gigabyte has the fancier and better quality components in those gaming models.

 

Intention of the DAC-UP port is to reduce the noise for those particular ports (yellow connectors on Gigabyte mobos).

 

Thank you Miska. I'm also interested in GB Mobo for a future powerful HQP / Roon server setup.

But, when using NAA ethernet connected client on a distinct and distant nanodevice like SBC (RPI, Cubox, MicroRendu ...), do you care much about isolation and "noisy" server HW ?
 

In my understanding, no, but i'm interested in your findings.

[Bullwinkle]

1 hour ago, Miska said:

Other than that, the Gigabyte Gaming and UltraDurable series have better electrolytic capacitors with longer MTBF. Good for machines that are running for long periods of time.

 

I can believe this is true compared to ASUS and MSI. One of the reasons I went with a Supermicro z270 board was that they use Nichicon's highest endurance class of capacitors.

[Jud]

8 minutes ago, Bullwinkle said:

 

I can believe this is true compared to ASUS and MSI. One of the reasons I went with a Supermicro z270 board was that they use Nichicon's highest endurance class of capacitors.

 

When I was looking into building a NAS (which I still may do at some point), I saw that Supermicro is recommended by the FreeNAS community: https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?resources/hardware-recommendations-guide.12/download&version=58

[Bullwinkle]

Now that document interests me for the following reason. Although I haven't been here long I've tried to read deeply into a few threads where folks discuss hardware. I have not noticed CA denizens stressing a need for ECC memory (though my short time here means I may have missed it). Right out of the gate this FreeNAS document is making ECC sound like a necessity; NONE of the processor/chipset combos we've lately discussed here support ECC memory.

 

I wonder whether any CA denizens have strong beliefs about ECC.

[tboooe]

41 minutes ago, Bullwinkle said:

I can believe this is true compared to ASUS and MSI. One of the reasons I went with a Supermicro z270 board was that they use Nichicon's highest endurance class of capacitors.

which mobo did you use again?