Design a PC/Server for ROON and HQ Player

[leftside]

I've heard. I'll get a beefier PC first (next few months) and then look at the chipless DSD next year.

[Miska]

53 minutes ago, leftside said:

i7-7700 Kaby Lake 1151

 

7700 or 7700K?

 

54 minutes ago, leftside said:

16GB Corsair DDR4 2666 (or would 32GB be preferable?)

 

I think 16 GB is enough for now, I have 32 on many machines, but they would be probably just as fine with 16.

 

If you use 8 GB modules, you have two DIMM slots free for later upgrade. Just make sure you add memory in pairs, because the CPU has dual-channel memory controller.

 

[Miska]

6 hours ago, leftside said:

I'm pretty sure it's the processor on the server. As mentioned, the xtr filters cripple it (I RDP into the PC from the laptop to view the CPU with Process Explorer). It's ok with spikes up to 60%, but is far happier in lower ranges.

 

It is always best to check per-core load graphs. For HyperThreaded CPUs, 50% total load is pretty much full load, because the second virtual core cannot really do real work. It just helps on speeding up context switches when there are many processes/threads running and CPU needs to wait for RAM.

 

Also when you use GPU, remember that stuttering may also happen if GPU load goes too high, even if CPU doesn't have much load. Because the GPU load is not visible in the CPU load figures.

[leftside]

3 minutes ago, Miska said:

 

7700 or 7700K?

 

 

I think 16 GB is enough for now, I have 32 on many machines, but they would be probably just as fine with 16.

 

If you use 8 GB modules, you have two DIMM slots free for later upgrade. Just make sure you add memory in pairs, because the CPU has dual-channel memory controller.

 

Doesn't appear the 7700K is available from that site (yet). Some discussion here about 7700 vs 7700K. Any preference for a Roon + HQP server?

https://techreport.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=119303

 

[tboooe]

1 hour ago, leftside said:

i7-7700 Kaby Lake 1151

Yup, thats what I am upgrading to as well for a fanless system.

[leftside]

On 5/17/2017 at 0:23 AM, Miska said:

AMD has also launched some interesting new products...

 

http://hothardware.com/news/amd-ryzen-9-threadripper-cpu-lineup-41ghz-16-core-32-thread-beast

 

http://hothardware.com/news/amd-naples-zen-architecture-makes-epyc-debut-for-datacenter-market

 

Awesome. More info here:

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2017/05/amd-ryzen-threadripper-price-specs-release-date/

 

I can't afford a dedicated machine yet (due to latest DAC upgrade), so I'll make do for a while, continue my research (this is a fantastic site btw) and see what the summer brings. With Roon + HQP + AO + various build options there is a lot to digest. All fun though.

[Quadman]

Last night I tried something with my i7-6700K based win 10 pro PC with a 1060 GPU, I under clocked the CPU to 4 Ghz, from what I had been running at 4.5 Ghz.  This also allowed me to lower the voltage to the CPU somewhat.  My theory was less voltage =less current =less noise, which should equate to better SQ.  I didn't have anytime yesterday for much listening other than headphones to make sure it still would upsample to DSD512, which I consider to be mandatory and it worked.  Just for giggles I turned off cuda offload in HQP settings just to see if this config could still handle DSD512.  I was using the closed form filter and when I hit play the load on most cores had spikes up to 80% even tho the average CPU load was in the high 30's.  I put the headphones on and there was massive stuttering, this filter which I find generally not to be a CPU intensive load was unable to play 512.  I re-enabled Cuda offload and all was good again, no stuttering.  Tonight I listen with speakers and will report if any SQ change with lower CPU voltage.

 

I was bummed the PC stuttered with no cuda offload, had that of worked I was looking into a PCIe to sata adaptor card to put my OS SSD on a lane which has a direct connection to the CPU rather than a sata port which runs thru the X170x chipset.

[Bullwinkle]

1 minute ago, Quadman said:

Last night I tried something...

 

Thanks for this report--very interesting stuff.

[Miska]

It is always fun to watch Nvidia launch events:

 

 

 

[mvilla]

On 22/3/2017 at 11:05 AM, Miska said:

First short report on my new AMD Ryzen server.

 

CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 1700X

Motherboard: ASUS PRIME X370-PRO

RAM: Kingston HyperX FURY DDR4-2666

OS: Ubuntu Server 16.04 LTS

 

With HQPlayer Embedded, upsampling from RedBook to DSD512 (22.5792M) using poly-sinc-short-mp and ASDM7 takes 16% of CPU time total. No CUDA offload.

 

Pretty nice figures for the price.

 

Hi Miska,

which kind of chassis are you using here?

thx

massimo

[baburh]

Trying to upgrade my The Intel DH77EB MicroATX for my new CPU Intel i7-7700T.. I want to use my old CAPS Zuma case Streacom F5. Any suggestions for a motherboard? Do I really need the Z270? There are H270 and even Q270 microATX options out there.. RAM will be HyperX FURY DDR4 2400, no plans to OC.

 

I do need a quiet, clean PC as the NAA option looks distant for me at least for now. I will keep the SOtM tX-USBexp.

 

BTW my DAC Meitner MA-1 will not accept anything higher than 2xDSD..

[Miska]

5 hours ago, mvilla said:

which kind of chassis are you using here?

 

Fractal Design Node 605...

 

Btw, that ASUS PRIME mobo died on BIOS update and I couldn't find way to wake it up again, so I purchased another one, this time from MSI...

[tboooe]

24 minutes ago, Miska said:

 

Fractal Design Node 605...

 

Btw, that ASUS PRIME mobo died on BIOS update and I couldn't find way to wake it up again, so I purchased another one, this time from MSI...

Miska, you have made reference to owning several different mobos in this thread (Gigabyte, Asus, MSI, etc).  Do you have a favorite for absolute best sound quality?

[Miska]

17 minutes ago, tboooe said:

Miska, you have made reference to owning several different mobos in this thread (Gigabyte, Asus, MSI, etc).  Do you have a favorite for absolute best sound quality?

 

So far, I've been preferring the Gigabyte gaming models with DAC-UP USB ports...

 

Those also have dual-BIOS in case BIOS update goes ruined.

 

[baburh]

I do not know if DAC-UP USB ports are relevant in the presence of my SOtM tX-USBexp or any similar PCI to USB solutions. Furthermore it looks like, it's very difficult to find gamer's micro-ATX mobos in my market. Below are the only ones, I can get hold of:

 

Asus Prime H270M-Plus

Gigabyte GA-Q270M-D3H

Gigabyte GA-Z270M-D3H

Asrock Z270 Pro4

Asrock H270 Pro4

Asrock Z270 Extreme4

 

Is there a reason why I should prefer the Z270 over H270? Any value in Q270? Any suggestions?

 

BTW, have you had issues installing WinServer2012 on the .270 chipset mobos with KabyLake CPUs ? 

[Bullwinkle]

Hi baburh. I think the Q270 and H270 do not support overclocking--but this usually doesn't bother audiophile builders. The Q270 supports a few more of Intel's proprietary gizmos than the H270 does, some having to do with IO and memory, so you might prefer Q270 to H270. They all will support Intel Optane memory (should any of us want to install it down the road...right now I don't see any big reason to do that though).

[baburh]

Thank you!

No plans for overclocking my fanless audio PC. Will do some reading about Q270 and decide. 

[baburh]

Will these new mobos and cpus get along well with the WinServer2012?

[Bullwinkle]

Just now, baburh said:

Will these new mobos and cpus get along well with the WinServer2012?

For sure.

[bibo01]

5 hours ago, baburh said:

Will these new mobos and cpus get along well with the WinServer2012?

Not necessarily. Check that Ethernet chip onboard is supported by WS2012. Some boards are not.

[Miska]

I'm running Linux, never touched WS2012...

 

[Bullwinkle]

1 hour ago, bibo01 said:

Not necessarily. Check that Ethernet chip onboard is supported by WS2012. Some boards are not.

 

@baburh bibo01 is absolutely right--sorry about my bum steer. You will have to get Gigabyte (or whomever) support to tell you the exact name of the onboard Intel ethernet chip: Their manuals are uninformative about this (they just say "Intel GbE LAN" which I do not think is the actual name of any particular ethernet chip made by Intel). Here is Intel's last updated list of compatible ethernet chips for Win Server 2012 R2:

 

http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/network-and-i-o/ethernet-products/000005768.html

[rickca]

7 minutes ago, Bullwinkle said:

You will have to get Gigabyte (or whomever) support to tell you the exact name of the onboard Intel ethernet chip

Good point.  I suspect a lot of consumer motherboards (like my Gigabyte Z170x Ultra Gaming) use Intel I219-V which is not supported by Windows Server 2016.  

[Miska]

7 hours ago, rickca said:

Good point.  I suspect a lot of consumer motherboards (like my Gigabyte Z170x Ultra Gaming) use Intel I219-V which is not supported by Windows Server 2016.  

 

The Gigabyte gaming boards I have, have the Atheros/Qualcomm Killer Ethernet which is special in it's own way, by offloading lot of networking to a networking co-processor.

 

[baburh]

Thanks everyone. I was about to purchase the Asus H270M Plus. It has the Intel I219-V and this is not supported by neither 2012R2 (which I have) nor 2016.

It looks like hardly any of the new z270/h270 boards are supported by Windows Server 2012R2 or 2016.. This is crazy. I could not find out the LAN detail for Gigabyte. I will look into it..