Design a PC/Server for ROON and HQ Player

[Bullwinkle]

5 hours ago, baburh said:

This is crazy.

 

Yes it is. You'd think that between them, Intel, Microsoft and the mobo companies could be more transparent about compatibility.

 

You might consider some of the Supermicro X11 micro-ATX boards, such as the X11SSM-F here:

 

https://www.supermicro.com/products/motherboard/Xeon/C236_C232/X11SSM-F.cfm

 

Right now Newegg is selling it for $185. It's compatible with your desired processor, and with Win Server 2012 R2 (or so Supermicro claims...see the page above).

 

Generally Supermicro makes a lot of server boards. They have a matrix of boards that makes it relatively easy to research what they've got:

 

https://www.supermicro.com/ResourceApps/MB_matrix.aspx

 

You'll still have to click on any particular board in that matrix to check up on OS compatibility. And server boards generally demand ECC memory which is more expensive. The c236 chipset on the X11SSM-F supports all proprietary Intel gizmos (including Optane should there be a compelling reason to mortgage one's home to buy it).

[Miska]

2 hours ago, Bullwinkle said:

Yes it is. You'd think that between them, Intel, Microsoft and the mobo companies could be more transparent about compatibility.

 

Only audiophiles are crazy enough to even try to run Server OS on non-server hardware. So that is completely out of their scope.

 

If you buy a 19" rack server from HPE/Dell/etc or a Xeon mobo, you likely get something that is certified to run Server OS. If you buy a gaming mobo with audio USB ports, you are expected to run multimedia oriented/optimized Desktop OS instead of a server one.

 

So for me, it is just completely logical.

[Bullwinkle]

1 minute ago, Miska said:

Only audiophiles are crazy enough to even try to...

 

That's a great name for a new thread.

[baburh]

Thanks Bullwinkle for the Supermicro suggestion. It looks like it will not support i7-7700T. I already have the CPU in hand and will try to find a mobo for it. 

 

It looks like the only problem is the ethernet driver and I believe I can find a solution for it.. I will stick to my short list.

 

And yes, it s a great name for a new thread :)))

[tboooe]

4 minutes ago, baburh said:

It looks like the only problem is the ethernet driver and I believe I can find a solution for it.. I will stick to my short list.

I remember reading people being able to work around this.  I have had varying degrees of luck installing Win7/8/10 drivers on my Server 2012 R2 machine.  Maybe you can try that?

[Bullwinkle]

7 minutes ago, baburh said:

It looks like it will not support i7-7700T.

 

Ooops, sorry. The X11SSM (without the -F at the end) will support it, but I don't see that for less than $200 (plus the added price tag for ECC memory), so I get any reluctance to go down the server board route.

[baburh]

That's exactly what i will do.

 

My experience with the Intel DH77EB motherboard + i7-3770T and WinServer 2012 R2 core mode has been great. I hope to get lucky again..

[baburh]

I see only i3 and not i7 on the website but will try to find a local Supermicro dealer and ask.. 

[Bullwinkle]

Right you are. Clearly I'm not firing on all cylinders today. That must be why today's programming efforts have been slow and painful.

[Miska]

33 minutes ago, Bullwinkle said:

 

Ooops, sorry. The X11SSM (without the -F at the end) will support it, but I don't see that for less than $200 (plus the added price tag for ECC memory), so I get any reluctance to go down the server board route.

 

Note that i7-7700T doesn't support ECC memory (or I believe other Socket 1151 parts either).

 

In Socket 2011-3 range there are ones with ECC support. But then it's at most Broadwell-E/EP.

 

[Quadman]

On 5/19/2017 at 1:03 PM, Quadman said:

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.

 

Well my listening impressions of this change ran into a snag.  In order to down clock my CPU I had to reset the CMOS, which lead to a windows needs activation message.  So I lowered the level of fidelizer pro to consumer and reactivated and then windows decided to download the creators update, this is obviously a major change and would make invalid any comparison to the higher CPU clock speeds.  Listening to the creators update there was obviously a big change from the previous version of windows.  How much of this is OS and how much is under clocking will take more time as I need to build a overclocking profile in bios and listen at length to that and then to the under clock version.  

 

I did notice that the number of processes open under creators edition with fidelizer at the audiophile setting is way higher than the previous version of windows about 95 vs 52.  They must have separated some process from others increasing the total # of open processes.  I do think it sounds better than 1607 tho.

[ismewor]

On 5/2/2017 at 7:15 AM, Bullwinkle said:

szczemirek, folks on this thread want to be able to use HQ Player and upsampling to DSD512, which requires some muscle. For Roon alone you are right, no need for the muscle.

 

Any Upsampling do need muscle even in Roon.

[ismewor]

On 5/23/2017 at 2:49 PM, Miska said:

 

Note that i7-7700T doesn't support ECC memory (or I believe other Socket 1151 parts either).

 

In Socket 2011-3 range there are ones with ECC support. But then it's at most Broadwell-E/EP.

 

 

ECC memory only exist on Server class CPU specific and not MB socket.

So any Xeon CPU support ECC memory. 

[Miska]

1 hour ago, ismewor said:

 

ECC memory only exist on Server class CPU specific and not MB socket.

So any Xeon CPU support ECC memory. 

 

How many Xeons have you seen for Socket 1151?

 

Besides, I wouldn't call Xeons "server class CPU", lot of E3's and E5's go to workstations. I have a Xeon E5 workstation myself. Not a server, but specifically a workstation, with ECC RAM.

 

Mac Pro (and maybe the iMac Pro) go into that category too.

[ismewor]

52 minutes ago, Miska said:

 

How many Xeons have you seen for Socket 1151?

 

Besides, I wouldn't call Xeons "server class CPU", lot of E3's and E5's go to workstations. I have a Xeon E5 workstation myself. Not a server, but specifically a workstation, with ECC RAM.

 

Mac Pro (and maybe the iMac Pro) go into that category too.

 

Miska,

Sure, Xeons class also work as workstations for sure.

I mean Xeons cpu support ECC memory.

socket 1151. Entry level Xeons E3 are 1151

[Miska]

23 hours ago, ismewor said:

Sure, Xeons class also work as workstations for sure.

I mean Xeons cpu support ECC memory.

socket 1151. Entry level Xeons E3 are 1151

 

OK, never paid much attention to E3 because it is practically same as i7...

 

[Lowlands]

 

Sound of M.2 vs plain SSD vs. off-grid SSD...

 

Folks,

Sorry if I overlooked, but could not find any opinion(s) on the sonic benefits of (not)using M.2. 'Yesteryears' opinion sort of acknowledged that off-grid powered SSD (seperate PSU or battery) provided sonic benefits. That extra level of separation cannot be done with M.2.... but that may matter less when using an microRendu type of device downstream feeding the DAC... Any thoughts / experience on that? 

[lmitche]

1 hour ago, Lowlands said:

 

Sound of M.2 vs plain SSD vs. off-grid SSD...

 

Folks,

Sorry if I overlooked, but could not find any opinion(s) on the sonic benefits of (not)using M.2. 'Yesteryears' opinion sort of acknowledged that off-grid powered SSD (seperate PSU or battery) provided sonic benefits. That extra level of separation cannot be done with M.2.... but that may matter less when using an microRendu type of device downstream feeding the DAC... Any thoughts / experience on that? 

Lowlands, if anything is conventional on CA , I would suggest the conventional wisdom here is that an SSD should be externally powered just like you are doing there. Some of us, don't like flash memory at all, and use SATA or USB 3 connected hard disks instead, or even iscsi boot, avoiding local drives altogether. Lastly, M.2 slots don't allow external power sources and therefore have been avoided by many.

 

I've started to experiment with the new Optane technology used in an nvme slot. This has been successful. Take a look here for details:

 

 

 

[lmitche]

Do we have a list of components necessary to build a dsd512 Hqplayer 2 channel machine that reliably upsamples using the poly-sinc-xtr filter?

 

There are a lot of new Intel and AMD processors out there so I am curious.

[ismewor]

dsd512 with -2 filter is what i been tested. however the hardest part is xtr filter. I'm not sure even with current i9 can anyone confirm?

[Miska]

2 hours ago, ismewor said:

dsd512 with -2 filter is what i been tested. however the hardest part is xtr filter. I'm not sure even with current i9 can anyone confirm?

 

Stereo DSD512 with non-2s xtr filter works for me, on my i7-6950X machine.

 

I don't have any i9 yet, so I don't know how it would work, but I'd expect i9-7900X to work as well, although it has smaller cache.

 

[ponger]

Hello Miska,

 

A while back you mentioned the possibility of using the new AMD Ryzen 7 processors to run HQ Player.  Have you had any further feedback on any of them?  Do you think I would be able to run DSD512 without a video card using any of the more demanding HQ Player filters?

 

Thank you,

Mas

[mirekti]

On 7/13/2017 at 8:52 AM, lmitche said:

Lowlands, if anything is conventional on CA , I would suggest the conventional wisdom here is that an SSD should be externally powered just like you are doing there. Some of us, don't like flash memory at all, and use SATA or USB 3 connected hard disks instead, or even iscsi boot, avoiding local drives altogether. Lastly, M.2 slots don't allow external power sources and therefore have been avoided by many.

 

I've started to experiment with the new Optane technology used in an nvme slot. This has been successful. Take a look here for details:

 

 

 

 

Could someone give me a background of this, please?

I mean, why would one need an external power for HDD?

[ismewor]

21 hours ago, mirekti said:

 

Could someone give me a background of this, please?

I mean, why would one need an external power for HDD?

Just click on the link and read back. it is more on an M2 vs Optane

 

 

[lmitche]

21 hours ago, mirekti said:

 

Could someone give me a background of this, please?

I mean, why would one need an external power for HDD?

I'm sorry but I don't see a reference to external power with a HDD in my post. SSD yes, but not HDD. M.2 form factor SSDs cannot be external powered going against the conventional wisdom to externally power SSDs. That was my point.

 

Having said this, there is an argument to use a USB 3 HDD for music storage which I do here.  The HDD enclosure is externally powered.