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Optane SSD as Boot drive - SQ Nirvana?


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Has anyone who has tried the Optane boot drive gone from a SLC nand flash SSD?  And if so what were the sonic differences?  A while back I went from a consumer grade SSD (TLC nand flash) to a SLC nand flash drive and my jaw dropped at the sonic difference.  You think I changed speakers, amps or another significant part of the system, not a storage device, it was a very big difference.  So curious if someone has done this.

 

I recently built a new audio PC for a friend (i7-7700K) I used a SLC SSD and a PCIe/SATA adaptor card in the X16 slot which has a more direct path to the CPU than the normal SATA ports which run thru the MB chipset.  I did not note much of a sonic improvement using this connection method vs my SLC SSD going thru my sata port on my MB.  Changing from a platinum PSU to a titanium PSU actually yielded a larger sonic gain than using the PCIe/Sata adaptor card did.

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  • 8 months later...

I don't think there is any i5 chip that is capable of doing polysinc xtr filters, the 2s family yes.  I am no hardware expert but it seems to me the more cores you have the slower the processor speeds become just look at the intel family the i7 and i9 x series as you go up in core count the base CPU speeds slow down, in turbo boost the newest x series (7900 series) can go slightly over 4.0 Ghz and I believe it has been reported that they can handle XTR non 2s filters.  On the AMD side base speeds with high multicore count is faster than Intel but its turbo boost speeds fall short of intel best turbo boost.  It has been reported that the thread ripper 1950X from AMD with 3.5 base speed and up to 4 turbo burst speed can do non 2s XTR filters.  I think to get non-2s XTR's too play you need a high core count (forget virtual cores they do nothing) reasonable speed (over 3.0 GHz) and lots of memory cache.  Unfortunately to get this it requires much higher wattage, at least with todays technology.  That means big CPU coolers probably water based.

 

I run AMD 1800x here and prefer it to even intel 7700K which I had a chance to compare to similar builds with each processor in my system at the same time, I believe it comes down to L3 cache memory.  As it is, even with my 8 cores, 16Mb L3 cache and 3.8 boosted speed I can not do the non-2s XTR filter and without a graphics card and cuda offload the closed form and minringFIR filter cause some stuttering at DSD512, and the graphics card does nothing  for non 2s XTR.

 

I cannot report on optane memory for the AMD as I really like the SLC sata II SSD's in my system so much that I am reluctant to switch and then there is the issue of using extra licenses for Fidelizer pro and AO, tweakers get penalized heavily for trying to better things.  Has anyone moved from a SLC sata II OS drive to a optane drive and reported on it?

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2 minutes ago, Johnseye said:

I'm currently using Optane as OS where I used SATA II previously

 I also use the sotm sata II filter in my set up, I'll will be very curious to hear your results.  Regardless the SLC OS Drive with Cat 7/8 DC cables sounds awfully good.  The graphics card makes PCIe optane challenging for me, and 32 Gb M2 sticks are just to small, but I see 64gb is finally out, So maybe.

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  • 9 months later...

I have compared NVMe optane 800 drive vs old school intel sata II SSD with a Sotm II sata filter and power to this supplied by external linear PSU.  Comparison was not done in the same system but 2 very similar systems, same motherboard mfg (x370 vs x470 chipsets) same CPU family (Ryzen), same ATX Titanium PSU powering MB and CPU.

 

Both SSD's sounded very good and are a considerable improvement over sata III SSD's such as the samsung you mention above.  I listened for 1 week continuously the Optane 800 drive and was really impressed with it, then I went back to my rig with the Sata II SSD, sotm filter and linear PSU and found the difference not very great.  Further back and forth sessions showed me that the sata II SSD was perhaps a touch more analog like vs the optane SSD, honestly I could live with either one but when I shipped the optane based system to its owner I kept my system as is with the sata II SSD, sotm filter and linear PSU and I have no intention, at least with this server to switch to optane at this time.  Regardless both methods will beat the MLC nand flash that the Samsung uses.

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13 hours ago, lmitche said:

How are you using these storage devices?

 

Larry I am using as OS drives only.  I have not tried the nvme PCIe card as I have a big GPU card sitting there for cuda offload.  Everything I play I upsample to DSD512 and lately have been digging the Closed Form 16M HQP filter which most CPU's will not run without a GPU capable of Cuda offload.

 

As a side note (and off topic) I recently had in my possession a Berkeley Audio Design Alpha DAC Reference Series 2 MQA, Robert Harley calls it the best digital he has heard.  I was selling this unit for a friend and of course I had to listen to it PCM at its best and MQA decoding vs. my beloved DSD512.  I also had the Berkeley Alpha USB converter so the PC was completely isolated from the DAC (pc server, USB to Berkeley USB, AES digital to Berkeley Dac).  To my ears there was no comparison, the DSD512 setup just trounced the PCM/MQA of the berkeley dac.  DSD512 is alive I am at the recording there is no stereo in the room just sound, The berkeley, tho very good, made me feel like I was listening to a very good stereo, the audio cliche check list would be there with the berkeley, but the feeling, the involvement with the music was not the same.  My T+A at 512 gives me goosebumps every time I listen to it.  Hence from this experience I decided to stay the high rate upsampling path rather than the low powered Nuc route.

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22 minutes ago, lmitche said:

Are you using a single box solution for your DSD512 upsampling?

 Yes single box, with regen and isoregen between PC and Dac.  I have experimented with regen in path and out and actually prefer it in at the PC, I turn off USB 5V via bios, and use the regen with LPSU as 5V to the IR which also has LPSU and all DC pwr cables are Gotham Gac 4/1 UP with my variable shielding setup.  Power supplies, in my opinion, are probably 85% of a products sound quality and powering NUC's with high quality LPSU's is a great idea, that and using a low overhead OS like AL makes it tempting to try, but 512 is alive in my room and I have a big addiction to it.  My modded vinyl rig (improved PSU's for phono stages) with the best recordings can hang with it, but the convenience of digital and vast tidal library make digital the king for me.

 

Back to topic and summarizing optane as boot drive= to Sata II SSD (intel X25e) w sotm sata II filter and LPSU and both are > Sata III SSD as OS.

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  • 6 months later...
On 9/22/2019 at 9:44 AM, lmitche said:

Seems like Optane boot has become a standard

On a couple of PC's I've built.  I've used it on the server, but my personal machine I still use the old sata 2 intel X25E SSD, I think it sounds a bit more analogish and more whole.  Optane sounds pretty good and would be my second choice, but for now my heart lies with sata 2.

 

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