Building a DIY Music Server

[Darryl R]

19 hours ago, mikicasellas said:

With the i7-10700K and having returned the Rog Strix Z490-E, im towards the Z590 which are compatible with my actual CPU and easier to upgrade to Gen 11th, so far these are the ones that im trying to decide.

 

- Asus Motherboard Intel Z590, ROG Maximus XIII Hero.....$499.99

- Gigabyte Z590 AORUS Master...........................................$409.00

- Asus Motherboard Intel Z590, ROG Strix Z590-E..............$379.00

- Gigabyte Z590 AORUS Ultra...............................................$319.00

 

Much of the differences that i have read is about more connectivity, internal audio, VRM and fans on the costlier ones, im willing to get any of these ($$) if they really have something to add in the final performance of the audio signal.

 

Any suggestions ?

 

Thanks !!

 

 

 

For anyone using the ROG Maximus, will the HDPlex heatpipes clear that VRM heatsink?

[MarcelNL]

there is a list over at the HDplex website, or ask via email.

[ASRMichael]

2 hours ago, Darryl R said:

 

For anyone using the ROG Maximus, will the HDPlex heatpipes clear that VRM heatsink?

Hi, yes just, touching MB heatsink. But believe HDPlex are new version with cooler 3mm higher. Which will be 3mm clearance from pipes to MB heatsink. Just ask for new version when ordering HDPlex case. 
 

I’m using XII Extreme, the previous X1 Formula fits fine. 

[ASRMichael]

Thought I would share. I’ve got dedicated mains at home. So bought two of these fans. Plugged them into my house mains socket using dual usb plug. So no negative effect with noisy power. 
 

I sit them behind the HDPLEX case. I’m quite amazed simple by blowing air through the case it’s reduced CPU temps by 7c. Just shows the heat that is lingering about inside the case that can’t escape. 
 

Fan are only set to half speed to ensure I can’t hear the fans running. 
 

I’ve actually ordered another 2. 

[mikicasellas]

4 hours ago, lmitche said:

Mike,

 

Which OS and music player are you running?

 

Hi Larry,

 

Im using Euphony...So far !

[lmitche]

13 minutes ago, mikicasellas said:

 

Hi Larry,

 

Im using Euphony...So far !

Mike,

 

From what I tell with a quick glance the two ASUS boards below are essentially the same, with different plastic and metal bits.

 

- Asus Motherboard Intel Z590, ROG Maximus XIII Hero.....$499.99

- Asus Motherboard Intel Z590, ROG Strix Z590-E...............$379.00

 

It is hard to believe there will be a difference in SQ between the two.

 

The good news is that these z590 boards include the return of dual M.2 direct to CPU slots that went entirely missing with the z490 series. Also, the ASUS B550 AMD line dropped one of the two direct to cpu M.2slots. This was a nasty trend and it is good to see the return of two direct to cpu slots on a dual channel memory Intel motherboard. I hope the next generation of AMD motherboards does the same.

[Dev]

13 minutes ago, lmitche said:

The good news is that these z590 boards include the return of dual M.2 direct to CPU slots that went entirely missing with the z490 series.

 

Yes, that's a good part but there is a catch - the M.2 direct will only work with 11th gen proc. You are out of luck with 10th gen. They were only able to include it in Z590 because the pcie lanes in 11th gen has increased from 16 to 20 - so a combination of 1x16+1x4, 2x8+1x4, 1x8+3x4 works perfectly. The 10th gen also allowed 1x16, 2x8, 1x8+2x4 but many Bios didn't allow the required bifurcation, at least not in my Asus ROG Maximus. It would be interesting to see if Asus allowed the 3x4 combination in their Z590 mobo.

[Dev]

5 hours ago, Darryl R said:

 

For anyone using the ROG Maximus, will the HDPlex heatpipes clear that VRM heatsink?

 

I use ROG Maximus X11 Hero and the heat pipe just touches the VRM heat sink. I thought of bending the pipes a bit to just pass it over but did not finally do it.

 

3 hours ago, ASRMichael said:

Hi, yes just, touching MB heatsink. But believe HDPlex are new version with cooler 3mm higher. Which will be 3mm clearance from pipes to MB heatsink. Just ask for new version when ordering HDPlex case. 
 

I’m using XII Extreme, the previous X1 Formula fits fine. 

 

That's good news. I have to find a way to know if I have a newer heatsink or not. Will need to check with Lary.

[Darryl R]

3 hours ago, ASRMichael said:

Hi, yes just, touching MB heatsink. But believe HDPlex are new version with cooler 3mm higher. Which will be 3mm clearance from pipes to MB heatsink. Just ask for new version when ordering HDPlex case. 
 

I’m using XII Extreme, the previous X1 Formula fits fine. 

 

Thanks for this info.  Not having had a Maximus, one of the angle shots on the website sure looks like the heatsink is a good bit higher than on the Strix.

 

Regarding the M2_1 and M2_2 slots on the Strix, I'd been waiting for this and was looking at it yesterday.  For those of us without gigantic libraries, we should be able to dispense with the Hyper M.2 card.

 

Another thought.  For those few of us who don't stream online, and have local music, and only need Ethernet for playback commands, I'm wondering if it would be helpful to move the fiber LAN card to a chipset slot, to keep the fastest PCIe lanes open for file access and USB output.  Just speculation at this point.

[MarcelNL]

that is indeed something I wondered about too....makes sense I think, to dedicate the direct lanes to the most important things.

[ASRMichael]

31 minutes ago, Dev said:

 

Yes, that's a good part but there is a catch - the M.2 direct will only work with 11th gen proc. You are out of luck with 10th gen. They were only able to include it in Z590 because the pcie lanes in 11th gen has increased from 16 to 20 - so a combination of 1x16+1x4, 2x8+1x4, 1x8+3x4 works perfectly. The 10th gen also allowed 1x16, 2x8, 1x8+2x4 but many Bios didn't allow the required bifurcation, at least not in my Asus ROG Maximus. It would be interesting to see if Asus allowed the 3x4 combination in their Z590 mobo.

That was my mistake. I seen XII Extreme saying the dimm.2 lane is connected to CPU. Didn’t appreciate or research further, i found out by using the dimm.2 for m.2 it deactivated my 2nd PCIE lane (where my JCAT card is) 😢😢! 
 

I do wonder how much different it makes if using Euphony Ramroot? In theory should be no disk activity at all. But we’re all audiophiles so we think it will...

[ASRMichael]

31 minutes ago, Dev said:

 

I use ROG Maximus X11 Hero and the heat pipe just touches the VRM heat sink. I thought of bending the pipes a bit to just pass it over but did not finally do it.

 

 

That's good news. I have to find a way to know if I have a newer heatsink or not. Will need to check with Lary.

Not sure new version is launched yet! Which is good news for you! You’ll have 3mm clearance! 3mm doesn’t sound a lot but it’s the difference of heat pipes touching the heatsink or not. Nice to see Larry moving his designs along to accommodate new motherboards. 

[MarcelNL]

anyone here ever tried to use the HDplex GPU heatsink for a CPU? I'm not particularly fond of alu/metal cases for audio so I'd like to use the copper base and heatpipes to connect to a heatsink but build a wood case (with EMI countermeasures) for the whole shebang when done. Given that the HDplex GPU kit states a TDP of 100Watt or so it should be doable if the dimensions fit an AM4 socket and MB....

[Darryl R]

1 hour ago, ASRMichael said:

I do wonder how much different it makes if using Euphony Ramroot? In theory should be no disk activity at all. But we’re all audiophiles so we think it will...

 

Makes me think about even the next generation of data interfacing.  Only five years ago we were screwing SATA drives into the chassis and buying expensive SATA cables.  Then came M.2/NVMe ...

[MarcelNL]

and Optane, which I'm now unable to use 🙄

[lmitche]

3 hours ago, Dev said:

Yes, that's a good part but there is a catch - the M.2 direct will only work with 11th gen proc

Hi Dev,

 

Just to be clear, here is what the specs say:

 

Intel®11th &10th Gen Processors*

M.2_1 slot (Key M), type 2242/2260/2280/22110

- Only Intel® 11th Core™ processors support PCIe 4.0 x4 mode, this slot will be disabled for other CPUs

M.2_2 slot (Key M), type 2242/2260/2280/22110

- Intel® 11th processors support PCIe 4.0 x4 mode

- Intel® 10th processors support PCIe 3.0 x4 mode

So one M.2 slot is supported with the 10th gen, and two M.2slots with the 11th gen.

 

Nevertheless, more ways to connect direct to cpu is great. With an 11th gen processor four direct to cpu connections are possible, such as two NVME drives (boot and music storage) in the 2 M.2 slots, and a USB card and network in the two direct PCIE slots. Seldom used GPU cards can go into the PCH based slot when required.

[Dev]

5 hours ago, lmitche said:

Hi Dev,

 

Just to be clear, here is what the specs say:

 

Intel®11th &10th Gen Processors*

M.2_1 slot (Key M), type 2242/2260/2280/22110

- Only Intel® 11th Core™ processors support PCIe 4.0 x4 mode, this slot will be disabled for other CPUs

M.2_2 slot (Key M), type 2242/2260/2280/22110

- Intel® 11th processors support PCIe 4.0 x4 mode

- Intel® 10th processors support PCIe 3.0 x4 mode

So one M.2 slot is supported with the 10th gen, and two M.2slots with the 11th gen.

 

 

Lary, the spec is confusing - on one hand it says M.2_1 slot will be disabled for "other CPUs" (which is what I suspected) and on the other hand it says 10th gen support for PCIe 3.0 x4 mode. The 10th gen anyway doesn't support PCIe 4.0, so the link will automatically be negotiated to 3.0 speed if the x4 slot is enabled. The problem is if that M.2_1 lane is enabled for 10th gen, the other direct CPU lanes has to be bifurcated properly. In other words, any GPU card with x16 cannot work in tandem and you are only left with x8 + x4. I haven't gone through the manual to confirm this, however if it is supported its definitely a welcome for us audio enthusiasts.

 

I just now read a user comment which states that M.2_1 is disabled for 10th gen.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/R39IJB5WNR3O2M/ref=cm_cr_dp_d_rvw_ttl?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B08T6BHQC8

[lmitche]

8 hours ago, Dev said:

In other words, any GPU card with x16 cannot work in tandem and you are only left with x8 + x4.

You are right, the motherboard specs are confusing.

 

Yes, x8 +x4  is correct. The 10th gen has three PCIE configurations for 16 lanes - 1x16, 2x8, 1x8+2x4.

 

Intel 11th gen has three PCIE configurations for it's 20 lanes 1x16+1x4, 2x8+1x4, 1x8+3x4, so 11th gen is the way to go. Intel mainstream processors have caught up to AMD Ryzen chips with this configuration.

 

With the 10th generation Intel processors, I guess for a gaming machine where 1 or 2 GPU cards were required at x16, or x8 + x8, the two PCH based M.2 slots are to be used instead.

[Dev]

10 hours ago, lmitche said:

You are right, the motherboard specs are confusing.

 

Yes, x8 +x4  is correct. The 10th gen has three PCIE configurations for 16 lanes - 1x16, 2x8, 1x8+2x4.

 

On Asus ROG z490 boards, only 1x16 and 2x8 are allowed. Even if the CPU allowed, it is handicapped by Asus' AMI Bios.

 

 

10 hours ago, lmitche said:

With the 10th generation Intel processors, I guess for a gaming machine where 1 or 2 GPU cards were required at x16, or x8 + x8, the two PCH based M.2 slots are to be used instead.

 

Well, I don't care about the GPU and I don't up-sample. If I get a x4 (USB Card) + x8 (bifurcated to x4 + x4 for 2 x M.2 drives using Supermicro dual adapter) + x4 (M.2 for OS), I would be content with all the critical data path direct to CPU. Even if the above configuration is not limited from PCIe bandwidth on the root ports, it still wasn't possible with Z490 + 10th Gen.  It looks like the only way now to achieve this is to move up with Z590 + 11th Gen.  Unfortunately, the ROG series are specifically targeted towards the Gamers and not audiophiles where a x8 or x16 GPU is a must configuration. So all these flexibility may still be limited by the Bios implementation. I need to get my hands on the combo 😬

[Topk]

On 4/3/2021 at 11:40 AM, guiltyboxswapper said:

I tried this a year ago with HQPlayer on a 3900x - setting CPU to 1.0v and it destroyed the SQ in this case, but yes massive power and heat savings.  This was with fan cooling in both cases, NH-D15.  I wonder if the big SQ improvements in your case come from running the CPU much closer to its thermal limits, where as in stock it would easily be closer to its thermal cutoff points?

 

Interestingly I also swapped in my Ryzen 5800x in place of my 3900x.  5000 series has big AVX2 improvements which meant the 5800x could do the same tasks with less power/compute which meant HQPlayer was running with the lowest cpu usage i'd seen in years.  SQ wise?  To my surprise I could barely tell them apart, maybe the 5800x has a slight advantage but beyond that I'd struggle.

 

The other thing worth mentioning is the Solarflare X2522 is worth getting hold of.  It's a clear refinement of the 8522 cards, especially when it comes to transient attacks and obvious lower noise floor.  Just be warned its not as widely compatible with SFP+ being SFP28, but some work no problem.

Is X2522 compatible with Euphony? Also are you the only one who tested X2522 sound quality so far? I did a search but could not find much....

[BOBO]

Out of curiosity, has anyone tried the Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4 I/O Board with the pcie port ? can you run something like a jcat usb card on it ?

[guiltyboxswapper]

26 minutes ago, Topk said:

Is X2522 compatible with Euphony? Also are you the only one who tested X2522 sound quality so far? I did a search but could not find much....

If Euphony is a recent-ish kernel then yes, and looks like I've been only to try the X2522, as everyone else stuck to its predecessor the 8522.

 

The X2522 being SFP28 is more fussy with SFPs, most of my 1gig SFPs worked with X2522 where as everything seems to work with 8522.

 

Onload is really worth enabling - can be turned on/off on a per process basis.

[Nenon]

I've had the USB card on the left running for over a week in my system and will be doing some critical listening this weekend. 

 

I asked Taiko if I could buy one of those USB cards, but I was told it was only available to Taiko Extreme owners.

A friend of mine with a Taiko Extreme was nice enough to send me his card for evaluation since he knew he would not have a chance to listen to it for some time. Let's say that I am providing a free "burn-in" service to him :).

More to come on this...

[Topk]

1 minute ago, Nenon said:

I've had the USB card on the left running for over a week in my system and will be doing some critical listening this weekend. 

 

I asked Taiko if I could buy one of those USB cards, but I was told it was only available to Taiko Extreme owners.

A friend of mine with a Taiko Extreme was nice enough to send me his card for evaluation since he knew he would not have a chance to listen to it for some time. Let's say that I am providing a free "burn-in" service to him :).

More to come on this...

I think a lot of people are interested in this. Do you have the Taiko USB driver?

[Topk]

1 hour ago, guiltyboxswapper said:

If Euphony is a recent-ish kernel then yes, and looks like I've been only to try the X2522, as everyone else stuck to its predecessor the 8522.

 

The X2522 being SFP28 is more fussy with SFPs, most of my 1gig SFPs worked with X2522 where as everything seems to work with 8522.

 

Onload is really worth enabling - can be turned on/off on a per process basis.

How would you compare the sound of both in terms of giving an analogue, smooth, warm, relaxing, full bodied sound (as opposed to more detailed, precise, better transients, more dynamic, blacker... etc). Not that those attributes are always mutually exclusive.