Building a high performance compute server for HQPlayer

[Solstice380]

These are the results for my new system that I posted in the EC Modulators thread.

 

i9-9900KS, Asus RTX 2080 Advanced, Asus Maximus Hero Z390 mobo, M.2 drive, AIO water cooled.  Haven't done much Windows trimming, yet.  It can run Closed Form - 16M with ASDM7EC 44/16 to 256 DSD.  I think that is (one of) the hardest combos and I don't have to worry about changing rate family with my 48K base capable DAC.  CPU at 27% but has a couple cores pretty loaded, and GPU at 12% .  Core temps stay around 43 deg C.  All while doing a RDC to the NUC NAA, surfing like this, and taking screen snips to post. 

[Solstice380]

@jabbr  I ran the GeekBench benchmark so I could compare.

i9-9900KS at 5GHz

 

Asus RTX2080 Advanced

 

I'm not sure how to compare OpenCL to CUDA, though.  I understand that OpenCL code runs faster.  For my use case I'm extremely happy.  And @Jussi keeps killing us... DSD512 with EC modulators in realtime probably won't happen in my lifetime! 😂  2.5X the 9900KS.... ouch.

[Solstice380]

4 hours ago, TubeLover said:

Why an NVIDIA RTX 2080 GPU in a music server?

 

JC

 

Some of the HQP filters require the GPU, and for convolution with impulse response for room correction.

[Solstice380]

1 hour ago, Miska said:

OpenCL is not very nice unless you want to do graphics.

 

I just ran their GPU Test and it returned the OpenCL result.  I was curious why @jabbr got a CUDA result and I got the OpenCL.   Difference between my GPU and the Ti?  Or?

[Solstice380]

2 hours ago, Miska said:

Also CUDA needs new enough graphics driver version

 

I installed the latest driver from Nvidia:  nvidia 442.59-desktop-win10-64bit-international-dch-whql   dated 3/4/20.

 

 

[Solstice380]

@TubeLover  You can get the 9900K at <US$500 now at microcenter and others. You don't NEED the GPU to do most of the filters with the new EC modulators, which is what everyone seems to like.  The Fractal cases (nice) are $160-200, Seaonic PSU ~$200, Asus or Gigabyte mobo ~$200-250, cooler for $60, RAM for $75.  Everyone likes the Noctua coolers and Jussi recommends a specific HyperX Predator low latency CL13 RAM, which I got.  You can search for the P/N in the Build a HQP server thread.  That will get you great performance and allow you to run most anything on HQP for <US$1500.  There is a comment above about not being able to do Closed Form-16M filter without the GPU.  What DSD rate do you plan to use and do you think you will do room correction convolution? 

[Solstice380]

10 minutes ago, TubeLover said:

I just thought that you needed specific components intended for music servers, low noise, etc. etc.

 

Having just built one thought I'd give you some current pricing. 🙂 Low noise depends if you are going direct USB to DAC or network to NAA.  Main thing for the server seems to be CPU speed and RAM latency..