Did you build your PC yourself? What is it?

[Keith_W]

After browsing CA for a while, I am starting to get the impression that despite the forum name "Computer Audiophile", it would be more accurately called "Digital Audiophile". There seems to be very little discussion of actual computers on this site. My subjective impression that it's all about cable debates, software, and network tweaks. 

 

The reason why I ask is because I am contemplating a new water cooled dual GPU setup to run HQPlayer and upsample 4K for my TV. I would have thought that this site should be full of high end media server PC's, but I don't think I have seen a single one. I would love to be proved wrong! 

 

Some time ago I suggested to Chris that he create a new subforum for a "system showcase". That way we can see how others have set up their systems and learn a thing or two. Sadly, he didn't follow through on the suggestion. 

[mourip]

Several years ago Chris explored a lot of different audio PC options and spent a lot of time and money testing and then sharing his experiences with us. Most of us now either already have audio PC's or have opted for turnkey streamers so that is why you probably see less discussion about the server itself these days.

 

Another idea is that as it turns out a lot of other factors are at least as important for good digital playback and these are some of the topics you mention: software, digital interfaces, AC conditioning, linear power supplies, cables etc..

 

And finally... most of us use our servers for just audio as it seems to be true that high powered CPU/GPU's, complex system boards, fans, pumps, and excessive I/O devices tend to create noise that can obscure the dark background where detail and micro-dynamics live.

 

BTW. There is an entire forum dedicated to Music Servers. You just need to read a bit to find details on builds. https://www.computeraudiophile.com/forums/forum/9-music-servers/

[mansr]

My ageing PC currently (most parts have been replaced/upgraded at some point) consists of a Gigabyte water cooled motherboard, Intel i7-940 CPU, 24GB Corsair RAM, 2x fanless Nvidia graphics cards, 2x Intel NICs, 4x 4TB Seagate Enterprise disks, fanless Seasonic PSU, all in a Zalman case with integrated water cooling. This machine stores all my music, but it is also my main workstation.

[sdolezalek]

I have actually done it both ways.  Several years ago I decided to build a dedicated music PC with a smaller form-factor box, no fan, low noise components, etc.  But that was before I started using HQPlayer to upsample my music.  When I started using HQPlayer, I suddently realized that the computing power of my dedicated self-built PC wasn't up to the task.  I ultimately purchased a purpose built computer from Puget Systems in Seattle that was designed to provide me max computing power and low system noise, but uses several low noise Noctua fans.  Although it is less than 6 months old, there are already faster processors (mine is an i7-6700 with 32G of RAM) and faster graphic cards (I use an NVIDIA Quadro M4000 1664 CUDA cores).  I also switched from direct connecting my PC to my DAC to having the new PC in my office and using an NAA to connect to the DAC.  I have been very pleased with the results. 

[audiventory]

I done home multimedia server several years ago.

I don't used SSD disks.

Was experiments with speed of fans in case and PSU.

Many times I spent for searching of lowest noise available parts.

I was don't satisfied existing file management software and have written own piece.

Now I don't like level noise of HDD.

Short period there was installed 2 HDD. But now there 1 only, because 2 HDD give noise of inter-action.

Last audiointerface is cheap simplest fanless videocard with HDMI for connection to receiver.

[GUTB]

Just finished building my 2nd version of my audio PC.

 

100% fanless.

Passive Seasonics Platinum PSU.

I7-7700K + Quiet PC passive cooler

Hyperx Savage Black 4x2 DDR4 (CL12)

SSD + SATA adapter cable with split USB for power, plugged into a USB adapter at the power strip.

Paul Pang v3 USB card, external power to 5V battery pack.

Windows 10 and Fidelizer Pro, Roon and HQPlayer.

 

The concepts:

1. 100% elimination of any electrical noise introduced by fans.

2. Isolation of SSD power noise from the system (PC and SSD share same power strip, may not be full isolation).

3. Highest quality USB output possible.

4. The ability to run Roon and HQPlayer using DSD512 + poly-sinc filters.

[Fyper]

23 hours ago, Keith_W said:

After browsing CA for a while, I am starting to get the impression that despite the forum name "Computer Audiophile", it would be more accurately called "Digital Audiophile". There seems to be very little discussion of actual computers on this site. My subjective impression that it's all about cable debates, software, and network tweaks. 

 

The reason why I ask is because I am contemplating a new water cooled dual GPU setup to run HQPlayer and upsample 4K for my TV. I would have thought that this site should be full of high end media server PC's, but I don't think I have seen a single one. I would love to be proved wrong! 

 

Some time ago I suggested to Chris that he create a new subforum for a "system showcase". That way we can see how others have set up their systems and learn a thing or two. Sadly, he didn't follow through on the suggestion. 

What you want is to create is a hybrid PC for both Home Theater and Hifi.

Many here will tell you that it is some kind of heresy because the GPUs and the necessary PSU to powers them will pollute the sound. With a powerful graphic cards and CPU, it  becomes difficult to consider the linear PSUs existing on the market (400W max) unless you think about using 2...

I personally believe one can achieve excellent hifi result with an HTPC.

I draw however your attention on a few points:

- Dual GPU sounds good for gaming but not necessarily for 4K upscaling : many softs used to do that do not handle crossfire/SLI. Besides, the graphic power required to do an excellent 4K upscaling (including sophisticated post-treatment) is not that high and a GTX1060/RX480 would be enough.

- HQPlayer seem to require significant CPU power depending on how much "HQ" you want, there are a few threads about this here.

- No problem to use the HDMI output for the sound of your movies, but you should consider a different output for Hifi. Usb is today the most used, and this is probably where you can cancel most of the electric noise generated by the PC components (with a dedicated usb card then some cleaning mojos if you want to).

- Regarding storage I don't believe there is a significant impact whether it is on local Hard Drive, SSD or not, or on the network, but many think differently.

- Regarding noise, it is possible to make a entirely silent PC. But if your require CPU power you'll have to cool it down one way or another. Same for the GPU. Graphic cards such Asus Strix, MSI gaming X or the latest EVGA are completely silent below 60°-70°C, which is perfect to listen to music.

- Finally you may want to have a look at those entirely passive cases. A number of case manufacturers propose some, including some interesting projects on Kickstarters. It doesn't come cheap though...

[Jud]

HQPlayer and I believe XXHighEnd as well already has "remote" capability, and it's planned for the (hopefully near) future in Audirvana+.  By "remote" I mean that the computer doing the "heavy lifting" isn't required to be in your listening room.  So for many, constraints regarding ultra-low system noise may soon be going away.

 

I built my desktop Win/Lin computer dog years ago (2010), but it will reliably output DSD256 through an NAA using Miska's -2s filters.  There's an i970 i7 CPU, an ASUS Rampage III ROG mobo, 16MB of DDR3 1333 RAM (if I remember correctly), a 512GB Samsung SSD (a later upgrade), and a lovely relatively quiet cooler using two 120mm Noctua fans that I can't remember the manufacturer of.  This is all in a honking big black Antec case with yellow trim with an "open air" sort of design that I'm pretty sure hasn't been made for years: https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811129092

[Keith_W]

Thanks for your reply, Fyper. My current PC (which I built myself) is built into a passively cooled Streacom FC10 case with an Uptone JS-2 LPSU. It has a i7-6700 and no GPU. Whilst I CAN fit a GPU into the case and STILL passively cool it, I am starting to think I "need" a new PC. This is because of the physical limitation the case imposes on the size of the GPU card means that I am limited to an nVidia 750 card. I am skeptical it will have enough CUDA cores for HQP, considering what I want it to do (8 channels of convolution at DSD256). 

 

As it turns out, I am about to push the button on a Teradak linear PSU which is able to output 850W. This should be enough for a 6950X and a GTX 1080 Ti, but may not be enough to also power another GPU or a watercooling pump. 

 

Interestingly, nobody here seems to talk about cooling motherboard MOSFET's which can vary their output depending on CPU load, and thus vary the amount of heat they produce, and thus introduce voltage irregularity due to the heat effect on MOSFET's. 

 

Does nobody here own a watercooled PC setup? 

[Jud]

22 minutes ago, Keith_W said:

Does nobody here own a watercooled PC setup?

 

A few questions:

 

- Will the computer be in the listening room? 

 

Followups if the answer is yes:

 

- Is there a particular reason not to run HQP with an NAA?

 

- Do you have information about noise levels from water pumps and (if any) radiator fans?

 

Another general inquiry:

 

- Are you concerned about water cooling, and is that why you are asking if others have done it?  (I have always had an instinctive aversion to water around electronics, but have no hard data about failure rates from various manufacturers.)

[mansr]

1 hour ago, Keith_W said:

Interestingly, nobody here seems to talk about cooling motherboard MOSFET's which can vary their output depending on CPU load, and thus vary the amount of heat they produce, and thus introduce voltage irregularity due to the heat effect on MOSFET's. 

I'm not sure I understand your concern. Those MOSFETs are part of the voltage regulators for the CPU. Whatever variation in voltage they produce must be within the tolerances of the load, or the system wouldn't work. Also, they are typically cooled in way or another. At minimum, they'll have a heat sink mounted. On my motherboard, they are connected with a heat pipe to a water block which also cools the main chipset.

1 hour ago, Keith_W said:

Does nobody here own a watercooled PC setup?

I do, as I mentioned above.

56 minutes ago, Jud said:

- Do you have information about noise levels from water pumps and (if any) radiator fans?

Water pumps are typically nearly silent. My case has a 240 mm variable speed radiator fan. At the highest speed, it is definitely audible but not (to me) annoyingly so. At the lower speeds it makes very little noise. Getting noise levels down was my main reason for using water cooling.

56 minutes ago, Jud said:

Another general inquiry:

 

- Are you concerned about water cooling, and is that why you are asking if others have done it?  (I have always had an instinctive aversion to water around electronics, but have no hard data about failure rates from various manufacturers.)

Water cooling systems use deionised water with an anti-corrosion additive (similar to antifreeze for cars). A minor splash on a circuit board is quite harmless. As for reliability, I can only offer anecdotally that my current system has been running continuously since 2009 and has yet to fail. Hard drives fail more often.

[CatManDo]

I assembled three PCs I used in the past 10 years myself, but they were based on recommended configurations by the german c't magazine, which is the most competent IT publication that I know.

 

They publish once a year several "optimal" configurations for various uses: allround, office (compact), gaming, workstation, which are extremely helpful, especially concerning the choice of mainboard, case and cooler(s). They also include recommended BIOS settings specifically for the featured mainboards, as well as driver choices.

 

https://www.heise.de/ct/artikel/Der-optimale-PC-2016-3487165.html

 

My personal emphasis has always been on lack of noise, which was quite a challenge still a few years ago.

[Jud]

Good thought about publications for folks looking for computer components.  I used to spend some time on the Anandtech and (less so) Tom's Hardware sites, but don't do that much anymore.  I might ramp up that time again when I think about my next build.

 

For concerns regarding noise, I've gotten some good information from this site: http://www.silentpcreview.com/

[Keith_W]

21 hours ago, Jud said:

 

A few questions:

 

- Will the computer be in the listening room? 

 

Followups if the answer is yes:

 

- Is there a particular reason not to run HQP with an NAA?

 

- Do you have information about noise levels from water pumps and (if any) radiator fans?

 

Another general inquiry:

 

- Are you concerned about water cooling, and is that why you are asking if others have done it?  (I have always had an instinctive aversion to water around electronics, but have no hard data about failure rates from various manufacturers.)

 

1. Yes the computer will be in the listening room. 

 

2. I don't want to run HQP in NAA because I am using a touchscreen monitor to control it. For various reasons, I do not wish to control HQP via a tablet (and yes I have tried it). 

 

3. Noise levels from water pumps / fans - no I don't. I want to know how much radiator and fan I need for what I wish to do (maybe single 6950X and single 1080 Ti GPU), which will give me silence or near silence. 

 

4. I have done water cooling in the past, back in 2002. As you can imagine, this was a very early setup before the advent of specialist watercooling solutions. My setup leaked and killed the machine, and was far from silent. I know that watercooling has moved on. Companies can claim that such-and-such setup will cool such-and-such CPU/GPU, but whether it will do so silently is another question! 

[plissken]

Been using the Quantum Byte Plus for $170. It's a Fanless 5 watt system at max and runs nominal about half of that. Easily ran with a low cost, low noise, linear PSU or battery. It's the right sized CPU for the workload and you don't have to do any quieting gymnastics. 

 

Plays 24/192 without breaking a sweat. 

 

Build PC's all the time just not for audio as I can't do a low wattage, fanless, dead quiet system for $170.

[Jud]

10 minutes ago, plissken said:

Been using the Quantum Byte Plus for $170. It's a Fanless 5 watt system at max and runs nominal about half of that. Easily ran with a low cost, low noise, linear PSU or battery. It's the right sized CPU for the workload and you don't have to do any quieting gymnastics. 

 

Plays 24/192 without breaking a sweat. 

 

Build PC's all the time just not for audio as I can't do a low wattage, fanless, dead quiet system for $170.

 

Keith is looking at a specific audio application that requires "heavy lifting" in excess of what the Quantum Byte can do, though as you say it's quite capable for many audiophile uses.

[plissken]

20 minutes ago, Jud said:

 

Keith is looking at a specific audio application that requires "heavy lifting" in excess of what the Quantum Byte can do, though as you say it's quite capable for many audiophile uses.

 

I read what he is looking to do. Not sure why the something like the Qauntum Byte or ECS Liva Z couldn't do it. I know the Liva Z can output dual 4 k displays. 

[Jud]

2 hours ago, plissken said:

 

I read what he is looking to do. Not sure why the something like the Qauntum Byte or ECS Liva Z couldn't do it. I know the Liva Z can output dual 4 k displays. 

 

If you look at this thread and others, what Keith wants to do is upsample everything to DSD256 in 8 channels using HQPlayer (and I would imagine with his choice of HQPlayer filters).  If the Quantum Byte can do that with its Intel Atom I would be surprised and impressed, since Keith's current rig that isn't quite cutting the mustard has an i7-6700.

[plissken]

19 minutes ago, Jud said:

 

If you look at this thread and others, what Keith wants to do is upsample everything to DSD256 in 8 channels using HQPlayer (and I would imagine with his choice of HQPlayer filters).  If the Quantum Byte can do that with its Intel Atom I would be surprised and impressed, since Keith's current rig that isn't quite cutting the mustard has an i7-6700.

 

I'm going by what he said in the OP. I stopped doing the Johnny Carson "The Great Carmack" routine ages ago. 

[jabbr]

I've built systems powerful enough to do 8 channels DSD256 with HQPlayer ... but in my experience even with watercooling, you can hear it. There are a range of options:

 

1) build something like:

if you want quiet, but don't know if it can do DSD258 x 8

 

2) There is a whole thread devoted to:

as well as a whole subforum devoted to "Music Servers" so I'm unsure why you suggest that CA doesn't have adequate coverage of this topic.

 

*That said* in my experience you are going to need to spend $$$$ on some type of custom silent cooling hardware aside from the fact that these high powered computers are electrically noisy so $$$$ on custom power ... hmmm.... not even sure that works (really) ... so I have stuff that does this, e.g. watercooled i7-6850 and up, with a GTX 1080 and up graphics co-processor but this is in another room and streams to an electrically very quiet NAA ...

 

You really really really need to consider exactly why you don't want to control ROON+HQPLAYER with an iPad because that works great.

[plissken]

What DAC is being used? I would find a solution that would allow me to locate the server altogether out of the listening environment.

[plissken]

What about the Opteron 6376 16 core? There are socket G34 water block coolers available.

[jabbr]

4 hours ago, plissken said:

What about the Opteron 6376 16 core? There are socket G34 water block coolers available.

Certainly a nice chip though if the spec is HQPlayer @ DSD256 x 8 then would prefer a higher clock rate -- the requirement needs serious (but doable) horsepower ...

 

Why bother? Perhaps you want to load kernels that perform a digital crossover x 4 while upconverting to DSD256 -- yep that's possible and in the SDM domain

[crenca]

6 hours ago, Jud said:

 

If you look at this thread and others, what Keith wants to do is upsample everything to DSD256 in 8 channels using HQPlayer (and I would imagine with his choice of HQPlayer filters).  If the Quantum Byte can do that with its Intel Atom I would be surprised and impressed, since Keith's current rig that isn't quite cutting the mustard has an i7-6700.

 

I have an I7 6700T 2.8 Ghz.  Using Windows built in processor management, I limit the frequency to 80%, which means the processor tops out at 2.19 Ghz (this so that the fan stays in a slow and quite state - it is in an all in one so is basically a laptop architecture).  Now it is a 4 core processor, but HQPlayer upsampling 16/44 and higher PCM to DSD256 still only uses about 20-23% of the cycles, leaving me plenty to surf web, etc.

 

I know that these things do not scale linearly, but I wonder if it could not do DSD256 into 8 channels if it was allowed to run...

[plissken]

1 hour ago, jabbr said:

Certainly a nice chip though if the spec is HQPlayer @ DSD256 x 8 then would prefer a higher clock rate -- the requirement needs serious (but doable) horsepower ...

 

Why bother? Perhaps you want to load kernels that perform a digital crossover x 4 while upconverting to DSD256 -- yep that's possible and in the SDM domain

 

What does Miska say about clock rate vs multi-threading?