XXHighEnd

Hmm, I need a little help. My current server is a dual core with maximum of 4GB RAM which I found to be a bit insufficient for
using with Vista 32 bit with current setup with SFS 200, and XXHighend installed on RAMdisk so I am thinking of building a new
computer. With current computer, either I have to use smaller SFS to make XXHighend runs smoother but not with the sound quality
that I prefer or using smaller RAMdisk which I can load less songs before I get out of memory error. So I think I need more RAM hence
a new computer.

I think I will go with 8GB ram which hopefully will be enough. If not, I suppose I can always add another 8 GB later if I use 4GB RAM module.
I plan to use only case fans in my computer. CPU heatsink will most likely be Thermalright HR02 fanless heatsink.
Motherboard will be one with onboard graphic so I can eliminate another graphic card with a fan. As far as I know, that will leave me with
either Intel with 1156 socket ( I don't see any 1366 socket MOB with onboard graphic yet) or AMD with 890GX chip.
The trade off for not going with the more recent 1366 socket for Intel would be that I can use only dual channel DDR3 instead of 3 channel DDR3.
Does anybody think that tripple channel DDR3 is all that important or be useful to have for XXHighend? If I use MOB with tripple channel DDR3, I think I will need to add a graphic card with additional fan as well. I am not sure if it is worth the trade off.

Also, if I stay with 1156 socket instead of 1366 socket for Intel, I could actually get AMD 6 core CPU/890GX MOB for less.
I have no idea how power scheme in XXHighend would deal with 6 core or even if it is compatible. Does anyone know?

Sorry for the long winded question but basically, I would like to get opinion on:

1) 8 vs 16 GB RAM
2) dual channel DDR3/onboard graphic vs triple channel DDR3/graphic card/extra fan
3) 4core intel/AMD vs 6 core AMD, any issue with power scheme in XXHighend?

This computer will basically only for a dedicated music server only. Graphically, I just need something with HDMI out to connect to my monitor and that's about it.

Thanks in advance for any insight, opinion, help etc.

Just a quick note about using a M/Board with embedded graphics chip ..... I don't like them! It locks you into that performance for the life of the motherboard and there is no need for it, even in a dedicated music server.

Something like the Radeon HD4350 cards ( I use a HD3450 in mine ) are dirt cheap and most come with passive heatsink. An example is here ...

http://www.centrecom.com.au/catalog/product_info.php?sort=3a&products_id=36246

A HD3450 will be even cheaper if you can find one still in stock. Both have HDMI as you require.

I have simply used the drivers for the card and not bothered with the Catalyst Control Centre component.

Remember, the motherboard may not always be the basis for a music server, but may in the future be removed to become a games PC for example, and then you can simply put in a more powerful GPU as required.

Cheers,

Russ

Suteetat,

On the 6 Cores ... It may be beneficial to you once you (we) are able to spread IRQ affinities and stuff (which we momentarily cannot (yet)).

In XXHighEnd 4 Cores are explicitly addressed with the conversion processes. It is not all that hard to make that 6 or 8. So let's say by the time you can really use it, I can make it. Notice though that the only difference is that 6 tracks will process parallelly (for conversions) instead of 4 today.

Keep in mind that the speed of one core may be more important at some stage than "more cores". For example, the i8xx processors (1156) support hyperthreading per core, thus allowing for 8 cores for the native 4 core processor, but the speed per "thread" will be half now. This is where you will loose on it.

HTH,
Peter

Thanks for the reply so far.
It seems that may be AMD 6 core would make more sense at this time. Intel 6 core price is really way to high at this moment to really seriously thinking about it.
Now, it comes down I suppose to MOB with either 890GX or 890FX chipset. Basically, I can go with 890GX which has ATI Radeon HD4290 graphics on board or 890FX with better graphic card support.
 The only difference I see is that 890GX does not suport 4x ATI CrossFireX like 890FX which is something that I doubt I will ever need.
My main concern between the two choices has to do with on board graphic. Not so much about being stuck with it as I can always add a graphic card later
but about system resource usage. I think that the less system resource being used, the better it is for XXHighend as far as SQ is concerned. Will I reduce
system resource usage if I have dedicated graphic card as oppose to on board graphic chip? Certainly if I can find a fanless graphic card, it would be a viable
option, I think. Looking at local website, I could not find HD4350. The lowest ATI Radeon I could find was HD 4670 and all seems to have fan.

I disagree. The intel G45 has sufficient video power to play even videos (i do that), has no compatibilty issues (unlike older chipsets).
Probably you had bad experiences with non intel chipsets or much older ones which had horrible performance.

You can always disable it if you dont like it and add a discrete graphic card of any kind.
But i would use the pci-express slot for something more useful such as the soundcard or the OCZ Reviodrive/FusionIO (i'm getting the first in 50gb size for installing Vista on it).

1) 8 vs 16 GB RAM

16GB. 12 at least in case of triple channel.

2) dual channel DDR3/onboard graphic vs triple channel DDR3/graphic card/extra fan

Fans are noisy. RAM speed matters for the ramdisk though, so go for the fastest ram having at least 12GB (so you can make a 10gb ramdisk). There are (few) mainboards with onboard graphics with hdmi port (like mine but its for older generation cpus)

3) 4core intel/AMD vs 6 core AMD, any issue with power scheme in XXHighend?

Intel. 6 or 8 cores would be really nice for a fast music machine.

- no additional GPU, I have a passive Radeon 5750, but it's out at the moment - really bad for audio...
- quad core is a must have right now, especially if you assign IRQ affinities (XXHE Engine on CPU1, sound card and interface on CPU2 and CPU3, almost everything else on CPU0) I am very curious if another 2 cores for sound card would bring further improvements...
- 8 or 16GB of RAM is necessary if you have large hirez collection and want to make use of RAMdisk, but that implies using 64bit OS, which I didn't check and don't know if is equal/better or maybe worse in terms of SQ

I am curious about 10GB RAMdisk on 12 GB RAM computer. Now that XXHighend resides in RAMdisk but I assume that since XXHighend is a memory player,
eventually it will have to load wav file onto RAM outside of RAMdisk, is this correct?
So I assume that to have thing runs smoothly, I would also need pretty good size RAM that is not allocated to RAMdisk as well, presumably.

For now, I am thinking of going AMD route with 6 cores as Intel 6 cores would increase the cost significantly which means I am pretty much stuck with
dual DDR3 but because cost of AMD 6 core/MOB/ 16GB dual channel DDR3 is quite a bit less than Intel socket  1366/ 8GB triple channel DDR/MOB + graphic card,
AMD route probably make more sense for now.

Yes. But this is what we're all used to by now, and with 3GB of memory and an 1GB RAMDisk this works ok already (but the RAMDisk is too smal for a hires album).
So don't worry about that. :)

I'm building dedicated music server next week. Initially I wanted to go with core i3, since it's 32nm, low tdp, integrated GPU and all, but now that I experienced better SQ on 4 cores, I don't want to go intel's way, because they don't have graphics starting from core i5, so I'll give Phenom X6 a try :)

Actually, you can get MOB with integrated graphic with 1156 socket for i5, i7.
http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=3568#ov
http://www.asus.com/product.aspx?P_ID=qWmZUAdNKeozTOXb&templete=2

However, I still think Phenom X6 is still the way to go as it is about 1/3 the price of 6 core Intel and I don't think that Intel i7 4 core 1156 socket offers
any benefit over AMD x6 core.
 
My last concern is the benefit of tripple channel DDR3. Certainly it would help XXHighend as reading and writing speed is quite a bit faster than
dual channel DDR. However, that would mean going with Intel quad core with 1136 socket. I have not seen any MOB with 1136 socket with integrated graphic yet.
If I can find fanless graphic card, this might make an interesting option as well.

Hi Guys,

I am glad we have this topic on the configuration of a computer suitable for XXHE. I am an audiophile who loves music with a high priority for good SQ, but have no clue about the computer hardware/software part of it. There was a time, over a year back, when I was on the verge of dropping CA & moving back to CD but Peter urged me to continue & I am glad I did as I can now hear that it is significantly better than CD. Thank you Peter.

My present set up is an old Sony Vaio laptop & with Peter urging me to replace it with a powerful PC desktop, to improve SQ, I decided it is time to take this step towards the ever elusive holy grail of SQ. Unfortunately most guys in the hardware field, those I know of at least, are not audiophiles. Consequently they are unaware of what constitutes an ideal configuration for CA.

Anyway what they have put together for me, by way of a suggestion, is as follows:
CPU- Intel i7 980x (6 cores/12 threads)
Mobo-Gigabyte GA-X58-BUD-9 (intel X 58 chipset)
DDR3 RAM 8GB (4GB for RAMdisk)
128 GB SSD Corsair (for the OS). Music is on an external HDD
Cooler Master PSU 750W(claim to be very silent)
ASUS graphic card 8400 NVIDIA
Vista 32 OS

I would really appreciate if some of you guys in the forum who are good at the hardware side could guide me on the suitability of this configuration.

I must admit I am one of those who is stupid in the computer hardware field. On the forum I read about setting IRQ affinity, dedicating cores for certain applications, etc, etc, but this is all over my head. I dont have a clue how to go about actually doing this. If you guys could put in a step by step fashion it would make it immensely beneficial for illiterate people like me.

Thanks for going through reading this sermon.

Arvind

I'm afraid you're wrong. The motherboard supports integrated graphics as long as it is integrated in CPU, but quadcore core-i5 doesn't offer one. (only dual cores i3 and i5 have intel hd graphics). http://www.intel.com/consumer/products/processors/corei5-specs.htm

i7 980x could be much better - 32nm, 12MB l3 cache, triple channel ddr (Phenom is 45nm, 6MB l3 cache, dual channel ddr), but the real question would it matter for SQ?

Hi Arvind,

only  (VISTA) 64bit OS can handle RAM sizes bigger than 4GB.

Best Joachim

True and wrong :) Ramdisk can use memory above 4GB in 32bit OS, leaving all system memory for Windows.
So, assuming you have 8GB of RAM installed, your OS utilise 4GB and 4GB goes to ramdisk. I'll check this myself tomorrow and let you know how it works. I suspect it could be even in terms of SQ, because ramdisk won't interfere with system memory.

Here is my take of this all :

Cores

I think the multi core stuff will be more and more important in the future and you could say "the more the better". Keep in mind the native speed of a core though, and the faster it is, the better it will be.

FSB

The faster the Front Size Buss, the better it will be. Notice though this is old (Intel I think) technology, and the net result for speed is the factor of CPU cycles, what your memory can take and the FSB. The problem here is : when you want to optimize this you will run into the overclockers leage, and this is nothing for someone not used to it. In other words : when you don't get your system delivered optimized to this respect, well, it just won't.
IIRC modern AMD doesn't make use of this "combination" anymore, hence no dependencies exist.

Summarized and roughly said : an Intel based machine may have a high clock speed, but skips cycles because the memory can't cope.

2nd level Cache and shared cache

I'm not much up to date on this, but the difference exists and the "shared" type will be the modern one. I think this about avoiding the necessity to copy in the necessary bits of memory when it's a task its turn to be serviced, hence there's one (larger) pool of 2ndL cache that doesn't need to swap out/in at task switching.

Fanless ?

IMO the biggest mistake you can make is wanting a fanless setup;
It will give so many constraints that in fact there are "too many", and it may start with a larger cabinet than you want;
You will have less choices in everything, while carefully choosing silent parts will do just as well.
Also notice that there's no way we will be urging maximum power from anything, which includes CPU, disks, graphics, mobo and general cooling. IOW all fans can - and will run at their lowest speed.
But choose the largest fans you can find for every aspect (120mm).

PSU

For any crazy setup for audio, 450W is more than sufficient (including a modern graphics card not expecially used (!) for video).
Indeed the CoolerMaster is very silent, and moreover it contains nicely removeable internal powercords; more than you will ever need.

SATA

Carefully overthink how many disks you will have connected;
With the current 2TB disks you still may run into too few connections, although if you have sufficiently enough today, by the time you run out 4TB will be there.
Don't rely on just a number mentioned, because often a total number comprises of 2 eSata connections. The latter are useful by itself, but can't be used for internal connections.
Notice that as much as 10 internal connections exist, but those mobos are hard to find and it's a tough job to "select" them in the first place (have to go into all the details etc., and there are sooo many mobos).
Anyway, if the mobo also has a PATA (IDE) connection it will save you a SATA connection on the CDRom drive which is always needed, and really doesn't need SATA (but have an IDE drive of course).

Cabinet

Another mistake you can make is having a one meter heigh cabinet because it then supports 6 or so hard drives;
In my quest for this, the midi sized cabinets -officially supporting 3 hdds- really can contain 8hdds with some thinking *and* an SSD or two.
Also, the 2.5" hdds getting larger and larger, think about 6 (today's) of them occupying the space of 1 3.5" hdd (that's 6TB in the pace of one 3.5" hdd).

Memory

I would say 8GB is sufficient. Of course the larger (the RAMDisk) the more you can play from one playlist.
Also take into account that for a board with 4 memory slots, 2GB modules may be more easy to get than 4GB modules.
However, what I would do is give myself the opportunity to expand on it later. So, it would be good if the mobo can take 16GB or even more.

PCI etc. slots

Not so easy to determine, because you really have to be up to date in near-future technologies. But let's say that all modern mobos will think about your future, and that now counts : the more the better.
Do not forget that many graphics cards occupy two spaces for slots. So, they don't use two slots, but are wide enough to make one unuseable. *Now* take care that the one which is rendered useless isn't needed by you.
Preferrably the slot for the graphics card is on the far end, so you won't loose anything.

32/64bit OS

I think it is obvious that "today" we want a 64bit OS (in order to use more than 3GB of memory). Also, it seems that the driver problems for 64bits are merely behind us, so chances are fair you won't have problems there.

Keyboard/Mouse/Monitor connection

Just the notice that either can have a cable length of 10 meters (also VGA but use a better cable). So, generally it won't be a problem to have the PC near the stereo or in a (more silencing) cabinet somewhere, while you control all from this 10 meters distance.
Also notice that keyboard and mouse can have 15 meters easily (just use extension cables), while with VGA I don't know. But, for VGA extension solutions exist over CAT5 and in the end you'll always get were you want.

General features

Maybe not the most important today, but for the future you'll never know (and if you can't choose between boards anyway) :
Think about USB3, SATAIII, the number of eSata connections.
On-board Firewire generally s*cks for audio, and stuff like WiFi (and possibly also Bluetooth) isn't supposed to be "On" in your Audio PC anyway.

About the on-board graphics : If it's there throughout (hence useable, see earlier posts about this), why not. If only this is an Audio PC. It will save you a slot somewhere. But here too : don't make it a knock-out, because your further choices will degrade to near zero.

Other mistakes

When you order memory in a "general" fashion like "4GB" notice that you may end up with 2x2GB while you wanted 1x4GB.

Think rational, and don't let yourself get confused by not wanting a $50 cabinet which already contains a PSU so "you can't use it". Of course you can. Tear out the PSU and replace it with the one you want. Wasted money ? so what. Your choices are bigger now.

The CPU cooler coming with the CPU ? throw it out if you want silence. It may work quite allright today, but not next week (some dust is enough to degrade the efficiency of those things). Just get yourself a decent one.

Fans in the cabinet ? they are not needed. But (!!) let switch your disks off within a few minutes, and don't let sit the POST (BIOS) screen there for a longer time (or all will start steaming indeed because disks will keep on running).

Don't put disks upside down. They can be on the side allright, but not upside down.

Stay away from RAID solutions and NAS for that matter. It can only bring you problems at the moment you want to exchange things, and RAID isn't a backup means. Oh, it is for a disk dying, but it is not for mistakes you make yourself.
NAS is a pain to begin with, but *if* you necessarily want to think like that : get another PC and stuff that with (more) disks. It's really the same but without the NAS quirks.

Also don't tink USB is the way to go for storage; it will take you more than a day to copy a 2TB disk, and USB disks won't spin down (that I know of).

The above may be where the number of SATA connections become important. It's really the fastest means for disk I/O (also important for conveniency at playback) and notice that eSata is not as fast.

My system

Maybe not all that important, but this is what I have :

• Asus P7P55D-E Evo (socket 1156, P55 chipset), 7x SATAII, 2x SATAIII, 1x eSata, 2xUSB3 (http://www.asus.com/product.aspx?P_ID=6tYErg5Gvuxs4VGz&templete=2 see specifications tab));
• Intel i7-i870 (quad core plus Hyperthreading (2 threads per core) possible);
• Memory (8GB, 4 DIMMs) DDR3/1600MHz (2200Mhz possible with overclocking), dual channel (max is 16GB over 4 DIMMs);
• Zalman CNPS9900A cpu cooler (never running at more than 950 revs -> could be a tad more silent when using an open cabinet);
• CoolerMaster M520 PSU (just silent);
• Asus ENGT240 graphics card (with fan, but just silent).

Motherboard is always 32C, CPU always 28C (but may rise to 38 1 or 2 secs at trackoading without cooler fan spinning up).
With this 7 HDDs and 1SSD are mounted internally permanently, but usually another one is layed on top (backup etc.), and one is externally connected (eSata, other temporary stuff).
Cabinet is always open, and lays on its side (disks on their side too).

Peter

Peter,
all my respect, but seriously are you DEАF? or are you really try to build HIGHEND player with Engine modes, SFS files, Buffers sizes, arc, invert and etc, etc and you really can't hear your power supplies fan? I don't know....maybe I need a doctor!!!  http://www.seasonicusa.com/X.htm Suteetat take a look...fantastic PSU and fanless. THE MOST important think for a music server build.....think wherever you want but who cares for 4 or 6 cores and 12 or 16gb ram IF you have noisy PC guys...WHO? Suteetat take even 2 cores but buy the best PSU you can find mate, my suggestion!

Hehe, I'm getting one X-400 Seasonic PSU in few days, Thermalright HR-02, OrigenAE S16T case.
I disagree with Peter on few points, because I have had different experiences. For me absolutely no fans inside PC and no PCI-e GPU is the only way. Fans are very silent, but 'noisy' to other components, if you know what I mean. The same with power consuming noise polluting graphic card. If you don't hear the negatives, go ahead and don't bother, I do, at least in my system :) Maybe PC interface for NOS1 isn't sensitive for that factors, but I doubt it - if it's powered from PCI/USB, then it matters.

Exactly Marcin! When I say noisy all I mean is that this noise is in all the way to the speakers! You can put the PC in other apartment if you want but that "noise" is moving through the chain! Even believe or not but fuses and electricity matters more than we think !http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xs1aUws0Lrs watch this video if you didn't and listen the funny greek about 50% electricity.
Regards, Chriss.

Oh ... *that* noise ! hahaha

No, I didn't think about that, but that will be because I can't have any of such noise (and don't have it indeed -> measurements).

Ok, don't ask me how much that can influence in any normal situation ... I just don't know. But don't make yourself crazy with just stories.

Peter

Hi Doc,

I am one of those fews who use water cooling on my CPU and GPU. I vote for non-moving part electronics. Moving part can generate "noise" (some sort of EMI I guess) which degrades SQ. If the price of SDD comes down to a certain point, I am positive that HDD will face extinction like CRT monitor/TV.

Downside of water cooling is its inflexibility. It is not that easy to switch the graphic card if you want to play around with it. Once you remove the fan which comes with the graphic card, you void the warranty. RMA is not possible. But if water cooling is your choice, then make sure that you run your system with the fans until it is stable before installing water cooling system. I use Zalman Reserator 1 V2 (not available in
thailand). One other warning, remember to switch on the pump before power up your PC.

Note that I need gaming grade GPU since my system is multimedia PC and not only for music. When home (once a year during school break), my son plays games on 92 inch 1080p projector with McIntosh tube amp. What a luxury !!!

In conclusion, I vote for "noise free" (from eliminating fans) in a trade of with "glitch free" (from faster processing speed, tripple channel configuration).

Just my two cents.

Cheers!
Praphan

opps, thanks for the correction.
i7 980x could be interesting except that it costs as much as AMD CPU, MOB, RAM combined. Again, it would be 1366 socket with in integrated graphic and the needs for extra graphic card.
As far as CPU power, I am wondering. AMD 6 core is quite cheap but on core to core basis, Intel, even the i7 quad core performs much better at the same clock rate. For Phenom II xt 1095T to outperform Intel Quad core i7, it is needed to be overclocked to over 4Gz.
http://www.guru3d.com/article/phenom-ii-x6-1055t-1090t-review/10
I definitely don't plan to overclock my music server as I want to stick with fanless CPU heatsink.

So more core at lower performance vs less core but higher performance per core? Throw in DDR3 tripple channel but perhaps with additional (hopefully fanless)
graphic card, which way would you choose?

One case that I am very interested in is Thermaltake Level 10. The price is outrageous but I like the idea of lots of aluminium, almost 50 lbs and everything is
compartmentalized. Power supply is in separate enclosure from MOB. HD and CD-Rom are also in their own enclosure. The only downside is that it is rather big.
If I forego this case, there might be enough money to look at i7 980x but I am not really sure that i7 980X is neccessary.
Seasonic power supply looks interesting. However whatever PSU I use will most likely be temporary. I am still looking into possibly having a linear power supply built for the computer and it will sit in a separate enclosure for sure.
One solution for me to keep computer noise away from leaking into my system (I used to get a buzz once in awhile through my tweeter when computer is on) was to use
JPS Aluminata power cord on my computer. Don't ask me how it works but ever since I tried the cable, I never heard any buzzing noise through my speakers ever again. Unfortunately the power cord cost more than the computer itself but I also tried a few other cheaper power cord but none of them manage to get rid off the noise like JPS. Shunyata Hydra 8 conditioner stopped the buzz from getting into the stereo system but the buzzing noise occur at Shunyata chassis instead which was still annoying.

Please let me know if this is true. That would save a lot of hazzle for me. I assume that I don't need more than 3GB for RAM anyhow and I can have 8GB or 12GB of RAM with 5-9 GB for RAMdisk under Vista 32, that would be great as Vista 64 is rather hard to find over here unless I do the Win7 Pro and downgrade to vista 64.
Beside RAM size, is there anything else in Vista 64 that is beneficial for XXHighend?

I use a totally fanless setup, more because it seemed like a good idea at the time than anything else. But I have to agree with Peter here - there are some massive constraints going this way. I am very limited with mobos/CPUs/GPUs - it was a nightmare getting an i7 to work in my case (Zalman TNN300). Although with this case, I actually can use everything at full power.

But the craziest thing with my setup is that my pro ADC/DAC has a (very silent) fan built in anyway!!!

Mani.

Hmmm, I made some calls today and looked like there are still some fanless graphic card out there
so Intel 1366 platform is certainly possible although looking at the price of i7 980 Extreme is rather scarry.
However, i7 950 is roughly the same price as AMD Phenom II 1090T but interestingly
DDR3 triple channel is not that much more expensive than DDR3 dual channel. DDR3 triple channel 12 G (4GB x3 1600, you need everything in
multiples of three) is about $70-80 more than 4GB x2, 1600 DDR3 dual channels. However, motherboard for AMD is about $100 less.
Throw in another $100 odd dollars for fanless graphic card,  the price difference between Intel with less cores but more powerful
on core to core basis with significantly faster (and actually more RAMs) might be worthwhile.

I agree that going completely fanless is going to be too limited.
However, I think that if we try to minimize number of fans and possibly avoid fan that has physical contact to MOB via CPU/graphic card, that may help.
Certainly fanless graphic card or something like Thermalright HR-02 fanless CPU cooler does not exactly impose too much limitation on the computer, as far as
XXHighend is concerned. Whatever I build certainly still needs case fan and until I can get power supply sorted out, I will most likely have a fan or two there as well but hopefully large low speed fan.

ouch ... inflation must be rife where you live. All you NEED for a dedicated server ( which was your original design criteria ) is something like this ..

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814131371

If you're living outside of CONUS though, which is what Newegg restricts delivery to, and you can't find something like that, consider a browse through eBay for preloved cards if you're comfortable with that. Not everyone is though. The funds you save could be better put towards a faster CPU.

Happy hunting,

Russ

 

Been there ... done that ... didn't work !

http://www.phasure.com/index.php?topic=1403.msg13521#msg13521

I'd be interested to know if you had better success.

Russ

Thanks for the suggestion. I will look locally first to see what's available. Unfortunately the store here does not always list everything they have. The guy I talked to mentioned ASUS HD 5... something when I asked if he has any fanless video card in stock.

You guys are funny. :)
I propose a case full with fans except the case fan(s), and *thus* all fans have to go out except the case fan ?

Ok ...
haha

You probably didn't have PAE enabled...

Yep, that's funny. Either you go fanless or not, that's my opinion. If you have sth like Thermalright HR-02, than I don't see the need of using any fans unless some heavy processing is on all the time, but this is not the case in a dedicated music server.

I don't see that it is all that funny. Thermalright HR-02 is a good start but unless there is a decent air circulation, all the heat will just be trapped in
the case and a passive heatsink in a closed case is not going to cut it. All the review I see of HR-02 all uses cases with case fan to circulate air.
Then HR-02 gives pretty respectable performance but I did not see any review where it was used in a totally fanless system.
Unless you use open case or something like Zalman that has a mechanism to transfer
out the heat from the case, normal case is not going to survive, I think. May be a fan is a fan regardless, perhaps a fan attached to MOB which certainly will generate more vibration than a big slow flow fan case, who knows. Certainly I will have the option of disconnecting the case fan and observe the temperature.
I still think 1-2 fans are still better than 3-4-5 fans regardless.

I was only kidding a bit of course. But to keep in mind : where I suggest that case fans are not needed, I *also* suggest to leave the case open.

A slightly more elegant solution than just leaving the case open:
http://www.antec.com/Believe_it/product.php?id=NzA0&lan=us

I was tempted for a few minutes but am not daring enough.

ah , well done Suteetat .. you just beat me to it .. haha

http://www.pccasegear.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=25_733&products_id=8096

Russ

So now that's official ?

:) :)

For those worried about case fans noise, it is very easy to run them on 7V without resorting to a commercial speed controller. Simply use the red and yellow leads from the molex plug that typically powers them. The yellow is at 12V potential and the red is 5V, with the difference being 7V.

To facilitate a neat setup, use a tool such as this ...

http://www.pccasegear.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=83_266&products_id=14870

to re-arrange the leads on a Molex Y adapter ...

http://www.pccasegear.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=19_197&products_id=2679

then hang your fans off that.

Have been using this method for years and it works a treat :)

 

Try this one for another open air case:
http://www.google.co.th/imglanding?imgurl=http://www.ocaholic.ch/xoops/html/modules/xcgal/albums/userpics/pc-q06/normal_IMG_0637.JPG&imgrefurl=http://www.ocaholic.ch/xoops/html/modules/smartsection/item.php%3Fitemid%3D424%26sel_lang%3Denglish&h=570&w=600&sz=67&tbnid=GlbIw8O2iUWZZM:&tbnh=128&tbnw=135&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dlian%2Bli%2Bpc%2Bq06&zoom=1&q=lian+li+pc+q06&usg=__VEhe_9dtXaMhGkrkbJYpX4ZmkJM%3D&sa=X&ei=RcjOTOGTFYSlcZzJzcUO&ved=0CC4Q9QEwBQ

Sweet !

Looks a little tidier than my typical test bench though .. haha

It looks like the sort of rig the guys at AnandTech would enjoy.

Thanks for the link.

Nice mobo's:
http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=3571#ov (http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=3571#ov)

http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=3527#sp (http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=3527#sp)

 ;)

Yes, there are plenty and  dirt cheap such as the nvidia 8400, or some ati (too many names i dont remember)
But you would use the pci-express slot.

Only if the 32bit OS has PAE, which Vista hasnt, but 2003 server has.
I think that in case of normal vista and the software ramdisks that we are using it wont work.

Although I used 2003 server (which is basically vista kernel), I would not recommend it nowadays. It's too outdated and the drivers are a pita to find.

No, he has a huge room and the computer is not audible at 5m from where is the listening position.
In my case I hear anything and I needed a fanless pc.

For those suggesting bench-type cases, all depends where you keep the PC. The EMI And RFI generated by the pc are shielded by aluminium* and other metals. An open case has only one way where the radiations can go, while with a completely open one, they can go anywhere :)

(*mu-metal is the best, aluminium is the de facto standard and other cheeper metals shield less but still shield!)

Hmmm, I did not think of EMI, RFI stuff. So look like closed case will have to do as my computer is placed right next to my DAC and the rest of the stereo system.
Zalman fanless case is not available over here as far as I know and it looks way too involving for me to try to mug around with it myself :)
At least I will be sitting 4-5m away from it in a relatively large room. When I play music, I can't actually hear the fans anyhow from my current computer.
Just hope that the fans won't add too much of the other noise if I have one or two of those running.

The noise raises exponentially with the number of fans that are working at the same time.
2 quiet fans (one for case and one for cpu) should be all that is needed for a music-playing computer with current components.

I guess this "vista" is a typo and should be XP ?

An interesting development! I just heard that Playback Design MPS-5 that I am using is going get an upgrade USB module (or something) early next year that will
accept at least up to 384 kHz which I assume meaning that I could play 16/44.1 kHz file with 8x AP or perhaps playing those handful
DXD recordings (24/352.8 kHz) that are available. Just to make sure that I I have everything ready, I am not sure how much RAM I would
need for something like this. Currently I am leaning toward 12GB triple channel DDR3. Is that going to be enough for playing say, one single album?
On 2L site, I see that a typical DXD track is anywhere from 500mb (3-4 minutes)-1.1GB (almost 10 minutes). If I have 10GB RAMdisk, would I be able
to play, let say 8 of those 1.1 GB tracks theoretically without any problem. Also would 2GB only assign to RAM be enough?

No, it's not a typo. 2003 server kernel was the base for Vista's one.

Hmmm, I might have to rethink the minimal fan a bit more :(
I installed Intel i7 950 on Gigabyte X58A-UD7 rev 2, 12GB DDR3 tripple channel.
So trying to use the least number of fans, I use Thermalright HR-02 fanless CPU heatsink
in a full tower Lian Li case with 2x 12cm fans front and back and Seasonic X-series 750W and a nice and cheap ATI graphic card with no fan,
At 3.06 GHz, unfortunately CPU temp went from 37C up to 48-50C during Vista installation. Room temp is around 25-26C
I took the CPU speed down to 2.4 Gz and temp dropped to around 44C. I think I leave everything as is for now but
look like ultimately, I might not be able to avoid fan on CPU heatsink :( I did get a 14cm 1200 RPM fan just in case.

LOL, you think that's high? If you had 70-80 degrees, then you could worry about temperature. Intel can operate with temperatatures up to 95 degrees.

 The references to needing a "64 bit processor to directly address more than 4 GB of RAM", and, "WAV file format being limited to 32 bit addressing in the file" were interesting.
Whether this has any relevance to structuring a new computer I don't know.

I agree to a certain point. What matters is that the PC is 100% stable when playing music.
Mine is with an average temp of 45-55°C depending on season. But if I do some stress test it crashes. I accept this for the pleasure of having zero noise.

Thank you Frank.
Also, I never saw one reason to not concider Tony's posts as good information.

Peter


PS: The relevance of one WAV file not being able to be larger than 4 GB is small; I didn't do the math, but I think even a 60 minute 32/192 will fit into that. Maybe just not though.

One concern I had was that during Vista installation, the computer crashed after it reboot. I have no idea if that was from instability due to heat or not. After  reboot, similar thing happened again so after rebooting again, I reduced the CPU speed and temp came down a bit and there was no problem with that.
I have no way of verifying if it was really the temp or not but thought I mentioned it here. Since there seems to be a few people thinking of building a new computer, it was worth mentioning.

Hello to all,

I am also planning to build up a 100% fanless really dedicated music box. As I am more or less knowledgeable in this field my dream setup would look like this:

MOBO: with PS/2 ports for mouse and keys, built-in graphic card, 4 slots for mem allowing to go at least 8 GB
CPU: multi-core, need to find the sweet spot among speed and heat as I am going to use it naked (without fan, just the radiator)
PSU: fanless
HDD: SSD 32 GB for heavily vlited Windows Vista x64
Screen: 15"-17" inch LCD to control playback[/li][/list]
Audio: HiFace MK2 USB-SPDIF adapter
DAC: external one

Music files will be located on external USB drive, BTW USB drive nicely spins down when XX plays music from RamDisk, so no added load on USB bus.

BTW2, if you guys still use fans (i do so now also) a nice utility called SpeedFan helps managing the fans the way you like it. What I do, is I switch off fan control in BIOS and then do control fans via SpeedFan. For example, I turn off CPU fan and Sys Fan and configure the utility so, that it turns on those fans only in case some component heats up, that really makes the system silent. Actually, my E6300 C2D never needs CPU fan to be run.

Ivo

Ivo :good:
that's the way! Here a nice PSU:
Thermaltake Fanless Purepower 350 Model W0029 — 350W ATX power supply.
Your E6300 CPU is a very very good choice I will take E7300:
"For affordable performance per watt, there's no going past the Intel Core 2 Duo processors. A good choice for this sort of project is the E7300. It has enough grunt to spare that you can underclock it, and lower the core voltage to run it cooler. Put a passive cooler on it, you want to avoid fans, they're noisy both acoustically and electrically."
Regards, Criss.

Thanks Chriss!!! ;)

BTW, I just thought about non-moving parts in audio design....
take the CD players, the only things that moves there is CD and the lens, so by designing a completely static pc-based audio (ok, there will be the USB drive spinning but it will spin down after minutes) we move at least one step ahead which is I guess great.

I still vote for total fanless and moveless design!

Ivo

p.s. The ideal setup = where only speakers move inside the cabinet :)

Most motherboards accept 16GB total, and you should take one that does.