CPU considerations

[glynnw]

For the last 4 years my dedicated music PC has served me well, built around a Core 2 Duo, 3.16 ghz w/ 4G of DDR3 ram, which was way hot back then.  Peter and several others were instrumental in my choice at that time so I want to seek advice here again.  I have decided to move my current PC into the case of an antique radio (to each his own insanity, if you please) and the possibility of updating parts is wide open.  I am considering going to an all-in-one mini-ATX format (whatever the smallest I can find)  just for convenience although I still have room for a full ATX if needed.  What should I look for in a CPU that will hopefully serve me well for the next 4 years.  The case will be cooled and quiet enough for me to use a nuclear powered chip if necessary.  Some say only a simple CPU is needed, others claim only the fastest will do.
  My question is - what does Peter think?

[PeterSt]

What does Peter think eh ?

Well, from earlier posts (XXHighEnd oriented) I think it is clear that the more processor cores available, the better it will be. If not today, then tomorrow (still some things to exploit there).

What you see in the below pictures is my personal best effort at this moment, although it's almost two months ago already when I started investigating what I could use for a. the best performance and b. in the smallest / nicest case.

It turned out to be a prestige project (we are doing this for someone else) and since yesterday I can say it worked out. Mind you, for the PC itself, what's in there, and how it can be kept cool enough.

This is uATX with a 3930K Hexacore i7 running at 4GHz (didn't try more yet) all fans staying under 900rpm. Only with your ear right next to the case you can hear something.

For this 100% XXHighEnd dedicated machine, these are some highlights :

12 core hyperthreaded with 4 channel DDR3 memory (16GB) running at 4GHz, overclockable to ~4.6Ghz to the expense of more noisy fans.
7200rpm 2.5" SATAII OS disc (320GB, fixed).
7200rpm 3.5" SATAIII playback disc (500GB, removable).
2.5" SATAIII Galleries SSD (60GB, removable).
4x USB3 (anticipating music discs to be external (USB3 connected)).
PS/2 connectors for both mouse and keyboard.
DVD writer.
Space inside for another 3.5" and at least one more 2.5".
4x internal SATAII and 3x SATAIII connectors plus 1x eSATA.
Two free PCIe slots and one free PCI slot (but the passive video card occupies two of either slots; see picture).

The big trick here is the 3 removable bays for HDDs, thinking about SSD yes/no, OS on SSD yes/no, XXHigHEnd on (think of something) and all can be swapped how you want. So, the OS disc is fixed in the inside, but of course you can move in another OS disc in one of the removebale bays. Try Windows 8 - name it.

Case size is 43.5w 34d 14t (cm) and still all this stuff is in there and it stays cool. Takes a small day to build it once you know what to do, or two days when you do not (which latter counts for everybody of course) assumed you have all the right parts and cables and such (which you won't). Add a few hours to have the cable management right which is tough in those small spaces. Do one ting different and count days for finding parts and another day to find where to buy them. Throughput time was a small two months here.

Take another day to tune the cooling system and install the OS.

This is where I am now, hence I didn't install a piece of XXHighEnd yet. That should happen today.

Cost price for the parts, assumed 1x shipping costs because you can obtain all from one supplier (which does not exist that I could find) is 1200-1300 euros excluding VAT. This is excluded the OS, mouse, keyboard and monitor.

Because of the sheer stupid time we put in it and knowing that others may want to benefit from that (plus many won't be able to do it themselves), I plan to sell it to those interested, but lower the price when parts become less expensive (like the processor which now is 520-530 euros).
Price ? not quite known yet, but it should be something like 1800-1900 euros ex VAT and shipping (and OS).


Glynn, did you ask for all this ? No. But this is what I have been working on in between some other jobs, and this is exactly what I would want for myself. In the last picture you see my own audio PC in the back (with a disc laying on top of it) which does the job (with an 870) but which is a mess because of its 9 HDDs in there and I *still* need outboard discs. So, the future is to be expandable/flexible on the HDD side, where we also must be able to exchange the OS and everything easily. This is what this PC was built for, being the fastest in the mean time. And a nice case that can go in the audio rack.

That's all for now.
Peter


PS: In the mean time this is a hefty HTPC (for playing movies) as well.

[Gerard]

How very very nice!!! 

And how does it sound?

 

[PeterSt]

I don't know yet.

[juanpmar]

I plan to sell it to those interested, but lower the price when parts become less expensive (like the processor which now is 520-530 euros).
Price ? not quite known yet, but it should be something like 1800-1900 euros ex VAT and shipping (and OS).

Hey Peter,
This are great news for the ones who want a music Pc. Let me ask you a couple of things:

- For the ones that already have a music Pc would it be possible to order just some parts?

- Would be nice if this music PC could come with XXHighEnd already installed as an option, even if it requires the OS also installed. Would it be possible?

Best regards,
Juan

[PeterSt]

Yo Juan !

I can't think of any parts which can be used outside this setup and possibly I don't understand your question about this ? Okay, you could mean a HDD or something like that, but I don't think it is that what you mean (nor can it be a problem for anyone to obtain such a thing). So ... ?

Of course XXHighEnd will already be installed - this is one of the major reasons I envision for people wanting a nice "XX PC" in the first place. So, on this forum too a couple of people have been fighting for a PC which would do the job, and it took months. The next thing is that those people often never saw Windows really (could be Mac they were using), so it would incur for some problems right away again even when the OS was installed by us.

So the reason to offer this is two-folded :
- People might have no clue what to get;
- When they do, it still takes crazy time to sort it all out (well, you were there ).

Regards !
Peter

[juanpmar]

Ok, reading it more carefully I see that you have it very well thought and built.

But let me ask it in other way. How could take advantage of your music pc the people who already have one? I´d like for example one HDD with XXHighEnd installed "perfectly" I mean, installed by you personally. To get XX correctly installed is one of the bigger issues people have.

Let me suggest you the use of a water cooler as an alternative to the Noctua , eg Reserator, also being used by another ones in the forum. Not my case yet but could be an option for a totally silent pc.

Best regards,
Juan

[glynnw]

Thanks so much, Peter.  I knew you would have an answer for me.  Your server looks spectacular.

[esimms86]

Peter, your server is a beautiful thing! I do have a number of questions about it, like who manufactures the case, why so many HDD's, why even one SSD drive if you believe that XXHE gets better sound when NOT run off an SSD, why not a 2 Tb, say, HDD for larger music collections(or a separate external HDD connected via USB 3.0 containing one's music files). Also, does it matter running the NOS1 off a USB 3.0 port versus a USB 2.0?

I'm also curious to find out whether SFS reaches the theoretical maximum of 500 with your new server hardware.

Also, why not list all the parts in the event that someone wants to take the list to a local PC builder in their chome country and have it built rather having one built by you(assuming that building and selling the server, the way Chris Connaker's builder sells his CAPS 2.0 server, constitutes more work and a bigger PITA for you). This also avoids dealing with VAT if one is so inclined to avoid dealing with an international transaction.

Also, why not sell 2.5 and 3.5 hard drives with the OS and XXHE already installed  and configured for the person who wants to avoid the standard learning curve usually associated with getting XXHE up and running?

I also hope that you are not spreading yourself too thin between this server, finalizing 0.9-7z, working out the dongle supplier and sales details, working on your day job(the one that pays the bills for you and your family) and also spending precious and rare spare moments with your loved ones. Obviously, the latter 2 activities come first and the rest of us are most fortunate to receive the benefit of the time that's leftover for devoting your efforts to working on the NOS1 and XXHE. Let's face it, there are many of us XXHE (and NOS1) users but only one Peter St. Put another way, you are the sole person working on software and hardware improvements for our beloved server software and DAC and you are obviously NOT a redundant or replaceable resource.

While I'm posting I have to ask an unrelated question. I received the dongles in the mail today(a big THANK YOU to you) and I wonder whether they would work now with my iPad or whether I have to first wait for 0.9-7z.

My final question(for now) is where does XXHE max out for system requirements. CAPS 2.0 and even the 2011 dual core mac mini are considered to be overpowered for most music server needs but woefully underpowered for XXHE. I see that your (overclocked) server runs 12 cores with 16 Gb of RAM. Is XXHE a moving target, so to speak, such that, with upgrades, it will continue to use larger and larger amounts of CPU power or will there perhaps be an Intel chip in the next couple of years that has more than enough power to spare for running an optimal configuration of XXHE?

I hope that none of my comments or questions are construed in any way as being insulting or otherwise botherwise and I apologize in advance for anything that may be perceived in that way. XXHE and the NOS1 are enjoyable to no end and we have you to thank for them.

Esau

[PeterSt]

Esau, so many questions ! I will try to answer them in separate posts.

I also hope that you are not spreading yourself too thin between this server, finalizing 0.9-7z, working out the dongle supplier and sales details, working on your day job(the one that pays the bills for you and your family) and also spending precious and rare spare moments with your loved ones. Obviously, the latter 2 activities come first and the rest of us are most fortunate to receive the benefit of the time that's leftover for devoting your efforts to working on the NOS1 and XXHE. Let's face it, there are many of us XXHE (and NOS1) users but only one Peter St. Put another way, you are the sole person working on software and hardware improvements for our beloved server software and DAC and you are obviously NOT a redundant or replaceable resource.

With a big thank you for your kind words, I recon that indeed I am not a redundant person. But it can't be accepted because throughout life I heard so many times that everyone is replaceable. So, that must be true for me too. Hmm ...
But let's look at it from the other angle as well : All these things need to be done IMO and since it would be stupid to let all of you sort it out, I better do it for you. So yes, looking for a dongle supplier took me a whole day telephoning already (after another of Googling) but what to do without that ? So, from the real project regarding this I learned that I better thank God that I found "working" ones, after all this crazy time at experiencing that nothing worked while I was pretty sure that whatever I am doing now with closed eyes, should be able to work no matter it hadn't been done.

Still with me ? It is just an example of diving into something without knowing whether it will end in good fashion, to next experience that your nicely obtained dongles can't even be obtained by you out there, let alone that it can ever be feasable to go hunting for others - not knowing what to hunt for (which was the same with me, and didn't change much by now).

And what for ? to avoid a stupid LAN connection, not even knowing what the results would be with this connection.
THAT's LIFE !
At least it's mine Esau.

Of course I just hooked into one example only, but usually all these giant "projects" work out as intended. This one too, and since I now use it myself almost exclusively for playback (the remote I mean) I am pretty 100% sure the SQ got even *better* of it. Not that I expected this in advance, but I sort of can reason out now that it can be true indeed. Mind you, this *better* is right up to creapy. A sort of nodding your head a whole album in a row, not knowing what happened *now* again. This, after the other three sound improving features you out there don't even have yet.

When I'm at it anyway, that XXHighEnd PC is the same as it seems after a few tracks from 10 or so albums. So, my SQ hunt could be about one thing only : that hexacore processor based on the latest technology (which today is LGA2011 socket, X79 chipset for the 6 core processors). The remainder were derivals like no 1ft fans needed to cool the lot. But what happened ?

Yesterday I installed XXHighEnd on it (latest version and a first attempt of a fresh install which took me myself more than an hour - so not ready yet ), pulled the trigger and ?
100% different sound. Already in the first 10 seconds the sound had more snap to it, and somehow B.B. King was so much present in the room. Hard to describe. But further down the line the real change became clear : slam, slam and more slam. I even went as far as stating "now *this* is a nice dance track", while I don't like dance at all and whatever it was is categorized under Lounge here. Completely crazy.

How ? I have no clue yet. But if this is about the again additional overpower of the processor, others with the 3930K processor should have experienced the same; I must read back on it, but although something similar is in my head from others, I sure don't recall anyone shouting "what the heck happened NOW ?!!" - which is what I sure do.
It has been a couple of hours only and way too short to really make a judgement like "better !", but I can not imagine that I come back on this. Worse : I am the most eager to build one of these PCs for myself as soon as possible, because it's worth a 20K++ of amplifier. That's how it sounds.


Did this answer upon any of your questions ? no, I guess not. But it tells me - and hopefully tells you out there that whatever time spent on whichever seemingly derived subject is worth it already for myself. Yea, funny eh ? I do this for myself. But like it happened with the software, later with the DAC, and maybe now with a PC - I see no reason not to share it with you all. Would be rather selfish actually.

Yes, your advice about being with the family is a very good one, but no problems anywhere regarding this. And aren't we all into it anyway. And maybe you didn't know, but the only thing I really do is working on this software and designing a few things. Sort out stuff, for which my normal job is great. Ahum.
The XX orange logo -for better or for worse- was made by our son when he was 9. I really can't spend time on that of course.

Ok, I will be more brief in the next posts !
Regards,
Peter

[PeterSt]

[..]why so many HDD's, why even one SSD drive if you believe that XXHE gets better sound when NOT run off an SSD, why not a 2 Tb, say, HDD for larger music collections(or a separate external HDD connected via USB 3.0 containing one's music files).

It all is about the versitility of the whole. For example, wat you say is that I claim or believe an SSD is not for the better. Okay, so that is what I think. But things are so fragile that nothing needs to happen (be a tad different) or it may work out the other way. So, in my system it is not better (I think) but maybe in yours it is. And remember, this is all about impeded noise which works as a filter, so when you have something not 100% right, that filter may do a job for you.
But the moral is : in 2 seconds it is out to try, as it is in 2 seconds in to try. That is why it is removable (hot swappable).

For fun let me tell you what could be in there within a few weeks of time (when 4TB discs are available) :
8TB on removable 3.5", 1TB on removable 2.5" and 1TB on 2.5" fixed inside. This is the normal situation. With some tweaking another 2 2.5" 1TB (so 2TB) can be in there as well. That makes 12TB inside.
When the chips are really down the 8TB 3.5" can be replaced by 12x 1TB 2.5". So now you'd have 16TB inside.

But why ?

As I said in my first post, all anticipates explicitly on USB3 external discs. When we think fairly normal, there is 3 USB3 ports available for 3 7 port USB3 hubs (which exist and which I own). The fourth USB3 port I reverse for the NOS1, might one have that and want it USB3 connected. So this is 21 free USB3 ports, and I really don't see at this moment how that can ever be too few. Additionally, most probably USB3 hubs can be cascaded as well. What's left to wish for, knowing that USB3 is fast enough to my standards.

Lastly, when you will finally see 0.9z-7 you will agree that trying out a few things with different types of discs really is beneficial, if you only can do it easily.

Peter

[PeterSt]

[...]the way Chris Connaker's builder sells his CAPS 2.0 server, constitutes more work and a bigger PITA for you).

Haha, not sure what you mean here. It seems contradictionary. Might you mean that people (commercially) building a CAPS 2.0 will be competition (nah, you won't mean that), ... there can't be because this is not a commercial thing on my side.
If you (halfway) mean that people shouldn't be building or buying that CAPS 2.0, you are correct. Not for the reason it may take more time (if that is what you are saying) but because it is the slowest thing out there. Not that I want to bash on it, but for XXHighEnd there is no way it can work. Not for SQ either.

That parts list for sure will be there and it will be there for everybody who likes building themselves. But first I must be 100% ready with it, like right now we are exchanging chassis fans (wrong : finding them somewhere (first)) because I am not satisfied with them.

This also avoids dealing with VAT if one is so inclined to avoid dealing with an international transaction.

Our VAT works differently from what you have on Sales Tax out there. So, people have to pay VAT either way, once they are VAT legible. Or not when not. Besides, local companies can claim it back (which is standard procedure) while companies outside Holland who are VAT legible won't be charged VAT in the first place. All 'n all it won't matter anywhere and the only thing which may be in order is customs import duties (roughly, the counterpart of being legible to VAT is paying import duties).

[PeterSt]

My final question(for now) is where does XXHE max out for system requirements. CAPS 2.0 and even the 2011 dual core mac mini are considered to be overpowered for most music server needs but woefully underpowered for XXHE.

The answer really is : everywhere.

To start with the most simple to understand (not that I ask you to understand it ) is that XXHighEnd might be the least consuming on the CPU side out there. I mean, look at your 32/768 playback and what happens to the CPU. Actually nothing else but some driver activity - which is out of my control because OS Kernel stuff (I can't reach). Still you will see a virtual overall of 0% with a more beeffy processor (like my 870, although fairly old fahsioned already).
But all the devils are in the details here and this is about sound quality and for my part that 3930K brings it to another level. I know why but it can't be explained. Anyway this is all about the most detailed OS stuff. Add to this that even for the 8 core I never started maxing SQ out in this context, so that should be a next job.
Let's summarize this under "responsiveness" which follows from speed. Or another one which comes fairly close : the lower the speedlimit on the highway the more queues there will be (this is about capacity).
The number of cores is highly beneficial to all - more than sheer speed (this is why I claim that Hyperthreading *must* be on, no matter the clockspeed per processor halves because of it).

Still talking about sheer processor speed and referring to the Mini - no. No, and no way. What I refer to now is OS/X being so lousy that a bug in it doesn't allow for proper (1ms) USB timing (I am talking OS/X operation now and not Windows), which would have been solved when the processor speed (and spreading of tasks -> cores !) would have been higher. And, in the iMac 2011 that is so, and there is no problem at all in there (i7 quad core). So, what we see is that people or instances are allowed to make some mistakes (bugs) which can be solved by sheer speed.

The remainder of the story is much more complicated, to understand or get the grasp of, depending on the (your) experience;

Let's refer to a couple of players out there which make you prepare something like a playlist and feed it to the player. The example could be about upsampling, while you are supposed to do the upsampling because the player itself doesn't do it for you. So, you grab your iZotope or whatever, convert the files, and when done give it to the player. How much time will that take you ? How totally inconvenient that is ?

An even more difficult example is about the so called memory players out there, where every single player by now calls itself just that. But is it true ? For by far the most it is not at all. You can increase a buffer size which mimics a few things, but all what really happens is that reading goes on while playing. Don't believe that ? well, start a track by such a player and see how quickly it starts playing. Right away, right ? Can't be ...
And oh, I am not saying that to the letter there's no "memory playback" going on, but there is that and the real thing. And the real thing does it for real. The difference ? SQ.

With these two examples out of quite some more, you now must imagine that when all is setup correctly you won't even notice that XXHighEnd is in that leage of "the right way". Now suddenly all has to come togther in optima forma, or otherwise you will be waiting for a minute before your album has loaded (CAPS 2.0) and will have gaps in between tracks. And for 0.9z-7 the new features won't even be usable.
When it has been done right your album plays within 2-3 seconds and includes FLAC decoding, upsampling from 16/44100 to 705600 plus copying to some "playback drive" (like Copy to XXDrive).
So a major part is about conveniency, if gapless is included and not "SQ" to begin with.

From another angle you could say that it is highly SQ impeded, because when you are allowed to use an SFS of 430 by itself, but all is too slow wo deal with the in-memory stuff which implies close to 2GB for this setting, what to do with it, knowing (from others !) that 430 really sounds way better than 80 which is the max in your case (hypothetically).

Oh, I could say that I explicitly anticipate on well performing systems, which is nothing different from my ever back saying that laptops won't suffice (no matter which). So, when I make things to work in real time, you hardly noticing it is being done for you (like the offline upsampling example instead) I do explicitly not anticipate on slow laptops and the like. They never worked with XXHighEnd and never will, although Minimizing the OS helps a lot here (same with CAPS, same with Mini).

Here too I only gave a few examples while there is a lot more and which may be beyond your (of you all) experience. Think 25,000 albums and more, for which all has been made and which I have in there. Then too it should keep on working well, and it does with an "on par" system.
Most of it is not even CPU clock speed related at all, but it is about how the CPU is organized. This is again why laptops won't work. Those CPUs are different, but might run at 3GHz at the same time ...
IO channel stuff is even more important, and there really everything can fail. This too is partly CPU related, but it is also related to the discs, the controllers, the interface to the discs (which could be LAN -> booh) etc. etc. Here too this PC tries to max all out in reasonable fahsion - knowing that not all can be had at the same time. For example, the OS discs I propose in there *is* a 7200 rpm (not common for 2.5") but it is no SATA3. Next comes the more smart configuration of what utilizes which and where the OS disc can be excluded when properly setup. This by itself is XXHighEnd related, but the hardware must comply to it. So, the OS disc could have been SATAIII easily, but only 3x SATAIII is in there, so what will we put on SATAII then which is worse net ?

Right. All is one big consistent pile of everything which must come together. And not the most small (like a Mini) where really everything and all is compromised (okay, except for the size).

I hope this helps a bit ...
Peter

[PeterSt]

Also, why not sell 2.5 and 3.5 hard drives with the OS and XXHE already installed  and configured for the person who wants to avoid the standard learning curve usually associated with getting XXHE up and running?

I think I already said something about that in reply to a question about it : Yes, for 100% sure XXHighEnd will be installed and configured and everything.

What I didn't tell yet is that these things also include the install of all the (proper) drivers, which also is huge task for some - without the reference. So, when I hear some click during playback *I* know it doesn't belong and can be avoided. I also know where not to be, like lowering the SFS (or whatever) could help. No, something must be wrong somewhere, and obviously I will find what it is.

These things are not to be underestimated. I mean, how can *you* know what can be achieved ? On your side all you can think of is that "lowering" some setting takes away the problem. Bad luck that SQ is hammered upon, but you didn't know anyway because you never could try it with the good settings.

And let me be honest - even I learn about things weekly. What implies which. Really so many things are OS related and that OS is so huge ...

[PeterSt]

Okay, last one I think ...

While I'm posting I have to ask an unrelated question. I received the dongles in the mail today(a big THANK YOU to you) and I wonder whether they would work now with my iPad or whether I have to first wait for 0.9-7z.

There is nothing much you can do with them right now.
It is even better not to attempt anything because the driver install which is to happen (with a driver I will provide later) can only be tempered by whatever you did and which I won't know.

Happy reading and I hope not too many typos were in everything (I did not read back).
Peter