I want to upgrade from my aging q6600, and consider reusing my Antec sonata solo (1) case and corsair 520hx powersupply. I guess they should still be fine although they are 5 years old now?

These are the components I'm looking at:
-Core i7 3770k, this seems to be the most powerful cpu available at a reasonable price? (better than 3820?)
-Asus p8b75 (no particular reason for this board, I have good experience with asus and this seems reasonable priced, is this a "good" chipset?)
-32gb Kingston hyper x 1600mhz (I sometimes do a little orchester programming, currently using 4gb, is 32gb way to much/overkill?)

It's been a few years since I last upgraded obviously, so I'm not sure f.ex how much ram I "need" or can use etc. I use cubase: mixing real bands, a little with orchestral programming and programming band-type music with vsti's. And also appreciate a low-noise computer. Any tips or recommendations are highly welcome.

Regards
Svein

I also am considering a upgrade and have been looking at same components so would be interested for more expert opinions.
I was using Scans premade DAWs to help spec out the components with aim to construct myself, although I dont know how easy it is to setup SSD disk caching etc

Quote Badeshi:

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I also am considering a upgrade and have been looking at same components so would be interested for more expert opinions.
I was using Scans premade DAWs to help spec out the components with aim to construct myself, although I dont know how easy it is to setup SSD disk caching etc

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It's a setting. You don't have to write pages of code or anything!

Quote Badeshi:

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I dont know how easy it is to setup SSD disk caching etc

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As far as I know you essentially have three options...

1 - Buy a computer that has ExpressCache built into it. Unless you're an OEM you can't buy the necessary yourself, whereas scan obviously can get it.
2 - Software like Fancy-Cache - http://www.romexsoftware.com/en-us/fancy-cache/
3 - Buy an OCZ (or similar drive) that comes with a kit including a card that lets you setup the SSD cas a cache to another drive. I think this is the OCZ RevoDrive, but I've never used one myself.

Edited by Magic Matt (21/11/12 04:21 PM)

ok so maybe not too hard, thanks! just need to get spec and convince myself it will be that much faster than my current PC

Also is i7 a huge improvement from i5? I am thinking price really....

cheers
B

Are there any negatives reusing my antec sonata solo cabinet and my corsair 520hx powersupply?

I would wait a few days before you decide about the power supply. Pete Kane is always very knowledgeable in these matters and his opinion is worth waiting for. It might be worth doing some numbers with him to work out whether or not a new power supply is a worthwhile investment.

Andy

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When the going gets weird, the Weird turn Pro.

Thanks, will wait and see if he drops by. Any opninion on the b75 chipset? I see it misses SSD caching, maybe I should consider that.

B75 offers "native" PCI support with Ivy/Sandy Bridge, which may be relevant if using older PCI cards. It's a "business-oriented" desktop chipset, so not intended for overclocking/gaming, although several mobo makers do offer B75 boards with overclocking support (and ridiculously, dual PCIe-16 slots). One downside of B75 is that it provides only a single SATA 6Gb/s (SATA III) port, the remaining 5 ports are only SATA 3Gb/s (SATA II), whereas other Ivy Bridge chipsets offer 2x SATA 6Gb/s ports. Also, onboard RAID support is iffy.

If you aren't going to be using a power-hungry gaming graphics card(s), then your power supply requirements will be dictated by the cpu and chipset and to a lesser extent by memory and drives. A 3770k draws less power than your Q6600 does, and B75 PCH draws less power than the old socket 775 NB/SB chipsets do, so with a moderate performance graphics card the power requirements for a B75/3770k 32GB system should actually be less than for your Q6600 4GB system, even if moderately overclocking the cpu. If using a cpu with integrated graphics, power requirements might be even less, So your Corsair PSU should still be more than adequate.

3820 requires an X79 mobo, and only makes sense if one needs more memory or graphics performance.

Quote Goddard:

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B75 offers "native" PCI support with Ivy/Sandy Bridge, which may be relevant if using older PCI cards. It's a "business-oriented" desktop chipset, so not intended for overclocking/gaming, although several mobo makers do offer B75 boards with overclocking support (and ridiculously, dual PCIe-16 slots).

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The second PCIe x16 slot simply aggregates four of the eight available PCIe lanes from the PCH. The (mechanical) x16 form factor allows any PCIe (x1, x4, x8 or x16) card to be installed, though obviously the performance of any such card will be limited to PCIe 2.0 x4 speed.

Quote Goddard:

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Also, onboard RAID support is iffy.

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That's an interesting statement. Care to elaborate?

Quote Goddard:

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3820 requires an X79 mobo, and only makes sense if one needs more memory or graphics performance.

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Or expansion capability (up to 40 PCIe lanes from the CPU, as compared to 16 from Sandy/Ivy). Or - if the DAWbench results posted by ADK are any guide - sheer muscle.

http://adkproaudio.com/benchmarks.cfm

Oh, and you won't find HDMI/Displayport on B75.

Quote Mora___di:

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I want to upgrade from my aging q6600, and consider reusing my Antec sonata solo (1) case and corsair 520hx powersupply. I guess they should still be fine although they are 5 years old now?

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Case should be fine, althrough you might want to examine the fans to make sure they are still running quietly. They tend to get noiser as they age, so if keeping it quiet is important you might want to think about that.

The PSU... well my personal guide line is that they will all fail at some point and that I don't tend to risk it much past the warranty period expecially if doing an upgrade. The hx series has a 5 year warranty and you say its five years old so its already at the manufactures estimated life span limit.

Also consider that they tend to deteriorate with age so something that was rock solid at purchase may now have a bit more variance in the voltage it's putting out and quite possibly will be putting out less over all due to capacitor ware and tear. So yeah on paper a 500w psu should still be fine for running your next upgrade, I'd still feel better about fitting a new one when you do the upgrade if only so you don't have to strip it out and re-cable everything in a years time.

Quote Mora___di:

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These are the components I'm looking at:
-Core i7 3770k, this seems to be the most powerful cpu available at a reasonable price? (better than 3820?)
-Asus p8b75 (no particular reason for this board, I have good experience with asus and this seems reasonable priced, is this a "good" chipset?)
-32gb Kingston hyper x 1600mhz (I sometimes do a little orchester programming, currently using 4gb, is 32gb way to much/overkill?)

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I've not played around with that board or even all that much with that chipset (being a business solution) so Goddards advice above is probably more relevent here than anything I can add. Regarding the CPU the is only any point in getting a K series chip if the motherboard will allow overclocking which I'm not sure if that one does or not.

Memory wise unless your building vast VSL templates anything more than 16GB may prove overkill. Try getting you memory in 8GB sticks and just grab a pair to start with. If you find yourself maxing it out in the first few weeks then just grab some more, but from what you say I'm not expecting you to have any problems with that TBH.

Quote Magic Matt:

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Quote Badeshi:

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I dont know how easy it is to setup SSD disk caching etc

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As far as I know you essentially have three options...

1 - Buy a computer that has ExpressCache built into it. Unless you're an OEM you can't buy the necessary yourself, whereas scan obviously can get it.
2 - Software like Fancy-Cache - http://www.romexsoftware.com/en-us/fancy-cache/
3 - Buy an OCZ (or similar drive) that comes with a kit including a card that lets you setup the SSD cas a cache to another drive. I think this is the OCZ RevoDrive, but I've never used one myself.

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Just to expand on this the are a number of drives designed for this from various firms with the Dataplex software solution appearing to be used in most cases. Corsair have the acclerator series, Sandisk have Readycache etc... so just give them a google and see what they get compared against.

The other option if your lucky is if you get an Intel chipset based board with it built into the feature set of the board. In those cases you need the intel SRT driver and a change in the bios and your up and running on any ssd of 64gb or under.

Quote Badeshi:

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Also is i7 a huge improvement from i5? I am thinking price really....

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Price to performance ratio the 3770/3770k is probably the best option.

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ScanProAudio & 3XS Audio Systems
ScanProAudio Blog

Quote Johnsy:

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Quote Goddard:

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Also, onboard RAID support is iffy.

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That's an interesting statement. Care to elaborate?

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Intel's tech specs indicate no RAID support on B75 SATA ports:

http://ark.intel.com/products/64030/Intel-BD82B75-PCH

http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/chipsets/7-series-chi...

while elsewhere Intel touts B75's SATA RAID capabilities:

http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/chipsets/b75-express-...

http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/chipsets/business-chi...

The B75 boards I've tried, including Intel's own B75 board (DB75EN) offer only AHCI, no RAID. Hence, I consider intel's touted RAID support on B75 as "iffy".

Quote Johnsy:

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Oh, and you won't find HDMI/Displayport on B75.

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Oh really?

HDMI on B75:
http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=4405#... (2x HDMI + 1x DVI)

DP on B75:
http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=4203#sp (HDMI + DP + DVI)

Thank you very much, a lot of very good guidance here!

3770 vs 3770k, the reason I was looking at the K version was because of 3,5ghz instead of the 3770's 3,4ghz. So you say that 3770k is pointless if one doesn't care about overclocking? (I assume overclocking still isn't recommended if one wants the pc quiet?)

Maybe I should consider the asus p8h77 as it includes two 6gb sata's, and intel's SRT/ssd caching, with this one I could use any SSD up to 64gb as a cache disk? Are there any compatibility/latency/stability issues with any of the chipsets or is that issue a thing of the past?

regards
Svein

Quote Mora___di:

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3770 vs 3770k, the reason I was looking at the K version was because of 3,5ghz instead of the 3770's 3,4ghz.

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You wouldn't notice the difference at stock however and both of them auto turbo to the same 3.9Ghz point.

Quote Mora___di:

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So you say that 3770k is pointless if one doesn't care about overclocking?

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Yes.

Quote Mora___di:

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(I assume overclocking still isn't recommended if one wants the pc quiet?)

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No, you can still overclock, but you have to put quite a bit more thought and spend a bit more on cooling if you want to run cool and quiet.

Quote Mora___di:

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Maybe I should consider the asus p8h77 as it includes two 6gb sata's, and intel's SRT/ssd caching, with this one I could use any SSD up to 64gb as a cache disk?

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A quick Google suggests that it does support it so yes to all of the above.

Quote Mora___di:

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Are there any compatibility/latency/stability issues with any of the chipsets or is that issue a thing of the past?

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The are no overall chipset issues anymore but boards can vary on how ideal they are. Most of the tier one suppliers who don't cut corners on design and build(that includes Asus) get it right most of the time through.

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ScanProAudio & 3XS Audio Systems
ScanProAudio Blog

Quote Goddard:

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Oh really?

HDMI on B75:
http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=4405#... (2x HDMI + 1x DVI)

DP on B75:
http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=4203#... (HDMI + DP + DVI)

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I stand corrected.

As for RAID, it looks to me that B75 isn't RST-enabled - a fact that Intel seem to have made a complete dog's dinner of documenting. Despite a few red herrings - among 'B75 Motherboards' on the Scan site, for example! - I've not managed to turn up an example of a RAID-capable B75 board.

Thank you, I really appreciate the great help and advice!

regards
Svein

great info thanks!

I ended up ordering a 3770k and a p8z77 board, and 16gb ram.
Building a new system, is it best to play safe and go win7 or should one go right to win8? (I'm coming from win xp)

It's totally up to you, but as I reported in the latest PC Notes column, I went for Windows 7 on my recently built PC because I know that all its drivers are already rock-solid (fingers crossed anyway)


Martin

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YewTreeMagic

Hi Martin, can we expect a forthcoming PC Notes about your new PC build?

Quote Johnsy:

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As for RAID, it looks to me that B75 isn't RST-enabled - a fact that Intel seem to have made a complete dog's dinner of documenting. Despite a few red herrings - among 'B75 Motherboards' on the Scan site, for example! - I've not managed to turn up an example of a RAID-capable B75 board.

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Yeah, it appeared to have confused whoever set up the boards on our site as well as they do appear to have just ticked SATA instead of stating RAID or not. I've just gone through the ones we have in stock and they do appear RAIDless so following your comments I've adjusted our spec sheets to make this a little clearer.

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ScanProAudio & 3XS Audio Systems
ScanProAudio Blog

Quote Goddard:

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Hi Martin, can we expect a forthcoming PC Notes about your new PC build?

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Well I did promise some time ago in SOS to write a feature detailing my next build, so if there's still interest I must get in touch with the guys at SOS Towers.


Martin

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YewTreeMagic

Kerrrr Chinggggg



Andy

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When the going gets weird, the Weird turn Pro.

Quote:

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Well I did promise some time ago in SOS to write a feature detailing my next build, so if there's still interest I must get in touch with the guys at SOS Towers.

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+1
ASAP please!