Mainly about New Build, but about M.2 too

Hardware Hub Build a PC
1

I'm sure you hear it all the time but, I'm sorry for the length. Thanks in advance.
'
I have a physical limitation which limits my ability to hold things, particularly tiny screws or even thumb screws so about 5 years ago I just paid ibuypower to build me a computer and it's still working great but work's demands are starting to tax the i7-920 with 12GB.

It's time for a new computer. yay. I decided to use them again after configuring and then price checking those parts. I got a lemon with some pretty bad customer service. Finally I found a way to get in touch with 5 of the big dogs, the owner, the ceo, the director of marketing, etc. They finally are getting me a refund. I bought the pc in Feb. That's a long time. It went back twice, they said it was the motherboard, but they replaced the ps with a better one too.
Still crappy, it wasn't as clear it was hardware this time. Although, I have never seen a mb destroy hard drives, this thing killed 4 of mine, 2 containing a 20 year music collection much of which was ripped cds (much higher quality than mp3), other lossless formats, ripped vinyl etc. So I spent a lot of time working on it myself. Even, embarrassingly, calling a local repair shop to come out. They said I had done everything they would have or could have done. Back it went and they found 'a lot of stuff wrong'. Doesn't matter, just setting the stage.

The board was a Gigabyte something something Gaming 5 which I chose due to the changeable op amps and independent left and right channel pcb's. I am a content creator (I've recently taken up that term after seeing it everywhere) but I do a little bit of everything with a degree in 'Computer Arts/New Media', from a little After Effects for promos and ads, to a little ActionScripting in Flash for the same reasons, digital drawings and paintings, and so on.
So tons of PS and Illustrator and on top of this, I'm a sound engineer and I do some mixing (with a lot of plug-ins running on the pc and not dedicated cards, this eats ram like crazy like you can imagine if you don't know). Hence the board with the best sound although I use completely external sound 95% of the time.

So F them, I'm going to drop some screws and build it myself.
I'm in love with the NZXT S340 case. Thought I would never let a case determine my hardware, moving more toward ssds seem like the way to go anyway. There's not much hard drive space in here. I have seven 3.5s left and a 240GB entry level ssd. All 7 only equal somewhere around 11.5 TB, I sort of like buying on the 'enthusiast' (I hate that word) edge or side of things though I do no overclocking, I might someday if I ever find the time.
So, Audio clients' work is always done on external drives for obvious reasons. So that takes care of that.

I was thinking of starting all hard drives from scratch (at the time of that 920, sata3 wasn't a common option, six months later it was, so most of these drives are horrible) and going with
2 4TB WD Black hdds for extra crap or stuff I don't use regularly.
Past this case and these drives, which are sort of only because there are only two spots for them and it's cheap storage, I have ideas and wanted input. I hate to use an X99 board with so many sata ports when the case is lacking but I think we can cover that.

I was really, really liking this build I saw here. Much easier to link to:
https://teksyndicate.com/videos/nzxt-x99-build-s340-case-hale-90-v2-1000w-psu-kraken-x61-etc#comment-form

But I would want to lessen it overall, keeping the same idea. The i7-5820 seems like a decent compromise. I'm good with the ram. I've never had a problem with cooling and with maybe a game every two months I'm not pushing it steadily when I do. The gpu I ordered on the lemon was a gtx 960. Being on the fringe of the gaming production world with the art and stuff sometimes I like to turn them on and run around just looking for awhile and I'm interested in checking out 3d gaming. I'm not averse to moving that up to a 980 to more future proof the system. It seems like I could step the psu back a good bit, y'all would know better how far.

So I guess Im getting further and further away from that build but I also liked the dual M.2s which make up for the lack of bays. but what's the difference between the pci-e addon or the built in one? I would use both, I assume that's possible with only on gpu taking up 16 lanes. But he chose this one:
http://tinyurl.com/nr74vj2
what's the difference that causes such a dramatic price difference to this:
http://tinyurl.com/qjr9plz

The first one goes on the addon card best i can tell, I guess they're different sizes, I know nothing about them except I put one in a NUC for my dad once. I don't understand why the 2nd one says 3.5 inch. 80mm, the length, is closer to 3" so that;s not it. Maybe the number of lanes they are running on. The both list transfer speed at 6Gb but they run faster, right? Any help would be appreciated as these would be my OS and programs.

So those are the differences I would want to make, any thoughts and/or help with M.2? That would allow me to add more ssds in the future.

I'm also concerned as to the X99 platform in general, is it not ready or something? I've read a lot of bad reviews of motherboards and if 'that' company is to be believed, I got two bad one that 'ate' four hdds. Maybe it's just Gigabyte though that;s what I have now and it has been fine for 5 years.

2

So, what's your budget exactly?

And what do you already own? 2 4TB drives and a PC case? and a bunch of misc hard drives of various sizes it seems

basically if you can sum up what you're looking for a PC things would be easier

Also if you look for a local PC shop you could probably just have them order the parts and get them to build it, and then just install your OS yourself to save some money by using linux wink wink

And as for those 2 SSDs, the more expensive one is faster it seems, though I don't think most people need an SSD that fast.

Also did you consider building a NAS as well for your storage needs? that way you aren't filling your case with hard drives.

Also it might be a decent idea to invest in a blu ray burner and some discs to archive your music to more permanently.

3

I'm sorry if I wasn't clear, budget is around 2k but a hundred or two more wouldn't kill the wallet if it was needed.

I don't own anything toward a new computer.

I meant describing what I do to as a means to describe what I need and then that I like to buy a little over what I need so it will keep up with the new software for work(s) that are coming out so quickly and just for fun. I'm sorry if that was confusing. What I do, and want the computer to be able to do extremely well now and pretty damn well in 5 years or so, is animation in After Effects. In Photoshop; drawing, painting, photo manipulation, some canvases are multiple feet in height and width. Much of the Adobe Creative Suite is used. I am a new media designer and digital painter and those involve photography too, half the time in RAW. And tons of other stuff in most forms of media available on a computer.

On the same computer, more and most of my work is as a mixing sound engineer. That's using a virtual desk, those long things you see in studios with thousands of buttons to balance audio and using virtual replications of real world hardware (plugins) that can have detailed graphical representations but mainly are processing audio in uncompressed format in real time over many multiple tracks. I am generally working with 20-30 tracks at a time, each will almost definitely have at least two plugins, usually four to eight and sometimes more if you are making an effect or something. These also double drum tracks (and others) with programs that use samples and sometimes tracks are made almost wholly of samples.

Both of these jobs are taxing on a processor and ram and these things are what I am looking for a computer to do. In audio, much of the samples are called from the hard drive instead of loading them all into ram, that would be to physically expensive to keep every version of every modeled note of a piano in ram (there are thousands of samples per instrument) and there would be multiple instruments at a time.

There is occasionally a game played.

NAS isn't an option for the working drives because I need latency under 5ms, which is hard enough already though SSDs have made it easier. It is an option in the future for media files that I'm in no hurry to figure out now.
I'm completely fine trashing 7 or 8 hdds that only have 11TB between them to move to 8TB of hdd and 1TB on 2.5" SSD and another on M.2. Not that 11 is the magic number, I could work with 6 probably.
A local shop would charge a fortune, much more than ibuypower. I'd do better giving them another chance on a different board. But I am completely capable of building a computer. I was liking that build so I was stealing the ideas, just downsizing, so for a build, I was thinking:

NZXT S340 Case
Intel i7-5820
32 GB ram, I think he listed Ballistix Sport which looked like a good fit for me on their website
I can figure out the 3.5 and 2.5 hdds and ssds respectively but I need help understanding the M.2.
I'm not stuck to a board yet either, the one from his list offers the extra M.2 slot on the PCI-e add on board and some decent audio when I'm not in studio mode using offboard DACs.
GTX 960 or 980, just because I want to and the artwork and what's happening in newer games is of interest to me professionally and I do play occasionally, when my hand work well enough. I'm trying BF Hardline now.

I am looking for then:

help with a solid motherboard for this processor. I had bad luck with a couple of Gigabytes, but they've done me well in the past.
Help understanding the M.2 differences if they are all PCI-e 3.0 x 4.
My understanding is that on the board the article listed,
The 2 M.2s are beneficial for latency on the audio plugins and DAWS, but I could install all other programs to an SSD if only one M.2 were available. Or, I could buy a card.

Cooling for processor and case (which has never been a problem even with the only two 200mm case fans on my current machine broken, so just the rad fan and ps fan.) The NZXT cooler he had looked nice but that's barely important.

and finally the size PS I would need for this.

I hope this clears up any confusion, maybe I should have rewritten the post.

4

oh, and i do use linux sort of sometimes. Tails, a very pared down version.

5

Did ya consider a 390? Nvidia's DX12 support has been called into question lately it's priced a bit under the 980

As for M.2 info, if you just wanted general info M.2 has a higher speed cap due to using PCI-e rather than sata. Otherwise not much difference over sata drives I think

And not for nothing, but we need to work on your writing compression skills lol so much text.

so there's my recommendation I suppose, it's at $1500 right now
http://pcpartpicker.com/p/DRW8gs

Motherboard Review:

with the case and cooler it should run pretty quietly, otherwise guess the drives are up to you, case has 9 internal 3.5" drive bays, although don't forget all the sata cables with the extra drives

6

Sorry you had problems with iBUYPOWER :c I had worked on one before and honestly it was a mess. I hear they are hit and miss.

Anyways, If you're into content creation I would consider AMD parts like the FX-8320 or even the brand new 9370. The extra threads will be a gods-send.

I do video editing and streaming so my build is an AMD build, but that doesn't mean I don't do music production and coding either :P

Also what did you have in mind for a mobo? You mentioned x99 but from what brand? Would you think about getting a Big BANG board or would that be a lot of crap you wouldn't need? Maybe a workstation board?

7

StreetGuru- I hadn't considered anything other than NVidia, no particular reason. Thanks, another thing to worry about.
I'm liking all of the Asus boards after that review and then one that went through all of them after that one. It seems like even the entry level (for X99, they're all good), X-99-A would get the job done. But the SaberTooth isn't that much more and I like the two usb 3.1 slots. And it seems more solid.
I like the case too but the goal is to get the number down and scrapping everything I own (except externals and one 240GB SSD) and starting over with two 4TB and two 500GB M.2. (And I would definitely drop something in that huge open screen. It says you can put a 200mm fan there, but I've been looking for one of those for two years for my current case and can't find one.)
It seems like everyone is saying that these drives are much faster for these audio programs and the manipulation of the sound (it's all about the plugins, which is way more into the ram's realm instead of the drive, but still)

Aremis- I'm now leaning toward Asus for the MB, there are reasons for the most entry 'A' model to the workstation. I don't want to monitor temperatures or control fan speeds (I shouldn't have to turn them down to be quiet) and I don't f around in the bios much at all, no overclocking (I may press the 5way auto thing though, the reviews of that are crazy good), I basically don't want to know the motherboard is there. A workstation board is leaning more to what I need with the multiple pci slots. The upgrades to an audio pc in a studio involve those plugins being powered by their own processors on boards or connectivity to external things also done on boards. But these are high dollar, probably down the road things. So this Sabertooth claims to be built like one to where you can set it and forget it if you want and claims 'mil-spec'.

I don't know if I'll notice 2 more cores doing audio where it's mostly ram intensive and for some reason I'm just more comfortable with Intel.

I do wonder if I should pay the 500 or so for 64GB of ram. People will probably say it's overkill but I remember not so long ago when we could go passed 3.25, that 8 was overkill. I know that I can cause problems for 16 very easily. And the plugins that they sell with their own boards, they do so for a reason. I already own the plugins minus the boards which are exactly the same they just don't have any processing power which is done by ram if you aren't using theirs.

I know I talk too much, StreetGuru, but most of it needs to be said and 7/8ths of my previous post was just repeating what I thought I was explaining in the first one.

Thanks though.
I've now got a MB and at least one M.2, I don't see where to buy the add on card for the Sabertooth for the other one.
A Processor and RAM.
I'll go with that cooler because I don't know anything about them, unless it was case specific.(I would've gone with that case when I first ordered the computer and was using hdds, but since I'm going to drop them...)
I'll watch a couple of videos on video cards but that sounds good too.
So that's everything except a case. Cheers.
Can I go back to my beautiful S340 now? and do I really need that much power? It's not a lot of money so it's fine, just wondering.

8

Ya, the motherboard is rather nice as per the review, nearly a workstation board but not quite, and the dust armor on it can be useful as well.

That actually has the wrong case in it, meant to go with a silencio case, the HAF XB case is nice, but it only has like 4 3.5" bays, but the case is whatever you want it to be, most nowadays support 240 radiators, it's just that the XB comes with 2 hot swap bays if you plan to archive your stuff regularly on hard drives

The cooler there is more just for silence, if you want a bit more performance look for a 280M, that is it has 2 140mm fans on it rather than a 240M which is 2 120mm fans.

9

I'm probably safe with the smallest cooler possible. I just have the stock ibuypower one (120 I think) on this i7-920 with an HD 5770, it had 2 200mm til they failed and there aren't replacements. I assume the radiators are moving some of the case's heat in addition to the processor?

Are these Noctua fans really so good? I've seen a lot of people even replacing fans on expensive coolers with them. Are they worth that at almost 30 bucks a pop? How 'bout replacing stock case fans? How 'bout if the case doesn't come with fans a.)will a decent cooler move enough air by itself (did I just get lucky on the airflow of this case I have) or b.) or will one intake or one exhaust plus cooler work. I've never had to deal with cooling really with not much gaming.

When Modern Warfare 2 came out (and Portal) I played straight through, and I put thousands of hours into WoW back in the day, but that's nothing, and I never play multiplayer.

That case had me thinking about not switching to ssds because I do swap them a lot now, but that's a silly reason to get a case, to keep an old, bad habit. Some of those drives are 5400rpm sata2 anyway, usb3 wasn't even around on much so it's time to move on. I'll look up the other one, something has got me drawn to that S340 though, I think it's the minimalist look after years of 11 shitty hard drives with abhorrent cable management. Talking too much again.

One last thing, I was just on the CoolerMaster page before I decided to check this one more time and I was using the power supply calculator and it says 507 watts. You still suggest twice that?

Oh, and RAM? It looks like I can do 64GB and stay close to budget. I don't like the word 'overkill' that's thrown around computers so often, unless it's specific like having 64GB to play Minesweeper or something because it hasn't been long since half a gig was standard and 1 was enthusiast grade. I'm trying to keep up with things like this:
http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/UAD2OctoUlt3
that aren't exactly the same, but tiny studios can't afford these and there are ones made that don't have dsp chips on a card that are run natively and 64GB would help in a way.

That's it man, I swear. Thanks a lot.
You guys that answer questions thoroughly and actually come back to make sure we are helped should set up bitcoin tip jars or something.

10

Noctua fans kinda the corvettes of the fan world. I do here that EK's Vardar fans are the bee's knees though. Seeing as how you mess around with sound, I feel like the silence of you fans may end up being important. But if you don't mind, then keep the stock ones. Replace them when they start lagging or start to become a nuisance.

You could always use those old drives and set up a NAS to store stuff. Idk, just spit balling.

I really just want to contribute because this all seems so interesting to me. I also read all that you wrote @johnnywayne, gotta say I am impressed by how much you wrote. The more I read the more I wanna help.

11

Wait you couldn't find 200mm fans? were they like thin or something? because that's a pretty standard fan size, overall the bigger your fan the slower it has to spin to move air the same rate as a higher RPM smaller fan. Making it naturally quieter.

the 1000W power supply is going to set you up for any future needs, and it'll run fairly efficiently since it won't be too stressed under load.

And ya, those fans just really aren't worth it, I'm personally more interested in the fractal design venturi fans, they're 140mm, but you can swap out the mounts on them and install them in a 120mm slot. They also run pretty quietly

12

James_Gallier- mess around with? It pays my bills.
I'm kidding, not about the bills, just the acting like you should know. Yeah, It bought my house and pretty much everything I own and it's a good guess that a silent build would be super important, but I receive the project after it's already been tracked. I'm a mix engineer and these days we can do that ITB (in the box) at home because of these plugins and just a little bit of hardware. We do the step after recording and can put a million dollar studio in our computer. This guy is a multi-grammy winner if you're interested in what our 'studios' look like.

Who'da thunk you could win a Grammy and make Jay-Z or Ed Sheeran or whoever's album in your pajamas in your basement. There are often three or four or many more speakers about two feet from our head (because we have to know it's going to sound good on everything from earbuds to audiophile equipment), and even mixing relatively low at 85db on something like those little square Avantones above the white NS-10s, a computer fan or two isn't going to be much of a problem. Though you'd still not like it to be screaming.
I probably will put them in a NAS, good call, though I'm not too familiar with them they can't be hard. The reason I have so many is from tv shows and movies anyway, it'd be great to broadcast them back to the media room to watch on the projector.

SG- I looked for 200mm fans and there were tons so I waded through receipts because I knew I tried a couple of years back and even fairly recently wrote the company and he said they were discontinued and found this:

NZXT Panzerbox All Aluminum welded Gaming Tower Case w/Dual 190mm fans support

So of course you're right, sorry.

13

Videos about a year old now though, they did a recent review of a new pre-built NAS barebones as well

190mm, must be an odd typo, or they really had custom 190mm fans, closest I could find on newegg were 180mm

14

They are definitely real. Searching my emails, I evidently wrote them about it two years ago and also a couple of months ago.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811146056

Thanks for the NAS info, and everything else. I'm almost close to done picking my parts. I only have to look up the specs to determine a.)where I can find the addon pci M.2 card for the Sabertooth, if there is one. (they made it sound like there was one made for it specifically. Not just that you could go buy any of them.) I don't see that it comes with it like some other models I don't see that it comes with it like some other models. and b.) if they would then both be running on the pcie lanes getting a cap of 32Gbps or if they would be seen as SATA.

And read up on booting from one, though it looks easy and like some ASUS boards will just do it.