New PC Hardware

[se7en]

Hello together
I want to buy a new PC and it is difficult to configure. The CPU is not working at full capacity but the frequency is always limited.
My software is HH3 and Arturia V Collection 5 using VST Instruments Modular, Mini Moog, Jupiter, SC 80, ARP, Prophet, Wurlitzer and Spark. The VST instruments are easily integrated into HH3.
Questions:
1. is it still important to have a big socket? LGA 2066 with CPU i9 X or is a LGA i9 9900K enough? As far as I know the 9900K is better for overclocking up to 5GHz. I overclocked my old CPU 3930K to 4.3 GHz and it works fine. WAKU included.
2 Which motherboard is good for Live Musk? I've always heard that gigabytes are good with the Z390 chipset, but I don't have the reason for gigabytes. My favorite is Gigabyte Z390 Designare but what about ASUS?
3 I have a Fosurite 8i6 and want a RME Fireface UC. My question is now better to work with USB or a Firewire?
4 Which graphics card should I use? Currently I have a Nvidia GeForce GTX 1070. In the HH3 I have many small areas, switches, oscillograph, layers and so on. In the Midi sequencer I work with two layers on top of each other. Maybe I need SLI? then I can't use this motherboard.

Thank you very much for the answer.

Greetings Se7en

[x.iso]

as for CPU, just get a good balance for core count and core speed, overclocking can help if you have intense processing chains and if that overclocking can be sustained with proper cooling and no side-effects (sometimes system may just shutdown on heavy load when overclocking to the limit, so stable clock speed is key here).
picking right motherboard is important too, but unfortunately I can't recommend anything as I haven't tested any new ones in recent years.

Firewire is pretty much obsolete, and I don't have anything positive to say about this interface from my experience. It's sensitive to static, not great dealing with sudden disconnects, etc. I think there are USB 3 soundcard out there now, but for the most uses regular USB is enough. Focusrite btw has reputation of having bad drivers, RME should be better, or Audient.

As for GPU, on my old laptop with GT750M 2gb gddr5 and hardware acceleration on in Usine, the load on GPU is very light, like 5% tops no matter how complex the worspace is, and it does draw it very quickly too at minimal 5ms refresh rate. So you probably don't need an upgrade for that. At least check GPU load with your current setup, it shouldn't be strained.

[oli_lab]

RME is definitly the most reliable soundcards.

[drakh]

regarding the usb vs fw. usb is fully managed by cpu, fw is managed by fw controller.. i personally prefer fw, but now you don't need to save cpu performance using fw. one disatvatage of fw is that from what i heard you have to carefully select the controller (TI chipset is recommended) on windows, because it can goes to conflicts with other hw - mostly network cards, resulting in crackles in sound. whaatever, i never owned TI chipset FW controller, and i never had those kind of problems i read a lot about on forums...i had a lenovo and hp notebooks with firewire... Now i own dell, with thrunderbolt socket, so i connect my FW card using tb3 to tb2 and tb2 to fw dongles from apple, without problem as well.

[se7en]

Thank you for replying it is exciting to read.
After my research, I take the CPU I9 9900KS. The S guarantees a clock of 5GHz on all cores. I think this is a good mix between many tracks and big tracks in Usine.

The VRM on the Maderbord are also very important for the power supply from the CPU. Gigabyt has motherboards which are certified for 5GHz.
My favorite Designare is nothing written about the certification. I will ask Gigabyte about the certification. Designare has a Tunderbold 3 port and this is interesting for RME. I hope the IRQ shares is right. Another advantage of the designer is the possibility to make a hackingtosh.
I will ask RME which motherboard they prefer. I can imagine an additional PCI-E Thunderbold card for RAME connection. I will publish the result of RME.
@x.iso, oli_lab: RME have the better drivers and have more possibilities. I'll look for an RME.
@drakh: IRQ is an important topic. I have experienced the graphics and network cards share the same IRQ. This causes interference with the Aduio signal.
As far as I know a special TI chip was necessary for the RME FW. RME wrote the driver for the TI chip itself.

Thanks again for your answers and communication.

Greetings se7en

[nay-seven]

interesting discussion,
feel free to share your results/feedback about this config !

[redcottage]

Robin Vincent of Molten Music Technology has a video series on building an audio PC. He builds them professionally so he covers general hardware ideas and OS tweaking for reliable/stable operation. Here's a link to Part 1: https://youtu.be/HjyKVVRFhOI

[se7en]

Hello Together
I have news
I've talked to RME and Gigabyte.
RME couldn't tell me exactly which motherboard is needed. I asked what the difference is between Fireface UC and UCX, the X has effects onboard and can be used with an I-Pad.
If you are using a Firewire chipset, you have to make sure that it is a TI chipset. The chipset 2200A is not compatible.
I take the Fireface UCX with an additional PCI-E Firewire or USB card, because the answers from Gigabyte are:
The CPU I9 9900KS is supported at BIOS version F5.
The PCI-E 1x slot makes no share with the other slots for example M.2, network or USB.
@Redcottage: I saw Youtube and agree with Molten Music Technology. I know studios that have a separate room for the PC, it doesn't matter what the volume of the PC is. I think overclocking is a good solution if it doesn't give complications.
In video from Molten Music Technology no.5 it takes the CPU I9900X that's the big socket. As much as I know you can't overclock it to 5GHz and is for very large projects. I think for Live it is better if the CPU has more Hz. I also don't need LEDs and bling blilng on the motherboard but if it's better for CPU then I'll take a bling bling motherboard.

[x.iso]

why not AMD though? recently Ryzens wipe the floor with even top of the line Intel CPU's for less price. so far I've seen it perform very well on PC's of few people I know.

[se7en]

I have no experience with Ryzen. It's a good CPU but as much as I know and have had experience with it, Intel is more stable. Many DAW vendors and audio interface manufacturers test their software and hardware on Intel.
For virtualizations Intel is better because it is the Gleichskoma, (I don't know what that means in English, do better and have better performance on the single core.
But I like to be surprised by people who have AMD. AMD comes very close to Intel and in some things better.
I'm still using Intel, but it can change.
Do you have experience with AMD x.sio? Let me know it.

[x.iso]

I'm still on old laptop with intel CPU, but from what I've seen from few guys in Discord chat, testing same patch on same DAW, i9-9900K vs Ryzen 5 3600 had about same results, while 3700x had better results still (more headroom for CPU left on same patch). so there's that.

[se7en]

Interessant. Do you know which software is used? Tarektor, Ableton Live or even HH3-4?
I think it also depends where the audioenginge runs. On the CPU or on an external audio device for example Pioneer. It also depends on whether the plugins, VST or FX are used.

[x.iso]

That was on Bitwig, using same preset consisting of native devices. But, said devices could also utilize multi-threading for voices (which is available in some VSTs too), so there's that too. in Usine as far as I know threads are distributed by racks only.