Post Your Computer Build

Those NUC's are really cool suggestion! Unfortunately I don't have an easy way to run cables around my apartment. If they can get a little loud I would rather just build a computer that can operate close to silently. The small form factor isn't a huge sticking point for me, I have lots of space to hide a case away if I have to. I only went for smaller form factor because I didn't see the purpose of having a gigantic empty case.
Having the ability to add in a couple hard drives is another reason I think a larger size would make more sense over the long term.

I do have a laptop but I think it is an inherently noisier solution and doesn't allow as many storage options. I was thinking of making an NAS/Music server to provide storage, but would rather just spend the extra money to turn that into a desktop. 95% of the time I am using a laptop like a desktop anyway, which is why the NUC is an intriguing option. It looks like they will cost me about $400-500CDN plus the cost of the SSD. I am not sure that is a big enough cost savings to offset the flexibility of a custom build. I can definitely see myself needing to add in another couple hard drives over the life of this computer.


My main priorities would be silence and price. I thought silent would be the best option so I can listen to music while I am doing stuff on the computer. Plus I just llike the quite! My goal was to keep the price ~$900CDN/$700USD without a GPU, which my build does. Obviously cheaper is better but I am comfortable with those numbers. LIke I said, I am not that bothered about size. I got the ok from my girlfriend ("the boss") to build a desk and I can easily hide an ATX case underneath it if I had to.

 

@Stapsy

In that case I would probably recommend an mATX build, it's a little bigger than itx but very flexible the prices are better. And you can easily add a powerful graphics card later on if you want. Here's a suggestion:

ASUS Z170M-PLUS
Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO cpu fan (quieter than stock fan)
Fractal Design Define Mini
i5 6500
16GB DDR4 RAM
Corsair RM650x (safety margin for powerful gpu later on)

I would also recommend you add an ssd and skip the mechanical drives if you want total silence, good brands are samsung, kingston and intel.

If you want to overclock you should choose an intel k processor, but I'm not sure you're interested in that and they're a little more expensive.

 

Build is finalized and all parts ordered. Should be here by Wednesday next week:

Fractal Arc Midi R2
Gigabyte Z170XP-SLI
Intel i5 6500 (stock cooler for now)
16GB G.Skill DDR4
MSI GTX 950
Seasonic G-650
Samsung 850 EVO 250GB
WD Blue 1TB 7200 rpm
LG Blu-Ray/DVD-Burner

It's overkill for what I need, but hey...I haven't built a computer in nearly 10 years, so I wanted to make it count.

 

Depending on your planned interface it might be better to go mATX. ITX motherboards are significantly more cramped and this measurably reduces SNR and possibly other unwanted distortion products (e.g. the SPDIF output on my X99 mITX board is pretty awful).

USB might not be that different though. I think a Define Mini and competent mATX motherboard with good measured SNR and low DPC latency would be worth considering as an alternative.

 

How do you even find out about low DPL latency until you find that you don't have it and it is a problem? Does anybody,, anywhere, quote such measurements for a motherboard? I certainly wish they would --- but it can be a problem that only shows up with certain equipment combined.

 

Well I imagine an ITX motherboard is less cramped than the laptop I have been using so hopefully it will still be an improvment! I am not against getting one of those audiophile type soundcard solutions but I am skeptical it will make enough difference to be worthwhile relative to my OR5.

Anyway, looking at the Define Mini, the size isn't really that much smaller than the Define S or Define R5. 2 inches in height and 1 inch in width doesn't seem worth it. Anything bigger than ITX will have to go on the floor anyway. If ITX isn't a good choice I might as well go with ATX. Thanks for all the help. I am going to start trying to grab stuff when it is on sale. The CPU market is the most insane I have ever seen for sales, discounts, mail in rebates, etc. so it might actually be worth shopping around.

 

http://www.anandtech.com/show/7532/asus-maximus-vi-impact-review-rog-and-miniitx/5

All the Anandtech reviews seem to have it. I have no idea how reliable it is though.

 

Brilliant!

It has been a few years since I looked at any motherboard reviews, and here is a big change for the better. Audio performance and DPC latency included in reviews. Good for Anandtech!

Sometimes I'm so happy to be wrong!



.

 

Are those measurements only applicable to the onboard audio chip or would it apply if I was using USB output as well? The Asus Z170i Pro Gaming has DPC latency lower than some of the similarly priced ATX boards. The Asus Z170 Maximus Viii Impact is even lower based on those measurements, but it looks like that could be due to the focus on isolation of the onboard audio components and not necessarily relate to performance with an external DAC.

 

Going to be lame and quote my own post.

Assembled the desktop last night and everything worked perfectly. For my first build in 10 years, it sure was nice not to have any surprises.

 

@Skyline

Looks good to me!

These latest skylake cpu's are pretty good.

The only reason to change out the stock cooler would be if you think the stock one is too loud. A good affordable one is the cooler master 212 evo.

 

Yep, I have the 212 evo on my wishlist should I ever decide to switch it out. Honestly, though, noise isn't an issue since the case fans are louder. Temps have also been extremely low...idling at about 27 degrees.

 

They will be for overall system latency (referred to as DPC latency). This is a different thing to Audio latency, although high system latency can cause dropouts in audio when using time sensitive multi-tracking software like Cubase.

Things that usually affect DPC latency are hardware, drivers, and sometimes software.

Most new motherboards have very low DPC latency if setup properly with the latest drivers. Often the drivers that can automatically install with Windows aren't the best ones, so it's worth looking up on the manufacturer's website, whether that is the site for the model of the overall PC you bought, or if you have to go to the individual website for each component.

Most who build their own systems will know this already.

Since windows 8 changed the way it gets its timing info, http://www.resplendence.com/latencymon has been the best way of measuring DPC latency.

One of the most common causes of high DPC latency is down to network drivers, whether Ethernet (cable) or WI-FI. This can often be easiy fixed by finding the latest driver for your hardware.

A word of caution, don't overly worry about occasional spikes unless they are persistent. I fear I may have opened up a wormhole here, there are some things this software reads that even I don't completely understand.

If you have any questions I might be able to answer, but it might be better to start a new thread so as not to go off topic. Other tech related forums will be able to help too, in case I get flooded.

 

Monitor
Dell UltraSharp U3415W Curved 21:9 3440x1440
Keyboard
Ducky Shine 3 (Brown switches)
Mouse
Logitech G700s

GPU
EVGA GTX 970
CPU
i5-4670k w/ Cooler Master Evo 212
Case
Fractal Design Define R4 (no window, so no pic)
Motherboard
MSI Z87-G43
RAM
12GB DDR3 1333mhz
Storage
Corsair Force LX 256GB SSD (OS, programs, some games)
Intel something SSD 80GB (first OS drive way back, now good for a game or two)
WD Blue 1TB and 4TB (4TB mainly for backup of work data)

Super quiet even whens stressed. I went all of 2015 not upgrading my rig (really got into audio) but grabbed the Dell Ultrawide 3440x1440 in January, replacing a dual 1440p/1080p 144Hz setup that was a bit clunky on my desk. Productivity has been improved due to how nice one large screen is, even though its technically smaller and less pixels. Gaming is incredibly immersive if natively supportive of Ultrawide (Civ 5, Cities, Borderlands 2 for me so far), but can be annoying with a lot of fixes in non-native games, or settling for 2560x1440 with bars on the side (Fallout 4).

May grab a 980Ti if I end up playing a game the 970 just can't do well at 3440x1440, but trying to hold out as long as possible. Does a good job with most, especially at regular 1440p.

 

The Intel Skull Canyon NUC looks very interesting: http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/nuc/change-the-game-with-nuc.html

Specs look really good, but most interesting is the Thunderbolt 3.0 port, which would allow an external GPU or a PCIe cage with a rme card.

My only real concern is how loud that fan is gonna run.

 

DPC latency is actually something technically specific. Audio latency is utterly irrelevant to playing audio.

I think that the sum of those things is... a computer.

Why is anyone even measuring it unless they have a problem already? OK, OK, curiosity. Yes, I so that sort of stuff. But, like Dengue, I would probably never have even heard of DPC Latency if I hadn't had it. And, like dengue, it is very, very nasty.

 

Monitor
BenQ XL2420TE
Keyboard
Ducky Shine 4 (Red switches)
Mouse
Zowie ZA11
Mousepad
Zowie GTF-X

GPU
Asus GTX580
CPU
i5 3570k @ 4,9ghz
Case
Fractal Design Define R5
Motherboard
Gigabyte UD3H
RAM
8GB DDR3 1600MHz
Storage
Samsung 840 Pro 256gb
Cooling
Noctua DH-15 and Noctua NF-F12 fans

Dont need more, only play CSGO!
I used to have a Caselabs STH10 with 2x 480 radiators, dual MCP655s, 2x 7970s etc, but its not worth it.
The funnest part is building, not using it.

 

Unless you are using Asio or similar that will give you the option to set your audio latency depending on your hardware's capabilities, buffers etc.

I just wanted to clarify the difference.

There is a huge difference between A "computer", and one that is set up correctly with decent hardware and good drivers. Unfortunately the latter is a rarity amongst the general public. I love to see the expression on peoples faces when I've built them a PC that transcends all their previous experience by actually working as it should, and not only that, not slowing down over time.

Generally they don't need to, but I did have a wide variety of issues when upgrading from win7 to the first public version of windows 10. Things that used to just work, sometimes just didn't anymore. This was due to the way Win10 handled the driver upgrades from Win7.

Even after uninstalling and replacing the drivers with Win10 version, there were still multiple issues, and I discovered this by using Latencymon, first out of curiosity to see my new build's capability for handling multi track audio. (I'm also a musician) When I saw there were severe DPC latency issues, I used Latencymon to track down offending processes and the drivers related to them, and managed to resolve some of the issues by finding better drivers. (some were initially still in Beta)

I eventually managed to resolve all the issues by installing a fresh copy of the 2nd public win10 release from USB.

Whilst some of the issues I initially had couldn't be resolved by tracking down high latency processes, using Latencymon can highlight symptoms of a badly installed PC.

So like I said it's not something to worry too much about, but if there are a lot of constant latency spikes then it's something that should be looked at, but better get a professional to do it.

 

Well, my desktop's been boxed up for weeks as I try to survive a move, but here's how it stands:

CPU: Intel i7-6700K
HSF: Phanteks PH-TC14PE in blue
Mobo: ASUS Z170-A
RAM: 32GB (4x8GB) Corsair Vengeance LPX 2666MHz
GPUs: 2x Gigabyte Radeon R9 290 WF3 in CF
Sound: ASUS Xonar Essence STX
OS drive: 256GB M.2 Samsung SM951 AHCI
Local: 2x 1TB Samsung 850 EVO
Optical: LG Blu-Ray WH16NS40
Reader: Silverstone FP56 USB 3.0 5.25"
PSU: Seasonic X-1250 Gold 1250W
Case: Corsair Carbide Air 540
Display: 3x Dell U2412M 24" 1920x1200
Keyboard: Corsair Vengeance K90 Cherry MX Red
Mouse: Logitech G500

Not sure if I'm forgetting anything... I upgraded to Skylake last year largely out of boredom with my trusty Sandy Bridge rig, but also for HT (I had a 2500K), USB 3.1, and the M.2 slot. That Samsung SM951 really makes heavy apps fly... Might add more 2.5" SSD later, or just keep it external.

I could use more GPU horsepower but it's probably not worth upgrading my R9 290s for another gen or two, it'd be wonderful if I could go to a single card but it's probably doubtful. I'd like to swap the three 24" displays for a single 40"~ 4K at some point and that'll require even more GPU.

I'm quite accustomed to the three displays tho, I know a single larger display would be awesome for gaming (specially in games where I essentially run something like a 40" already by having them in portrait) but I dunno how I'd acclimate for programming and photography stuff.

Probably the quietest (when idle) and most trouble free setup I've had in over a decade... My previous HD6950 were noisier and the MSI P97 mobo I had with those was more quirky, and before that I had an A64 w/a VIA chipset mobo - it worked but ehh... Oh yeah, sits on Ikea Bekant & Markus.

Edit - Mouse pad: old school FUnc 1030, just noticed they got absorbed by another company. Knew I should've bought a spare when I saw them back on Amazon a year ago...

Also, Speakers: JBL LSR305 on the way

 

CPU: i7 6700K @4.6GHz
Mobo: Asus Z170 Deluxe
CPU Cooling: Noctua NH-D15
Graphics: Asus GTX780 DirectCU II OC 3GB @1215 & 7000
Ram: 16GB Gskill RipjawsV DDR4 @3200
PSU: Corsair HX850i
Case: Nanoxia Deep Silence One
Drives: Samsung 950 Pro NVMe 512GB - WD RE4 2TB - Samsung Spinpoint F3 1TB - WD Caviar Blue 640
Monitor: Dell U2913WM Ultrawide (Soon to be upgraded to a 34" ulltrawide"
Keyboard: Logitech G19 (The built in screen allows me to use MSI afterburner to plot realtime graphs for things like CPU/Ram utilisation, as well as GPU Usage, Power, Clockspeed, and Vram usage.
Mouse: Corsair M65
Sound: Sony STR-DN1050 Receiver (connected via HDMI, DLNA and Optical for various purposes)
Speakers: Q Acoustics 2000i 5.1