Build a dedicated Audio PC

[tony]

[quote="Fran"]i7 3770 now at 264 on german site, but 18.99 postage brings it back to same price as komplett.


Fran i keep coming back to this so apologises if you have decided against it or is irrelevant. Dabs have the 3770S for 284 or 286 they were 274 last week ran out of them and now have them again but priced a bit higher.

Nige has advised it is irrelevant which one you get but are you not better off with the S as it is lower powered than the 3770?

[Fran]

Well, I'll be cooling it using a fan powered from a separate supply, so the extra bit of heat won't be a problem for me. Btw, given that the streamcom case barely gets warm, I'm sure it could easily cope with it too.



Fran

[nige2000]

i7 3770 now at 264 on german site, but 18.99 postage brings it back to same price as komplett.


Fran i keep coming back to this so apologises if you have decided against it or is irrelevant. Dabs have the 3770S for 284 or 286 they were 274 last week ran out of them and now have them again but priced a bit higher.

Nige has advised it is irrelevant which one you get but are you not better off with the S as it is lower powered than the 3770?

it wont matter for jplay because tdp wattage is measured at full utilization it will never be over 10% on a 3770 of any kind doing the same task they will have similar wattage usage

very loose metaphor:
think of two cars with the same engine one which is limited to 3000 revolutions and the other has a turbo that kicks in at 2500
and your driving down the road at 1500 rpm you wouldn't know which car you were in they would have the same performance.

regardless its not a huge tdp anyway i remember chips been 190 tdp that had to be put in a freezer to keep cool

i know you don't want to take any chances i can understand that,
you could wait till i get mine built ill lend it to someone to compare it to the zuma should only take me a week to get enough parts together to make it.

[jkeny]

I agree with Nige - the lower TDP versions of a CPU are just downclocked - otherwise they are exactly the same. And it would seem that Jplay + networking stresses the CPU little (when this is all the processes that are active).

[nige2000]

direct comparison between ultrasize 30 vs 160/169
160/169 is superior
too busy pushing the i3 i guess
unable to tell difference between 160 and 169

Nige, are you getting 30 on SinglePC? What's the lowest you can go on 2PC streaming? (same question for other readers)

You're welcome to call anytime to hear the Ciunas, personally I think it's excellent , really atmospheric and 3-dimensional. I would recommend you give it a listen and bet you don't return it.
KM

only a quick test but
got as low as 28 without distortion on both single and dual using the usb3 win8 install and ssd audio for dual pc
swapped around the i3 and i7 with no effect

yea ill call down next week anyway it may be possible that the benefits of the ciunas may be wasted on my other gear, i had noticed before that your system shows changes more apparent than mine.

but there's no doubt about it jplay even through pc speakers makes a hell of a difference (not that i want to listen to pc speakers much curiosity got me)

ill pm you

[Ken Moreland]

Ok, so you got 28 on 2PC but the best Aleg can get is 169 and here's his equipment

AudioPC
HDPLEX H3.S Fanless PC Case; picoPSU-160-XT
Gigabyte H67N-USB3-B3; Intel i5-2500T; 16GB G.Skill RipJaws-X DDR3-1600 (F3-12800CL10S-8GBX)
Crucial SSD M4 64GB; SoTM SATA-Filter
StreamerPC
Shuttle Barebone XS36V; Samsung 840 series Pro 128GB; Corsair SO-Dimm 4GB DDR3 PC3-10600

I wonder what's the restriction on his gear?
KM

[Fran]

Tonight I built the fan controller circuit for the CPU fan. Its one that was posted ages ago from Nelson Pass for using to cool some of his hotter DIY designs. Anyway, the idea is that you can adjust the fan speed downwards to achieve silence, or at least near silence. The problem with just supplying a lower voltage to a 12V fan is that as you get to the lower ends, the fan sometimes won't start. The circuit shown below gets around that by giving a shot of current to start the fan. Bench testing just completed shows that the fan on my heatsink will reliably start and run with the voltage down to ~2.5V. At this voltage, the fan turns quite slowly, I'd guess 50-100rpm.

This is probably too low for the chip, but the point is that at say, 5 or 6V the fan is silent 8" away and yet produces a fair downdraft. This should be enough to cool the chip. I would imagine it would be easy to build in some heat protection by using a thermistor in line with the pot.


fan controller circuit by francis morrin, on Flickr


Fran

[nige2000]

Ok, so you got 28 on 2PC but the best Aleg can get is 169 and here's his equipment

AudioPC
HDPLEX H3.S Fanless PC Case; picoPSU-160-XT
Gigabyte H67N-USB3-B3; Intel i5-2500T; 16GB G.Skill RipJaws-X DDR3-1600 (F3-12800CL10S-8GBX)
Crucial SSD M4 64GB; SoTM SATA-Filter
StreamerPC
Shuttle Barebone XS36V; Samsung 840 series Pro 128GB; Corsair SO-Dimm 4GB DDR3 PC3-10600

I wonder what's the restriction on his gear?
KM

wonder did he try the audio pc in single mode he should get the same

id question the shuttle barebones its got an atom cpu their slowish at simple tasks

but then your getting 160 with the pentium 4 and the atom is supposed to be twice as quick

im using the usb3 win 8 makes a difference to sound wouldn't think it would effect ultrasize though

really dont know

[nige2000]

right im on jplay 5.1 rc15a

has the gap in quality between 1pc and 2pc streaming disappeared? or am i doing something horribly wrong? here's to hoping!!!

still able to play at ultrasize 28 but don't think it sounds at its best there, im playing at over 110 but get confused after that (ultrasize 110-170)
has anyone found their sweet spot yet on ultrasize?

[Ken Moreland]

Nige, played this morning and the B***ard wouldn't play properly. Not at all on Hires and stopping on 16bit. I switched back to USB wireless from cable and everything was fine. Currently using US=170 on RC15a. The sound quality is fine.
I ran the little DPLatency check program http://www.thesycon.de/deu/latency_check.shtml on the 2pc's and found that the latency was worse on the AudioPC with lovely Intel SSD and PPA Studio SATA cable etc than the POS Meath CoCo scrap Streamer PC.
KM