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| Thread ID: 140501 | 2015-10-23 07:23:00 | Soon to purchase new PC - need feedback and recommedations please | Chikara (5139) | Press F1 |
| Post ID | Timestamp | Content | User | ||
| 1410351 | 2015-10-23 07:23:00 | Hi all, Well I've been thinking about upgrading my desktop PC for a few years now, but I always decided to defer the update for various reasons. Now I think the time is right, my old system is 6 years old, and it's starting to show it's age with a few hardware failures and I think the MB is on the way out, I can see some bulging capacitors. Plus with Skylake out now and hopefully a Christmas bonus in my paypacket soon, now I think is finally the right time :banana I would like to ask first from the knowledgeable people here, some general advice please. Once I've got that, I might post later with a proposed build. Here is what I am wanting to achieve: - I do game, not as much as I used to, but I still want a system that can comfortably run any modern game. So I know I need a good processor and separate graphics card, and plenty of RAM - I do a bit of audio and video editing, so I need something that can process and render that quite fast - also means plenty of RAM and fast processor - I have a whole bunch of audio cassettes (audience recorded concerts) that I want to digitise. So I also need a motherboard that will have a good quality built in sound card/audio in port - I want a SSD this time too. Planning to get maybe a 512GB (or even 1TB if the price is right) SSD for boot and programs, then a couple of regular HDD's for storage - I already have a NAS for backup - I plan to re-use my monitor (Philips 230C), my power supply (Corsair HX 750W), my mouse and keyboard and everything else will be replaced (oh, will also re-use my case if it will fit but I don't mind buying another case if needed) Here are some of my general questions: - Should I look at a Skylake CPU? Or I have heard Broadwell E CPU's are not far away, early new year - do you think it's worth waiting a little bit longer for that? - Any recommended MB's or GPU's to support my requirements and configuration above? - Do I really need to worry about onboard audio card quality, or are they all pretty good these days? - I have heard it's better to get DDR4 RAM, even low clock speed, compared to DDR3. For smooth video processing and gaming I think I'd need 32GB? - Is a 512GB or 1TB SSD, supported by 2 or 3 regular HDD's for storage, a good configuration? What type of regular HDD's would give me good data transfer speeds I don't have a specific budget. But I am hoping to gave a good, fast system with upgrade capacity that should last me the next 5+ years again, so I don't mind paying a bit that (within reason) - Any other thoughts or suggestions? Oh, final question, on my current PC I had Win 7, but upgraded earlier this year to the free Win 10. Should I (can I) install my old copy of Win 7 on this new build and get the free upgrade? Or do I have to buy another copy of Win 10? |
Chikara (5139) | ||
| 1410352 | 2015-10-23 23:29:00 | Really does depend on budget, you could do well for $1-1.5K or you could build a beast for $3-5K or something in between etc. However some thoughts. DDR4 is better but also pricier and you are unlikely to truly notice the difference, I went DDR4 this time around mostly on the thought that DDR3 will start disappearing and getting dearer as DDR4 becomes the norm Any i5 or better haswell onwards is great for current games, I went skylake again because it's the newest and because I could but can't tell the difference so far from myprevious i7 3770 to the new skylake i7 Broadwell E will be expensive and overkill for gaming, only worth it if you do some serious multithreaded work on a regular basis otherwise it's throwing money away for theoretical performance you'll never notice Onboard sound is pretty good these days, nothing to lose by trying it first before spending money on a sound card that is easily added later if you decide you want it. So recommendations; Go Skylake - (why build an already outdated system) i5 is fine for games, i7 if you can use the horsepower (or just want one like I did) but not much real world difference for most users 8-16GB RAM is all you'll need for gaming for the forseeable future and DDR3 is fine but I'd go DDR4 myself, more RAM than that would depend on your video editing software requirements Get a board with an M.2 socket and get an M.2 SSD, preferably one of these www.tomshardware.com :) (won't be available here just yet) Asus, Gigabyte, or Asrock - personally prefer Asus Go for a graphics card of at least GTX960 equivalence for 1080P gaming, step up to 970 level if you wan't to max everything. If you want to use higher resolutions buy the best graphics card you can afford (which is the general gaming PC principle anyway). I got a 980 but at 1080P it's overkill and I would have been just as happy with a 970 Windows retail is transferable to new hardware, OEM is not. Depends what you have. I'm not sure what happens with a windows 7 key when the upgrade option has been taken either. You should think of the free windows 10 upgrade as tied to the windows 7 key, you can't use them as 2 separate OS's on 2 machines. At least not legitimately. |
dugimodo (138) | ||
| 1410353 | 2015-10-23 23:32:00 | surface pro 4 I7 16ram will do the trick | stevenrossvanduyn (17222) | ||
| 1410354 | 2015-10-23 23:37:00 | surface pro 4 I7 16ram will do the trick Hilarious, buy an overpriced tablet for gaming and video editing... Stupidest recommendation ever. Surface pro is a very nice machine, and totally unsuitable for the purposes stated. |
dugimodo (138) | ||
| 1410355 | 2015-10-26 14:35:00 | Thanks dugimodo for the advice, very helpful. And yes, I agree, I won't be considering a surface pro! A tablet isn't what I am looking for at all, and I know that won't meet my needs. | Chikara (5139) | ||
| 1410356 | 2015-10-26 19:58:00 | +1 to what Dugi said. I would definitely go DDR4 for a build of the spec you're talking about at the moment. Also the newest chipsets now have everything 'on them'. The older Z97 chipsets were getting quite long in the tooth, and all the 'juicy bits' weren't actually native to the chipset, they had to be run off separate controllers due to limitations of the chipset. The new Z170 is a HUGE step up from the older chipsets. www.gigabyte.com I've been drooling over that board recently. |
wratterus (105) | ||
| 1410357 | 2015-10-27 01:02:00 | I've been very happy with "Z170" particularly how quiet it runs The only disadvantage (so far) is removal of digital audio loopback AKA "Stereo Mix" from my MB. So I can't software-record what the computer is playing. I have to use analogue loopback to do that. Fortunately hardware loopback works very well. Possibly because of the input amplifier that Gigabyte boasts about: •115dB SNR HD Audio with Built-in Rear Audio Amplifier The MB that Wratterus links to is the X version of Z170 built for sheer grunt. I prefer the N version which has reduced performance but allows internal graphics. Together with the included WIFI adaptor on my particular MB, the internal graphics allows the use of Widi and makes my desktop similar to a laptop. (assisted by the fact that the mini-ITX MB is only 170 x 170 mm and can run without any external storage, just the OS on M.2) Widi is the only way I can replay 4k video on our TV. I've got various media players connected to the TV but only my desktop can play 4k. (I use Media Player Classic - Home Cinema). GoogleEarth works great via Widi too. Due to desktop grunt. |
BBCmicro (15761) | ||
| 1410358 | 2015-10-27 05:49:00 | Wratterus, that's look a very nice board :) BBCmicro, can you tell me a little bit more about the inability to record from stereo mix? One of the things I will be doing, is to digitise a whole bunch of audio cassettes I have that contain live concert recordings. Now, the source on the cassette is not perfect to begin with, so I don't need studio quality, but I don't want to lose more quality than I have to. I have a portable cassette player and on my current system I just plug that into my PC, and do a capture with Goldwave (or other similar audio programs). I'm assuming this is what you mean by software record? SO how exactly would this work with the Z170 boards? Also, I didn't mention it in my OP but I also want to have the ability to plug my guitar in to my PC and capture what I am playing. Again, just a serious hobby, not professionally, but I do need the ability to do that without too much quality loss. |
Chikara (5139) | ||
| 1410359 | 2015-10-27 06:12:00 | BBCmicro is referring to recording the output sound of the PC which will not effect recording an input like you want to do. Also Cassettes actually give pretty good results because the noise is fairly consistent and predictable and therefore easily filtered out. I recorded some using an old version of Nero wav editor and a portable cassette player plugged into a line in which is likely a bit of an impedance mismatch and they ended up sounding better (to me) than LPs I'd put much more effort into recording after having the hiss filtered out. the biggest issue is the lack of high frequency response which ears over 40 don't really notice anyway. | dugimodo (138) | ||
| 1410360 | 2015-10-27 08:27:00 | Windows has two audio engines - - a playback engine which takes digital (ie software) signals and sends them out to the speaker. The signals come from software such as Windows Media Player or a browser. I repeat, this engine handles digital inputs - a record engine which takes analogue (ie hardware) signals as input and records them to disc. The signals come from whatever hardware device you connect to line-in or mic-in, such as a cassette player or microphone. I repeat, this engine handles analogue inputs The two engines are separate. Microsoft did not want to couple the record engine to the the digital (or software) signals because it could be seen as aiding piracy. HOWEVER, Microsoft found a back-door way of doing it. A common task that a home person might want to do is record a backing-track one day and add the vocalist on a later day. To do that, the backing track needs to be recorded using line-in, then played back and re-recorded with the vocalist entering via mic-in. So Microsoft made available a "stereo mix" signal that took whatever the computer was replaying and looped it back (internally) to the input to be mixed with analogue line-in or mic-in. Because this loopback signal remained digital throughout, it did not suffer in quality when re-recorded with the vocalist. Of course, this loopback arrangement could record whatever the computer was replaying, regardless of whether a vocalist or anything else was connected to the analogue inputs. So it could be used to make digital recordings of CDs. This was piracy, but Microsoft could legitimately claim they were only trying to facilitate a common mixing task. In recent years the audio industry has put pressure on MB makers to inhibit piracy, and Realtek seems to have caved in. They (or somebody, perhaps Gigabyte) have removed Stereo Mix. Microsoft, beginning with Vista, introduced a new recording arrangement called Wasabi (or something like that) which can do the job instead of Stereo Mix. This is still present on my Z170 MB (I am using Win7pro64 - I don't know about Win10) but has been partly nobbled. One of the nobblings is to hide the setting. In Audacity I have to right-click on an empty space(!) to get the drop-down menu which allows Wasabi loopback. The other nobbling is they seem to have put a 20 dB pad in the loopback. So the arrangement seems to work, but even with all gain controls turned up the sound is still 10 dB down on full volume. This is annoying. Also, if you restore 0dB in Audacity, you might add some noise. It depends on what you're recording. You might find that Wasabi works fine for you. I record classical, which has long quiet passages The workaround, if all else fails, is to use a cable to connect the speaker-out to line-in. This is analogue loopback rather than digital, but it seems to work rather well on my GA-Z170N-WIFI motherboard. As a test, I found I could amplify a quiet (silent but not gated to zero) classical passage about 45 dB before it made a significant touch of 0dB, using Audacity Perhaps the biggest problem with analogue-loopback is providing a monitoring signal of suitable level. It is easy to split the speaker-out signal so that half does the loopback and half goes to the speaker (or headphones) but the speaker/headphone level will be too loud for your ears. You need an in-line attenuator for headphones. If you use a speaker it might have its own volume control edit: I wrote the above for another purpose and copied it here. For what you want to do, line-in seems to be all you need as Dugimodo says |
BBCmicro (15761) | ||
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