[LAU] CPU and mobo

[Len Ovens]

On Fri, 18 Dec 2015, Ralf Mardorf wrote:

> Thank you all for the hints.
>
> At the moment I only can pay for a dual-core and it seems not to matter 
> if I chose an AMD or Intel CPU. The disadvantage of Intel is, that I 
> unlikely will be able to replace the dual-core by a quad-core within 
> this and the next life, while replacing an AMD dual-core with an AMD 
> quad-core likely would be possible within 2 or 3 month, assumed it 
> should gain something.

Personally, I feel the i5 quad core is the intel of choice (even if you 
can afford the i7 quad core). The i5 quad core is FCLGA1151 socket. The i3 
dual core and pentium dual core use the same socket, so upgrade is 
possible. The Celeron does not and so would not be upgradable. The intel 
graphics with this cpus seems to be well supported in Linux and does not 
interfere with RT operation. I would recommend some of the Atom based 
boards for audio if it were not for the graphics GPU they come with 
(closed - poor linux support) and the general lack of expansion slots.

Looking at the MB I did choose... It seems a last generation i5 has the 
same socket as some of the celeron products. (1150)

The Harrison top of the line consoles use AMD optron (I think) CPU's... 
but they do not use graphics cards with their DSP CPUs and the Optron is 
not the cheap end. Other than that I have no experience with them. I do 
not know how they are with latency handling. One of the technologies they 
use to improve throughput involves over speeding one core if the others 
are idle (cool). This will not help low latency performance (rather the 
opposite) but This may not be a problem in Performance mode anyway.

The comments so far have been about this or that being "fine" but have not 
included what audio hw or latencies used at. 64/2 is concidered by many 
people to be fine and lower is not attempted. USB AIs should all work down 
to that latency. However, PCI(e) cards should have no problem running at 
16/2. This is in general MB design.

> I still need to continue comparing CPUs, mobos and dealers. At the
  moment I'm in favor of an Intel Celeron Dual-Core G1840, 2x 2.8 GHz, 54
  W, generation Haswell, SSE 4.x, assumed more cores shouldn't gain much
  for audio and MIDI usage.
>
> When avoiding ASUS and ASRock, then I'm in favor of one of those mobos 
(at the moment):

I have been very happy with my ASUS Z87-K (haswell chipset) It was chosen 
from a long list of ASUS boards and falls below the middle in price. It 
has two PS2 sockets (mouse and KB) and three PCI slots of which only one 
wants to share IRQs (I don't use it). It has 4 PCIe slots as well. It does 
not have builtin bits and pieces that the more costly boards have, which I 
concider a plus (I am happy to pay less for a better board). It will boot 
ans install non-UFI partitions. I have no problem running it for days at 
16/2 with no xruns provided things like cron are not running. 
(UbuntuStudio distro) The AI being an older D66 and the second card an 
AudioPCI (ES1370) which is also used for MIDI. Dispite some of the 
opinions in the list, I would still choose PCI based audio/MIDI over USB 
for timing sensitive use. (making notes play or timecode movement) I am 
not so picky for use with a control surface to control a DAW though.

> MSI H81M ECO
> 1x PCI
> 2x PS/2
> Military Class 4 and TÜV certifications (durability, less power consumption)

I would also look at the MSI B85-G41 which has two PCI slots. (the z97 
would probably work too but costs more) Remember that while the eco sounds 
like a nice idea (TUV), It likely means bad things for lowlatency audio... 
disk being spun down, quick to go to sleep, etc. which you are going to 
disable anyway. Remember that a class D amplifier uses much less power 
than a class A tube amplifier, but the tube amplifier still has "that 
sound" and guitarists still record with them regardless of power used. The 
MSI B85M (1 PCI) would be better.

> Gigabyte GA-H81M-HD3
> 2xPCI
> 1xPS/2

This one says "GIGABYTE UEFI DualBIOS" That sounds promising. One out 5 
reviews says the PCI slots were dead using cards that work in other 
systems. Concidering that the chances of at least some of the other users 
did not even use PCI slots that is trouble some. Also a number of DOA 
boards.

Also look at the GIGABYTE GA-B85M-D3H which seems to have better reviews.

> "Military Class 4 and TÜV certifications" sounds promising. Haven't 
> verified if UEFI could be disabled.

These likely are to do with robustness rather than suitability to audio 
processing. Still good, but audio processing first. Remember that the 
standard all advertising is based on is throughput which is often 
anti-lowlatency. I would concider TUV a liability for audio use.

--
Len Ovens
www.ovenwerks.net