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Bass Ackwards, Need to build CPU with raw cpu power (not for gaming)

R

rectifryer

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May 25, 2012
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I am in the middle of building a cpu for under 1200 that just needs to be a beast at multithreaded media programs. I will be using it for audio editing and recording.

It also needs to be QUIET so it will probably be water cooled. It needs PCI 2.0 x16 and PCI slots for sound cards I use. PCI 3.0 is a bonus.

Currently, I am using a 1055t x6 but I am looking at using a 2600k and oc'ing it. Sound good?

Here is the system I have built thus far:




GIGABYTE Sumo 4192 GZ-FS1CCA-ANB Black Aluminum ATX Full Tower Computer Case

Seagate Barracuda ST2000DM001 2TB 7200 RPM SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive

CORSAIR Enthusiast Series CMPSU-650TX 650W ATX12V / EPS12V SLI Ready 80 PLUS Certified Active PFC Compatible with Core ...

CORSAIR Vengeance 16GB (4 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 2133 Desktop Memory Model CMZ16GX3M4X2133C11R

GIGABYTE GA-Z77MX-D3H LGA 1155 Intel Z77 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 Micro ATX Intel Motherboard

Intel Core i7-2600K Sandy Bridge 3.4GHz (3.8GHz Turbo Boost) LGA 1155 95W Quad-Core Desktop Processor Intel HD Graphics 3000 ...

CORSAIR H100 (CWCH100) Extreme Performance Liquid CPU Cooler

Mushkin Enhanced Chronos MKNSSDCR120GB 2.5" 120GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)



Any input would be great. This system needs to be stout and quiet. Also, the MB needs to have clean sound streaming.

I was thinking, that instead of buying and OC'ing the 2600k, that maybe I should just buy the $580 i7 that should offer the same power with far less cooling issues. That way, I wouldnt really need the WC setup and I could just have undervolted case fans that are really quiet.
 
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u can take a look at FX series...not powerful FPU wise...but in Core related works it really kicks butt
 
Ivy bridge is faster, 3930K on X79 would be faster, but requires better cooling. Personally, I wouldn't bother with Sandybridge.
 
2600k would be my choice.
 
3930 would get my vote too
 
Why use an Matx board in a full size case?? get a full board and grab a 2600k!
 
cadaveca said:
Ivy bridge is faster, 3930K on X79 would be faster, but requires better cooling. Personally, I wouldn't bother with Sandybridge.
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JrRacinFan said:
2600k would be my choice.
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Fourstaff said:
3930 would get my vote too
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Needed to add, but of course from a price standpoint if on a small budget, fx-8150. Could drop that right in your current board. Then pretty much focus the rest on your gaming wants, whether it be watercooling, ram, video card.....
 
AN FX-8150 will holds its own in multi-thread applications, especially if they are compiled to use newer instruction sets. It is pretty much the same as a 2600K in those cases. That being said, I also vote for the Ivy bridge chip such as the 3930K since this is about raw power. And if any of your software requires the media encoding and can support Intel Quick Sync, then there is no comparison.
 
What motherboard do you currently have?
 
rectifryer said:
Currently running with the my x6 1055t oc'd to 3.5 ghz on air. Could of went farther, but I just kinda left it alone.
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In this situation I wouldn't change sockets. The X6 1055T can rival the Intel 2500k in certain multi threaded tasks already, due to sheer core outnumbering. In this situation I would just put in an FX 8-core, arguably could outperform the 2500K in audio editing and recording and caters for your general multitasking needs, or atleast come close enough to justify spending a mere $160-200 upgrade opposed a lot more on a completely new build.

As far as noise, I would spend $40 on a passive heat sink and attach your own 7-10dba 120/140mm fan. Also, upgrade all your other fans in your case to low dBA fans. Maybe even a more efficient and low dBA PSU. This route will be virtually silent whilst being cheaper and less problematic than water cooling.
 
Dent1 said:
In this situation I wouldn't change sockets. The X6 1055T can rival the Intel 2500k in certain multi threaded tasks already, due to sheer core outnumbering. In this situation I would just put in an FX 8-core, arguably could outperform the 2500K in audio editing and recording and caters for your general multitasking needs, or atleast come close enough to justify spending a mere $160-200 upgrade opposed a lot more on a completely new build.

As far as noise, I would spend $40 on a passive heat sink and attach your own 7-10dba 120/140mm fan. Also, upgrade all your other fans in your case to low dBA fans. Maybe even a more efficient and low dBA PSU. This route will be virtually silent whilst being cheaper and less problematic than water cooling.
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The AMD system is getting converted into a HTPC/server for all storage in the house. I have to build another CPU regardless. So I figured, instead of buying a crap cpu for the HTPC, why not make a capable device that can also act as server then build another cpu altogether for recording. Its more this way, but its only around 600 dollars more which isnt alot considering IMO.

That gives me a blank slate, if you will. From what I can tell, a 2600k will still outperform a 1055t by far in bench tests. Those tests are from Anandtech so I have no idea how biased they are. I do love my thuban, but I hope that a couple generations later something has came up to replace it.
 
What kind of workloads are you going to be putting on it? If you had 16 threads available, would you use them all?

sumonpathak said:
u can take a look at FX series...not powerful FPU wise...but in Core related works it really kicks butt
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Recompile whatever you're running using FMA optimizations and that statement will quickly become false. Just because something isn't optimized to use a FMA floating point unit doesn't mean it is any slower.
 
I use cakewalk 8.5 and it currently recognizes and uses all 6 cores that I have available. It distributes the load between all the processors according to its built in cpu monitor. I use alot of vsti's (plugins, basically) that can take advantage of multiple processors, however, some dont. So there is a case for single cpu and multi cpu strengths here.
 
rectifryer said:
The AMD system is getting converted into a HTPC/server for all storage in the house. I have to build another CPU regardless. So I figured, instead of buying a crap cpu for the HTPC, why not make a capable device that can also act as server then build another cpu altogether for recording. Its more this way, but its only around 600 dollars more which isnt alot considering IMO.

That gives me a blank slate, if you will. From what I can tell, a 2600k will still outperform a 1055t by far in bench tests. Those tests are from Anandtech so I have no idea how biased they are. I do love my thuban, but I hope that a couple generations later something has came up to replace it.
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With the price drops on the FX-8150/8120 and the fact that your board supports the FX series it may be worth it for you to give it a trial run. I use a 1045T and an FX-8150 for crunching and easily get 50% more output from the 8150. If you don't like the performance increase, you can always setup a SB/IB system later after some more research.
 
See if you can get someone to give you a connection to MicroCenter. . . .
 
Aquinus said:
What kind of workloads are you going to be putting on it? If you had 16 threads available, would you use them all?


Recompile whatever you're running using FMA optimizations and that statement will quickly become false. Just because something isn't optimized to use a FMA floating point unit doesn't mean it is any slower.
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So are you saying that the FX series processors better than they bench?

I have no idea if the applications I run are designed to take advantage of FMA.
 
Perhaps I'm missing the wording, but I don't get it.

Do you want to spend $1200 for a completely new system? Do you want to make an HTPC and gaming rig between what you have now and $1200? Do you, perhaps, not even know what you want beyond the fact that it needs to run certain programs well?


If you've got the need to build a HTPC, then reusing a Phenom x6 is foolish. Running that 24/7 is going to put a real hurt on the power bill. On top of that, 6 cores is so far overkill that there aren't adequate words. You can build an I3 based system that is just as capable for a few hundred dollars, and save the Phenom for gaming.

if you want a multi-core beast you have to go with the 3930k from Intel. The problem is that you'll need either very high end air or water cooling, the boards are expensive, and your budget leaves little room for decent graphics. It can be done, but you need to know that CPU power is 100% what you need.


Please don't take this the wrong way, but you sound like an arts student. Playing at what you don't know is a good way to lose quite a bit of money. If I were building a rig for a content creator I would go with: 3820 CPU, motherboard with 8 RAM slots (populate all with 4GB sticks), medium range graphics card, high end PCI-e audio card, a prefabricated water cooling loop for the CPU cooler, a large MLC based SSD (something like the 240 GB Agility 3), and a big HDD for content storage.
CPU: 300 USD, but 8 threads and quad channel RAM.
Graphics: Enough to render media well, or GPGPU if the programs support it.
Audio: What you said you need.
Water Cooler: Very capable, quiet running, and very little to worry about.
SSD: Relatively cheap, but still offering enough space and performance to be "felt" by most users.
HDD: Media creators need storage.
 
if you really wanna go bawls to the socket's then u should be looking at dual socket xeon-server board
24 threads and 24GB of ECC DDR3 will do a lot of work
 
Unless your motherboard has the black socket it wont support any FX CPU from AMD sorry. So either way you will need a new mobo, either SKT AM3+ or 1155. :)
 
I'd also recommend a SB-E system but I think you'd be about $275 over budget if you keep everything else the same (or nearly).

One point, you can drop your memory speed to 1866. The performance difference to faster memory is negligible. Otherwise what you have listed in the original post is about the best all-around performance you can get in that price range. (I'd look at doing a 2x8GB kit instead of 4x4GB, though. Gives you the option of going to 32GB later and it only adds about $20 to the price now)
 
@rectifryer

You can get water cooling, but it may not be necessary. My 2700K is overclocked to 4.7GHz using a Noctua NH-D14 and it's really quiet. Personally, I prefer SB over IB due to the excess heat issue with IB and the fact that performance is only a bit faster clock for clock. It's not an open and shut case though, so you might still want to get IB, especially if you use the IGP.

TheLaughingMan said:
AN FX-8150 will holds its own in multi-thread applications, especially if they are compiled to use newer instruction sets. It is pretty much the same as a 2600K in those cases. That being said, I also vote for the Ivy bridge chip such as the 3930K since this is about raw power. And if any of your software requires the media encoding and can support Intel Quick Sync, then there is no comparison.
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No it doesn't. AMD's best can't hold their own in anything nowadays and that's been benchmarked and analyzed to death. Crying shame, but that's how it is. I'd really like to see the benchies that convinced you it could.
 
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