Upgrading my WS with these... I need your expertise...

[Jamster]

Hello,

My faithfull and hardworking workstation has stopped working as my Asus P9x79 WS has stopped working. I was hoping to just replace the Mobo, but then I faced the music. No such a thing as a new P9x79 WS board... Some stuff in China. Not even a used one to be found.

My WS is aimed for Music Production...

So, I have to replace the previous CPU, all my RAMs (64GB) 1200 and the MOBO...

I decided on the i9-11900K. Yes! Instead of 9900K Despite as the most music enthusiast did try to convince me otherwise...

For the Mobo, I prefered the Asus Pro WS W480 ACE... I want no Game Mobo and also this is the WS line I enjoyed for so many years, I was happy there was a (1) choice in Ausu line...

For the Ram I ended up liking the Corsair Vengeance RGB PRO 128GB (4x32GB) DDR4 3600

I was thinking about Corsair Vengeance RGB Pro 128GB DDR4 3600 but they only come in Quad form. My previous built was a Quad Ram system, but I figure with the kind of speed I'm getting, I won't be missing that extra bandwidth...

So I already have a decent Power Supply: Corsair AX1200i Digital ATX — 1200 Watt 80 PLUS PLATINUM (more than enough)

I already a GPU card: Asus Evo GTX 1660 Ti (have more than I need)

I have a huge monster of a case: Cosmos II.

So I will have to get a good, solid Cooler. The noize is not an issue for me. As I have the WS in next room...

And now, I suppose all I need is your advice and some amount of luck...

cheers

UPDATE

Asusu Pro WS W480 Ace is gone thanks to help from elsewhere, pointed out what I've missed previously that Z590 chipset.

So My WS deram is now a hallusination. Intead if I feel lucky;
ASUS Rog Maximus XIII Hero or ASUS TUF Gaming Z590 Plus will be the replacement...

 

[Jamster]

WoW! No one has anyting to offer?

 

[Shrek]

How do you know the motherboard has failed? could it be the power supply.

Is this the mother board?

Used - Very Good: ASUS P9X79 WS LGA 2011 SSI CEB Intel Motherboard with USB BIOS - Newegg.com

 

[Jamster]

My new obstacle is motherboard related... for 11900k, my research suggested ASUS TUF Gaming Z590-Plus and ROG MAXIMUS XIII HERO... I also would like to get a Corsair 4x32 3600 set
Unfortunately, the RAM support page doesn't support any Corsair 128GB 3600 set. If I want that speed then I have to get Team brand rams. And not even the part numbers they gave matches the specifications I request!?!
TF10D4128G3600HC18JQC01 & TDZAD4128G3600HC18JQC01...

So I am thinking to sack ASUS!

I want the best possible MOBO. My previous built LGA 2011 had the best possible mobo... A workstation
mobo ASUS P9x79 WS... I... We have been very happy together through out the years, very happy more than a decade...

I am not a gamer. I am not against gams it's just that I won't be playing any games on this system. I won't even have internet in my OS! I don't even need Wifi... But I need all the present technology supported. I need a workstation grade card.

So any input towards helping me to narrow down my research are welcomed with open arms
An option is drop down 3600 to 3200.... But frankly I rather would wanna go up... Who wouldn't...

 

[ebivan]

Bare in mind that labels like "gaming, creator, workstation" are often just marketing terms and the only real difference are aesthetics of the board. The difference between modern mainboards is only the chipset and the VRM configuration. Intel W-Series chipsets are basically the same as their consumer chipsets with some added features like remote management that is used in corporation to make admins' work easier. Remember that all Intel 11xxx and 12xxx are basically consumer CPUs.

The difference between consumer hardware and real workstation equipment is that real workstation stuff supports ECC memory also WS should come with higher tier customer service (like 24h on-site service, accidential damage protection etc) in case something is broken. If you need this kind of high availability, get a real pre-made workstation (like Dell Precision, HP-Z or Thinkstation P5xx) that includes that kind of customer service by default.

Your previous hardware was HEDT (High End Desktop), which is kind of in the middle between consumer and professional grade hardware. Getting a regular 11900k is kind of a downgrade, from HEDT to consumer-class hardware (even though a modern regular consumer desktop CPUs is faster than what you had before). The equivalent to the former Intel HEDT platform is AMDs Threadripper line of CPUs and Intels approach is Xeon-W-22xx.

Of course all this stuff is pretty expensive and I suppose its overkill for audio production, as you could easily do all this on regular consumer grade hardware like i5, i7 and i9 and also on Ryzen 5, 7 and 9. If you dont need ECC or dont know what ECC is, you dont need real workstation hardware. If you need ECC and have no money to buy real workstation hardware, get a Ryzen and a mainboard that officially supports ECC. Intel wont give you ECC unless you pay double.

 

[Jamster]

Thank you for your input. But...

I almost disagree with everything you said here...

Overkill!? Maybe for a Hypster who wants to play DJ or full around with Hip-Hop or EDM or whatever, but not for a serious producer. When I made that 64GB WS everybody was laughing at me...
Well, nobody laughing now! 128GB Ram is almost right with an eye on the future... If you produce and mix for soundtracks with hundreds of channels, you need as much Ram
as you can get...

My previous WS board was a killer WS board! There isn't an equal board today with the chipset that I want. So I had to settle with 11900K and a none-WS board.
I don't need extra cores for my line of work. ECC is not that essential for me, but a WS board was. A WS grade board doesn't just mean ECC!
A WS board is not really more expensive than what I am getting now either...

Ryzen is out of the question for music production. Perhaps the Ryzen 9 5950X is an exception. But for twice the price I am paying now...
Yes! I got a consumer CPU but for the stability and performance (minus price) I am getting a pretty powerful single thread horse here.
And I am not downgrading compare to my previous system at all... On the contrary...

And I certainly don't want to get a brand BS WS... If you get my drift... I am my own dependable customer support...

So, in the end I got these: Core i9-11900K / ASUS Rog Maximus Viii Hero / CORSAIR Vengeance LPX 128GB 3200 Cas 16

 

[ebivan]

Well, seems like they really got you with those marketing terms as you still cant say WHY your precious WS board was better than everything else.
As I said, all consumer boards support the same amount of memory (exept for the ITX ones and the real cheap ones with only two memory slots), no need to get anything special there, you can fit four 32GB sticks in all of them.
If you need neither customer support nor ECC, you can pretty much get any consumer mainboard out there as long as VRM config is huge enough to support Intels 14++++++++++++++++ power requirement.

Why is Ryzen out of the question? Ryzen 3000 was faster in applications than any comparable Intel. Ryzen 5000 is faster than intel in applications and at least on par in Games. So why no Ryzen? If you dont need many cores but only a lot of memory, a 5600x or 5800x would be a good choice. There are some real nice WS labeled boards out there with the x570 chipset:
ASUS Pro WS X570-Ace
Asrock x570 Creator
Of course these are no better than most 150€ boards, but they are called "WS" and "Creator", isnt that what you want? I have to admit, I like the design of the ASUS Pro WS x570-Ace, because it looks much cleaner and more "adult" than those RGB-enabled gaming boards that look like they were made to impress 14 year olds. But I wouldn't pay double just for a design that buried in a box under my desk.

 

[Valantar]

Well, seems like they really got you with those marketing terms as you still cant say WHY your precious WS board was better than everything else.
As I said, all consumer boards support the same amount of memory, no need to get anything special there. If you nee neither customer support nor ECC, you can pretty much get any consumer mainboard out there as long as VRM config is huge enough to support Intels 14++++++++++++++++ power requirement.

Yeah, this is entirely correct. "WS" boards on consumer chipsets are typically just marketing speak for "this has a less gamer-y visual design". There might be a tad more testing done, but frankly that's rather unlikely. They might have some features that most non-WS boards lack, like Thunderbolt, but there are straight up gamer boards with those features too - it just depends how much you're willing to pay. Consumer "WS" series are typically moderately high end boards with more minimalist designs and ever so slightly tweaked featuresets, and that's it. W-series chipsets do add actual workstation features like ECC support (with Xeon CPUs), remote management (sometimes) and remove overclocking support, but they're still the same hardware, just with some different switches flipped. Stability and performance should, once again, be the same (except for any instability that ECC might fix, of course).

In general, motherboards shouldn't affect performance much, though of course that assumes that it works as intended. I.e. has a properly tuned BIOS, good drivers, no DPC latency issues, etc. The latter is rather crucial for real time audio, but sadly not many reviews test for it.

I'm also wondering if the 11900K is a good choice - you say you don't need more cores, which leads me to think the workload isn't very CPU-dependent. Wouldn't a cheaper, mostly equally fast, but less hot running 11700K be a better choice? The performance gains between those two chips are essentially nonexistent.

As for RAM, in general, kits as large as 128GB with high speeds (i.e. 3600 and above) are rare. It's to be expected that you won't find those kits on the QVL for any motherboard, as they likely haven't tested them. That being said, RAM QVLs are kind of useless, as memory controllers these days are great, and mostly work with pretty much anything you throw at them. If your board supports 128GB of RAM and advertises RAM OC speeds well above 3600, there's a decent chance that kit will work. But it's always a gamble when combining XMP (which is technically an overclock) with high capacity, as not all controllers will be able to handle the combination - but stepping down to 3200 or something in between really wouldn't be the end of the world in terms of performance. More RAM at higher speeds also increases the chance for errors, which makes ECC more useful overall.

Along with @ebivan, I'd love to hear something about what specifically was so great about your previous motherboard - that way we can give better advice. So far all you've said is "you want the best", which is ... not saying much. How was it the best? Which features did you make use of, and which new ones do you want? Do you have any specific needs or desires? Do you have any specialty hardware that needs extra PCIe lanes or similar?

 

[ThrashZone]

Thank you for your input. But...

I almost disagree with everything you said here...

Overkill!? Maybe for a Hypster who wants to play DJ or full around with Hip-Hop or EDM or whatever, but not for a serious producer. When I made that 64GB WS everybody was laughing at me...
Well, nobody laughing now! 128GB Ram is almost right with an eye on the future... If you produce and mix for soundtracks with hundreds of channels, you need as much Ram
as you can get...

My previous WS board was a killer WS board! There isn't an equal board today with the chipset that I want. So I had to settle with 11900K and a none-WS board.
I don't need extra cores for my line of work. ECC is not that essential for me, but a WS board was. A WS grade board doesn't just mean ECC!
A WS board is not really more expensive than what I am getting now either...

Ryzen is out of the question for music production. Perhaps the Ryzen 9 5950X is an exception. But for twice the price I am paying now...
Yes! I got a consumer CPU but for the stability and performance (minus price) I am getting a pretty powerful single thread horse here.
And I am not downgrading compare to my previous system at all... On the contrary...

And I certainly don't want to get a brand BS WS... If you get my drift... I am my own dependable customer support...

So, in the end I got these: Core i9-11900K / ASUS Rog Maximus Viii Hero / CORSAIR Vengeance LPX 128GB 3200 Cas 16

Hi,
Yeah you never want to add more ram later especially with corsair that changes parts all the time so none will be the same even though speed.. are listed as the same.

Otherwise parts look fine except a 10900k would be a better chip with 10 cores and price is cheaper too all 11 series is a single core boaster.
I personally prefer g-skill and their trident-z line at 3200c16 it really doesn't matter it's mediocre at best set.
3200c14 would be an exceptional set.

 

[Chomiq]

It looks like OP has already bought the new parts so "what if's" are out.

 

[Jamster]

It looks like OP has already bought the new parts so "what if's" are out.

That is true...

When you compare Asus P9x79 WS with its peers at the time which is a decade ago was the best choice... Those days there weren't too many choices either.
At the time, I studied immensely, it took months to research and it was a very clear choice... The details are not relevant today...

Before Ryzen 9 5950X, AMD has stability issues for music production, mainly latency issues but also audio dropouts and noise artifacts... I don't know any production house or pro producer using Ryzen yet... It sure sounds good but may not be a safe bet for me... Even Ryzen 9 5950X is too new to collect industry-based data...

10900K was my choice based on Z590 vs Z490 chipset... Mainly PCIe 4.0 support. As I mentioned before, the multicore performance is not relevant for music production, single-thread performance is. I know there are many downsides to 11900K but I just had to endure those facts and went ahead.

As far as Corsair goes, I had to get in touch both with Asus & Corsair for QVL clearance... Asus just added Corsair 128 GB to their list and Corsair gave approval with mail...
There are no G-Skill 128GB sets in Asus QVL... Yet... I personally like Corsair and have been using it with a smile so far...

Since I'm not going to OC this system as a rule of thumb for music production, I think I will be OK with the heat situation... Also, I have an excellent airflow in my case.
I just have to make sure that the close loop system that I'm gonna get doesn't leak...

Although they arrived a bit late, (I had a very small window of time frame for shopping) I do appreciate all for your inputs... Thank you all...

 

[ThrashZone]

Hi,
Intel systems being on a QVL list is not needed.
Corsair stuff is always overpriced.