I need a plan for a Quiet PC for recording

ToneControl

I've been left a bit high and dry by Native instruments:

With compensation from a car crash in the 90s, I bought a Protools Mixplus, then upgraded to an HD2 system, under windows NT

At the time it was the only kit to really offer a full low latency DAW, and over the years I've bought a lot of TDM and RTAS plugins

At present I run it on a Dell server, with 2 x 4 core Xeon 3.2Ghz, with 16Gb RAM, and win 7

trouble is, I use the NI Komplete package, and they have discontinued RTAS support. That would be tolerable, but updates to libraries are starting to prevent me using the Kontakt version from last year that was the last RTAS version

Sooner or later, I need to migrate

the HDX and Native Protools systems are £4.5k+ as an upgrade from my kit

I doubt I need one really

I bought a Macbook 12 to play with Logic in a fanless laptop

It's nice

I was thinking of getting a Macbook Pro to run Logic and Protools 10 via ASIO (I heard that Macbooks are quiet) - then at least I could use some of my old RTAS plugins as well as AAX, but when I looked, the latest fastest one scores only 8.8 - slightly higher than the 8.4 score of my 3 year old windows laptop 

benchmarks:

mac: 4980hq = 10107

old Dell laptop 3840QM = 8907

to be honest, £2.5k for that sounds a lot for performance from 3 years ago

I'm now wondering about instead getting a custom PC from QuietPC, with one of these fitted:

Intel Xeon E5-2695 v3 @ 2.30GHz

is that overkill? It's got 14 cores 

I assumed that would be a good long term DAW platform

ecc83

I strongly suggest a (temporary!) flit over to www.soundonsound.com where there are many top recording guys with powerful but quiet rigs.

Also "Mr Scan" Pete will give you excellent non-partisan advice.

You have the complication of W10 looming but at  least it seems excellent for music despite its nosiness!

Dave.

TTony

Over the 30-odd years that I've been building/buying/using PCs at home, I've concluded that it's fairly pointless trying to get something "future proof" today, because you never know what disruptive new technology is going to emerge.

Inevitably, the new technology completely undermines the future proof protection that you've tried to build-in today - and for which you've paid a price premium today.

So, I've just adopted a 2-3-4 year upgrade cycle instead.  The cycle period has stretched out recently as I'm using the desktop less, and the laptop/tablet more.  

Every 3-4 years I spend c£1000 on a main PC.  That sort of spend gets me more than enough (power, RAM, disc, etc) for today, and generally more than enough for the next couple of years.

It might be slightly different in the more specialised DAW market, but I'd guess that speed of storage is going to be the limiting factor?

My other observation is that PCs have got a lot quieter in recent years - so it might not be worth the price premium of QuietPC's stuff?  Having just ordered the latest replacement, I just fired up my previous gen machine (I always keep the previous one as a backup) to remove software/licences before binning it.  Wow, noisy!  Current machine was upgraded with a load of QuietPC components when I got it, to cut out the noise.  Next machine seems to have a lot of the same tech built into it - though I'll only know for sure when it arrives and I power it up.

With the Macs, there's more of the purchase price that's paying for the design premium rather than component performance.  You're also a bit more limited in terms of what you can change/upgrade during the life of the machine.  I'd always stick with the PC platform for a machine that you think you might want to tweak through the years.  (I'm not anti-Apple, I'm typing this on a current gen MBP).

spark240

FYI my Mac mini (2012) is almost silent ..

i7, 2.6G, 16G Ram,  just need SSD.

ToneControl

TTony said:

Over the 30-odd years that I've been building/buying/using PCs at home, I've concluded that it's fairly pointless trying to get something "future proof" today, because you never know what disruptive new technology is going to emerge.

Inevitably, the new technology completely undermines the future proof protection that you've tried to build-in today - and for which you've paid a price premium today.

So, I've just adopted a 2-3-4 year upgrade cycle instead.  The cycle period has stretched out recently as I'm using the desktop less, and the laptop/tablet more.  

Every 3-4 years I spend c£1000 on a main PC.  That sort of spend gets me more than enough (power, RAM, disc, etc) for today, and generally more than enough for the next couple of years.

It might be slightly different in the more specialised DAW market, but I'd guess that speed of storage is going to be the limiting factor?

My other observation is that PCs have got a lot quieter in recent years - so it might not be worth the price premium of QuietPC's stuff?  Having just ordered the latest replacement, I just fired up my previous gen machine (I always keep the previous one as a backup) to remove software/licences before binning it.  Wow, noisy!  Current machine was upgraded with a load of QuietPC components when I got it, to cut out the noise.  Next machine seems to have a lot of the same tech built into it - though I'll only know for sure when it arrives and I power it up.

With the Macs, there's more of the purchase price that's paying for the design premium rather than component performance.  You're also a bit more limited in terms of what you can change/upgrade during the life of the machine.  I'd always stick with the PC platform for a machine that you think you might want to tweak through the years.  (I'm not anti-Apple, I'm typing this on a current gen MBP).

yes, I started out building my own PCs a long time ago too, in the early 90s

I've moved more to laptops recently, but my recent powerful ones have been noisy

I understand that Apple lean more to thermal throttling, which I can live with, but as I say, the CPUs seem pretty poor for the flagship Macbook Pro, only 10% more performance than my 3 year old Dell???

I tend to buy then use for 3-4 years before replacing now too, a DAW setup takes a long time to commission, and I don't want to redo it in 12 months, so I certainly would not want to go back 3 years for a CPU, but get the best affordable stuff from the moment, since virtual instruments and FX hammer the CPU and memory

14 cores seems a good idea

digitalscream

It's worth bearing in mind that although you get 14 cores with it, you're sacrificing an awful lot of single-threaded performance to get there (not to mention that 14 cores kick out a lot of heat, which has to be dealt with somehow). There's a law of diminishing returns here - the overhead of managing 14 cores uses up a fair bit of CPU power, too.

By comparison, the Core i7 5960X has 8 cores (16 logical threads) and runs up to 3.5GHz. It'll set you back £800, as opposed to £1900 for the Xeon. Memory for the Core i7 will be cheaper, too (it uses DDR4, as opposed to the way-more-expensive ECC DDR4 the Xeon uses). For the price of the Xeon CPU alone, you can build a damn high-spec (and silent) machine around the i7. I know, I built the spec for Adji's machine around the hex-core version for a fair bit less than the cost of the Xeon, brimming with SSDs.

Don't forget that with Apple's thermal throttling, you're losing CPU power the harder you work the CPU (I believe the latest ones even shut down whole cores to save heat, but don't take my word for it). That puts you in an even worse position than you were before.

ToneControl

yeah. I built a few quieter PCs 15 years ago, with all sorts of add-ons. None were quiet enough, so since then I've kept the DAW PC in a separate room, but I would prefer to knock the rooms together - so getting a quiet PC sounds good

the quiet PC specs look as if the 14 core may be poss, it kicks out 145w, but certainly I would go down to 8 cores if I could get silence

digitalscream

Take a look here:

http://www.scan.co.uk/3xs/configurator/3xs-fwx99-audio-production-pc/default

The 135mm fan there will definitely tick the "silent" box, combined with the case designed to minimise vibrations.

ToneControl

digitalscream said:

Take a look here:

http://www.scan.co.uk/3xs/configurator/3xs-fwx99-audio-production-pc/default

The 135mm fan there will definitely tick the "silent" box, combined with the case designed to minimise vibrations.

I go back a long way with Scan, one of my favourite suppliers since when they were in Little Lever, but they aren't specialists in this, I was looking at this

http://www.quietpc.com/sys-serenity-wavestation

Wazmeister

Buy a Mac

wave100

Another vote for Scan here -  they have some passively cooled (ie totally silent) systems.

digitalscream

ToneControl said:

digitalscream said:

Take a look here:

http://www.scan.co.uk/3xs/configurator/3xs-fwx99-audio-production-pc/default

The 135mm fan there will definitely tick the "silent" box, combined with the case designed to minimise vibrations.

I go back a long way with Scan, one of my favourite suppliers since when they were in Little Lever, but they aren't specialists in this, I was looking at this

http://www.quietpc.com/sys-serenity-wavestation

Honestly, if experience in the enthusiast world has taught me anything, it's that these "specialist" PC makers really aren't particularly special, and they're definitely not using any hardware that's specific to them - the only thing they have that places like Scan don't is a premium on the price.

juansolo

I'm a bit of a noise obsessive. I've water cooled both Macs and PCs in the past. My current machine though is silent off the shelf. Your basic 27" iMac (current model). The only thing I specced up from standard was I had an SSD fitted. Not cheap by any means, but more power on tap than I ever use and I've never heard it's fan spin up, ever (to the point I'm not sure it even has one).

Mac mini's (mentioned above) can be a bit hit and miss when it comes to noise. I've had 4 of them and they've ranged from actually a little annoying to near as damnit silent (would be with an SSD).

ToneControl

wave100 said:

Another vote for Scan here -  they have some passively cooled (ie totally silent) systems.

trouble is, the passively cooled one has a max performance with  a 4790S CPU of 9623 CPUmark, almost no different to my old Dell laptop 3840QM = 8907

QuietPC do a silent one that's a little faster, 11242, they have a much larger range of quiet and silent stuff

ToneControl

digitalscream said:

Take a look here:

http://www.scan.co.uk/3xs/configurator/3xs-fwx99-audio-production-pc/default

The 135mm fan there will definitely tick the "silent" box, combined with the case designed to minimise vibrations.

Looks like Scan have improved their range, but QuietPC still look a lot better at doing this

digitalscream

With any passively-cooled PC, though, you're running with the high probability that the CPU gets throttled whenever you start to actually use the horsepower available to it, thus completely negating any benchmarks and the point of getting a faster CPU in the first place.

You're far better off using active cooling (preferably with a heatpipe going to a big radiator and a massive low-RPM fan) and a well-designed case.

EDIT: There's also the fact that aiming for silence is pointless - you just need to aim for a lower noise floor than the mics can pick up. My PC, for example, doesn't have anything special in it...however, my breathing is usually louder when my PC and I are equidistant from the condenser mic in my office.

Jalapeno

I recently got an allegedly silent PC from Overclockers - it isn't quiet at all.  I'm probably going to have to replace the PSU & Fans again like did on my last PC - Quiet PC are good, but make sure they have the totally silent options for your PSU, CPU, GPU and chipset fans and fans for your case.

ToneControl

digitalscream said:

With any passively-cooled PC, though, you're running with the high probability that the CPU gets throttled whenever you start to actually use the horsepower available to it, thus completely negating any benchmarks and the point of getting a faster CPU in the first place.

You're far better off using active cooling (preferably with a heatpipe going to a big radiator and a massive low-RPM fan) and a well-designed case.

EDIT: There's also the fact that aiming for silence is pointless - you just need to aim for a lower noise floor than the mics can pick up. My PC, for example, doesn't have anything special in it...however, my breathing is usually louder when my PC and I are equidistant from the condenser mic in my office.

my worry is that I went through many PCs 10-15 years ago that were supposed to be near-silent

so I'm wary of taking anecdotal evidence

Quiet PC said that their top active one you could just hear 2 feet away when idling, and about 2m away when at 100% cooling

I need to assess if a 6700K CPU is adequate I think

Danny1969

One easy way to build a silent PC is to build in open frame. The reason PC's tend to have high powered small fans is everything has to be crammed in a box and air forced out through vents. If you build the PC open framed (image a PC on it's side and the front, back and side cut away) you can have one big lazy silent fan and it's essentially noiseless. I built mine on a 19" rack tray because it was for mobile recording purposes 

How quiet do you need the PC ? we have recorded acoustic guitars and vocals in the control room loads of time and I've never heard the fan from the computer under the console in any of the recordings 

ToneControl

latest comparison:

my old Dell T7400 from 2009

2 x x5482 Xeon, CPU mark = 8547

my old M6700 Dell laptop from 2012/2013; 1 x 3840QM = 8907  CPU mark

latest top of the range £2,5k macbook:  4980hq = 10107 CPU mark

totally silent passive cooled  £1.25k Quiet PC Nofan A480S Skylake: 6700K CPU = 10916 CPU mark

£1k passive from Scan,  4790S = 9623 CPU mark

Quiet PC Serenity Wavestation Pro £1.75k, 2650v3 = 15453 CPU mark

for extra £1k, 2695 v3 = 20923 CPU mark

Scan: 3XS FWX99 PowerDAW £1.75k 5960x = 16010 CPU mark

so basically

£1.25k gets you a fanless with 10916 CPU mark

£1.75k gets you a quiet Scan or QuietPC with 15500-16000 CPU mark

£2.75k gets you 21000 CPU mark

maybe the silent ones are best for me

ToneControl

Wazmeister said:

Buy a Mac

large number of issues reported here:

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=how+noisy+are+macbooks&oq=how+noisy+are+macbooks&aqs

all I wanted was dB measurement, but it seems a lot of owners are not happy