What motherboard for audio pc?

[Walt1227]

Hi everyone,
I am trying to build a desktop PC for pro home studio audio recording. Could you guys recommend a good i7 intel CPU and good motherboard that would work for me? I have been looking at Gigabyte mobo's as they seem to get a lot of praise. Most of the programs I use require at least an Intel Core 2 Duo E8200 2.67 GHz. Or require Windows 7 or Windows 8 (latest Service Pack, 32/64 Bit), Intel Core Duo with 4gb of ram. I want to have at least 16 gb to start with the ability to go to 32 gb. Thanks in advance!!

 

[brisa117]

I heard on Pcper.com that Gigabyte has a motherboard coming out that is geared towards top end audio performance, so much that they even allow you to swap out components... anyways, I'm fairly certain that this was at computex and the board most likely isn't avaliable yet; furthermore, if you'll be doing serious editing, you're probably going to want a discrete audio card. This will give you the best possible performance and reduce on interferance.

As far as the processor goes, I would at least pick up the top end i5. They're reasonably priced just over $200 last I checked and will deliver great power for long to come. Best of luck!

 

[Walt1227]

I heard on Pcper.com that Gigabyte has a motherboard coming out that is geared towards top end audio performance, so much that they even allow you to swap out components... anyways, I'm fairly certain that this was at computex and the board most likely isn't avaliable yet; furthermore, if you'll be doing serious editing, you're probably going to want a discrete audio card. This will give you the best possible performance and reduce on interferance.

As far as the processor goes, I would at least pick up the top end i5. They're reasonably priced just over $200 last I checked and will deliver great power for long to come. Best of luck!

That board sounds very cool i'll keep a look out for it. I want to use i7 intel cpu instead of i5. I am going to be using a usb audio interface to start but will be going with a UA Apollo later. The main things I need are fast processor, min 16 gb of ram with 32 gb max. I don't want a processor with graphics built in as I want to get my own. I plan on running to 23inch monitors with a flat screen 42 inch 1080p TV for a occasional blu ray disc. I plan to install a blu ray drive and audio cd drive. I am going to buy a 128 ssd for booting and running the programs. I will install two 7200rpm hhd of 1tb or 2tb each for my music and samples instruments software komplete 9 , sonar x2 producer. I need a GPU card that will be good to run with a TV as well as monitors for viewing. I am looking to buy a mid atx tower case with side window and led lights. Looking at a 500-550 quiet power supply and quite good cooling fans. Is there any motherboard I could by now instead of having to wait only know how long before this new board comes out?

 

[Walt1227]

I heard on Pcper.com that Gigabyte has a motherboard coming out that is geared towards top end audio performance, so much that they even allow you to swap out components... anyways, I'm fairly certain that this was at computex and the board most likely isn't avaliable yet; furthermore, if you'll be doing serious editing, you're probably going to want a discrete audio card. This will give you the best possible performance and reduce on interferance.

As far as the processor goes, I would at least pick up the top end i5. They're reasonably priced just over $200 last I checked and will deliver great power for long to come. Best of luck!

Do you know the name of that board or can you find it and post the link? Thanks!

 

[brisa117]

Sounds like a great build! I'll look to see what board that was tonight and get back to you. It sounded legit. Haha. Also, pretty much any graphics card will hook up to your TV as long as it has HDMI, but some cards also support older connections.

 

[Walt1227]

Sounds like a great build! I'll look to see what board that was tonight and get back to you. It sounded legit. Haha. Also, pretty much any graphics card will hook up to your TV as long as it has HDMI, but some cards also support older connections.

This is the board I saw on pcper.com and I wonder if it would be a good board to use? It doesn't say anything about having wifi which concern me though. Yes I have HDMI TV inputs on my TV. But here is the board I found.


http://www.pcper.com/reviews/Motherboards/GIGABYTE-Z87X-UD3H-Motherboard-Review

What do you think? Does it has wifi capability?

 

[brisa117]

Sounds like a great build! I'll look to see what board that was tonight and get back to you. It sounded legit. Haha. Also, pretty much any graphics card will hook up to your TV as long as it has HDMI, but some cards also support older connections.

This is the board I saw on pcper.com and I wonder if it would be a good board to use? It doesn't say anything about having wifi which concern me though. Yes I have HDMI TV inputs on my TV. But here is the board I found.


http://www.pcper.com/reviews/Motherboards/GIGABYTE-Z87X-UD3H-Motherboard-Review

What do you think? Does it has wifi capability?

That motherboard doesn't have WIFI built in : ( But you can pick up a wifi card for ~$25.

The board I was talking about is this one: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128604&nm_mc=KNC-GoogleAdwords&cm_mmc=KNC-GoogleAdwords-_-pla-_-Intel+Motherboards-_-N82E16813128604&gclid=CJGDqrSugLgCFWdo7Aod0l8AYg

They talk about the Audio abilities of it on the PCPer podcast here (http://www.pcper.com/news/General-Tech/Podcast-249-Corsair-350D-Frame-Rating-4K-Oculus-Rift-and-more) at about 46:00. Apparently you can switch out your own OP-AMP on the board to get the quality of sound you're looking for. I'm not an audio expert by a long shot, but this would probably do you well. Plus, I've seen it online for $199, not much more expensive than your suggested board.

The downside of course is that this one doesn't have WIFI either and is a microATX, not full ATX. There is a full ATX version here (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128595&nm_mc=KNC-GoogleAdwords&cm_mmc=KNC-GoogleAdwords-_-pla-_-Intel+Motherboards-_-N82E16813128595&gclid=CNrA0dmvgLgCFWFp7AodIgoADw) but it's literally double the price! Again, I would find a board I liked with reliability, WIFI built in, and support for the amount of RAM you want, and then buy a sound card.

 

[Walt1227]

Sounds like a great build! I'll look to see what board that was tonight and get back to you. It sounded legit. Haha. Also, pretty much any graphics card will hook up to your TV as long as it has HDMI, but some cards also support older connections.

This is the board I saw on pcper.com and I wonder if it would be a good board to use? It doesn't say anything about having wifi which concern me though. Yes I have HDMI TV inputs on my TV. But here is the board I found.


http://www.pcper.com/reviews/Motherboards/GIGABYTE-Z87X-UD3H-Motherboard-Review

What do you think? Does it has wifi capability?

That motherboard doesn't have WIFI built in : ( But you can pick up a wifi card for ~$25.

The board I was talking about is this one: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128604&nm_mc=KNC-GoogleAdwords&cm_mmc=KNC-GoogleAdwords-_-pla-_-Intel+Motherboards-_-N82E16813128604&gclid=CJGDqrSugLgCFWdo7Aod0l8AYg

They talk about the Audio abilities of it on the PCPer podcast here (http://www.pcper.com/news/General-Tech/Podcast-249-Corsair-350D-Frame-Rating-4K-Oculus-Rift-and-more) at about 46:00. Apparently you can switch out your own OP-AMP on the board to get the quality of sound you're looking for. I'm not an audio expert by a long shot, but this would probably do you well. Plus, I've seen it online for $199, not much more expensive than your suggested board.

The downside of course is that this one doesn't have WIFI either and is a microATX, not full ATX. There is a full ATX version here (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128595&nm_mc=KNC-GoogleAdwords&cm_mmc=KNC-GoogleAdwords-_-pla-_-Intel+Motherboards-_-N82E16813128595&gclid=CNrA0dmvgLgCFWFp7AodIgoADw) but it's literally double the price! Again, I would find a board I liked with reliability, WIFI built in, and support for the amount of RAM you want, and then buy a sound card.

Would there be any over heating issues with the smaller version of this board? If I can buy a wifi card for $25 then I don't need to have a mobo with wifi. I wonder if the new 4th generation i7 cpu is worth buying now? Is there any other board you would recommend that will give me a max of 32 gb ram and be reliable? I'm not trying to spend more than $600-$800 total to build this computer. Could you recommend a mobo and cpu prefer it to be intel i7 based cpu.

 

[brisa117]

Would there be any over heating issues with the smaller version of this board? If I can buy a wifi card for $25 then I don't need to have a mobo with wifi. I wonder if the new 4th generation i7 cpu is worth buying now? Is there any other board you would recommend that will give me a max of 32 gb ram and be reliable? I'm not trying to spend more than $600-$800 total to build this computer. Could you recommend a mobo and cpu prefer it to be intel i7 based cpu.

There shouldn't be any overheating issues. In fact, I would imagine the heating issues would be lessened because of the board having less circuitry (etc.) This should allow for better airflow through your case. Always use a good CPU cooler and you'll have nothing to worry about.

Anyways, I went to NewEgg to do a whole mock build for a system for you and HOLY CRAP! RAM has skyrocketed! Did I miss something? I went looking for the 32 GB 1866 kit that I bought back in November of last year (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231529)...... I bought this kit for $144.49! It's $269.99 now! What gives?!

Anyways, two questions: 1. are you wanting 32GB now or are you wanting to build up to that? This motherboard comes with a free 8GB kit right now... also were you wanting your $600-$800 to include a monitor or do you already have that?

 

[Walt1227]

Would there be any over heating issues with the smaller version of this board? If I can buy a wifi card for $25 then I don't need to have a mobo with wifi. I wonder if the new 4th generation i7 cpu is worth buying now? Is there any other board you would recommend that will give me a max of 32 gb ram and be reliable? I'm not trying to spend more than $600-$800 total to build this computer. Could you recommend a mobo and cpu prefer it to be intel i7 based cpu.

There shouldn't be any overheating issues. In fact, I would imagine the heating issues would be lessened because of the board having less circuitry (etc.) This should allow for better airflow through your case. Always use a good CPU cooler and you'll have nothing to worry about.

Anyways, I went to NewEgg to do a whole mock build for a system for you and HOLY CRAP! RAM has skyrocketed! Did I miss something? I went looking for the 32 GB 1866 kit that I bought back in November of last year (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231529)...... I bought this kit for $144.49! It's $269.99 now! What gives?!

Anyways, two questions: 1. are you wanting 32GB now or are you wanting to build up to that? This motherboard comes with a free 8GB kit right now... also were you wanting your $600-$800 to include a monitor or do you already have that?

Thanks for doing a build I really appreciate that!! As for the 32GB I want to build up to that. Right now I want 16Gb and as I start adding more plugins I will most likely buy more ram to go up to the full 32GB. I have heard that the programs I am going to use mainly Native Instruments Komplete 9 for sounds and Sonar X2 Producer for audio recording can eat up ram depending on how many tracks you are running. By having the ability to add up to 32GB I know I won't have any CPU lag or sudden crashes. I don't have the monitor right now but will get them off of ebay used for cheap. Plus I plan to hook my flat screen TV up and use it when I want to watch a Blu Ray. I think that some of the boards I looked at and even the one you have suggest has the ability to run two monitors one as VGA one as DVI and one as HDMI which would give me three and the TV would be on HDMI. But my total for everything is no more than $800 and if I can spend less than that and have a great system that would be awesome. By the way I would like to have a case with a side panel window with LED lighting, I think that looks so cool especially at night when watching a movie.

 

[Walt1227]

Would there be any over heating issues with the smaller version of this board? If I can buy a wifi card for $25 then I don't need to have a mobo with wifi. I wonder if the new 4th generation i7 cpu is worth buying now? Is there any other board you would recommend that will give me a max of 32 gb ram and be reliable? I'm not trying to spend more than $600-$800 total to build this computer. Could you recommend a mobo and cpu prefer it to be intel i7 based cpu.

There shouldn't be any overheating issues. In fact, I would imagine the heating issues would be lessened because of the board having less circuitry (etc.) This should allow for better airflow through your case. Always use a good CPU cooler and you'll have nothing to worry about.

Anyways, I went to NewEgg to do a whole mock build for a system for you and HOLY CRAP! RAM has skyrocketed! Did I miss something? I went looking for the 32 GB 1866 kit that I bought back in November of last year (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231529)...... I bought this kit for $144.49! It's $269.99 now! What gives?!

Anyways, two questions: 1. are you wanting 32GB now or are you wanting to build up to that? This motherboard comes with a free 8GB kit right now... also were you wanting your $600-$800 to include a monitor or do you already have that?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...
$59.99 with $5 off till 7/1/2013

I really love this case! I wonder if I could use it and put blue