Topic: RME Reference PC for Digiface USB?

Its been a very long time since I've seen an "RME Reference PC" page smile

I'm looking to upgrade my old i7 3770k and not sure what mobo and CPU combo I should be looking at. I use other USB devices such as webcams and mouse and keyboard, as well as the RME Remote controller thing

I also run dual monitors, so I might have to spring for a video card, though the radeon I have now may work.

What would you guys recommend for a 9th or 10th gen Intel CPU and a good motherboard for this? Middle of the road budget, not the super top end of diminishing returns.

2 (edited by ramses 2020-11-30 11:58:40)

Re: RME Reference PC for Digiface USB?

In a perfect world this should not be any issue, but if you read the forum regulary, then the older X99 chipset have some issue that sometimes can be cured with special configuration. Maybe not in all cases. So .. chipsets are also complex chips which can have some flaws in the design ...

I can't remember about reports from user in this forum with "positive builds" using more recent hardware (be it Intel or AMD based). If you go purely by benchmark results, AMD has overtaken Intel.

The only problem that I have with mainbords supporting the latest AMD CPUs is, that most of them have a chipset blower, this is for me a nogo. The only mainboard manufacturer that has a passive cooling is Gigabyte ... but it's my personal gut feeling, not to buy from this brand after I read some user reports and the issues they had in other forums.
I think Asus is a good brand and they also delivered BIOS updates relatively quickly when the issues with Spectre / Meltdown became known. Same with Supermicro.

Something else that I personally don't like is that both manufacturers seem to want to outdo each other, no matter what it takes. The maximum CPU temperatures of both manufacturers are now already over 90° up to 100°C. 5 years ago Broadwell-E/EP (Xeon E5-1650 v4, 14mn Technology) had temperatures between 28-60°C, TCase max 69°C (case temperature at the headspreader of the CPU).

If you look for a silent device, then it was usually the objective to look for components that are not or not much overclocked, so that the fans can operate at lower levels. I am not sure how this is today with CPUs have a max temperature of 92 / 100 °C.

If nobody in this forum can contribute to this then I would suggest to talk to an experienced company which is specialized for audio PCs. Maybe you also want to have thunderbolt 3 to cover also this interface standard, should that be applicable for you now or in up to 5 years. I am using my build meanwhile since 6 years without issues. For me it payed out to get a system that offered good options to be expanded over the years:
https://www.tonstudio-forum.de/blog/ind … mponenten/
https://www.tonstudio-forum.de/blog/ind … cks-de-en/

A company which I regard as very experienced in this area is Xi-machines: http://xi-machines.com/de/index.php
They offer a wide range of systems up to Xeon builds with ECC RAM.
I would ask them whether they offer already Zen 3 based builds or why not and what would be possible in your price range.
Then you can decide to perform a build on your own or to take something proven by getting such a turnkey system, this surely saves a lot of time and frustration, because who knows upfront, what mainboard / BIOS / driver / HW combination works very well in combination ...

BR Ramses - UFX III, 12Mic, XTC, ADI-2 Pro FS R BE, RayDAT, X10SRi-F, E5-1680v4, Win10Pro22H2, Cub13