In hopes that someone may find this remotely useful (or get a good laugh out of my mistakes), I'm posting my home studio rackmount PC build. I've never had a home studio before so, after we moved to a new house, I decided to build one. This will not be a dedicated studio, rather a studio plus mancave plus home office... your classic guys den from the 50's. (My wife gets a "she shed" out of the deal.)
Some particulars:
I've been in IT for over 30 years and very comfortable with taking computers apart and putting them back together, but I had the management lobotomy about 15 years ago, plus tech has changed SOOOOO much. The biggest trap you can fall into is over configuring by a wide margin. It'll cost you a boatload more than it needs to. The sweetspot for me was give myself some breathing room while not breaking the bank and make sure I can upgrade if/when needed.
There's a LOT of info out there for gamers. Their power needs are through the roof and it was hard weeding out all of the info. The biggest revelation for me was the availability of "business class" motherboards. They're less concerned with crazy graphics performance and more worried about connectivity options and supporting a wide swath of needs. In a sense, a lot more generic than a special purpose gamer. That fit my needs perfectly.
Some particulars:
- I won't be doing any heavy duty recording/mixing. This is mostly to capture ideas and flesh out some demos with my buds. One of those buddies has a more dedicated setup/room and can do a better job of mixdown.
- I'm leaning towards a Focusrite 18i20 interface.
- Reaper will be my DAW, at least in the beginning.
- I wanted connectivity to a 32" monitor and be able to share on a TV.
I've been in IT for over 30 years and very comfortable with taking computers apart and putting them back together, but I had the management lobotomy about 15 years ago, plus tech has changed SOOOOO much. The biggest trap you can fall into is over configuring by a wide margin. It'll cost you a boatload more than it needs to. The sweetspot for me was give myself some breathing room while not breaking the bank and make sure I can upgrade if/when needed.
There's a LOT of info out there for gamers. Their power needs are through the roof and it was hard weeding out all of the info. The biggest revelation for me was the availability of "business class" motherboards. They're less concerned with crazy graphics performance and more worried about connectivity options and supporting a wide swath of needs. In a sense, a lot more generic than a special purpose gamer. That fit my needs perfectly.
- Case - iStarUSA 2U case (D-214-MATX) - This was a HUGE decision for me and, believe it or not, took up a large percentage of my research time. Since I'm mounting it in my desk that has rack rails installed, I didn't want some honking behemoth hanging out the back.
- Motherboard - ASUS B360M-C/CSM. Because of my size constraints with the case, I decided to go with an mATX (micro ATX) motherboard. This one had all the features and connectivity I needed without being huge (ie: ATX) or expensive.
- CPU - Intel i5-8400. Conventional wisdom is to buy as much as you can and I almost went for an i7-8700k, but research told me it would be way overkill for my needs, so why waste the extra dough?
- Memory - Corsair Vengeance LPX, 16GB. I probably could've skimped a bit here, but didn't want to worry about it and research showed this memory was highly regarded.
- PSU - EVGA 500 BQ. Since my wattage wouldn't be through the roof with a power sucking graphics card, 500W seemed like enough. I also liked the fact that this supply was semi-modular (storage power cables plugged in rather than hanging off one honking cable).
- Hard Drive - Samsung 970 PRO NVMe, 512GB. I was ready to punch the button on a SATA SSD when my motherboard research led me to M.2 NVMe (Non-Volatile Memory, express). I further discovered not all NVMe or M.2 is created equal. This link does a MUCH better job of explaining it than I can but in a nutshell, you want an NVMe card and M.2 connection that supports PCIe with 4 lanes.
- Fans - Noctua NF-A8 PWM. Noctua is one of the highest rated computer fans in the business and come at a premium, but I didn't feel like skimping on cooling. Plus, they're known to be quieter than most. The PWM allows for automatic adjustment of fan speed and, in addition, the Noctuas come with a "Low-Noise Adapter" that's basically a governor to limit top end fan speed. An easy choice.
- CPU Cooling - Noctua NH-L9i. There's a ton of hype in this area and I spent an inordinate amount of time reading through it. (Picture me staring at an hour of fan noise tests on YouTube.) Some will tell you that you need cryogenic towers and others will say you're burning money by not using the stock fan that comes with the CPU. Here again, noise level was a major factor in my decision so I went with tried and true. Plus, those cryogenic towers wouldn't fit in a 2U rack case.
- External Backup - Western Digital 4TB USB SSD. Hard drives, whether spindle or SSD, WILL fail. It's not an IF, it's a WHEN. Best to back up your stuff.
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