Pc build for music station.

nazmoalex

Hi, I am looking for advise before make a few decisions.

Have a couple of items already and I'm half afraid I messed up by taking a replacement CPU.

I had a Ryzen 3300x on pre-order, but it kept getting pushed back, so I caved in and took the 3100 instead.

Currently have

Be quiet Silent Base 600 case,
Ryzen 3 3100,
Vengeance LPX 16gb 3600MHz,
2 TB Western Digital Purple,
500 GB Western Digital Blue.

Motherboard-
I will primarily be using it for music, so I am wondering should I go with a separate internal sound card and cheaper motherboard or go for a higher end motherboard with 7.1?

Graphics card-
An entry level graphics card will suffice as I am not pushed on using it for gaming, although it may be used for video editing at a basic level.

SSD-
Minimum 500gb.

PSU-
Quiet if possible.

Monitor-
24 inch, again not too fusy about gaming.

Mouse + Keyboard-
Would be using the mouse a lot.

I don't really have a set budget, but ideally around 450-500.

Any feedback welcome.
Thanks

JoyPad

When you say "using it for music", what do you mean? Listening? Writing? Recording?

If you're serious about the audio quality, you should invest in some external devices.
The main advantage is that you can connect this to whatever computer you have with you, and still have great quality audio.
Now, what qualifies as high quality will depend on your needs, and how deep is your wallet.

Overheal

No for a music station you probably want a discrete unit like a Dac and Amp setup:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPkJgiVb_C4

The other advantage of an external DAC/Amp is interoperability. It will run on any computer with USB, like a laptop or mini PC as well.

salamiii

nvidi 1660 should be lowest video card you should go you can pass through digital sound from a gpu card with hdmi cable no need for sound card

nazmoalex

JoyPad wrote: »

When you say "using it for music", what do you mean? Listening? Writing? Recording?

If you're serious about the audio quality, you should invest in some external devices.
The main advantage is that you can connect this to whatever computer you have with you, and still have great quality audio.
Now, what qualifies as high quality will depend on your needs, and how deep is your wallet.

I'm going to be using it for making music. I used an internal soundcard on my last pc, and it was fine for what I was doing.

Generally just going to be using DAWs and recording basslines through a Focusrite Scarlett Solo. (Which I will buy later)

Getting the best motherboard to go with what I already have is my main concern.

Appreciate the advice

JoyPad

My point (as well as expressed above by Overheal) is that you should not rely on the onboard sound card, even if you do buy a more expensive motherboard.

You could get a B450 or a X470 motherboard, and either would be fine for the purpose. And then get an external soundcard for your headphones or speakers. Some people here bought B-stock Creative G6 and reported great quality. It's 75 euro instead of 150. I use two G5s (the older model) for my needs, and I've been very happy with them.

Overheal

nazmoalex wrote: »

I'm going to be using it for making music. I used an internal soundcard on my last pc, and it was fine for what I was doing.

Generally just going to be using DAWs and recording basslines through a Focusrite Scarlett Solo. (Which I will buy later)

Getting the best motherboard to go with what I already have is my main concern.

Appreciate the advice

I don't think you need to worry about the motherboard terribly then. Even an A520 board will do everything you need it to, if you will be plugging lots of external devices and expansion cards in, a B550 might be worth it. X570 is complete overkill for you.

But compare the cost of upgrading the motherboard to have a well-marketed isolated onboard soundcard, with a DAC/AMP. An A550 board + a DAC/AMP is going to be about the same cost as a flashy gaming motherboard with a high end sound solution on board, that will still only have 3.5mm jack connections that you have to access at the back panel, and give you really frankly bare bones basic audio features; half the time the stuff these boards advertise is like "sonar radar" in FPS games and other gimmicks.

DACs etc. are going to open you up not just to clean audio coming out of your PC but all the sampling and recording in hi fidelity you may want to if music production is your workflow. eg.

https://www.musiciansfriend.com/pro-audio/focusrite-scarlett-2i2-usb-audio-interface-gen-3/l56575000000000?cntry=US&cur=USD&source=3WWRWXGP&gclid=CjwKCAjwrKr8BRB_EiwA7eFapvH218YczGx9NxZ2sqXUKUtjAN3oIECYgiZXhQNdGmG-nnh-piE7CxoCSNIQAvD_BwE

I think at this stage you might be better off asking the eggheads in the Music Production Forum for their expertise and wisdom

https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/forumdisplay.php?f=607

Overheal

Back on the rest of the build

nazmoalex wrote: »

Be quiet Silent Base 600 case,
Ryzen 3 3100,
Vengeance LPX 16gb 3600MHz,
2 TB Western Digital Purple,
500 GB Western Digital Blue.

450-500 budget

So yeah we aren't overclocking, an A520 chipset motherboard sounds like a lot it - IF your 16GB of RAM is 2 DIMMs (and it should be), A520 has 2 slots of RAM, not 4, but I don't think that matters for you.

Is there a particular reason why you chose a WD Purple? I was just now years old when I learned Purple was a thing - but these appear to be optimized for a CCTV recording workload. If it was cheaper though: congrats!

But OK, again, your drives are SATA, we aren't even using m.2 or NVME (not that you really need to) and is another reason to say A520 more than fits your needs. The A520 still has m.2 support, just not as much as the higher end chipsets - another reason to not pay extra for features you won't use!

Any GPU you fancy. Really. The GPU is not the bottleneck in video editing, the CPU is. Any monitor you want, 1080p is as good a value as ever, you do not need to waste money on refresh rates higher than 60 Hz though, as you will not be gaming and nothing you do will take advantage of it (even if you did game, higher than 60 Hz is really niche/luxury). Even a barebones GPU, you're just pushing the desktop and some youtube/netflix. Best value: buy used. You could buy a generations-old graphics card and never appreciate any difference in user experience. Just set a budget for the component (I recommend whatever is left over) and see what you can get.

Mouse is a mouse. The G502 Hero was on sale this weak really cheap. Same with Razer keyboards, but these are all hugely down to personal preferences. My colleague has had great luck with dodgy chinese branded gaming mice before too for dirt cheap. Don't sweat these purchases at all. I will say for Christmas if you ask santa for a razer chroma board, it has lighting effects that respond to audio and they are faaaancy.

My firm reccomendation is an A520 board with no frills, and using a DAC/Amp external USB deck to run your audio.

nazmoalex

Thanks for the tips. The a520 looks like the right fit for my budget. Is there any particular model I should avoid? I'm leaning towards an Asus Prime A520 M-A. (€75) There are itx models available, is there much difference between the mirco atx and an itx?

The purple WD was given to me, I just presumed it was going to be grand for storage. Hopefully it'll be fine.

Any further advice on what graphics card will suffice? I am finding it difficult to narrow it down.

Thanks again for the information

Overheal

nazmoalex wrote: »

Thanks for the tips. The a520 looks like the right fit for my budget. Is there any particular model I should avoid? I'm leaning towards an Asus Prime A520 M-A. (€75) There are itx models available, is there much difference between the mirco atx and an itx?

The purple WD was given to me, I just presumed it was going to be grand for storage. Hopefully it'll be fine.

Any further advice on what graphics card will suffice? I am finding it difficult to narrow it down.

Thanks again for the information

ASUS is great, they manufacture good quality PCBs.

Someone else might have more to add about GPUs but for your use case it would be hard to pick a card that wouldn’t work for you, if it needs it’s own power connector then it’s overkill for non gaming. Any single slot GPU really from AMD or Nvidia.