OK I am ready to buy a new machine to run Audirvana on. The DAC I have is a Miverna Audio Pure Stream, the DAC chip it locked and optimized to DSD256. I need the music program to upconvert 16/44.1 files to DSD256. As I understand this Audirvana should have this capability provided the computer has enough processing power.
I am considering one of these two machines. Do we have enough PCU and bus speed to do the job?
or
Any alternative recommendations would be greatly appreciated.
It’s an overkill. Have you though about Intel NUCs?
They are about the same price. Was Looking at a Nuc with an i7 and 16 GB of Ram also. Pretty close to the same money. Not sure if a 9th gen i7 or an AMD Ryzen 7 would be the better choice. I need to be able to do the upsampling in the computer software not at the DAC, so from what I am reading I need some horsepower in the CPU chip.
This would be the Nuc that I would consider.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B088X3RK8V/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_fabc_2Y6Y01J27N49X4NN60XS
It‘s more than enough. SoX (the upsampling algorithm) is by default single threaded. It‘s pointless to have many cores. You need few fast cores. That‘s why you don‘t really benefit from i9 or 8 core or beyond Ryzen CPUs.
Well I did run into some issues so far. I ordered a Mac Mini with M1 and discovered the system is unable to perform the upsampling, appears to be either a driver issue or inherent to the OS system. I also discovered that BH Photo offers no exchanges on opened computer purchases. So I was forced to sell on my local CL, which is a pain in the butt. I don’t want to go through this again, so I want to order a machine that I can be sure will perform the upsampling task without issues. I am not a real strong computer person, just a typical user, and from what research I did it seems that CPU power is the key to getting the upsampling conversion done without issues.
If so, then what is a reasonable choice for CPU chip to do so. From what I have read a 6th gen or newer i7 should work.
That’s a good reference point. We‘re now at 11th gen Intel CPU. Any modern desktop CPU will pretty much do. There is not much difference in per core performance there. Even a modern i5 will be able to manage it, and probably also i3, especially since this is a single purpose computer.
Of course, you want to give it a little breathing room, you didn’t want it running at 100% CPU utilization all the time. Stick with i5 or better or Ryzen 3600 or more recent.
Also, I understand that RAM does not really factor into this process, so 8 GB is sufficient, and even 16 GB is more than necessary. So The above Nuc will work, as will the Beelink, its a matter of which CPU I want and what type of case and cooling arrangement for the most part.
Since you’re building a new machine, it’s better to stock it up with more RAM. I would go for 16GB. Who knows what you might decide to do in the future. Maybe you’ll start using plug-ins, room correction and such.
So I ordered this one last night. Should be here during the middle of the week.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B088X3RK8V/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1