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Build advice sought...



 
 
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  #1  
Old November 27th 17, 06:40 AM posted to alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt
Nil[_3_]
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Posts: 172
Default Build advice sought...

I'm planning to assemble a computer to replace my 11-year-old XP
desktop. This will be used for general computing and audio recording
and editing. No gaming. I'm planning to run Windows 7 64-bit on it, so
I want a CPU that's among the most recent and highest performing ones
that will support Win7. I might later feel the need to move to Windows
10, but not anytime soon. From what I've read, it seems that the Intel
i5-6500, i5-6600, or i5-6600k could make good candidates. Money is an
object of course, but not the primary one. My goal is stability and
longevity.

So, a request for comments...

- Are the Intel CPUs mentioned above good choices? If I understand
correctly, there may be some issues installing Win7 from USB devices,
but I can work around that.

- I still need to find a motherboard. It must have a PCI slot for my
old M-Audio AP2496 sound card. Any suggestions? I've had very good luck
with ASUS in the past.

Any thoughts you might have would be appreciated. I kinda lost track of
the state of the technology several years ago and I'm trying to get
back up to speed.
  #2  
Old November 27th 17, 08:50 AM posted to alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt
Paul[_28_]
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Posts: 1,467
Default Build advice sought...

Nil wrote:
I'm planning to assemble a computer to replace my 11-year-old XP
desktop. This will be used for general computing and audio recording
and editing. No gaming. I'm planning to run Windows 7 64-bit on it, so
I want a CPU that's among the most recent and highest performing ones
that will support Win7. I might later feel the need to move to Windows
10, but not anytime soon. From what I've read, it seems that the Intel
i5-6500, i5-6600, or i5-6600k could make good candidates. Money is an
object of course, but not the primary one. My goal is stability and
longevity.

So, a request for comments...

- Are the Intel CPUs mentioned above good choices? If I understand
correctly, there may be some issues installing Win7 from USB devices,
but I can work around that.

- I still need to find a motherboard. It must have a PCI slot for my
old M-Audio AP2496 sound card. Any suggestions? I've had very good luck
with ASUS in the past.

Any thoughts you might have would be appreciated. I kinda lost track of
the state of the technology several years ago and I'm trying to get
back up to speed.


The motherboard/CPU business is a shambles in terms of the "sparse
matrix of support", so I doubt anybody really has a superior mental
model of what to do. It's just a mess, with a high chance of a buyer
getting burned when they "forgot to check something".

In any case, I think you've started in just about the perfect place :-)

I don't think going much further forward, even if the CPU was 5% faster
ounce for ounce, would really be all that much better.

Asus has some Win7 tables, but just seems to have lost their enthusiasm
for providing quick data for users of the two newer sockets.

Year Link

2004 https://www.asus.com/Static_WebPage/...el_Socket_775/
2009 https://www.asus.com/Static_WebPage/...l_Socket_1156/
2011 https://www.asus.com/Static_WebPage/...l_Socket_1155/

2013 1150 Haswell (internal regulator, this generation only)
2015 1151 Skylake,KabyLake? 270, 370

*******

i5-6500 1151 Skylake
i5-6600 1151 Skylake
i5-6600k 1151 Skylake

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGA_1151

Z170 Skylake, Kaby Lake (BIOS update)
Z270 Skylake, Kaby Lake
Z370 Coffee Lake

https://www.reddit.com/r/intel/comme...t_for_windows/

"Z270 supports Skylake, the last Intel processor to officially support Windows 7"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaby_Lake

"Kaby Lake is the first Intel platform to lack official driver support
from Microsoft for versions of Windows older than Windows 10,
although an enthusiast-created modification was released that
disabled the check and allowed Windows 8.1 and earlier to continue
to work on the platform."

And at some point, the quick power state change feature
might not be supported by the older OSes. Which I don't
think matters a whole lot. And the small processors
don't have internal NUMA or SMP features that would be
a particular problem.

So we could shoot for a Z270 with one PCI slot. The
PCI slot has to come from a PCI bridge chip, since
the PCH has been missing that for a couple generations.
It's quite common to need a bridge chip. One bridge chip
provides an entire PCI bus, with multiple chip selects
if needed. The two-slot PCI board only needs one bridge.

GIGABYTE GA-Z270-HD3 (rev. 1.0)
LGA 1151 Intel Z270
HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.1 One PCI slot, M.2 slot near CPU
ATX Motherboard $115

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...82E16813128974

ASUS PRIME Z270-K
LGA 1151 Intel Z270
HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.1 USB 3.0 Two PCI slot
ATX Motherboards

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...82E16813132938

For audio support, you want to do a DPC latency check on those.
Which means tracking down a forum with the info.

There are probably a couple hundred boards to sift through,
one way or another. Take your time. You don't absolutely
need Z270, so there are other chips I could have sifted for.

Paul
  #3  
Old November 27th 17, 09:10 AM posted to alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt
Flasherly[_2_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 2,407
Default Build advice sought...

On 27 Nov 2017 05:40:59 GMT, Nil
wrote:

I'm planning to assemble a computer to replace my 11-year-old XP
desktop. This will be used for general computing and audio recording
and editing. No gaming. I'm planning to run Windows 7 64-bit on it, so
I want a CPU that's among the most recent and highest performing ones
that will support Win7. I might later feel the need to move to Windows
10, but not anytime soon. From what I've read, it seems that the Intel
i5-6500, i5-6600, or i5-6600k could make good candidates. Money is an
object of course, but not the primary one. My goal is stability and
longevity.

So, a request for comments...

- Are the Intel CPUs mentioned above good choices? If I understand
correctly, there may be some issues installing Win7 from USB devices,
but I can work around that.

- I still need to find a motherboard. It must have a PCI slot for my
old M-Audio AP2496 sound card. Any suggestions? I've had very good luck
with ASUS in the past.

Any thoughts you might have would be appreciated. I kinda lost track of
the state of the technology several years ago and I'm trying to get
back up to speed.


An AMD Ryzen at some advanced point pulls into parity with Intel
performance offerings at significantly, maybe half under Intel
pricing. AMD as well takes up the slack, having written their own
"pseudo-drivers', consequent Microsoft's stated abandonment of the
computer hardware industry as it pertains to Windows 7 -- sic, whereas
Intel would not -- in a manner tightly in lockstep to a "standard"
given exclusion for only Windows10, among Intel flagship processors.

I personally went with an octal core Bulldozer, dropped to fire sale
status due to the Ryzen, $80 retail, and updated from an older
quadcore, to replace the MB, CPU, and memory, all for under $200. I
also selected a MB for the option, rather inclusion, among I'd suppose
fewer boards that still provide XP drivers. A Ryzen is a whole
different animal with a chipset for newer bus architecture
applications, which of course Intel also provides. Read an article
for Ryzen's specific design specifications, as a good place to start,
then balance specifications to your perceived future needs. The AMD
cost, again at near performance parity, is near half of the outlay for
an Intel build. From a developer's standpoint, i.e. Intel is
effectively now a unified version of Windows 10. Of residual drivers,
as usual, a determine generically supportive of *NIX platforms, Linux
probably is foremost placed from a developmental stage.

It's nice when, at the manufacturer's site, drivers are given for
future developmental stages. Unless they're not, for such as a PCI
board otherwise capable of continued operations well within newer
platform compatibility. Rather in a manner of a nice bet, to place,
they in fact will still exist to be the business of satisfying
customers.
  #4  
Old November 27th 17, 05:09 PM posted to alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt
Larc[_3_]
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Posts: 383
Default Build advice sought...

On Mon, 27 Nov 2017 02:50:19 -0500, Paul wrote:

| There are probably a couple hundred boards to sift through,
| one way or another. Take your time. You don't absolutely
| need Z270, so there are other chips I could have sifted for.

If the OP doesn't intend to overclock anything, H270 could also be a consideration. I
opted for an ASRock H270 the last time I bought a motherboard and have been totally
happy with it. This ASUS H270 supports 6th (for Win 7) and 7th generation CPUs and
has 2 PCI slots.

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...16813132941&cm

I'd skip Win 7 and go ahead with Win 10. Even though MS isn't publicizing it, Win 7
keys are still working to activate Win 10 as long as the Home/Pro level is the same.

Larc
  #5  
Old November 29th 17, 03:56 AM posted to alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt
NIl
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Posts: 73
Default Build advice sought...

On 27 Nov 2017, Paul wrote in
alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt:

i5-6600k 1151 Skylake


This is what I decided on. I don't necessarily want or need the ability
to overclock, but I might want to play around with it in the future.
The difference in cost between the locked and unlocked version is
minimal.

ASUS PRIME Z270-K
LGA 1151 Intel Z270
HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.1 USB 3.0 Two PCI slot
ATX Motherboards

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...82E16813132938


I liked the look of this one, so that'w what I'm going for. It has the
features I want and gets decent reviews.

For audio support, you want to do a DPC latency check on those.
Which means tracking down a forum with the info.


Not sure what that means. I will only use the built-in audio for system
sounds and casual music listening. For my serious-er audio work (I
record my own music) I rely on a serious-er 3rd-party audio adapter. I
will have to take a chance that my old reliable M-Audio PCI card, but
if for some reason it doesn't, I'm prepared to (reluctantly) replace
it.

Thanks very much for the suggestions. The field is very cluttered and
overwhelming. I mainly needed to see some options laid out to help get
a handle on the task. This is the third time in the past couple of
years that I set out to choose hardware - the other two time I got
bogged down and put it off till later.
  #6  
Old November 29th 17, 03:59 AM posted to alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt
NIl
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 73
Default Build advice sought...

On 27 Nov 2017, Larc wrote in
alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt:

If the OP doesn't intend to overclock anything, H270 could also be
a consideration. I opted for an ASRock H270 the last time I bought
a motherboard and have been totally happy with it. This ASUS H270
supports 6th (for Win 7) and 7th generation CPUs and has 2 PCI
slots.


I'd like the otion to overclock. I like to tinker.


I'd skip Win 7 and go ahead with Win 10. Even though MS isn't
publicizing it, Win 7 keys are still working to activate Win 10 as
long as the Home/Pro level is the same.


I'm determined to stick with Windows 7 for now. I have an unused
license I've saving for this project. If I feel forced into Win10
later, this machine will certainly run that well.
  #7  
Old November 29th 17, 04:02 AM posted to alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt
NIl
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Posts: 73
Default Build advice sought...

On 27 Nov 2017, Flasherly wrote in
alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt:

An AMD Ryzen at some advanced point pulls into parity with Intel
performance offerings at significantly, maybe half under Intel
pricing.


I looked into Ryzen CPUs, and it seems their support for Windows 7 is
poor or nonexistant. Their higher-end chips are not that much less
expensive than the Core i5 chips I'm looking at. If I was building a
more budget-minded computer, they would probably be under serious
consideration.
  #8  
Old November 29th 17, 08:03 AM posted to alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt
Flasherly[_2_]
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Posts: 2,407
Default Build advice sought...

On Tue, 28 Nov 2017 22:02:54 -0500, Nil
wrote:

I looked into Ryzen CPUs, and it seems their support for Windows 7 is
poor or nonexistant. Their higher-end chips are not that much less
expensive than the Core i5 chips I'm looking at. If I was building a
more budget-minded computer, they would probably be under serious
consideration.


AMD's thumbing off MSFT: AMD's Windows 7 drivers are widely employed
across the whole of the Pacific Rim brand manufacturing of
motherboards.

I can't offhand say where a sexi or octal core, say, is to Ryzen
interlap across the I5 series: 1) for processor performance, 2) a
further advanced architectural bus provision given AMD's Window 7
support, over some 3) cost consideration, if at all, potentially to
surpass Intel.

I might, though, personally be interested in provision no.2 -- given I
could significantly realize cost advantages for no.1, to account and
derive a Ryzen chipset edge possibly over older Intel limitations --
both being, of course, on a Windows 7 platform.

AMD Windows 7 support obviously can't be tangibly reported back by the
industry in terms of MSFT licensing, now denying all but Windows 10
support for "newer hardware". Which is how I was impressed when
reading hardware industry Ryzen release publications. They cannot
legally commit to what MSFT has denied AMD.

Budgetary constraints and a matter of temperance, I suppose, is what
is left to commit to flagellation exercises, in the Machiavellian dens
of hardware site forums, for direct Ryzen end user driver experiences
and a Windows 7 relevancy. Were I not already budgeted nice and
plenteously by a $80 octal core Bulldozer build, from a couple months
ago;- still, I'd need the time on a Ryzen to try and form an objective
opinion of Ryzen's Windows 7 drivers, though.
  #9  
Old November 29th 17, 04:00 PM posted to alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt
Bill[_38_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 3
Default Build advice sought...

Flasherly wrote:
AMD Windows 7 support obviously can't be tangibly reported back by the
industry in terms of MSFT licensing, now denying all but Windows 10
support for "newer hardware". Which is how I was impressed when
reading hardware industry Ryzen release publications. They cannot
legally commit to what MSFT has denied AMD.



Interesting point (if I understand it). Someone (who?) said newer
processors won't be supporting older version of windows--but it wasn't AMD.
  #10  
Old November 29th 17, 05:08 PM posted to alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt
Flasherly[_2_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 2,407
Default Build advice sought...

On Wed, 29 Nov 2017 10:00:03 -0500, Bill
wrote:

Interesting point (if I understand it). Someone (who?) said newer
processors won't be supporting older version of windows--but it wasn't AMD.


Both AMD and MSFT. AMD in a limited sense that they can ensure
support for instances of Ryzen drivers operating within Windows 7
compatibility. Which leaves MSFT, which outright denies a Ryzen
platform, unless the Ryzen of course is sanctioned within its present
licensing terms, for "newer hardware", fully supported by Windows 10.

That is a stated premise for any press representative upon taking
possession of a Ryzen, and a supportive motherboard, the latter which
will include Windows 7 chipset support drivers. That representative
may not directly call AMD to account over issues and limitations with
the drivers, which in some sense do not perform identically to a
Windows 10 environment -- as the AMD drivers provided are classified
for developmental reasons, faux and of 3rd-party origins, not written
by Microsoft, nor to be assumed within an associative provision by
MSFT.

It falls upon the purchaser to arrange and provide for any liability
incurred, upon being disappointed with AMD Ryzen Window 7 chipset
support drivers, within such purveyance of a private agreement from
terms provided by a seller-buyer contract.

Not so different, AMD Ryzen chipset support, than were you to buy any
ol' PCI stick-in gizmo. In this case, whether ASUS, GIGABYTE, or a
BIOSTAR implementation of Ryzen Windows7 chipset provided with a MB.
You assume degrees of risk, both from a varied source of manufacturer
accountability and a return policy, if any from a distribution centre.
AMD, ipso facto, is out of the circuit.

-
Keep your enemies closer than your friends. -Niccolò di Bernardo dei
Machiavelli
 




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