EEVblog #711 - Mailbag

[Richard Crowley]

The Intel one supports significantly superior processors, but may not fit a normal case.

Yeah, that Intel board is clearly a SERVER board and is substantially bigger than any of the traditional client MB form-factors.
What happened to those servers Dave got out of the dumpster?  Are they already gone?

[Monkeh]

The Intel one supports significantly superior processors, but may not fit a normal case.

Yeah, that Intel board is clearly a SERVER board and is substantially bigger than any of the traditional client MB form-factors.
What happened to those servers Dave got out of the dumpster?  Are they already gone?

So are the two Supermicro boards. One of them is E-ATX, which has the same dimensions as the Intel board.

[max_torque]

being bolted to a ton of body shell automatically limits the peak operating g the unit can undergo!

Yes, it wouldn't be about peak G's, it would be about hitting resonant frequencies of free standing packages from broadband vibration.
I've seen free standing TO-220 packages vibrate clean off from just wheeling up and down a production floor for a few weeks on a metal trolley.

But that is exactly the point, there isn't any! (well very little) because the mass of the body shell damps it so effectively.  Chances are, those SIL leaded components have resonant frequencies in the hundreds of Hz range.  Now calculate the power required to say vibrate even 20kg of steel body shell at just 100Hz. It's massive!
 Ok, mistakes have been made, people have bolted control units to flat panels that pant or suffer a critical oscillation from drivetrain driven resonance, but generally speaking it doesn't happen as modern car are so well designed/tested (not to mention the NVH aspect of having parts of your bodyinwhite vibrate at 100hz). The primary ride frequency of a typical passenger car is in the order of 1 or 2Hz, and most of the accoustic noise is extremely low amplitude at say >1000Hz, that noise won't even make it through the pcb, let alone snap components off it!

(In fact, the only time i can actually remember an issue with a control unit failing was on a rally car, where the control unit had been mounted on rubber, vibration absorbing "bobins" in a misguided attempt to reduce transmitted vibrations.  What actually happened is that those rubber mounts, in conjunction with the mass of the control unit forms a critically tuned spring/mass oscillator at around 10Hz, which for a competition car IS in the normal ride frequency region.  As a result, there were some failures of some large through hole capacitors on a few units.  When we removed the rubber compliance, bolted the control unit directly to the bodyinwhite, all was well! ;-)

[FHR]

Regarding the motherboard you will need for those 2 new Xeons, I recommend you the Supermicro X9DAi board http://www.supermicro.nl/products/motherboard/Xeon/C600/X9DAi.cfm.
It has all the features you need - It supports DDR3 non-ECC RAMs, has a sound card, has SATA III/6Gbps, has 3 16x PCI-E slots.

Someone has kindly donated one of these boards ( I can pick):
http://www.supermicro.com/products/motherboard/Xeon/C600/X9DRL-EF.cfm
http://www.supermicro.com/products/motherboard/Xeon/C600/X9DAE.cfm
http://www.supermicro.com.tw/index.cfm
http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/motherboards/server-motherboards/server-board-s2600cp.html

The X9DAE is the one to pick. You need a workstation board, not a server one. These other boards you mentioned don't even have a sound card.

[Monkeh]

Regarding the motherboard you will need for those 2 new Xeons, I recommend you the Supermicro X9DAi board http://www.supermicro.nl/products/motherboard/Xeon/C600/X9DAi.cfm.
It has all the features you need - It supports DDR3 non-ECC RAMs, has a sound card, has SATA III/6Gbps, has 3 16x PCI-E slots.

Someone has kindly donated one of these boards ( I can pick):
http://www.supermicro.com/products/motherboard/Xeon/C600/X9DRL-EF.cfm
http://www.supermicro.com/products/motherboard/Xeon/C600/X9DAE.cfm
http://www.supermicro.com.tw/index.cfm
http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/motherboards/server-motherboards/server-board-s2600cp.html

The X9DAE is the one to pick. You need a workstation board, not a server one. These other boards you mentioned don't even have a sound card.

You can get proper soundcards instead of onboard crap, you know. Lack of onboard audio is not exactly a dealbreaker on a board with six PCI-E slots.

[FHR]

Regarding the motherboard you will need for those 2 new Xeons, I recommend you the Supermicro X9DAi board http://www.supermicro.nl/products/motherboard/Xeon/C600/X9DAi.cfm.
It has all the features you need - It supports DDR3 non-ECC RAMs, has a sound card, has SATA III/6Gbps, has 3 16x PCI-E slots.

Someone has kindly donated one of these boards ( I can pick):
http://www.supermicro.com/products/motherboard/Xeon/C600/X9DRL-EF.cfm
http://www.supermicro.com/products/motherboard/Xeon/C600/X9DAE.cfm
http://www.supermicro.com.tw/index.cfm
http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/motherboards/server-motherboards/server-board-s2600cp.html

The X9DAE is the one to pick. You need a workstation board, not a server one. These other boards you mentioned don't even have a sound card.

You can get proper soundcards instead of onboard crap, you know. Lack of onboard audio is not exactly a dealbreaker on a board with six PCI-E slots.

But does he really need to? He said he will use it as a rendering and editing machine. Not his home machine. Also, for most (normal) people are onboard sound cards ok. If he would play games on it - yes, buy a sound card. Use it for listening to music with headphone priced 300$? Yes, buy a sound card. For video editing it's perfectly fine.


Besides as I said, those other boards are for SERVER use, not for WORKSTATION use. There are more things, that server boards lack besides sound card. Support for SLI, sometimes Fan regulation. Server boards also have a lot less desktop-use connectivity options. I'm talking about USB 3.0, Firewire, etc.

[Monkeh]

But does he really need to? He said he will use it as a rendering and editing machine. Not his home machine. Also, for most (normal) people are onboard sound cards ok. If he would play games on it - yes, buy a sound card. Use it for listening to music with headphone priced 300$? Yes, buy a sound card. For video editing it's perfectly fine.

You don't need a soundcard for playing games!

Besides as I said, those other boards are for SERVER use, not for WORKSTATION use. There are more things, that server boards lack besides sound card. Support for SLI, sometimes Fan regulation. Server boards also have a lot less desktop-use connectivity options. I'm talking about USB 3.0, Firewire, etc.

SLI is irrelevant. Fan regulation is a potential but unlikely concern. USB 3 is easily added, Firewire is rarely provided anymore anyway. All acceptable losses to get Haswell instead of Ivy Bridge!

E: Hang on, that Intel board said v3 compatibility yesterday, and v2 today. Okay, in that case you're right, the X9DAE is the one to pick.

[FHR]

SLI is irrelevant. Fan regulation is a potential but unlikely concern. USB 3 is easily added, Firewire is rarely provided anymore anyway. All acceptable losses to get Haswell instead of Ivy Bridge!

E: Hang on, that Intel board said v3 compatibility yesterday, and v2 today. Okay, in that case you're right, the X9DAE is the one to pick.

The CPUs (SR1AM; E5-2630v2) are Ivy Bridge-EP's anyway. v3 also means DDR4 RAM => he would have to buy a new RAM. I'm not sure the CPU's would be compatible anyway, even if they are the same socket. Intel likes to mess with those things that they are not always backwards/forwards compatible.

[Monkeh]

SLI is irrelevant. Fan regulation is a potential but unlikely concern. USB 3 is easily added, Firewire is rarely provided anymore anyway. All acceptable losses to get Haswell instead of Ivy Bridge!

E: Hang on, that Intel board said v3 compatibility yesterday, and v2 today. Okay, in that case you're right, the X9DAE is the one to pick.

The CPUs (SR1AM; E5-2630v2) are Ivy Bridge-EP's anyway. v3 also means DDR4 RAM => he would have to buy a new RAM. I'm not sure the CPU's would be compatible anyway, even if they are the same socket. Intel likes to mess with those things that they are not always backwards/forwards compatible.

I was not aware CPUs were already acquired.

[Fungus]

I was not aware CPUs were already acquired.

Hint: They're in the video...

[Monkeh]

I was not aware CPUs were already acquired.

Hint: They're in the video...

And not mentioned in any description. Nothing in the description of the video interested me, so I haven't used any of my free time to watch it as of yet. It's a shocking thing, I know, not spending every minute of my life keeping up to date with other people's lives..

[Fungus]

I was not aware CPUs were already acquired.

Hint: They're in the video...

And not mentioned in any description.

Is there a description? The things above the video are only links to items in the video so you can follow up on them.

Would you have watched it if he'd put a link to Intel's Xeon CPU page?

Intel Xeon CPUs: http://www.intel.com/Xeons...

It's a shocking thing, I know, not spending every minute of my life keeping up to date with other people's lives..

But you do have time to comment on videos that you haven't even watched...? 

[Monkeh]

Would you have watched it if he'd put a link to Intel's Xeon CPU page?

I'd have known there was something about CPUs in it..

It's a shocking thing, I know, not spending every minute of my life keeping up to date with other people's lives..

But you do have time to comment on videos that you haven't even watched...? 

I haven't made any comments about the video, now have I?

This takes seconds to type, the video requires 40 minutes of my attention..

[hikariuk]

Regarding the motherboard you will need for those 2 new Xeons, I recommend you the Supermicro X9DAi board http://www.supermicro.nl/products/motherboard/Xeon/C600/X9DAi.cfm.
It has all the features you need - It supports DDR3 non-ECC RAMs, has a sound card, has SATA III/6Gbps, has 3 16x PCI-E slots.

Someone has kindly donated one of these boards ( I can pick):
http://www.supermicro.com/products/motherboard/Xeon/C600/X9DRL-EF.cfm
http://www.supermicro.com/products/motherboard/Xeon/C600/X9DAE.cfm
http://www.supermicro.com.tw/index.cfm
http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/motherboards/server-motherboards/server-board-s2600cp.html

The X9DAE is the one to pick. You need a workstation board, not a server one. These other boards you mentioned don't even have a sound card.

You can get proper soundcards instead of onboard crap, you know. Lack of onboard audio is not exactly a dealbreaker on a board with six PCI-E slots.

Tangenting wildly, however: onboard sound cards are fine for pretty much everyone.  Anyone who actually needs to give a shit about audio probably just uses an external DAC anyway.

[Fungus]

Tangenting wildly, however: onboard sound cards are fine for pretty much everyone.  Anyone who actually needs to give a shit about audio probably just uses an external DAC anyway.

Yep.

And you can get a good one for about $12 on eBay so it's not even worth quibbling over, just get one...

(eBay search term: "pcm2704")

[RupertGo]

And you can get a no-name audio dongle for a couple of quid. I have one here that I bought for random amateur radio faffery, now using it as my main audio ouput device on the microsever that happens to be my current work PC. I've done some quite intensive listening/input tests on it through Sennheisers that cost more than the server, comparing it to a variety of other sources/inputs, and damned if I can tell the difference even on 'audiophiie' material and a decent mic I use for broadcast work.

I take a particularly perverse delight in playing Neil Young through it.

(as part of this completely unscientific testing, I bunged the scope across the output of a £20 TA2020-based amp. My lord, but that was shocking - enough RF to light up the ionosphere. Still sounded excellent...)

[Fungus]

Going the other way around... anybody know of a decent, cheapo USB device for microphone input?

(One with manual adjustment of the input level, obviously...)

[Richard Crowley]

Going the other way around... anybody know of a decent, cheapo USB device for microphone input?
(One with manual adjustment of the input level, obviously...)

What does "cheapo" mean?  Can you put some numbers to that?
Do you mean a "pro" XLR microphone?  Or a 3.5mm consumer job?
If XLR, do you need phantom power for the microphone (e.g. a condenser mic)?
Or are you talking about a dynamic mic or a condenser mic with its own battery?
If you are talking about 3.5mm input, does the mic require "plug-in power"?
Or is it self-powered?
When you say "manual adjustment" do you mean a physical knob?
Or do you mean a software adjustment?
Do you need low-latency monitoring (as for multi-tracking musical performance)?
Or is this just for basic and simple one-off recording?
Is this for portable use out in the field?  Or a fixed installation at home/office?

[FHR]

Going the other way around... anybody know of a decent, cheapo USB device for microphone input?

(One with manual adjustment of the input level, obviously...)

I use a bigger brother of this, the Q1202USB one and it is absolutely great.

[Fungus]

Going the other way around... anybody know of a decent, cheapo USB device for microphone input?
(One with manual adjustment of the input level, obviously...)

What does "cheapo" mean?  Can you put some numbers to that?

If I can get a decent $12 DAC then I don't see why a mic input device good enough for voice recording should cost much more than that.

Do you mean a "pro" XLR microphone?  Or a 3.5mm consumer job?
If XLR, do you need phantom power for the microphone (e.g. a condenser mic)?
Or are you talking about a dynamic mic or a condenser mic with its own battery?
If you are talking about 3.5mm input, does the mic require "plug-in power"?
Or is it self-powered?

:-)

This: http://www.audio-technica.com/cms/wired_mics/9c6eca17168eef6f/

Battery powered condenser mike with 3.5mm jack plug.

Is this for portable use out in the field?  Or a fixed installation at home/office?

This is for PC screen-recording with voice-over.

(I can connect it to the camera if I'm out somewhere recording video....)

[ornea]

Curious if your studio lights were messing with Edison's collision avoidance sensors.

[Richard Crowley]

You can probably plug that microphone directly into your computer. Why do you need an external interface>

[Fungus]

I've been digging around eBay and there doesn't seem to be much choice. I guess there isn't as much demand as there is for audio DACs.

This looks reasonably close to what I'm after: http://www.ebay.com/itm/360959008656

It's based on this chip: http://www.cmedia.com.tw/productsdetail/page-p/c1serno-25/c2serno-26/pserno-7.html

It actually has a datasheet!

$7 seems a bit cheap but really it's just an IC embedded in a cable so how much should it be?

[Fungus]

You can probably plug that microphone directly into your computer. Why do you need an external interface>

For the same reason I don't plug my headphones directly into the computer - the sound is as noisy as hell compared to my external DAC.

[Richard Crowley]

http://www.audio-technica.com/cms/accessories/de806038b48c13d7/