Best ASRock motherboard for sound recording?

[genethomas]

Hi
Any sugestions which would be the best board for audio recording?

I have an i7 processor already and looking to upgrade the motherboard.

Thanks
Gene

[profJim]

Welcome to the forum.

We need to know the exact model of your i7 cpu.

1.1 Nehalem microarchitecture

1.1.1 "Bloomfield" (45 nm)
1.1.2 "Lynnfield" (45 nm)

1.2 Westmere microarchitecture

1.2.1 "Gulftown" (32 nm)

1.3 Sandy Bridge microarchitecture

1.3.1 "Sandy Bridge" (32 nm)
1.3.2 "Sandy Bridge-E" (32 nm)

1.4 Ivy Bridge microarchitecture

1.4.1 "Ivy Bridge" (22 nm)
1.4.2 "Ivy Bridge-E" (22 nm)

1.5 Haswell microarchitecture

1.5.1 "Haswell-DT" (quad-core, 22 nm)
1.5.2 "Haswell-H" (MCP, quad-core, 22 nm)

If you want to do "serious" audio recording or audio processing, you should check into building a DAW (digital audio workstation).
On-board audio does not provide the ultimate in audio processing and you probably should consider installing a high end audio card.

[genethomas]

Hi

I have an i7-2600k 3.4GHz. I currently am using an HP 1070uk PC with an integrated sound card and 12 gig of RAM. My thinking was to get a motherboard that can handle up to 64 gig RAM along with a dedicated sound card (as suggested) Thats something else Im looking at also. Any suggestions?

Thanks
Gene

[profJim]

Do a web search using: daw music and do a lot of reading.
I think that you will need an X79 cpu and motherboard to be able to use 64GB (8 x 8GB) of ram.
I don't know if any server motherboard models for your i7-2600k cpu will support 64GB of ram.
You might be better off using Sandy Bridge or Ivy Bridge Xeon cpu with a server motherboard.

I've done some reading about DAW workstation systems but I don't know nearly enough to be able to give you specific advice.
I think that your best bet is to join one or more of the best DAW forums to get real world advice from experienced users.

Feel free to keep us informed as you learn more about building a DAW workstation.

[parsec]

Hi

I have an i7-2600k 3.4GHz. I currently am using an HP 1070uk PC with an integrated sound card and 12 gig of RAM. My thinking was to get a motherboard that can handle up to 64 gig RAM along with a dedicated sound card (as suggested) Thats something else Im looking at also. Any suggestions?

Thanks
Gene

Your i7-2600K processor, with its integrated memory controller (IMC) will "only" support up to 32GB of memory, according to its specs. That is still a large amount of memory, plenty to work with.

Digital audio data files are relatively small, and the size varies with the bit depth (16 - 24 bit) and the encoding. A standard CD can store ~700MB of data, which is really up to ~850MB with error correction data. A DVD-Audio disk can store up to ~8.5GB. Either of those is easily stored within 32GB of memory.

I agree with Prof Jim about using a PC for audio recording, the audio capability of any mother board is not very good, and the use of a separate sound card is a given. I'll even take this a step further, the best PC sound cards are no where near the level of professional recording equipment. Plus PC sound cards are infamous for their poor drivers and poor support from the manufactures. The most important part of the digital recording chain, the analog to digital convertor (ADC), will not be of high quality on a PC sound card, if it even has one.

Personally, I would use a PC only as a tool to manipulate and store digital audio data that was created from a quality ADC that is not part of a PC. A PC is a terrible environment for the low level analog audio signal from microphones. PC analog audio output from mother board's is infamous for being noisy, you can literally hear changes in background noise moving a mouse in some cases. Several $200 PC sound cards that I checked have a single, 1/8" pin jack input for one microphone, useless for any real audio recording. The same goes for the microphone inputs on a mother board, it might have two, one on the I/O panel, and another provided via a header on the board for connection to the PC case's microphone input. Good luck using them for two channel recording.

Frankly, the "best" PC mother board for sound recording made by any manufacture is none of them...