I build my own PC's, mostly to get up to speed with current technology..   Would like if you share your thoughts on a few items...
 
So far, I plan to use an i7-5820k, an ASUS X99 Pro or a Gigabyte GA-X99-UD5, a Deep Cool GAMER STORM Lucifer fan, 16gig of Corsair 2666, and a 200gig solid state drive from intel.   That said...
 
I run between 20 and 40 channels mostly.  I have upgraded to 2015 platnum - and am using it as an excuse to build the new system  :o)   .  I run Waves products for both mixing and the full mastering suite.  I am planning to use the solid state drive for OS, Sonar, Waves, sample libraries and MAYBE the current project I am working on.  I have 2, 1 TB hard drives for storing the finished work.  This is a audio only workstation.  It rarely connects to the internet - absolutely no other use.  I plan on purchasing a set of Lightning based interfaces at tax time.  I have 1 USB3 and 1 firewire based converter.  I will be retiring the firewire unit, mostly because of age.  While they are still working fine, its time to take the jump to a set of interfaces that have better input pre amps, and a few more headphone outputs.  I record mostly at 44.1, 24 bit - I find its good enough for new country work.  Sometimes I get the itch for 96, 24 but thats when I am doing mostly acoustic work. The only cards that will be seated into the MOBO are video, Firewire and Lightning which will replace the firewire card. There will be three hard drives, one which will be solid state.  I would like this to be as quiet as possible.  I record in the room that the audio station is in.
 
1 - I will need a firewire card, TI chipset, for my MOTU units.  Anyone know of a good one that fits this configuration?
2 - Any gotchas out yet on Windows 8.1 Pro and the i7-5820 chip?
3 - Any gotchas out yet on Windows 10 and the same chip?
4 - I plan on converting to Lightning.  Anything wrong with the mobo's above and adding a Lightning card?
5 - Any preferred Lightning adaptor you use?
6 - Any gotchas on the general hardware configuration above?
7 - Is there a quieter fan to use that does a really good job at keeping heat down for the same price?
 
Thanks in advance!
 
L
 

Hi LLyons,
It certainly is fun/exciting to build your own rig and yours looks like a goodun. :)
 
I've heard good things about Focusrites Firewire interfaces and they may fit your needs very well: http://us.focusrite.com/firewirethunderbolt-audio-interfaces 
 
I have a USB powered intereface (Focusrite Sapphire 2i4) and their driver support is excellent for Windows 8.1 x64.
I can also highly recommend the fan I use (Noctua NH-D14). It's practically silent and keeps my overclocked i7 3770k CPU extremely cool.
 
The other thing you might want to consider is using 3 HD's.
1) SSD - OS and other software
2) HDD - Sonar projects
3) HDD - Samples (if you can afford a big SSD, even better) and this should be your biggest drive
 
 
Putting all of these 3 items on one 200GB SSD will fill up your system so fast, you'll really wish you had a larger SSD or seperate drives as I mentioned above.
 
I have a 250GB SSD that's about 70% filled up and I only use it for OS & software. I also have a 4th drive which is an external HDD - to save all my projects.
 
Hopefully, others will chime in on the other questions you have.
 
Good luck & post back once you're done with the build. 
 
 
 

Thanks Mesh - I appreciate the input...  It is a bit fun, more from a learning perspective.  

LLyons
I build my own PC's, mostly to get up to speed with current technology..   Would like if you share your thoughts on a few items...
 
So far, I plan to use an i7-5820k, an ASUS X99 Pro or a Gigabyte GA-X99-UD5, a Deep Cool GAMER STORM Lucifer fan, 16gig of Corsair 2666, and a 200gig solid state drive from intel.   That said...
 

 
If you want to save money, consider if you really need/want a 6 core setup. Are you hitting it hard enough to use it? 4 cores gets you a lot these days. Now that said, maybe you just want 6 cores, that's fine, I went that route myself, just saying it may be an unnecessary expense.
 
The ASUS X99 series is a good choice, if you want to save a bit the X99 A trades off very little and costs a bit less.
 
2666Mhz RAM is not very useful. Intel chooses the standard RAM speed for a CPU for a good reason. So no real need to spend on more expensive RAM. Also be careful if you opt to, the Haswell-Es are temperamental about higher RAM speeds in many cases. Make sure you get RAM in a set of 4, E series are quad channel.
 
I wouldn't get an Intel SSD, too pricey and these days they use Sandforce controllers rather than their own. For SSDs, can't beat Samsung these days. Either the 850 EVO or 850 Pro. Really, the EVO is fine for any desktop usage, particularly if you are just using it to store samples.
 
As Mesh said, you'll probably want more disk space. Personally I use a 512GB for OS and apps (though I do everything on my computer, not just DAW) another 512GB for main samples and a 240GB for drum samples. It isn't hard for samples to get large. I'd do the three drives, as he suggested. For the data drive, go for a Seagate SSHD, they have some flash on them and are something of a cross between SSD and HDD. Same thing for your samples drive, unless you can afford an SSD for it, in which case an 850 EVO is what you want.
 

2 - Any gotchas out yet on Windows 8.1 Pro and the i7-5820 chip?

 
Nope, 8.1 is happy as a clam with the newest stuff. You can even boot an M.2 SSD, which hangs right off the PCIe bus.
 

3 - Any gotchas out yet on Windows 10 and the same chip?

 
It's beta so too early to say, but no there isn't going to be an issue. MS always supports Intel's high end.
 

4 - I plan on converting to Lightning.  Anything wrong with the mobo's above and adding a Lightning card?

 
You mean Thunderbolt? They changed the name from Lightning when it released (Lightning is now a proprietary Apple connector). I know it works fine on ASUS, and they sell an adapter specifically for their boards. Be warned MOTU is kinda Mactarded and I don't know if they support their TB stuff on Windows.
 

6 - Any gotchas on the general hardware configuration above?

 
Not really. ASUS has better firmware support than Gigabyte so that's the way I'd go (and indeed did go, X99 Deluxe here). Wish Intel still made boards but ASUS is good as well.
 

7 - Is there a quieter fan to use that does a really good job at keeping heat down for the same price?

 
Yes, an Arctic Cooling Freezer i30. Should run you about $35-40. Arctic Cooling makes the most silent fans coolers I've yet used. They also make sure to engineer them to fit without blocking things. This one just fits, it is MASSIVE, but it does fit and does not occlude any RAM slots, or interfere with VRM cooling. It is plenty of cooling, even if you wish to overclock.
 
Please note that X99 boards seem to have a bug whereby they always run the CPU fan at max speed. To fix it you need to start the included ASUS Ai suite software, and toggle the CPU's fan's "silent mode" off and then back on again. It'll then spin down slowly and run per the curve you've set. In general you need to run AI Suite and have it profile the fans in the case to properly control them, and then maybe manually adjust the curves as it tends to favour cooling over low noise by default. You can shut it down once you've got it doing what you want, but on each reboot you'll need to fix the CPU fan (the others will do as they should).

Thunderbolt 2, firewire audio,with firewire adapter,( 2 x Allen and Heath r16 desks), Asus gets two thumbs up here with Asus Deluxe Quad Z87 MB, TB 2 onboard...I would build around Thunderbolt 2...things just seem to work now without noise on , or dropouts, or interference with nic..internet...until  X creeps in with updates, and bugs...always does get into the system, but so far..TB and Asus Quad deluxe z87 is my huckle berry, until the next build..x99..will have TB 2 for sure!...I am waitting for them to work out the bugs, and see what chipset comes next, before buying in to the high price of it as is....SSD's for libraries, and always seperate drives off the c: drive is best!..plus a back up external...good to port things also.

L,
 
+1 on the SSD for the OS & programs.  I'd consider a 10,000 RPM drive just for recording and a 2-4 TB SATA for project storage.
 
I retired last year from my job as a CIO.  We tried workstation SSD drives for a while but had too many problems and mostly went back to SATA HD with the largest buffers we could find.  Some of my developers loved the SSD drives while other just swore at them.  I never took the plunge myself. YMMV.
 
Good luck!

Before you spec out an X99 system, make sure the DPC latency of your chosen board is sufficiently low.
 
The Z87 boards generally had poor DPC latency, the Z97 were generally very good, its unknown how the X99 boards are as a whole, but I have heard they are not as good as Z97.
 
Anandtech reviews boards by DPC latency.  Low DPC latency is important for system performance at very low latencies (real time VSTi recording and monitoring, etc).
 
I dont think the 6core beats the latest 4790K in most benchmarks.  The additional cost of the board coupled with price of DDD4 makes it an expensive system with little real world benefit until Intel starts churning out faster CPUs based on the X99 platform.   I would go with a 4790K if budget is a concern.
 
Here is benchmark comparison
http://cpuboss.com/cpus/I...vs-Intel-Core-i7-4790K

still in love with my 4930... and with price of ram/mb I can't see upgrading for a long time...put to heavy use it never flinches.
 
TB2... once they get it all sorted and real improvements in 6 core or 8 core performance, I may jump but as a heavy vst/kontakt hi track count user, ivy still works great

I just built using a Gigabyte giga Z97 soc force  board. All is working very good. I just wanted to say that I found gigabyte's drivers and bios was full of weird bloatware I'd never experienced that before? The whole idea of a self build is no bloatware but there it was as part of the mobo install.  And speaking of BIOS, the gigabyte bios update sucked too. So I just built another one and I opted for a Asrock H97 , it's just an office machine, But no bloatware. If I had the extra money it would have been Asus. 
I sort of agree with 200mph that it might be best to wait on using the latest and greatest. I always want to see that lots of people are happy first. 
Make sure you update the firmware for the Samsung evo SSD. 
My new build has a EVO 840 SSD and Windows 8.1. It boots in a few seconds. I have Sonar open with in a minute now. 
 
And don't buy a Coolermaster power supply. Mines dead already. Never had that before. Replaced it with a Sparkle 

Cactus Music
I just built using a Gigabyte giga Z97 soc force  board. All is working very good. I just wanted to say that I found gigabyte's drivers and bios was full of weird bloatware I'd never experienced that before? The whole idea of a self build is no bloatware but there it was as part of the mobo install.  And speaking of BIOS, the gigabyte bios update sucked too. So I just built another one and I opted for a Asrock H97 , it's just an office machine, But no bloatware. If I had the extra money it would have been Asus. 
I sort of agree with 200mph that it might be best to wait on using the latest and greatest. I always want to see that lots of people are happy first. 
Make sure you update the firmware for the Samsung evo SSD. 
My new build has a EVO 840 SSD and Windows 8.1. It boots in a few seconds. I have Sonar open with in a minute now. 
 
And don't buy a Coolermaster power supply. Mines dead already. Never had that before. Replaced it with a Sparkle 

I just built a Gigabyte Z97x-ud3h and used the all in one installer.  What bloatware are you referring to besides the Norton antivirus (that I removed.)