# New build: Latency



## Kanter (Jun 5, 2020)

Greetings. coming from a solid i4930k build that has served me well for 5 years, I am looking to upgrade. 

Much info and benchmark rodeos available on the merits of the Ryzen platform, and I am prepared to forsake the old "only Intel for a music computer" mantra no problem, BUT:
digesting the info on the current state of affairs, while a 3950x will put intels offerings to shame in most categories, the one discipline "realtime latency of VI" , and also effective latency of audio input into DAW audio engine/monitoring appears to remain an intel dominion.

Sifting through all the information, it seems the more data is available, the more it obscures this specific question. So allow me to reiterate it: if realtime audio (virtual instruments, monitoring of audio inputs in DAWs) were the top requirement, is the 3950x still a match for, say, a 10900k, in terms of latency? I would like to operate such monsters as Embertones Walker piano loaded at minimum latency, for instance. I am assuming that chores such as multitrack mixing/editing constitute way less of a separator between the mentioned CPU platforms.

Latest Samplitude, Cubase and standalone Kontakt (W10/64) are my applications, if that matters. Thank you!


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## Pictus (Jun 6, 2020)

Kanter said:


> Latest Samplitude, Cubase and standalone Kontakt (W10/64) are my applications, if that matters. Thank you!


It will get even more obscure with the 3900 XT 








AMD Ryzen 9 3900XT, Ryzen 7 3800XT, Ryzen 5 3600XT Matisse Refresh Zen 2 CPUs Listed Online


AMD's Mattise Refresh lineup which includes the Ryzen 9 3900XT, the Ryzen 7 3800XT & the Ryzen 5 3600XT have been listed online.




wccftech.com





For Kontakt I suspect the 10900k is better...
But with some custom water cooler kit, big or dual cooper radiators...

BTW, wait more six months and get a Ryzen 4000, it will be better for Kontakt stuff...


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## Kanter (Jun 6, 2020)

interesting, thank you.
I wonder if building a system around a more modest CPU offering now and upgrading to the 4000 when it actually arrives (doubts voiced as to when that will be) is the smart thing to do... spreading out the investments (added RAM, M2 drives etc) over the waiting period... I'll read up a little more before jumping, I guess. Thanks again.


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## Pictus (Jun 6, 2020)

I am glad to help, good idea!
Some suggestions:

The new Gigabyte B550 AORUS MASTER, B550 AORUS PRO AC and B550 AORUS PRO
have undocumented Thunderbolt header, but it is there near the SATA ports.
**No chipset FAN**




For cooler, Noctua NH-D15





Noctua NH-D15 82.5 CFM CPU Cooler







pcpartpicker.com





Semi-passive PSU, up to +-250W the fan is off and up to +-600W, the RPM/noise is very low. 








Corsair RM850x V2 PSU Review: Smaller And Quieter!


Corsair upgraded its best-selling line RMx family with new models featuring smaller dimensions and quieter operation. And despite limited PCB space, performance remains similar from one generation to the next.




www.tomshardware.com












Corsair RMx (2018) 850 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply







pcpartpicker.com





Gigabyte or Sapphire AMD GPU, they are semi-passive and do not mess with audio latency





Choose A Video Card







pcpartpicker.com





Case with front USB-C





Choose A Case







pcpartpicker.com





3600MHz RAM sticks Crucial(Micron E-die chips)





Choose Memory







pcpartpicker.com





For NVMe SSD check here

For HD, avoid SMR
https://blocksandfiles.com/2020/04/15/seagate-2-4-and-8tb-barracuda-and-desktop-hdd-smr/
https://blocksandfiles.com/2020/04/14/wd-red-nas-drives-shingled-magnetic-recording/
https://blocksandfiles.com/2020/04/29/toshiba-consumer-disk-drives-smr-list/
My reference for HD with higher endurance is
https://www.backblaze.com/b2/hard-drive-test-data.html


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## Kanter (Jun 6, 2020)

excellent, thanks. 
I was thinking the 2 video cards I run (for a total of 4 Monitors) might carry over to the new system, they are passively cooled and thus silent (1024MB ATI AMD Radeon R7 200 Series and 1024MB ATI AMD Radeon HD 5450 (Sapphire both), though the latter runs quite warm. Also I'm not a gamer, any reason those cards would burden the new system?

Of particular interest to me are actually available M2 slots (3 would be great), and since I currently run 5 SSDs it would be great though not imperative to reaccomodate those, too.

I guess Thunderbolt is a non-topic for me as I run a pcie RME card, unless there is some other purpose.

I also see all those mainboards you point to are not available yet, but probably soon? And seeing how I currently make do with 32GB RAM, said boards maxxing out at 128 (rather than 256) is probably a minor restriction?

anyway, thanks again for all the pointers and info!


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## Pictus (Jun 6, 2020)

You are welcome, no problem with the old Radeon cards.
They will be available soon, but 256GB RAM is only possible with Threadripper
256GB RAM is also not possible for the 10900k.








Product Specifications


quick reference guide including specifications, features, pricing, compatibility, design documentation, ordering codes, spec codes and more.




ark.intel.com


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## Kanter (Jun 6, 2020)

Again, I really appreciate your summing up current wisdom for me. Since you mention threadripper, I wonder if by the time the ryzen 4k will be available, the ripper will have come down in price enough to be a viable alternative- which of course would mean holding off getting all the periphery until then. Would that make sense at all, for my specific requirements?


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## Pictus (Jun 6, 2020)

By the time they launch the Threadripper 4000 series, the 3000 will be cheaper...
But Pete from Scan Pro Audio http://www.scanproaudio.info/category/test-labs/
did not had a smooth experience with Threadripper.


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## ynwtf (Jun 8, 2020)

For whatever it's worth, be mindful of your chosen motherboard's M.2 slots and how they affect your SATA ports. For example, my Gigabyte Designare z390 provides two M.2 slots, but using just one slot occupies SATA ports 0 _*and *_1. The other M.2 slot, when a drive is connected, takes over SATA ports 4 and 5. So yeah, even though my MOBO has 6 SATA ports, with the two M.2 drives plugged in I'm left with just 2.


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## Kanter (Jun 8, 2020)

Thanks for the warning! Are these restrictions unequivocally communicated in the specs upfront? Do we know of boards that have a more generous m2 sata scheme, or is your designare maybe even just a bad apple in that respect?


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## ynwtf (Jun 8, 2020)

Kanter said:


> Thanks for the warning! Are these restrictions unequivocally communicated in the specs upfront? Do we know of boards that have a more generous m2 sata scheme, or is your designare maybe even just a bad apple in that respect?



Most welcome. And specs should be available. Thing is, I'm not sure your average person would question it or even really know the terminology to look for to confirm it. Especially with how hyped marketing can be. I just looked again at Gigabyte's page for my MOBO and I do not see any notes on that. It is in the manual, and if I google specifically my brand, model, and add the keywords "m.2. sata ports" I do get results that spell things out. Intel lane sharing or whatever.

I'm not sure people on average would be so aggressive in their searches and, instead, just assume the motherboard comes with 6 SATA ports PLUS two M.2 slots. I have seen several thread starters complaining about drives not showing up and not sure why, when they have M.2 drives plugged in. So yeah. Just search around for your MOBO option with the M.2 Sata Port terms and you should find something, I would think.

I guess I should add that I'm speaking from an Intel processor perspective. I have no experience with AMD or what compatible MOBOs do/need/whatever. :D

*EDIT*
When I started researching motherboards, this was one of the few boards that had thunderbolt. I do not have thunderbolt peripherals, but figured it might be worth it to have the option. Too, the two ports double as video outs using my processor instead of a video card. I have no idea what is available currently.


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## Kanter (Jun 9, 2020)

Again, I am grateful for all the input.
I will study the offerings on the excel link that was posted around here
[quote MEDIA=googlesheets]gid=2112472504;id=1wmsTYK9Z3-jUX5LGRoFnsZYZiW1pfiDZnKCjaXyzd1o[/MEDIA]

will pick a shortlist suiting my specific needs (see above, and since Pictus advised waiting for the 4k CPU I have mentally settled on that scenario) and submit to your kind scrutiny.
A potentially painful side-effect of these public deliberations is the bar gets raised in all respects all the time on the other hand, that covers "future proof"


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## JohnG (Jun 9, 2020)

@Kanter typically you can download the manual for a motherboard from the manufacturer's website. That way you can check on the SATA issue. Not all of them force you to sacrifice two SATA ports for each M.2, but it seems common that if you use M.2 slots you will lose at least one SATA port.

Sometimes that is only true if you are installing two M.2 drives, so the manual is the place to check.


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## Technostica (Jun 9, 2020)

You might be better offer by moving to a single GPU that has 4 outputs to save on PCIe resources.
Run it in 8X mode and that might free up some PCIe lanes for the other slots; check if the board allows that.

If you run out of SATA ports or M.2 sockets you can usually add a PCIe expansion card that will offer more.
A PCIe 3.0 x4 slot is enough for a single 3.5GBs M.2 drive in an expansion card.
PCIe 3.0 x8 for a card that supports two such drives and an x16 card to support four drives.
To add SATA ports you'd probably only need a PCIe 3.0 x1 slot for 2 extra.

If you go with a board with PCIe 4.0 support that roughly doubles the total bandwidth; not sure of the exact lane counts.
But to utilise all the bandwidth you'd need to check how a board allows you to allocate the resources.

For maximum flexibility in terms of PCIe and SATA resources you'd want a HEDT as opposed to a Desktop platform, but I wouldn't usually recommend those for a DAW unless you really need the extra features.
You can pack a lot into a Desktop platform but do your homework and know how much headroom you require.


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## Kanter (Jun 10, 2020)

Thanks. Yes, removing one of my current graphic cards would certainly free up some space, especially seeing how they are both passively cooled and thus quite high profile (massive heatsinks). I was always worried about fans on GPUs for noise reasons, but I'm thinking for DAW use those fans would not necessarily be active at all times..
The lanes arithmetic is an important pointer, lots of homework to be done there, as you say! thanks again


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## AR (Jun 10, 2020)

Hey sorry guys to hijack the AMD thread here...

I was kind of in the same situation as the threadstarter few weeks ago. Intel or AMD? Decided for Intel cause I finally want to run a template smooth at 256 samples.
I'm building a Teldex Template as I write this here on the new i9 10920x (posted here on another thread). Just finished building the Spitfire Lyndhurst template 2 days ago. I can't say for the Embertone Walker (cause I don't have it). But my DAW eat up HZ Piano (pratically all mics on) like it was a Gummibear. CPU spikes where around 9-11% when hitting clusters on the keayboard then settling back to 1-2% when playing normal. Having 256gb Ram though.


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## Audio Birdi (Jun 10, 2020)

Pictus said:


> I am glad to help, good idea!
> Some suggestions:
> 
> The new Gigabyte B550 AORUS MASTER, B550 AORUS PRO AC and B550 AORUS PRO
> ...


Thank you for sharing this! I had a feeling other companies were doing thunderbolt headers, but not sure why they didn't market them anywhere :/ ASUS mentioned them and Asrock left it off completely on B550 which surprised me, since they were the first to put one on X570 and on Ryzen in general.


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## Pictus (Jun 10, 2020)

Audio Birdi said:


> Thank you for sharing this! I had a feeling other companies were doing thunderbolt headers, but not sure why they didn't market them anywhere :/ ASUS mentioned them and Asrock left it off completely on B550 which surprised me, since they were the first to put one on X570 and on Ryzen in general.



You are welcome, the new Gigabyte B550 VISION D has Thunderbolt(Titan Ridge) built-in, but
they only mention as *Type-C *
https://www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard/B550-VISION-D-rev-10#kf


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## Audio Birdi (Jun 10, 2020)

Pictus said:


> You are welcome, the new Gigabyte B550 VISION D has Thunderbolt(Titan Ridge) built-in, but
> they only mention as *Type-C *
> https://www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard/B550-VISION-D-rev-10#kf


Does it have the TB3 header on there too? this looks like it's only Type-C officially too, this is so confusing!


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## Pictus (Jun 10, 2020)

Audio Birdi said:


> Does it have the TB3 header on there too? this looks like it's only Type-C officially too, this is so confusing!


It does not have the header because it already has two Thunderbolt ports, but with the name TYPE-C.
Why is all this confusion, perhaps Intel's policy as Thunderbolt belongs to Intel ...
Well, to be sure can ask Gigabyte support...


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## Kanter (Jun 11, 2020)

For instance, I


Technostica said:


> You might be better offer by moving to a single GPU that has 4 outputs to save on PCIe resources.
> Run it in 8X mode and that might free up some PCIe lanes for the other slots; check if the board allows that.


just so I get this right- I pop the new single GPU in a Pcie16 slot, and switch its operation to half bandwith in the bios, thus boosting the bandwith of other Pcie slots? Does it work that way?


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## Technostica (Jun 11, 2020)

Kanter said:


> just so I get this right- I pop the new single GPU in a Pcie16 slot, and switch its operation to half bandwith in the bios, thus boosting the bandwith of other Pcie slots? Does it work that way?


It doesn't boost the bandwidth of other slots but might mean that more PCIe lanes are free to be allocated to other slots which might otherwise be disabled.
You need to check carefully in the manuals to see how this works as I'm hazy on this one.


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## Kanter (Jun 11, 2020)

Looking at such single GPUs with 4+ outputs now, "semi-Passively cooled" seems the way to go as their fan will probably not operate at non-gaming chore level. All things equal, do I benefit from picking, say, a MSI Radeon RX 570 Armor 8G OC (8GB GDDR5) over its 4GB sibling, especially if I am eyeing throttling down its operation to 8x from 16x?


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## Technostica (Jun 11, 2020)

For non gaming usage 4GB is fine.
If using it for video editing or similar then that may benefit but you’d need to research that whole area separately.


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## Kanter (Jun 11, 2020)

mind you I am driving 4 monitors, if that matters here?
I am bringing this up because price difference is negligeable between the 4 and 8GB cards


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## Pictus (Jun 11, 2020)

As you can see at 





Choose A Video Card







pcpartpicker.com




better get a RX 5500 XT card, they are better than the RX 570 and cheaper, a 4GB model is fine.


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## Kanter (Jun 11, 2020)

they are not cheaper here but that doesn't matter, do they run quieter? what criteria am I looking at? thanks


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## Buddy (Jun 11, 2020)

AR said:


> Hey sorry guys to hijack the AMD thread here...
> 
> I was kind of in the same situation as the threadstarter few weeks ago. Intel or AMD? Decided for Intel cause I finally want to run a template smooth at 256 samples.
> I'm building a Teldex Template as I write this here on the new i9 10920x (posted here on another thread). Just finished building the Spitfire Lyndhurst template 2 days ago. I can't say for the Embertone Walker (cause I don't have it). But my DAW eat up HZ Piano (pratically all mics on) like it was a Gummibear. CPU spikes where around 9-11% when hitting clusters on the keayboard then settling back to 1-2% when playing normal. Having 256gb Ram though.



Can you share your build? Especially grateful for mobo recommendations that support 128gb+ RAM. Thanks!


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## Pictus (Jun 11, 2020)

Kanter said:


> they are not cheaper here but that doesn't matter, do they run quieter? what criteria am I looking at? thanks


Ahh, yes... My bad, not cheaper but almost the same price...
The vantage is that they produce a lot less heat.


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## Kanter (Jun 11, 2020)

great!


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## Pictus (Jun 11, 2020)

Buddy said:


> Can you share your build? Especially grateful for mobo recommendations that support 128gb+ RAM. Thanks!


Motherboard capable to handle more than 128GB for Intel:
https://www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard/Intel-X299
Motherboard capable to handle more than 128GB for AMD:
https://www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard/AMD-Socket-sTRX4


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## Technostica (Jun 11, 2020)

Kanter said:


> they are not cheaper here but that doesn't matter, do they run quieter? what criteria am I looking at? thanks


Look for one that has the fans turned off when the GPU is not being heavily loaded.
The older Radeon cards are relatively power hungry when using multiple monitors so avoid those.
A waste of power, excess heat and more likely to spin the fans up.
This site tests for fan noise and power consumption with multi-monitors: Techpowerup

This page states which 5500 models support fan stop - Fan Stop


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## AR (Jun 11, 2020)

Buddy said:


> Can you share your build? Especially grateful for mobo recommendations that support 128gb+ RAM. Thanks!


Okay, so here they are...

-i9 10920x (OC -> 4.66ghz)
-Asus Prime x299 a-ii (very important to have the re-built versions, doesn't matter if it's a asrock, Asus, gigabyte or whatsoever. Just get a mainboard with cooling on the bridge otherwise the 9/10gen will burn 'em)
-Corsair LPX 2666 (8x32gb) ram
-2× 940? Samsung Evo m.2 à 1tb
-Crucial? P1 M.2 1tb
-6× Sata Ssd (sandisk/samsung/etc) ~ 3tb
-Deepcool Assassin iii (CPU cooler)
- 40×40 noctua Mainboard cooler
- 4× bequiet! 140×140case fans
- 2× 1tb Seagate barracuda 64mb cache as datagraves
- Rme hdspe aio with wcm and 4 i/o extensions 
- Rme adi-2
- rme hdsp to Multiface
- Asus CG-100x 10gb lan
- Asus 1060 6gb ram GPU
- bequiet case 500
- 3x external USB ssd
- 4 internal usb ports (for all the syncrosoft/ilok dongles)
- cubase 10
- ve pro6
- win 10 pro (virtual memory to the minimum)
...and Intel rapid storage didn't work. At least it got over my knowledge. But that's pretty much it. Gave few of my i7 3770k with 32gb ram my friend cause there is pretty much no need for it anymore.


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## Kanter (Jun 24, 2020)

While I am still absorbing the good advice and info here, I am at present re-considering the intel option, not least because of my realtime audio priorities. I understand Zen3 may introduce a contender, but I am pressed for time, plus there seems to be a certain amount of incertainty involved as far as latency goes.
AR you champion the 10920x, what's the internecine competition and how they measure up? 9900x faster single clock speeds?
I already got Pictus' GPU recommendation 5500 xt, so I assume any CPU that also exists in a non integrated-graphics variety should be picked over the "complete" model, as they also seem to overclock better?

Pictus stresses AMD likes fast RAM, and AR I see on intel you make do with 2666 (albeit the full 256GB)- how does that affect the realtime sample lib playing?

Case size: is there any benefit to opting for an oversize solution, regarding noise isolation and ventilation? (Fractal r7 exists in oversize as well). Another angle here is that for audio cards with multiple expansion boards that attach to rear slots for cable traffic, the run of the mill 7 or 8 slots of a regular case are insufficient, especially considering the GPU will occupy at least 2 of those. I see that some medium size cases add vertical rear slots, how the cards/expansions attach there is unclear to me as there is no mainboard slot fixation.


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