# Why NOT build a new DAW with AMD Ryzen 9 3950X processor?



## Synetos (Mar 24, 2020)

I have been back and forth on building a new machine and then tabled it because of this Corona Virus thing. This has given me more time to think about what I should build when the time is right. 

My world is not so much needing ton of instruments playing concurrently, as much as I just like having them all loaded and ready to go. So I use VEP for that. Like many others, I tend to spend too much time fiddling with my computers, rather than making music...as I am right now as I write this.

But assuming I were going to build a new machine, why wouldn't I want this AMD rig? 

Technical reasons for, or against, it in a DAW or VEP slave.


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## easyrider (Mar 24, 2020)

I wouldn’t be building a new DAW machine with anything other than a 3900x or 3950x....go for it...then you can just plonk in a 4950x later in the year...


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## colony nofi (Mar 25, 2020)

... thought I'm still privately excited about a 3960 or 3970 threadripper once a few little bugs/niggles are worked out.
But yes. 3950x is excellent in most circumstances... leading the pack in many, and close to the 10980 in others.


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## Synetos (Mar 27, 2020)

colony nofi said:


> ... thought I'm still privately excited about a 3960 or 3970 threadripper once a few little bugs/niggles are worked out.


Can you tell me what bugs are the primary obstacles? I don't know much about AMD in the proaudio world, so it would help me to know what kind of issues I might have.
Thanks


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## Tim_Wells (Mar 27, 2020)

easyrider said:


> I wouldn’t be building a new DAW machine with anything other than a 3900x or 3950x....go for it...then you can just plonk in a 4950x later in the year...


Will you be able to put a 4950x in the same motherboard as the 3900x?


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## Pictus (Mar 27, 2020)

The AMD motherboards do not like the UAD cards...








The AMD Ryzen & UAD 2 Thread - Page 6 - Gearspace.com


Quote: Originally Posted by MediaGary ➡️ The x570 Creator has PCIe 4.0 x16 and x8 slots, and PCIe 2.0 x1 slots. My UAD-2 Duo and RME ExpressCard 34 work just fine in those PCIe 2.0 x1 slots. I expect a UAD-2 Quad would also work. I suspect that the PCIe 4.0 x1 implementation in the x570 Taichi...



www.gearslutz.com


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## easyrider (Mar 27, 2020)

Tim_Wells said:


> Will you be able to put a 4950x in the same motherboard as the 3900x?



Depends what chipset...

if it is a b450 then you will need a bios flash

x570 will require a bios flash but both chipsets will work.


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## easyrider (Mar 27, 2020)

Pictus said:


> The AMD motherboards do not like the UAD cards...
> 
> 
> 
> ...



don’t have one


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## Michelob (Mar 30, 2020)

No experience to give, but interested by the 3960x. Yes, almost twice price, but I'd rather wait a bit more.


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## Dunshield (Mar 30, 2020)

I'm still going through the same conundrum .. Intel vs AMD .. I've put my research in a table:






An interesting subject is the amount of lanes that are handled directly by the CPU. For Intel 10920X / 10940X that is 48 lanes, and if combined with say the X299X Master mobo the CPU is directly connected to ALL of the PCI-e slots + TWO M.2's. Very cool.

In case of the 3950X though, the CPU only does 20+4 lanes, and it usually has a straight line to the first PCI-e slot (= the GPU) + the first M.2. The rest of the devices go through the X570 chipset, and then through the 4x PCI-e gen 4 lanes that run in between the X570 chipset and the CPU ==> in terms of speed, and roughly speaking: 4x PCI-e gen4 = 8x PCI-e gen3 (correct me if I'm wrong). So there's a possible bottleneck if you have SATA's and M.2's and other PCI-e devices running along side each other, all going through the chipset, and making their way to and from the CPU in *just* those 4 lanes. Not sure what effect this has on overall performance, but I thought it was interesting to note.

The main deal breaker for me is MEMORY: I could easily start with 128 GB RAM on the Intel - 4 bars of 32 GB - and leave space for an upgrade to 256 GB. Or just stick with 4x 32 GB, ideally spread over the 4 memory channels that the X299 platform offers. That versus the 128 GB @ 3600 MHz on AMD which is not supported yet .. and: will this ever be supported? Also these are only available in 2 kits of 2x 32 GB, with no clear indication if they will run stable, even at a lower clock - which means lower performance, as Pete from Scan has showed us a couple of times over.

Right now the Intel platform seems to be the way forward for the reason mentioned above. Budget wise, and for reasons of actual AVAILABILITY, I would end up with the 10920X. Over time I might upgrade to 10980XE. Motherboard: Gigabyte X299X Master; an impressive motherboard, and it wins imo over the X570 Master - although the X570 Master is great as well (but man I dislike fans on mobo's).

However, there is also the elephant in the room: Intel 14 nm is DATED at this point.

To be clear, I'm not a fanboy of any team here .. just looking for the best solution for a composition / VI driven DAW.

What I really wanted was a Threadripper 3960X setup on the TRX40 Designare mobo (3 fans, ugh). Those CPU's are not optimal for DAW yet so it seems .. possibly next gen TR?

In October the new gen 'consumer' AMD's will be announced. Waiting might be the best thing to do after all. Perhaps we will see a successor to the 3950X - and it remains to be seen if the AM4 socket will again be used.

Easy choice NOT


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## Michelob (Mar 30, 2020)

Hi, the link does'nt seem to work.


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## Dunshield (Mar 30, 2020)

Michelob said:


> Hi, the link does'nt seem to work.



Yes, sorry, I was editing the post


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## Synetos (Mar 30, 2020)

I am still flop-flopping, so I am waiting. 

In fairness, I probably wouldnt have even considered an AMD rig if the Intel CPUs were plentiful. It is pathetic that there isnt anything available. I dont get why. I do not think we can blame CoronaVirus for it, because it has been getting progressively worse. 

The situation has forced me to really think about how I use my DAW and VSTs. There are workarounds to making things doable on 1 computer. Many great recordings have been made on much less of a computer setup than I am currently using. 

I always seem to suffer from an endless case of gearitis. I think I am going through withdraw as I am detoxing from gear lust. Wait for it....oh yes...maybe I can find some shiny new VST to buy instead. haha


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## colony nofi (Mar 31, 2020)

@Dunshield - great chart and info.
Its kinda apples to oranges though. The 3950X should really be compared to a 9990k in terms of the TYPE of system AMD is pitching it against. It is not a HEDT segment design, and so the advantages of the intel chip are generally platform related. 
The real comparison is 10980X vs 3960/70/90 threadrippers. And then you get motherboards that are apple's to apple's (and show how intel are a gen behind in many parts)

For intel, they are having massive issues getting the 109XX chips into the wild for a number of reasons. If they were more available, they really do make interesting (extremely capable and powerful) DAW chips, especially since their price has been halved in response to the AMD salvo.

Now the threadrippers really show incredible promise. On paper, and also in general testing. But not yet for DAW use. There are some issues still which means performance is not where it should be for low latencies (and really isn't much better than 3950X at higher latencies) but there are people much smarter than me beavering away at figuring this all out.

The threadripper platform knocked it out the park. The memory setup in particular is extremely clever. And PCIe 4 is a massive win as well for those of us who need lots of potential expansion of different kinds.

I've only played with one machine so far (researcher friend who uses it for serious number crunching) and its performance advantage over a 10940 was mind boggling. Its a beast waiting to be unleashed.


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## Synetos (Apr 1, 2020)

colony nofi said:


> For intel, they are having massive issues getting the 109XX chips into the wild for a number of reasons.


Thanks for a really helpful post. Do you, or anyone, know why the Intel chips are so scarce? 
This has been going on long before Covid-19.


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## Technostica (Apr 1, 2020)

Synetos said:


> Do you, or anyone, know why the Intel chips are so scarce? This has been going on long before Covid-19.


Intel have had a major manufacturing issue for years which has led to them still being stuck on 14nm fabrication processes the first of which was first released in 2014.
During this 3+ year ongoing delay in the release of 10nm chips AMD have been resurgent which has led to Intel releasing higher core count chips on 14nm than they ever planned to.
More cores means bigger chips which leads to less chips per wafer and also usually lower yields as the larger the chip the more are defective.
The bottom line is that they are supply constrained as they literally don't have the manufacturing capacity to meet demand.
So they focus on the higher margin chips (Data Centre/Sever) and also maybe those where they have fixed contracts to supply.
I'd have thought that the HEDT chips would get at least some love but a possibility is that since AMD are kicking them hard here with ThreadRipper and even the 12/16 core mainstream parts, that Intel are keeping all the good chips for Xeons.
HEDT buyers are probably less conservative than Workstation/Server so will move to AMD whereas the latter are more likely to stick with Xeons.
So the failed chips that only have ~12 or less working cores can go to HEDT and the 14 core and up are Xeon only.
So the higher core count HEDT chips are a paper launch but it gives a vague impression that Intel have something to compete with AMD.
Smoke and mirrors trying to cover over a very major manufacturing disaster.


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## Synetos (Apr 1, 2020)

Thanks for that detailed insight..Technostica

So, for a single large DAW PC build, are there ZEON options that would make sense, that would be available now?

Is this why Apple only offers XEON's in the new MacPro?

The move to single PC/DAW isnt going to be achievable if the CPUs are never gonna materialize.

It's starting to sound like VEP farms built with 9900k or AMD's, may be the only option for now? Bummer


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## colony nofi (Apr 1, 2020)

Xeon's are generally not worth it for DAW use compared to HEDT. Although this is a value judgement that each individual will need to make.

Apple use Xeon's for their own reasons - and they are so far outside of most of the considerations you and I need to make for a DAW that its not funny. So much of the new mac pro is marketing / positioning / about image / catering to the Pixar/animation type crowds.... (and this is coming from someone with a number of studios all on apple macs!). Up until 3 years ago, I aligned with much of the decision making apple were making as a DAW user, but no longer. The rise of the HEDT segment has changed things for me.

HEDT features like max memory, memory architecture, addressing of CPU cores all just makes sense for DAWS. Consumer level chips (bog standard i7's and i9's) are still great for DAWS where realitime audio performance is key (which is a large proportion of people here) - since there are chips that can do 5GHtz sustained over all cores! 

There are many who are in the camp of GHtz is king - whereby my experiences say the situation is far more nuanced than that. The way I see it is that there needs to be a balance of single core performance (known in DAW coding circles as the "core 0" problem) and the ability to scale across many cores for processing, routing and the like. I personally use a lot of CPU grunt. DAWBench has managed to demonstrate much of this by using two different tests for their CPU benchmarks. Often the answer is somewhere in between.

Back to Xeon. Some of the lines are really blurry. Intel consider some of the Xeon-W line to be in the HEDT segment. But confusingly, many other parts of the Xeon line is geared towards servers rather than workstations. This makes it difficult for consumers for sure.

The right Xeon machine might just be the monster you are looking for. I would personally look much closer at the HEDT segment first. The 109XX chips are not impossible to get - just tricky. Talking direct to local suppliers might just find you a chip you'd like. 

And I'll hang on and just wait for a little while for more threadripper updates in respect to low latency DAW use.... and potentially even look at the more consumer level 4950X slated for Q3/Q4 this year if the memory architecture hits the mark.


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## Ben (Apr 1, 2020)

colony nofi said:


> Xeon's are generally not worth it for DAW


^^ this!!!

There are now and then users in support complaining that they spend thousends of dollars/euros for a dual-CPU, insane core-count setup, and the performance is so bad even the old system worked better.

I work with an i5 8600k, OC @4.5 GHz base clock w/o turbo and any other power savings, and this CPU is not alone affordable but also the performance is great. I could overclock it further, but I like my system silent, so I decided it is not worth to me to push it further.
Of course, many of you need more performance, especially when writing for film. Fine, get the i7 or i9 instead of a Xeon.
I suspect most people don't even take the time to flip the switches to set the system into a high-performance mode. Nowadays most computers are used as glorified type-writers, encyclopedia or television. Of course it does not make sense to keep the CPU at 100% performance all the time for these kind of uses, so many power saving options were implemented.

If not already done, start improving your systems performance for free by setting Windows' power-savings option to high-performance mode, the scheduler to background tasks, und switch off CPU power-savings options in the bios.
This should give you enough additional performance to wait for the next-gen Intel or AMD Ryzen CPUs and see how they perform.
The current Ryzen processors are looking promising, but some weird shortcuts were made, some to allow high core count at low prices, others for marketing reasons. I hope they will improve on these issues in the next gen.


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## colony nofi (Apr 1, 2020)

Now having said all that... there have been various xeon based workstations through the years that have been monster DAW's as well. Some of the HP Z-series workstations from 3 or 4 years ago come to mind... expensive, but incredibly powerful. And just happened to work frigging well for DAW sessions where tonnes of processing power was needed (for example, massively multi-channel immersive mixing, or even some simple 7.1 / dolby atmos mixing.)
But not for straight sample-based writing.

Many composers these days are mixing as they write - especially for docos / lower budget films... even mixing straight into 4.0 or 5.0... while writing with large kontakt templates. These guys often need more than a 9990k based system gets you.


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## Dunshield (Apr 2, 2020)

Well, I pulled the trigger and went for the 3950X based setup.
The 10940X was a close second though.


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## Synetos (Apr 2, 2020)

Thanks all for some really informative posts sharing wisdom and insight. Awesome!

I have tuned my current PC rig as much as I can. I am OC'ing my 5960x at @3.9ghz, and keeping the CPU temp under 120F. It runs really, really well like this. 

Do I "need" a better DAW machine? Probably not. But, it would be nice to have a rig that runs well without having to drive the CPU harder with overclocking...and the new shiny things syndrome...which is probably amping up from COVID19 house arrest fatigue. Or, maybe I have raccoon DNA? lol


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## Ben (Apr 2, 2020)

Synetos said:


> Do I "need" a better DAW machine? Probably not.


Then I would recommend to wait for the next generation of Ryzen processors. They look really promising!
Look up the reviews on YouTube of the Ryzen 9 4900HS that were released just two days ago. And you can get it in a 1500$ notebook. So I'm excited to see whats coming for the desktop market...


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## Technostica (Apr 2, 2020)

Synetos said:


> So, for a single large DAW PC build, are there ZEON options that would make sense, that would be available now?



The latest platform is Cascade Lake and they are available for HEDT (i9) and Workstation (Xeon).
These are the comparable Xeon models - Workstation
These are the i9 models from 10C and above - HEDT

To get a sense of how similar they are look at a comparison of the top binned 18C chips - Comparison
It’s no surprise they are so similar as they started out from exactly the same silicon design.
That design contains all the unique features of both platforms and they are all contained within both chips.
The difference is that when they validate and ‘bin’ the chips some features are disabled depending on whether they assign the chip as HEDT or Xeon. Plus supply and demand is part of the equation.
It’s exactly the same underlying silicon so the i9 chips have the ECC RAM support on the chip for example but it’s not available to be used. One single wafer can provide both HEDT or Xeon chips depending on the binning.
It’s market segmentation plus Intel can choose to use the best chips for HEDT/Workstation where appropriate.
This is part of the binning process which means testing the chips for frequency, voltage etc.
For unlocked HEDT chips they can choose the highest clocking chips as Xeons are locked so don’t need to clock so high as they can’t be over-clocked.
The chips that use less voltage per GHz can be assigned to lower TDP speciality parts which might attract a premium which means Xeons.

Until fairly recently the HEDT and Xeon Workstation chips could even be used in the same motherboards which shows they are cut from the same cloth.
Some people were buying HEDT boards and sticking Xeons in them which had core counts much higher than available to HEDT at that time. You’d also see cheap engineering sample Xeons on eBay going for a fraction of the retail cost. Pop one in a HEDT board and you had a great deal if you knew the finer points.
Now Xeons require a different chipset to HEDT so that is gone. It’s more of a business decision than technical from what I understand and they still use the same physical socket (FCLGA2066).

There seems to be much confusion around Xeons as some people seem to make blanket statements when there are multiple Xeon platforms.
There is usually a Xeon platform which shares with the desktop chips, one which shares with HEDT and one that is Xeon only, Server.
So to say that Xeons are automatically significantly inferior is false.

This is a long winded reply and probably doesn’t directly answer your question but hopefully it gives more context and helps to dispel some Xeon myths.
Even though an 18C Xeon and i9 may have come from the same wafer you still have to consider that there may be differences at the platform firmware level which will differentiate them.
Then there is the impact of ECC RAM etc.
Are there issues with driver support on Xeon platforms relating to DAWs? Probably not but they do use different chipsets and I doubt they are tested on Windows platforms by DAW vendors be it software or hardware.
These sorts of questions are probably what stops some from choosing AMD also.
Intel, be it Desktop or HEDT are generally seen as the safer bet, although with all their security flaws they continue to suffer with they have their own risks.



Synetos said:


> Is this why Apple only offers ZEON's in the new MacPro?



The Mac Pros go up to 28C which is the Server platform not the Workstation one which tops out at 18C.
Not sure if the lower core count Mac Pros use the Workstation platform as I seem to recall they have different motherboards!
Apple chose Xeons for the extra features I presume plus the fact that they scale to 28C.

Xeon is with an X not a Z; helps with internet searches.


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## colony nofi (Apr 2, 2020)

Ben said:


> Then I would recommend to wait for the next generation of Ryzen processors. They look really promising!
> Look up the reviews on YouTube of the Ryzen 9 4900HS that were released just two days ago. And you can get it in a 1500$ notebook. So I'm excited to see whats coming for the desktop market...



Yes a thousand times yes! AMD have knocked this one out the park. Can't wait to see what manufacturers come up with using the 4900HS. Efficient and extremely powerful (if not the most powerful laptop CPU out there right now!)

It certainly bodes well for next gen ryzen later this year! And the 3950X is already quite the monster.


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## colony nofi (Apr 3, 2020)

and looking at intels release of yet another 14nm iteration - they are for the first time in a long time struggling to keep pace with AMD. Thankfully for them the market seems to take a long time to respond (and intel have incredible brand power) but if amd maintain this kind of advantage for a couple of years, one imagines a somewhat seismic shift towards amd across many verticals.


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## Dracarys (Apr 5, 2020)

Ben said:


> Then I would recommend to wait for the next generation of Ryzen processors. They look really promising!
> Look up the reviews on YouTube of the Ryzen 9 4900HS that were released just two days ago. And you can get it in a 1500$ notebook. So I'm excited to see whats coming for the desktop market...




I just bought this a few days ago for travel because it was dirt cheap with amazing specs, 2400 cad after taxes. It's 3300 cad after taxes on newegg.ca, so I think Amazon priced it wrong, or it's a pre -order promotion. I saved $1000, but now I'm wondering if I cancel and for 4900hs? I like how this config has dual m2 NVMe and a 99w battery:


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## Dracarys (Apr 6, 2020)

Bleh, I'll just sell this for 2500 if there's better AMD laptop configs in the future. Too good of a deal to pass on.


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## chris1981la (Sep 1, 2020)

Hello everyone,

I had to build a brand new DAW few months ago and also had to decide whether to choose an Intel i9-10940X or go with an AMD. I did a lot of research and was really missing reviews from musicians out there, since most of the CPU/processor reviews seem to focus on gaming performance. So I decided to make a video about the reasons why I decided to go for an i9-10940X. Hopefully this helps some of you guys. Would be also curious to hear how your DAWs are performing with different CPUs:


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