# What would be a great choice of CPU these days?



## jononotbono (Aug 11, 2017)

im thinking about building another PC. My last build, which is still going strong is with the i7 2600k Sandybridge CPU. It's a great CPU but limited as it is a quadcore and has a maximum limit of 32gb of RAM on its socket.
It's 
I'm looking to build a PC so I would like it to be able handle 128gb of RAM. I'm not sure if dual CPUs is a better choice but if it is then obviously I'm up for hearing what people love. Im looking at a price point that isn't the absolute latest and state of the art tech but something that is fast and and stable. I have a Mac Pro 12 core 5,1 and the aim is to use that as my main machine and keep adding PCs to do most of the lifting. Admittedly I am a little out of touch on the latest CPU technology so I'm interested to hear from anyone that knows what they are talking about 

Jono


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## JohnG (Aug 11, 2017)

Hi Jono,

Complexity is a pain, so with the requisite grain of salt...

....I like spreading the load out, so instead of a single 128GB computer, I would opt for two 64GB PC slave computers instead. Two doesn't cost that much more than one, and the second computer boosts muscle in busses, CPU and all the rest of the computer's capabilities. 

Of course, there are tradeoffs; one loses the amount of RAM that the second OS occupies, and there is more work to back up two computers than one.

The next question is whether to get super-fast CPU clock speed (I use 4.x at least on mine). But there was a thread not too long ago in which a member (whom I don't know, and who was posting anonymously) claimed amazing results with a relatively low clock speed (less than 3.0 GHz) and 14 cores. I have never seen that claim made by anyone else, but food for thought.

[edit: here's the thread -- http://vi-control.net/community/threads/suggestion-most-powerful-machine.61816/ ]

Kind regards,

John


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## jononotbono (Aug 11, 2017)

JohnG said:


> Hi Jono,
> 
> Complexity is a pain, so with the requisite grain of salt...
> 
> ...



Thanks John. Very good suggestions. I haven't looked into pricing of CPUs yet but I'm imagining building Slaves with 64gb of RAM in each is much cheaper considering the price of 128gb of RAM at the minute (been looking at prices of RAM for my Mac Pro 5,1 and the price has increased since last year). And as you say, with each slave, you do get more horse power. I shall have to have a think about this! I'm sure I read that a computer runs out of Voices once you go above 64gb of RAM but this was a while ago and way before any computer had more than 12 cores so I'm a little unsure about this stuff at the minute.


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## ranaprathap (Aug 11, 2017)

And before you buy CPUs right now, just wait to hear about the DAW benchmarks of AMD Threadripper. In usual benchmarks, Threadrippers are seemingly excellent choices for multi-threaded applications and they are better than similarly priced Intel core i9s or even Xeons in productivity with support for more PCIE lanes.


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## JohnG (Aug 11, 2017)

jononotbono said:


> I'm sure I read that a computer runs out of Voices once you go above 64gb of RAM but this was a while ago and way before any computer had more than 12 cores so I'm a little unsure about this stuff at the minute.



Agreed; it's always changing. Suggest you PM chimuelo as well


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## EvilDragon (Aug 11, 2017)

ranaprathap said:


> just wait to hear about the DAW benchmarks of AMD Threadripper






Guess who's back... back again. Now that coast is clear.


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## jamwerks (Aug 11, 2017)

Don't follow that. Is it Threadripper or 7900X better for DAW?


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## EvilDragon (Aug 11, 2017)

From that tweet, sounds like Threadripper falls hard on DAW stuff. They'll do a review soon.


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## jononotbono (Aug 11, 2017)

Maybe I'm being stubborn but I'm never moving away from Intel.


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## URL (Aug 11, 2017)

Intel I9 18-core and win 10 updated-that would be something.
Release in September.


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## D Halgren (Aug 11, 2017)

EvilDragon said:


> Guess who's back... back again. Now that coast is clear.




Glad you're back. Your knowledge was sorely missed.


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## chimuelo (Aug 11, 2017)

Hell Im happy with i7 4790k's @ 4.6GHz.
Ive tried i7 6700k/7700k, both are great CPUs too, just prefer watts under 100.

My Slave needs are fast, RAM packed Quads.

But my Main DAW is soon to be a VEPro Master.
I'm not partial, and price isn't the biggest concern.

I'm watching the races and usually take advice I hear from Scan or Rosenberry since my expertise lies in live low latency performance rigs.

Time to compose so Zen Master says we'll see..

OTOH Supermicro motherboards never die, and their Threadrippers look fantastic.
How's TBs of RAM sound.
And on x86 Intels RAM doesn't seem to matter.
On AMDs it appears faster RAM and OC'd CPUs are like afterburners on a Jet.
Sadly that means more watts which starts making me cringe...

https://www.supermicro.com/Aplus/motherboard/EPYC7000/H11DSi.cfm


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## Jeremy Spencer (Aug 12, 2017)

Hey Luke, have you tried the VEPro update that was recently released? Maybe this will fix your crashes.


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## jononotbono (Aug 12, 2017)

Wolfie2112 said:


> Hey Luke, have you tried the VEPro update that was recently released? Maybe this will fix your crashes.



I've actually been talking to VSL and they have given me a few beta versions and the latest I have has stopped all crashing. Soon to be released actually. In fact, from all the crash reports I have submitted to them and conversations I have had from my problems, there is a possible new feature being added to the VEPro interface to help with using multiple Midi Ports. Absolutely love VSL's customer support. Anyway, in case you were wondering...

My problem at the minute is as follows...

I Load template

CPU load is at around 100% on peak meter and all CPU cores once loaded

Disable all tracks inside a VEPro tab containing just Cinematic Strings 2

CPU all goes to normal.

Now here's even more weirdness...

If I re-enable ALL of the tracks I just disabled then nothing changes. CPU is still normal. I would have expected the CPU to go back to 100% but it doesn't. This exact same behaviour happens in a VEPro tab containing Damage as well.

Basically VSL have said it could be down to a bad Kontakt script and Kontakt is hanging when template is loading or setting an Infinite loop. Which would explain why disabling tracks or re enabling the tracks (trust me, I have tried every which way since Sunday) sorts the CPU out. I have stress tested CPUs and no apparent problems. Heat is not above 80. Tried every buffer setting, thread count option, Cubase AG on/off and obviously off for VEPro. Had a technician look at it remotely. Changed GFX cards. About to buy new RAM. Run out of ideas so, back on topic, I'm going to build a new PC Slave and let that do a lot more of the lifting. just trying to figure out the right CPU. 

Lots of good suggestions in this thread all ready so thanks to all!


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## Symfoniq (Aug 13, 2017)

The tweet about Threadripper and DAW Bench is interesting, but I wouldn't conclude much from it yet. The Ryzen 1800X does great in DAW Bench. It's certainly possible that NUMA issues are coming into play with Threadripper, but also just as possible that Reaper is poorly optimized for Threadripper, or that the high core count CPU issues Steinberg identified with Windows 10 are coming into play.


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## Publius (Aug 14, 2017)

As with so many of these official reviews, DAW software is a niche market and is not covered--so the clever and loquacious dude makes some interesting points, but merely opens my mind to learn more as time goes on. Well, at least in common with so many intel based mobos--thunderbolt not well supported.


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## chimuelo (Aug 14, 2017)

Short but shows us why benchmarks for audio is needed instead of benchmarks for sales.

https://www.pugetsystems.com/blog/2017/08/08/Stop-Directly-Comparing-CPU-Specs-1000/


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## Nathanael Iversen (Aug 14, 2017)

Yes, so few sites run DAWBench, which isn't exactly real world, but at least seems related and has entries at multiple latency levels.


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## Nathanael Iversen (Aug 14, 2017)

Symfoniq said:


> The tweet about Threadripper and DAW Bench is interesting, but I wouldn't conclude much from it yet. The Ryzen 1800X does great in DAW Bench. It's certainly possible that NUMA issues are coming into play with Threadripper, but also just as possible that Reaper is poorly optimized for Threadripper, or that the high core count CPU issues Steinberg identified with Windows 10 are coming into play.


The Steinberg CPU issue is real in the context of 14 real cores max for Cubase, but you can set Cubase to only use that many and then the OS still has other cores free for general system stuff. That said, Cubase doesn't seem to exercise my quad core very much in terms of core saturation - it is all about clock speed for real-time that matters. I'm pretty sure that faster cores are more important to me than lots of cores in how my system seems to behave, but I suppose that's where each of our systems will be different. My ~600 track setup is huge for some, and tiny compared to JunkieXL, so it is hard to say.


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## Symfoniq (Aug 15, 2017)

Nathanael Iversen said:


> The Steinberg CPU issue is real in the context of 14 real cores max for Cubase, but you can set Cubase to only use that many and then the OS still has other cores free for general system stuff. That said, Cubase doesn't seem to exercise my quad core very much in terms of core saturation - it is all about clock speed for real-time that matters. I'm pretty sure that faster cores are more important to me than lots of cores in how my system seems to behave, but I suppose that's where each of our systems will be different. My ~600 track setup is huge for some, and tiny compared to JunkieXL, so it is hard to say.



I'm not disagreeing by any means. My point was that on Windows 10 systems with more than 14 logical cores (Threadripper has up to 32), attempts to allocate more than 14 real-time threads can result in dropouts. While there is a fix for Cubase, it's possible (even likely) that this is an issue in other DAWs as well, and bench testers might not realize it.

TechReport's tweet noted that Threadripper failed "curiously hard" on DAW Bench, despite the fact that Ryzen (from which Threadripper is derived) did quite well in their own testing. While this *could* be a NUMA issue, I'm skeptical because TechReport also noted Threadripper's excellent DPC latency (some of the best they'd ever seen). A plausible theory is that due to the sheer number of logical cores, Threadripper is trying to allocate far more than 14 real-time threads, but many of those threads are non-real-time threads. Of course, this is Just A Theory.

In some of their previous CPU reviews, TechReport has loaded up more than 1,400 VST instances for DAW Bench tests, so I think it's safe to say they are using every logical core available on these systems.


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## rgames (Aug 15, 2017)

Symfoniq said:


> on Windows 10 systems with more than 14 logical cores (Threadripper has up to 32), attempts to allocate more than 14 real-time threads can result in dropouts.


I've seen that problem with high-core-count CPUs for a number of years, certainly before Windows 10, so I think the recent comments about that problem are just catching up to reality from the past 5-6 years. There have been a lot of posts on this forum over the years that discuss exactly that issue. I don't think it's a problem specific to Windows 10.

However, as you say, high-core-counts "can" result in dropouts but not always. My 10-core/20-thread system runs fine, so there's more to it that I don't think we've figured out just yet. I'm not using any of the fixes recommended by Steinberg, it just runs fine out of the box. Maybe the problem has already been fixed?

The thread on the Cubase forum might be specific to Steinberg's recommended setup (which I don't use - I run everything stock except overclocking). If so, and you're running into dropouts, then maybe start from scratch and see if you have the problem when you run everything stock.

Also, regarding DPC latency - I've found that it's a threshold metric. If you're below, say, 250 us then you're probably doing fine. Driving DPC latency down below that level doesn't seem to correlate with any practical measure of performance that I've seen.

rgames


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## Symfoniq (Aug 15, 2017)

rgames said:


> I've seen that problem with high-core-count CPUs for a number of years, certainly before Windows 10, so I think the recent comments about that problem are just catching up to reality from the past 5-6 years. There have been a lot of posts on this forum over the years that discuss exactly that issue. I don't think it's a problem specific to Windows 10.
> 
> However, as you say, high-core-counts "can" result in dropouts but not always. My 10-core/20-thread system runs fine, so there's more to it that I don't think we've figured out just yet. I'm not using any of the fixes recommended by Steinberg, it just runs fine out of the box. Maybe the problem has already been fixed?
> 
> ...



I believe that the reason Windows 10 is being singled out by Steinberg is due to some significant kernel changes by Microsoft. However, I don't doubt that the law of diminishing returns has always affected high core count CPUs.

I'm about to upgrade my workstation, which is a 3.4 Ghz Haswell quad-core Xeon. My biggest problem has been bumping up against RAM limitations (32 GB). Whatever I buy will need to support at least 64 GB, but I've been wondering how much "wider" I should go with the CPU, too. Your observation that you haven't seen much difference going from 4 to 10 cores is duly noted. I appreciate the insight; it might save me some money.


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## Symfoniq (Aug 15, 2017)

Pete at Scan Pro Audio got his hands on Threadripper. The results of his benchmarks are somewhat nuanced, but in a nutshell, at very low buffers, Intel's i9 processors win, while at higher buffers, Threadripper wins. However, I do think it's interesting to note that even at 64 buffers, Threadripper is beating the i7 7700K.


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## Nathanael Iversen (Aug 16, 2017)

Out of all the benchmarks and test reports, the ScanPro one provides some clarifying data. What I take out of this is:

1) if you need a low-latency system (like for live recording), then a 7700k @4.5Ghz is a great choice. Blazing fast at 64 sample buffer, and relatively inexpensive. Add a UAD, RME or other solution that gives latency free DSP FX and monitoring.
2) Working with VEP is a 256 sample buffer affair for me - so, spending 3x as much as a 7700K for Threadripper or 7900K nets 1000 extra voices. I'm not burying my existing sample slaves, so this is a dubious benefit for 3x the price, high heat, and noise.
3) Mixing, one can run a very high buffer of 512 or even 1024 to help a CPU out with no impact to workflow. Most any CPU will do. And final mix rendering isn't real-time anyway, and will run on anything.


For ultra-low, predictable latency, PCIe/Thunderbolt sound cards, and hardware DSP (HDX or UAD) provide guaranteed power apart from the CPU's limited real-time capability.

The days of needing a high-end PC/MAC to do audio seem to be over. Mid-grade enthusiast chips are capable of doing what we need in almost all cases. There is a tendency to look at these benchmark graphs to see which is the longest or shortest and ignore the rest. But if I look not at absolute numbers, but at the threshold of usefulness, pretty much all of it works equivalently for normal writing and producing. Spending more doesn't necessarily buy more useful result. The 7700K can be cooled almost silently, has modest power needs, and can support plenty of RAM, SSD's, etc.

I think I started out wanting to build a big rig on latest/greatest tech, but there doesn't seem to be any reason to...


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