# I9 7900X X299 Performance



## kunst91

Hey guys,

Just built an X299 machine with the ten core 7900x, and I'm wondering if anyone else has done the same so we can compare notes.

I've done a lot of tweaking in the bios and have gotten things to become relatively stable, but I am still a bit disappointed with the performance.

I've seen 8-core X99 machines that are outperforming this build.

There are also some funky issues such as the bios overclocking mechanisms not working.

I can't tell if this is the fault of X299/i9 or with my own build as this is my first rodeo.

Here is my parts list:
ASUS X299 Deluxe
Intel Core i9 7900x
Noctua NH-D15S CPU Cooler
Crucial 64 GB DDR4-2133 RAM
Samsung 960 Evo System Drive
EVGA GTX 1060 3 GB
Corsair HX850i Power Supply
ASUS Thunderbolt Card
LSI 9361-8i RAID Card w/ 5x1TB SSDs
Fractal R5 Case

UA Apollo 8 Thunderbolt Duo
Windows 10 LTSB

On paper this thing should kick ass, but as of now, Cubase 9 is spiking with four legato string patches, three legato brass, four legato winds, and several zebras.

Synths on their own perform decently, it's the kontakts that start to choke the thing.

I run a disabled instrument track template, no VEP.

I can go into further detail on my BIOS / Windows 10 tweaks and performance specs. I've followed most conventional wisdom in optimizing this machine for audio.

Anyone have experience in PC builds that might be able to lend some assistance?


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## C-Wave

Hi,
What are the 5 x SSD's, make, model, etc..
Can't understand why you didn't go with faster ram? Budget maybe?
These are the most important things to second guess on your system imho, plus the status of Cubase asio guard.


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## rgames

I've been using one for a couple weeks and have done only a handful of full orchestra tracks with it but it's behaving pretty well - I'd say roughly comparable to the i7 6800k I ran previously. My full template runs at under 6 ms total latency (192 samples = 96 sound card + 96 VE Pro). I'm using three slaves and running about 24 GB of samples locally on the master machine along with Cubase 9.

You might be suffering from the Cubase multi-core problem - there are known issues with Cubase and high-core-count CPUs (and multi-CPU setups). See here: https://www.steinberg.net/forums/viewtopic.php?f=250&t=117319&sid=a81417f33f27232f42d590328ad4f110

I set this machine up for video rendering but have been trying it as a DAW and it doesn't seem to be affected by that issue. Again, though, I've worked only a few tracks to date. You might try disabling hyperthreading to see if that helps - that'll get your logical core count down to 10 (I think 12 is the limit in Cubase because of some Windows weirdness). Overall, though, I'd say that's not a great solution.

However, two other things I notice that are very different about our setups: I'm using a USB 2.0 interface (Fireface 802) and I don't tweak Windows or the BIOS (other than overclocking).

So maybe start with a clean, stock install with no tweaks. In my experience, tweaks to the OS and BIOS causes more problems than they solve nowadays.

EDIT: also, I don't have a RAID card.

rgames


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## kunst91

C-Wave said:


> Hi,
> What are the 5 x SSD's, make, model, etc..
> Can't understand why you didn't go with faster ram? Budget maybe?
> These are the most important things to second guess on your system imho, plus the status of Cubase asio guard.



SSD's are:
850 Pro
850 Evo
840 Evo x2
Crucial m550

My understanding was that RAM speed was negligent with respect to DAW performance. What speed would you recommend?


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## Gerhard Westphalen

I would try to narrow down the bottleneck to see if it really is the cpu. Seems like 9/10 it isn't.

This thread seems to reaffirm the idea that no one really knows how a computer will perform based on the processor specs and you really just need to test it and see.


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## C-Wave

kunst91 said:


> SSD's are:
> 850 Pro
> 850 Evo
> 840 Evo x2
> Crucial m550
> 
> My understanding was that RAM speed was negligent with respect to DAW performance. What speed would you recommend?


Ok, this is not based on tests,, but in general you need to consider that samples are streamed from your SSD's to RAM ALL THE TIME WHILE YOU PLAY, so faster ram (3000Mhz would be a good idea) but right now you have slower SSD, 840 and 850, so I am not sure you need to upgrade your ram unless you're still within the 30 days so if u have the budget then yes go and upgrade and pay the difference. I am running a system with 6850k overclocked to 4.3, Asus x99-a II, 64GB ram 3333Mhz Corsair Dominator on 2 x Samsung 960 EVO's (2 Single SSD's not raid) and so far so good on Cubase pro 9.


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## kunst91

rgames said:


> I've been using one for a couple weeks and have done only a handful of full orchestra tracks with it but it's behaving pretty well - I'd say roughly comparable to the i7 6800k I ran previously. My full template runs at under 6 ms total latency (192 samples = 96 sound card + 96 VE Pro). I'm using three slaves and running about 24 GB of samples locally on the master machine along with Cubase 9.
> 
> You might be suffering from the Cubase multi-core problem - there are known issues with Cubase and high-core-count CPUs (and multi-CPU setups). See here: https://www.steinberg.net/forums/viewtopic.php?f=250&t=117319&sid=a81417f33f27232f42d590328ad4f110
> 
> I set this machine up for video rendering but have been trying it as a DAW and it doesn't seem to be affected by that issue. Again, though, I've worked only a few tracks to date. You might try disabling hyperthreading to see if that helps - that'll get your logical core count down to 10 (I think 12 is the limit in Cubase because of some Windows weirdness). Overall, though, I'd say that's not a great solution.
> 
> However, two other things I notice that are very different about our setups: I'm using a USB 2.0 interface (Fireface 802) and I don't tweak Windows or the BIOS (other than overclocking).
> 
> So maybe start with a clean, stock install with no tweaks. In my experience, tweaks to the OS and BIOS causes more problems than they solve nowadays.
> 
> EDIT: also, I don't have a RAID card.
> 
> rgames



Yes, I was having horrible performance until I turned off hyper threading. This was the tweak that made the most difference.

That's interesting what you say regarding BIOS and Windows tweaks, as it was my understanding that both needed quite a lot of work to perform well with DAWS. I'm just curious why you think they might cause problems?
I am a bit under the gun on a project and don't have the time to do a fresh reinstall, but I can certainly change back my settings as I have kept track.

In fact here they are:
*BIOS:*
Disabled Wifi, Bluetooth & HD Audio

Disabled c-states
Disabled speed step
Turbo Mode Off
Disabled Speed Shift
Disabled Hyperthreading
Disabled ASUS multicore enhancement

Sync all cores - 33 (FYI when I try to set this number higher to overclock, the system maintains the 3.3 ghz speed both in the BIOS and in Windows)

*WINDOWS:*
Power Options - high performance
Turn off display - never
Sleep - Never
Hard disk - turn off never
USB Selective Suspend - disabled

Run cubase as administrator

Device Manager:
USB Root Hub Power management - don't allow computer to turn off device

Sounds off

Processor scheduling - background services

Device manager - network adapters - disabled all power management

Windows Programs & Features I've disabled
Internet Explorer 11
Windows Media Player
Microsoft Print to PDF
Internet Printing Client
Windows Fax and Scan
Remote Differential Compression
XPS Services & XPS Viewer


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## kunst91

C-Wave said:


> Ok, this is not based on tests,, but in general you need to consider that samples are streamed from your SSD's to RAM ALL THE TIME WHILE YOU PLAY, so faster ram (3000Mhz would be a good idea) but right now you have slower SSD, 840 and 850, so I am not sure you need to upgrade your ram unless you're still within the 30 days so if u have the budget then yes go and upgrade and pay the difference. I am running a system with 6850k overclocked to 4.3, Asus x99-a II, 64GB ram 3333Mhz Corsair Dominator on 2 x Samsung 960 EVO's (2 Single SSD's not raid) and so far so good on Cubase pro 9.



I may actually check out faster RAM. The guy I know who is successfully running the 6900k system uses crucial ballistix 2400Mhz. My RAID read speeds are between 2600-3000 MB/s


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## kunst91

Gerhard Westphalen said:


> I would try to narrow down the bottleneck to see if it really is the cpu. Seems like 9/10 it isn't.
> 
> This thread seems to reaffirm the idea that no one really knows how a computer will perform based on the processor specs and you really just need to test it and see.



aint it the truth! although again given my inexperience in this area, I'm sure that a large part of this is due in large part to personal error, as opposed to issues with the processor.

Although I will say that before I disabled hyper threading, One track of Albion V and two Omnisphere's brought my CPU load to 50% !!!!


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## creativeforge

kunst91 said:


> Hey guys,
> 
> Just built an X299 machine with the ten core 7900x, and I'm wondering if anyone else has done the same so we can compare notes.
> 
> I've done a lot of tweaking in the bios and have gotten things to become relatively stable, but I am still a bit disappointed with the performance.
> 
> I've seen 8-core X99 machines that are outperforming this build.
> 
> There are also some funky issues such as the bios overclocking mechanisms not working.
> 
> I can't tell if this is the fault of X299/i9 or with my own build as this is my first rodeo.
> 
> Here is my parts list:
> ASUS X299 Deluxe
> Intel Core i9 7900x
> Noctua NH-D15S CPU Cooler
> Crucial 64 GB DDR4-2133 RAM
> Samsung 960 Evo System Drive
> EVGA GTX 1060 3 GB
> Corsair HX850i Power Supply
> ASUS Thunderbolt Card
> LSI 9361-8i RAID Card w/ 5x1TB SSDs
> Fractal R5 Case
> 
> UA Apollo 8 Thunderbolt Duo
> Windows 10 LTSB
> 
> On paper this thing should kick ass, but as of now, Cubase 9 is spiking with four legato string patches, three legato brass, four legato winds, and several zebras.
> 
> Synths on their own perform decently, it's the kontakts that start to choke the thing.
> 
> I run a disabled instrument track template, no VEP.
> 
> I can go into further detail on my BIOS / Windows 10 tweaks and performance specs. I've followed most conventional wisdom in optimizing this machine for audio.
> 
> Anyone have experience in PC builds that might be able to lend some assistance?



Copying @Jim Roseberry Rosenbery on this... Maybe he can chime in.


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## C-Wave

kunst91 said:


> I may actually check out faster RAM. The guy I know who is successfully running the 6900k system uses crucial ballistix 2400Mhz. My RAID read speeds are between 2600-3000 MB/s


Keep in mind to take the speed numbers marketed by manufacturers with a grain of salt.. a huge grain of salt and that is why they have different grades of the same memory capacity and speed..
Also, keep in mind if you are striping different drives or SSD's with different speeds that you end up with the slowest drive dragging the others with to its speed, so the raid controller will take the lowest common denominator.


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## kunst91

C-Wave said:


> Keep in mind that the speed numbers marketed by manufacturers with a grain of salt.. a huge grain of salt and that is why they have different grades of the same memory capacity and speed..
> Also, keep in mind if you are striping different drives or SSD's with different speeds that you end up with the slowest drive dragging the others with to its speed, so the raid controller will take the lowest common denominator.



If you were on a budget what would you say is the sweet spot for ram in terms of performance/cost/manufacturer

As for the RAID yes, I did speed tests on all of the disks before making the array, and they all performed almost identically.


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## C-Wave

kunst91 said:


> If you were on a budget what would you say is the sweet spot for ram in terms of performance/cost/manufacturer
> 
> As for the RAID yes, I did speed tests on all of the disks before making the array, and they all performed almost identically.


Ram 3000Mhz.. more if u can afford. U decided to buy the faster CPU, so.. it's a chain, you break it it's like u wasted ur money on the high end component.


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## rgames

kunst91 said:


> That's interesting what you say regarding BIOS and Windows tweaks, as it was my understanding that both needed quite a lot of work to perform well with DAWS. I'm just curious why you think they might cause problems?


That was the common wisdom 10 years ago that is no longer supported by any practical measure of performance that I've seen. But people forgot to stop weaking BIOS/Windows and it now causes more harm than good...! You can tweak things to improve performance on synthetic benchmarks but I'm guessing that's not your intended use for the machine.

To be clear, I'm talking about tweaks that affect running an orchestral setup. If you're trying to use a PC to record a bunch of tracks of audio then maybe there's something there - that's outside my experience base.

And, of course, just because I've never seen any advantage for tweaks doesn't mean they don't exist. But I've spent a lot of time looking for those advantages and I can't find them...

The only tweak that I have found to be useful in the last 10 years is overclocking. I've used four different PCs in that time - an i7 920, an i7 4930k, an i7 6800k and and an i9 7900x. They all run about the same template at about the same latency (note that they were all overclocked to 4.0 - 4.5 GHz). And they all run that same template at the same latency (~6 ms) with or without tweaks to the BIOS/Windows.

Where I have seen tweaks make a difference is in fixing problems that arise from other tweaks. But the better approach there is to just not tweak anything...!

Also, it's well accepted that RAM speed has no practical effect on anything. Synthetic benchmarks, yes. Productivity, no. I always buy whatever RAM is cheapest. They're all the same from a practical standpoint.

rgames


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## kunst91

rgames said:


> That was the common wisdom 10 years ago that is no longer supported by any practical measure of performance that I've seen. But people forgot to stop weaking BIOS/Windows and it now causes more harm than good...! You can tweak things to improve performance on synthetic benchmarks but I'm guessing that's not your intended use for the machine.
> 
> To be clear, I'm talking about tweaks that affect running an orchestral setup. If you're trying to use a PC to record a bunch of tracks of audio then maybe there's something there - that's outside my experience base.
> 
> And, of course, just because I've never seen any advantage for tweaks doesn't mean they don't exist. But I've spent a lot of time looking for those advantages and I can't find them...
> 
> The only tweak that I have found to be useful in the last 10 years is overclocking. I've used four different PCs in that time - an i7 920, an i7 4930k, an i7 6800k and and an i9 7900x. They all run about the same template at about the same latency (note that they were all overclocked to 4.0 - 4.5 GHz). And they all run that same template at the same latency (~6 ms) with or without tweaks to the BIOS/Windows.
> 
> Where I have seen tweaks make a difference is in fixing problems that arise from other tweaks. But the better approach there is to just not tweak anything...!
> 
> Also, it's well accepted that RAM speed has no practical effect on anything. Synthetic benchmarks, yes. Productivity, no. I always buy whatever RAM is cheapest. They're all the same from a practical standpoint.
> 
> rgames



This is all great to hear. I am going to reset windows and my bios to the default settings and see what happens.

And ironically enough, the one tweak that is not working AT ALL is overclocking. I can't get my speeds to budge above 3.3

Not sure if you use ASUS boards, but if you do I could use some help in that regard. If you have the time I will send you a PM! Thank you!


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## Johann F.

We have very similar specs (I have more RAM) and as reported here, my system behaved very erratically working with Cubase alone. I tried every single trick in the book and had some back and forth with Steinberg but we couldn't figure out what was wrong, so I eventually returned to Vepro. It's been solid since then.



kunst91 said:


> On paper this thing should kick ass, but as of now, Cubase 9 is spiking with four legato string patches, three legato brass, four legato winds, and several zebras.



Which patches from which libraries? I have Zebra and most Spitfire, Orchestral Tools, CSS and Cinesamples, so I could test here and see if we get similar results.


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## kunst91

Johann F. said:


> We have very similar specs (I have more RAM) and as reported here, my system behaved very erratically working with Cubase alone. I tried every single trick in the book and had some back and forth with Steinberg but we couldn't figure out what was wrong, so I eventually returned to Vepro. It's been solid since then.
> 
> 
> 
> Which patches from which libraries? I have Zebra and most Spitfire, Orchestral Tools, CSS and Cinesamples, so I could test here and see if we get similar results.



Ah bummer. Almost entirely spitfire (symphonic orchestra, albions) with some cinesamples and OT mixed in.

Good to know that VEPro is solid, but I'd really like to avoid it if possible!


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## AR

To the OP: do you have a Pcie soundcard? Just for comparing? I wouldn't say it's Ram or Ssd. Try a hdspe if you have one around. As I understand you have a thunderbolt extension card, right? Normally Asus does a pretty good job on their in-line product palette, but I'd still eliminate all interfering connections before blaming Cubase 9


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## kunst91

AR said:


> To the OP: do you have a Pcie soundcard? Just for comparing? I wouldn't say it's Ram or Ssd. Try a hdspe if you have one around. As I understand you have a thunderbolt extension card, right? Normally Asus does a pretty good job on their in-line product palette, but I'd still eliminate all interfering connections before blaming Cubase 9



I know that the RME cards are the best. I don't have one on-hand at the moment, but I'm sure I can find one to try out. I do need 5.1, however, so I can't really use an HDSPe without a converter, and I'm already pretty maxed out budget-wise! 

I don't blame Cubase 9 at all, it worked pretty well on my quad-core trashcan


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## URL

Any recommendation and instruction for overclocking an I7-6850?


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## zvenx

Didn't read the whole thread in depth but there currently is an issue with cubase and windows 10 using more than 14 cores, real or virtual.. If I remember correctly.. 
Afaik sb and windows are working on it and for now u have to let cubase not see more than 14 cores.. Cant remember how to do so.
Rsp


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## kunst91

Gerhard Westphalen said:


> I would try to narrow down the bottleneck to see if it really is the cpu. Seems like 9/10 it isn't.
> 
> This thread seems to reaffirm the idea that no one really knows how a computer will perform based on the processor specs and you really just need to test it and see.



By the way, latencymon says the highest sources of DPC latency are my network driver and NVIDIA drivers.

Anyone find a stable NVIDIA driver with the GTX 1060?


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## thereus

Just a thought. Try installing reaper (free as a trial) and see if it performs in terms of tracks/latency. That would narrow it down to being a Cubase issue if it does


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## zvenx

zvenx said:


> Didn't read the whole thread in depth but there currently is an issue with cubase and windows 10 using more than 14 cores, real or virtual.. If I remember correctly..
> Afaik sb and windows are working on it and for now u have to let cubase not see more than 14 cores.. Cant remember how to do so.
> Rsp




https://helpcenter.steinberg.de/hc/...ws-10-audio-dropouts-on-multi-core-CPU-setups
rsp


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## Architekton

Why would you turn of hyperthreading??? Total nonsense...over here when I enable hyperthreading my perfomances jump for 30 to 60%!!!!


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## kunst91

zvenx said:


> https://helpcenter.steinberg.de/hc/...ws-10-audio-dropouts-on-multi-core-CPU-setups
> rsp



According to this I could turn hyper threading back on and simply limit the amount of logical cores used in the BIOS.



Architekton said:


> Why would you turn of hyperthreading??? Total nonsense...over here when I enable hyperthreading my perfomances jump for 30 to 60%!!!!



See above issues, with hyper threading on performance was significantly worse


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## chimuelo

Love seeing Hardware force the ASIO Developers to adapt.
For years we bitched @ DAWbench about Cubase dodging instruction sets to follow brute force.
I Might even try and finally upgrade from SX.

And Hyperthreading brings virtual threads to a core which adds latency between Cohesion amongst actual Cores.
If NI Kontakt suggests disabling hyperthreading, that should apply to DAWs too.
I've turned it off in my BIOS'es since P4's.

Can't wait to see some results from these beasts.
Intel still holds the title for per core performance.
The 7740X is probably the last Quad Intel will ever make for desktops.

Exciting times..


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## Publius

My thinking is that turning off hyperthreading would be the best option to deal with the Cubase too many cores issue. This would lose the 30% performance boost one poster reported. Turning off a cpu core in bios would remove it completely from the system which would represent a greater loss in capacity.

Interesting thought that while hyperthreading may provide an overall throughput advantage, it may also, with its overhead, increase latency or decrease some other cpu performance metric.


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## kunst91

Publius said:


> My thinking is that turning off hyperthreading would be the best option to deal with the Cubase too many cores issue. This would lose the 30% performance boost one poster reported. Turning off a cpu core in bios would remove it completely from the system which would represent a greater loss in capacity.
> 
> Interesting thought that while hyperthreading may provide an overall throughput advantage, it may also, with its overhead, increase latency or decrease some other cpu performance metric.



Yup exactly right. Disabling hyperthreading is the only thing that keeps the system stable.


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## woodslanding

wow, I'm going to try turning off hyperthreading next time I boot up, and see what happens. Love to get a little lower latency.....


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## niven

Tuesday at 11:33 AM
Hi,
I've posted this in another area....new to this sort of thing! I think it should of been here....
Reading this thread is a really eye opener....

I'm seriously thinking of building my own system. I'm a complete beginner re computer building..but Ive tracked down every do it yourself You Tube video there is to see! And so far I'm not daunted by the prospect....it "appears" to be a straight forward process and will save me £656 as well! If things do go wrong I' ll be in deep...!!??*

However, I was thinking of using 2x M.2 Nvme drives instead of SSDs....now I'm wondering whether they're worth the spend, re performance value.
I intend on running Berlin Strings, Brass, Woodwind,Perc, Runs and Sphere..also Hollywood Strings, Brass and Woodwind (Gold only) and VSL Special editions..Cubase, Sibelius, Komplete10 and VEP6
And having read this, I'm worrying about any conflicts my choices might throw up.
my build will be:

Core i7 7800X 3gb 6 core
"be quiet" Dark Rock Pro 3 67.8 CFM fluid dynamic bearing CPU cooler.
Asus Prime X299A
Corsair Vengance LPX DDR4 3000 (128gb)
1x Samsung 960 Evo 500gb Nvme M2.2280 ssd and 1x1tb 960 M2.2280 Nvme
2 extra be quiet Silent Wings fans pwm 140mm...
The board has 2 dedicated m.2 drives....one is vertical!...If I want to run these with some "normal"
SSDs drives as well , will there be any bandwidth problems....as you see I dont know v much....
and could do with some seasoned advise. 

I realise it's not totally in context with the original posting, but I would like to know if any of you can see me hitting similar problems with my build?. 
regards
niven.
Ps
my other old computer is only capable of holding 24gb of ram and mechanical HHDs..(2x 1.5TB)
and is very early i7 with one pci card slot left...the other three PCie cards are being used by 2 UAD cards..and an old RME Multiface card.


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## Publius

That looks like a well-specified machine. I think its unlikely you will have any problems building it and getting it running, and if there are problems, they will be fixable. With my own system, I looked closely at m2 drives, but since I didn't have it on the motherboard, they would not have been able to run at full speed. My own experience has been that I can build a more powerful machine for the money than a purchased system. Given that manufacturers have the economic advantages of mass production and the ability to get discounts for buying large quantities of parts, this surprises me a bit, but its been that way for decades, and I always build my own. It also makes it easier to upgrade when you have the knowledge from building your own.

It looks like you had a question about sata speeds. From what I have read, with ssd drives, the speed of the sata interface can be a bottleneck, depending on the drive. Nonetheless, ssd with sata is a lot faster than a spinning platter drive.


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## niven

Hi Publius,
thanks for replying...I feel a little better now!
As in this thread, my worries lie in the bios...hyperthreading..and compatability with various bits of my software. As I said, putting things together "seems" to be straightforward.....!?!! but when things don't add up the way they should, that's when I know I'll hit a brick wall. Hoping folks here can help when I get there.


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## kunst91

niven said:


> Tuesday at 11:33 AM
> Hi,
> I've posted this in another area....new to this sort of thing! I think it should of been here....
> Reading this thread is a really eye opener....
> 
> I'm seriously thinking of building my own system. I'm a complete beginner re computer building..but Ive tracked down every do it yourself You Tube video there is to see! And so far I'm not daunted by the prospect....it "appears" to be a straight forward process and will save me £656 as well! If things do go wrong I' ll be in deep...!!??*
> 
> However, I was thinking of using 2x M.2 Nvme drives instead of SSDs....now I'm wondering whether they're worth the spend, re performance value.
> I intend on running Berlin Strings, Brass, Woodwind,Perc, Runs and Sphere..also Hollywood Strings, Brass and Woodwind (Gold only) and VSL Special editions..Cubase, Sibelius, Komplete10 and VEP6
> And having read this, I'm worrying about any conflicts my choices might throw up.
> my build will be:
> 
> Core i7 7800X 3gb 6 core
> "be quiet" Dark Rock Pro 3 67.8 CFM fluid dynamic bearing CPU cooler.
> Asus Prime X299A
> Corsair Vengance LPX DDR4 3000 (128gb)
> 1x Samsung 960 Evo 500gb Nvme M2.2280 ssd and 1x1tb 960 M2.2280 Nvme
> 2 extra be quiet Silent Wings fans pwm 140mm...
> The board has 2 dedicated m.2 drives....one is vertical!...If I want to run these with some "normal"
> SSDs drives as well , will there be any bandwidth problems....as you see I dont know v much....
> and could do with some seasoned advise.
> 
> I realise it's not totally in context with the original posting, but I would like to know if any of you can see me hitting similar problems with my build?.
> regards
> niven.
> Ps
> my other old computer is only capable of holding 24gb of ram and mechanical HHDs..(2x 1.5TB)
> and is very early i7 with one pci card slot left...the other three PCie cards are being used by 2 UAD cards..and an old RME Multiface card.



My issue with the lower core count X-series CPU's is the limited number of PCIe lanes


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## Publius

kunst91 said:


> My issue with the lower core count X-series CPU's is the limited number of PCIe lanes


 That's where the amd offerings really shine, but they have lower single cpu performance--as far as I can gather from watching a few videos on the subject. When I go to upgrade in the future I feel I will value more lanes over a slightly faster cpu.


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## Guffy

Publius said:


> That's where the amd offerings really shine, but they have lower single cpu performance--as far as I can gather from watching a few videos on the subject. When I go to upgrade in the future I feel I will value more lanes over a slightly faster cpu.


Doesnt Ryzen 1800x have 24 lanes vs 7800x's 28 lanes?
Also, with AM4 boards you'll currently be stuck with dual channel (64GB) ram.


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## Publius

True as to ryzen. I was thinking more of the threadripper products, with a 1950x having 60 lanes--more of a competitor to the x299 based intel i9s. I note my current system xeon 1276-v3 has 16 lanes. Its enough for what I am doing now, but not much room to grow. The 1950x being about $1,000 retail and the 7800 going for $375 and the 1800x being $418.

I'm not advocating amd over intel, just trying to learn the relative strengths of the products. I have not had an amd mobo for at least 20 years, but I want to keep an open mind. Of course there are the usual concerns about amd not being compatible in some obscure way to something I am trying to do. I presume its save to use with Cubase 9.

I have a xeon 1276-v3 (the computer started as a home server) which benchmarks at 10,224 at 4 cores and 84 watts--16 pcie lanes--32 gig ram. A ryzen 1800x benchmarks at 15,428 with 8 cores and 95 watts--64 gig ram. So, the ryzen would be a nice boost for me, but by the time I decide to upgrade in a year or two, the landscape could look quite a bit different regarding price/performance.

Just did a quick hypothetical--1800x plus mobo $480. 64 gig ddr4-2666 $580, $1060 total--I normally upgrade in box and so I don't buy a power supply, case or video card. Not going to move on it, but just a note to myself to re-visit in a year or so.


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## Symfoniq

The 1800x has 16 PCIe lanes to the CPU. The 7820X has 28. Neither of these numbers include chipset lanes, which don't really matter for the purposes of graphics cards or NVMe drives.

Look at some DAW Bench results before buying Ryzen 1800x or Threadripper for audio (see Scan Pro Audio or Tech Report). Intel still has an advantage in this area, probably due to the MCM design of Ryzen.


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## jamwerks

Boy the new Intel I7-8700K looks like a winner! Probably now go with that for daw and 7800X for slave.


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## Publius

Symfoniq said:


> ...Look at some DAW Bench results before buying Ryzen 1800x or Threadripper for audio (see Scan Pro Audio or Tech Report). Intel still has an advantage in this area, probably due to the MCM design of Ryzen.



Prudent advice, will do! Thanks.


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## GPnicolett

kunst91 said:


> Hey guys,
> 
> Just built an X299 machine with the ten core 7900x, and I'm wondering if anyone else has done the same so we can compare notes.



Thinking of basically running the same rig....have your performance problems been sorted out at all? What kind of latencies are you running at?

Also, I want to confirm, you have multi core turned off in Kontakt right? That's still considered a must, I believe.


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## Phryq

So disable hyper-threading?

Does that mean, for our purposes, a 4-core--4-thread CPU is as good as a 4-core--8-thread?

And ram-speed. What is the consensus? I always thought it wasn't important, but the above argument for faster ram makes sense.

Atm I'm thinking

8700k
960 evo
64gb dd4 2133


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## jamwerks

Phryq said:


> And ram-speed. What is the consensus? I always thought it wasn't important...


There seems to be a consensus that ram speed doesn't really matter. There's been quite a few lengthy discussions several months back.


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## wpc982

I had a pretty shocking increase in performance with a x299 motherboard and i7-8920 cpu by disabling a couple of cache pre-fetch settings in bios. I had been rather disappointed with the performance, since it was not much better than a 2 year older x99 and i7-5820 computer. But the CrystalMark total suddenly went from 513000 to 859000, with the ALU numbers and FPU numbers nearly doubling. Memory totals decreased slightly, especially the "Cache" readings. Graphics measurements mixed, with some higher and some lower. I don't know exactly how to measure what most matters, performance with VSTs loaded and audio.


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## khollister

Really curious to hear back from the OP. The issue of the clock multiplier not having any effect is a huge red flag for me. Speculating on the performance issues is pointless without finding what is causing the clock multiplier to be ignored.


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