# Amd epyc and supermicro



## Ryan (Jul 18, 2020)

Hi

I'm considering building a new PC for music. It's been 10 years since the last one from Supermicro. I'm leaning towards an AMD Epyc Rome build with the new MB from Supermicro that supports pcie 4.0 etc.

1x Supermicro MB H12SSL-C 1xAMD EPYC 7002 8xDDR4 8xSATA3 2xGbE 7xPCIe 2xM.2
1x AMD EPYC 7302P Rome UP - 16-Core 3.00GHz 128MB FCLGA4094 155W

So, I know the base clock is not that high, and the same processor with 400mhz more cost 20 000,- NOK. So that is definitely not worth it at this point.. 

One thing I've always had in mind is the ability to upgrade the CPU down the road. What I've read is that the new AMD Milan also support the same socket as the Rome socket, so it would be a good upgrade at some point when the prices drop. 

Threadripper build is not that good considering upgrade paths later on. And the price is way to high (I think). Also supports fewer pcie-lanes, lower cache etc etc.. 

Somebody with experience with the Epyc builds? 

Best
Ryan


----------



## Alex Sopala (Jul 18, 2020)

Main issue with Epyc is that it doesn't officially support Windows 10 for some reason. The lower clock speeds also aren't much of a benefit.

One thing though: is there any particular reason you need to get Epyc? If you're using less than 128GB RAM for your sample libraries, there's not really much of a reason to use it for most applications in what we're doing.

Assuming you do need that RAM, I'd keep an eye out for the Threadripper Pro line that's going through OEMs this fall over Epyc for music applications (IMO, because of the higher clocks).

Also, CPU upgrades without a new motherboard from right now (meaning today) through AMD will probably last maybe a couple years, but considering that PCIE gen5 and DDR5 are only a few years out, that would put a damper on things. I'd expect Epyc to go that route as well.


----------



## Ryan (Jul 18, 2020)

Alex Sopala said:


> Main issue with Epyc is that it doesn't officially support Windows 10 for some reason. The lower clock speeds also aren't much of a benefit.
> 
> One thing though: is there any particular reason you need to get Epyc? If you're using less than 128GB RAM for your sample libraries, there's not really much of a reason to use it for most applications in what we're doing.
> 
> ...



I didn't know it did not support win10.. That I really need to read more about. 

Well, not necessarily need more then 128gb ram, but the cache is higher on the Epyc vs threadripper, also the Epyc got more PCIe lanes. 
I have considered the new Pro line of Threadrippers, but I think they will be a bit expensive. An other deal breaker for me is motherboards. I'm so damn satisfied with my Supermicro MB, that I really don't want to change to a new brand. Also the Supermicro MB have good specs. It could of course be that Supermicro is one of the OEMs, but I don't know. 
Yes, the clock speed is higher, so that's something I really need to take into consideration.


----------



## Alex Sopala (Jul 18, 2020)

Ryan said:


> I didn't know it did not support win10.. That I really need to read more about.
> 
> Well, not necessarily need more then 128gb ram, but the cache is higher on the Epyc vs threadripper, also the Epyc got more PCIe lanes.
> I have considered the new Pro line of Threadrippers, but I think they will be a bit expensive. An other deal breaker for me is motherboards. I'm so damn satisfied with my Supermicro MB, that I really don't want to change to a new brand. Also the Supermicro MB have good specs. It could of course be that Supermicro is one of the OEMs, but I don't know.
> Yes, the clock speed is higher, so that's something I really need to take into consideration.



The question to answer then is do you really need that power, because I personally don't think it makes sense to go with an Epyc if the use case isn't there. Supermicro only makes Intel and Epyc boards at the time being, and there are PLENTY of other MB manufacturers that make phenomenal products. Unless you already have a compatible motherboard, you'd have to get a new one with the CPU anyway.

And in all fairness, it's not like Epyc is all that cheap by any standards, either. Also, do you know if you're going to use those PCIe lanes for PCIe cards? Most cards don't use the entire x16 bandwidth of slots anyway, unless you have an M.2 card that processes like 4 at once, or some kind of 100gbps Infiniband networking (which doesn't make sense for music production anyway, you'll be bottlenecked by the SSDs well before getting even close to that kind of transfer bandwidth, and it's beyond overkill for our use cases). You could probably get away with a lot less.


----------



## chimuelo (Jul 18, 2020)

You should see ASRock Rack. They’ve got boards on par with Supermicro Quality. I used Supermicro since Gigastudio and TripleDAT days. Back in 2015 ASRock started making Server boards that i7’s could run in.

Still use Supermicro PCI Bifurcation and Riser cards, 1U Chassis, etc.






ASRock Rack > 1U10E-ROME/2T







www.asrockrack.com


----------



## EvilDragon (Jul 19, 2020)

Clock speed still trumps core count. Just keep that in mind. It's better to have fewer cores that can all run at higher clock, for DAW use.


----------



## Ben (Jul 19, 2020)

And I would wait a few months for the next processor generation.


----------



## thevisi0nary (Jul 21, 2020)

EvilDragon said:


> Clock speed still trumps core count. Just keep that in mind. It's better to have fewer cores that can all run at higher clock, for DAW use.



Just curious, but you mean this as far as single thread score being comparable core for core right? So the 3950x should be a better performer than the 10900k, since they are comparable single thread wise and it also has 6 more cores.

I am trying to figure out if there are any situations where the 3950x does not perform as well compared to the 10900k (for audio).


----------



## EvilDragon (Jul 21, 2020)

It doesn't perform as well at lowest latencies (i.e. 64 and 128 samples buffer size). ScanProAudio has articles on that.



thevisi0nary said:


> Just curious, but you mean this as far as single thread score being comparable core for core right?



I mean - the faster CPU clock is across all cores the better. Your DAW's realtime audio thread cannot be parallelized and the more stuff you cram in your project (and especially on master track), the sooner you get to overloading the core that runs that main thread, when this happens you get dropouts and crackles. This is why you want to have a lot of cores (to spread the load of your gobs of audio tracks better) but also all of them running as fast as possible (to have more headroom).

A 32-core CPU that has all cores running at 5 GHz constantly, with as low power drain as possible - that's the dream.


----------



## Damarus (Jul 21, 2020)

And again as mentioned, if you can wait I would. September is usually lots of announcements of new tech and I know at least Intel will have something much better to announce by then.


----------



## thevisi0nary (Jul 21, 2020)

EvilDragon said:


> It doesn't perform as well at lowest latencies (i.e. 64 and 128 samples buffer size). ScanProAudio has articles on that.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



The scanproaudio test here has the 3950x as performing better than the 10900k






Core Wars! AMD & Intel CPUs Tested


AMD's third-generation Ryzen chips have reignited the CPU arms race with Intel — but which is best for a music-production PC?




www.soundonsound.com





Do you think that there are any situations where this wouldn't be the case? I've been researching as much as I can and comparing people's experiences. I haven't discovered a situation where the 3900x or 3950x is at a disadvantage (for audio), but I'm still nervous moving to a platform I have no experience with.

I was inquiring to Pete on the SOS forum if things like master bus processing or live tracking with FX at low latencies would make a difference in these results but he didn't seem to think so. 






Forum







www.soundonsound.com


----------



## EvilDragon (Jul 21, 2020)

AMD Ryzen 3600, 3700X & 3900X DaWBench tested – 3 is it the magic number?







www.scanproaudio.info





This is the article that I meant. Read the part where things start glitching out before CPU hits 100% load (which Intel CPUs gladly take on).

So if low latency audio workloads are of concern, Intel is still better there as it will allow 100% of the CPU to be used, whereas Zen cores crap out before 100% depending on the latency you're on. From 256 samples onward it's much better tho.


----------



## thevisi0nary (Jul 21, 2020)

EvilDragon said:


> AMD Ryzen 3600, 3700X & 3900X DaWBench tested – 3 is it the magic number?
> 
> 
> 
> ...



I got you, doesn't this have a lot to do with the memory latency though? In that test he was using slower memory and Ryzen has a hard time maxing out the Cpu if the ram is not 1:1 with the F clock.






Ryzen Memory testing for audio, does it make an impact?







www.scanproaudio.info


----------



## EvilDragon (Jul 21, 2020)

Not really, as you can see in that other article, faster RAM didn't really help use 100% of CPU at lowest latencies. Only 5% better CPU utilization between 3200 and 3725 MHz RAM at 64 samples.






2020 Q1 – Cpu’s in the Studio overview







www.scanproaudio.info





_"In testing on the 64 thread 3970X I saw it refuse to run cleanly on the DB VI test at a 64 buffer, where it simply crackled constantly with little to no load applied. It did run better on a 128 buffer, but the score still placed it behind a number of far weaker chips, so it didn’t look to handle itself well. The 256 buffer and upwards seemed to slowly creep towards the sort of performance levels I would hope to see, pretty much repeating the sort of issue’s we saw in previous generations with the low latency performance hole.


So, we thought there might be a few usable scenarios to be had, but then we ran the DSP test and hit another snag. The projects in that SGA DSP test would always overload at around 60 %- 65% load and I didn’t see a way around this in the time I spent with it. I’ve tried different memory types and speeds, but no matter what it seemed to cap out there."_


So yeah... I wouldn't go with AMD just yet, if low latency audio is important. They need to sort out their inter-chiplet communication to get rid of this latency hole. OTOH, if you're at 256 samples and up, knock yourself out. I'm at 128 samples, so for me I'm still waiting on AMD to sort their issues out there.


----------



## Ben (Jul 21, 2020)

Still, even without 100% CPU saturation when using low latencies, as long as the overall performance is still higher I would take it anyway.


----------



## thevisi0nary (Jul 21, 2020)

EvilDragon said:


> Not really, as you can see in that other article, faster RAM didn't really help use 100% of CPU at lowest latencies. Only 5% better CPU utilization between 3200 and 3725 MHz RAM at 64 samples.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



I follow you, thanks man. I will probably be upgrading around December so it will be interesting to see what Zen 3 looks like compared to Rocket Lake. I have been very curious about RL for awhile.


----------



## EvilDragon (Jul 21, 2020)

Ben said:


> Still, even without 100% CPU saturation when using low latencies, as long as the overall performance is still higher I would take it anyway.



Yeah I mean... it's a personal choice. I would hate to throw money on something that for one reason or another cannot be 100% utilized. Weird stance, I'm aware. But I hope they get there!


----------



## thevisi0nary (Jul 23, 2020)

EvilDragon said:


> Yeah I mean... it's a personal choice. I would hate to throw money on something that for one reason or another cannot be 100% utilized. Weird stance, I'm aware. But I hope they get there!



I just reread and thought maybe you thought I was referring to the thread ripper sorry, does this stand for the 3900x / 3950x etc?


----------



## EvilDragon (Jul 23, 2020)

Yes it does. It's the whole chiplet/infinity fabric design that causes performance degradation with lowest audio buffer sizes. They need to speed it up.


----------



## thevisi0nary (Jul 23, 2020)

EvilDragon said:


> Yes it does. It's the whole chiplet/infinity fabric design that causes performance degradation with lowest audio buffer sizes. They need to speed it up.


----------



## chimuelo (Jul 23, 2020)

AMD Vermeer is looking real good.
260 for a 3700X looks good too, but it dogs out on polyphony when it gets above 80% on my rig.
My i7 4790k still out performs it due to clock speed and it can stay in the mid 90% usage with no drop outs.

Others say Im full of crap but I use both CPUs, they each have certain strengths.

But Intel will have no answer to Zen3 Vermeer CPU’s.
Think of a 3700X with the latency halved.

Time will tell, but Intel became complacement and even though they bragged about 20% higher earnings, AMD is burying them. Zen3 will cause them to discontinue many SKUs since it’s about the money now.

But we‘re talking about the best. Unless you need the best the Ryzen 5 3600 is a powerful little chip for 150 bucks. Gamers usually pick good CPUs.


----------



## thevisi0nary (Jul 24, 2020)

chimuelo said:


> AMD Vermeer is looking real good.
> 260 for a 3700X looks good too, but it dogs out on polyphony when it gets above 80% on my rig.
> My i7 4790k still out performs it due to clock speed and it can stay in the mid 90% usage with no drop outs.
> 
> ...



This is exactly what I'm using (4790k) and I'm afraid of jumping and losing something in the process, the multi core chips are just appealing because I also photo/video edit. Lightroom is actually the main thing pushing me to upgrade. Zen 3 is supposed to have a unified cache and redesigned ccx so the 4000 series may be it, will just have to wait and see.


----------



## Ryan (Jul 30, 2020)

Thank you all for so much great information. I have now decided to wait for the releases this autumn, and see what new stuff that will arrive.


----------



## thevisi0nary (Aug 13, 2020)

EvilDragon said:


> Clock speed still trumps core count. Just keep that in mind. It's better to have fewer cores that can all run at higher clock, for DAW use.



Can I bother you one more time? 

What do you think is the reason that the 10900x is out performing the 10900k here?






Forum







www.soundonsound.com





They have the same number of cores but the K chip clocks faster, so you would think this would be the opposite. On the Kontakt test the difference is significant, especially at 128 buffer.

I asked Pete in that thread and he mentioned this may have to do with memory bandwidth. What do you think?


----------



## Alex Sopala (Aug 13, 2020)

thevisi0nary said:


> I asked Pete in that thread and he mentioned this may have to do with memory bandwidth. What do you think?



I'd buy that argument, though I imagine it doesn't stack as much going from 4 channel to 6 channel. X299 has 4 channel memory while Z490 has 2 (I think).


----------



## EvilDragon (Aug 13, 2020)

Yeah could be that I suppose. Also it could be that the X chip can OC more cores during turbo boost at a higher clock than the K chip, who knows.


----------

