# The Beast



## Virtuoso (Mar 23, 2021)

This should be fun! It's taken months and a lot of hassle to source everything but here I go down the AMD rabbit hole... 

AMD 5950x 16 core
128GB 3600 RAM
3x 2TB Gen 4 Sabrent Rocket NVMe 4.0 SSDs
Gigabyte Aorus Master X570
Noctua NH-D15S CPU cooler
RTX 3090 FE
Corsair RM850x (couldn't find a 1000 in stock anywhere! It will do for now.)


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## muk (Mar 25, 2021)

Looking great. I'm a little envious that you got hold of a 5950x. What case will you use?


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## JohnG (Mar 25, 2021)

If this is a main / one and only one computer, did you consider even more RAM? 256?


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## Virtuoso (Mar 25, 2021)

128GB is the maximum you can fit in a Ryzen 9 system unfortunately. I have a Mac Pro with 384GB though for audio.

This PC is for video rendering work mainly. Oh, and Flight Simulator! 

The case was delayed but should be arriving today - just a Fractal Define 7. I don't care how it looks - just how it performs!


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## Jeremy Spencer (Mar 25, 2021)

Virtuoso said:


> 128GB is the maximum you can fit in a Ryzen 9 system unfortunately


Jeez, that's unfortunate considering the cost of "The Beast".


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## Virtuoso (Mar 25, 2021)

Jeremy Spencer said:


> Jeez, that's unfortunate considering the cost of "The Beast".


It wasn't that bad really - $4810 all in, which is about $12k less than the Mac Pro cost!  

To go above 128GB you need to go to either Threadripper or Epyc, which are an order of magnitude more expensive.


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## szczaw (Mar 25, 2021)

Check this out: 








HP Z420 Workstation: Xeon 6-Core/3.6GHz, 64GB DDR4 RAM, 1TB SSD, Quadro GFX LOT | eBay


Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for HP Z420 Workstation: Xeon 6-Core/3.6GHz, 64GB DDR4 RAM, 1TB SSD, Quadro GFX LOT at the best online prices at eBay! Free shipping for many products!



www.ebay.ca


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## Pictus (Mar 25, 2021)

Congratulations!
There is a new BETA bios with AGESA ComboV2 1.2.0.1 Patch*A* for your(my TUF B550 too) motherboard that mentions have fixed USB problems, but it is not the final version
that alleged fixed PCIe GEN4 problems...
Anyway, here it seems to have fixed the GEN4 bugs, but I am using AMD 5600 XT, not
NVIDIA 3090, no PCIe GEN4 SSD and a different motherboard.
So, if you got any problem set PCIe = GEN*3 *
BTW, post an image from https://zentimings.protonrom.com/
I want to check the voltages etc...
I would also add some 140mm extra fans to the case, +1 front + 2 top
because you got a nuclear GPU.


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## Virtuoso (Mar 29, 2021)

The Beast is Built.  

First impression - damn it's fast!
Second impression - damn it's hot!! 

I ran an all core overclock up to 4.6GHz which absolutely blitzed the Cinebench r23 benchmark (over 30k!), but the CPU temperature reached 95c so I backed off!

Undervolting slightly with PBO2 works really well - you keep the 4.9GHz single core boost, but also get an all 16 core boost to 4.3GHz, which is plenty. CPU temps now around 63c under heavy load which is much more comfortable!

The Sabrent gen 4 NVMe drives all benchmark at ~5GB/s - I don't really see any reason to RAID them.

The fans needed some dialing in - by default the single core likes to boost right up with even the simplest tasks, taking the temp from 30c idle immediately up to >60c. The default fan profile made for a lot of annoying revving up and down, but I fixed that by creating a profile which has the fans fixed at around 600rpm (almost silent) until the temp goes over 60 at which point they slowly ramp up. Much better now. 

Blender Pavillion benchmark was 46 seconds.


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## Hendrixon (Mar 30, 2021)

szczaw said:


> Check this out:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


The days of cpus stagnation in generational performance gain are gone... no thanks to Intel.
In Cinebench R20 multicore (from www.cpu-monkey.com) a single 2699V4 (18 core) scores 4981. a dual cpu system has a latency hit, so the combined score will be less then x2. also this cpu has 45MB of cache, a huge L3 is good for working with big databases, but the bigger the L3, the higher the latency.
A 10980XE (18 core) scores 8850 (I assume a tweaked system will score higher).
On my system a 5950X (16 core) scores +/-12000 depending on setup (let the cpu do its thing or manual all core o/c).

Edit:
From the thread about the 10980XE, he scored 10100 in R20.
I think he has a manual all core o/c of 4.4Ghz.


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## colony nofi (Mar 30, 2021)

I would love to hear how any of you 5950X users are getting along with low latency performance. Could someone run a dawbench or similar test? I would love some more first hand info - most of mine for 128 or less latency is second hand / not direct. I've been following the trials and tribulations from zen 2 thru till now... even messed with one system but couldn't get very far (back this time last year from memory.... maybe even a little longer ago)

Are there any specific steps you are taking in setup of windows or cubase (or whatever) when setting up for DAW / VSTi use? 

I'm keeping my eyes out for TR on zen 3 cores. Epyc 3 is out... but perhaps a step too far for audio workstation, though I haven't actually looked into what chips amd have released. Sometimes a decent workstation chip slips its way into server orientated levels. Ooerr... Epyc 73F3 might just be a ticket for a "one computer to rule them all" type scenario - though the cost - ouch!. Oh how I'd love a project where I could justify building one just to test test test. These new "F" (fast) chips are showing some excellent single core results (thanks anantech). 

I'm thinking TR3 will offer slightly better value for similar core count / speed. 

But back to this build. I'm excited to hear how the 5950X goes. It kinda feels like its just the platform stopping it from being the basis of an incredibly powerful DAW for composers (and even then, its pretty damn powerful!)


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## Alex Sopala (Mar 30, 2021)

colony nofi said:


> I'm keeping my eyes out for TR on zen 3 cores. Epyc 3 is out... but perhaps a step too far for audio workstation, though I haven't actually looked into what chips amd have released. Sometimes a decent workstation chip slips its way into server orientated levels. Ooerr... Epyc 73F3 might just be a ticket for a "one computer to rule them all" type scenario - though the cost - ouch!. Oh how I'd love a project where I could justify building one just to test test test. These new "F" (fast) chips are showing some excellent single core results (thanks anantech).
> 
> I'm thinking TR3 will offer slightly better value for similar core count / speed.


There's speculation that TR3 will likely just be Epyc chips that have the 280w TDP, or the F models. I hope not though, considering that the 32 core one is double the price of the threadripper equivalent.


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## colony nofi (Mar 31, 2021)

I'd like to read about that... There are interesting similarities between Epyc 2 and TR2, but they're certainly quite different chips. Memory architecture (double the number of memory channels from - er - memory, PCI busses (again, double)...

Hm - I remember reading this last year - about using TR2 (this is before TR2Pro came out) in servers









Threadripper vs. EPYC: testing three AMD 32-core processors in server applications


32 cores is where you can still get by with a 1 VMware socket license, and therefore the processor must be the fastest in the world! We will test 6 server applications, including 1C Enterprise, MySQL and NGINX, to choose the best!




hwp.media





Do you have a link to any talk / speculation?

The 16 core models are still the most interesting to us here (composition, post production, and immersive object based mixing). We just don't do enough RAW computation to really need more than that. However, we are experimenting with moving towards using a server for all plugins (and using direct offline processing for most jobs) where having a beast of a compute server might be interesting. Perhaps a year or two down the track.


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## Alex Sopala (Mar 31, 2021)

colony nofi said:


> I'd like to read about that... There are interesting similarities between Epyc 2 and TR2, but they're certainly quite different chips. Memory architecture (double the number of memory channels from - er - memory, PCI busses (again, double)...
> 
> Hm - I remember reading this last year - about using TR2 (this is before TR2Pro came out) in servers
> 
> ...


LTT did a video on it, which is what I was referencing. Obviously it remains to be seen, but considering how the TR chips were extremely similar to the Epyc chips but with higher boost clocks and the nearly 300 watt TDP, that's where the question lies.


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## Hendrixon (Mar 31, 2021)

colony nofi said:


> I would love to hear how any of you 5950X users are getting along with low latency performance. Could someone run a dawbench or similar test?


The last Dawbench Public is from 2017... its way different then later updates.
Tafkat still didn't make public the version he made available to Scan back in 2020, which was built to support more then 32 thread and still didn't work with TR.
What similar test is there?



colony nofi said:


> But back to this build. I'm excited to hear how the 5950X goes. It kinda feels like its just the platform stopping it from being the basis of an incredibly powerful DAW for composers (and even then, its pretty damn powerful!)


Yea the platform around the Ryzen cpus is a bit limited if wanting a real heavy load workstation. you get just two memory interfaces (128GB max) and no limitless abundance of pcie lanes.

128GB is no small amount, you can do a lot with it, a lot.
If you must have more? it means your projects are of the "high paying" variety so no need to settle on something like Ryzen... move along Betty pay up and get what you need  

Regarding pcie lanes, with most mid/high tier X570 boards you get two M.2 sockets, one direct to cpu and one thru the chipset. you can also split the 16 lanes of the GPU, run it on x8 pcie 4.0 lanes (way more then enough for anything) and with an adapter card add two more M.2 slots direct to the cpu.
If you need more? add another adapter on a slot thru the chipset. remember, the X570 uplink is x8 lanes of pcie 4.0 which will handle streaming 3000MBps from a pcie 3.0 Nvme and still have extra 3000MBps of bandwidth for other things.

In total you can have have 3 Nvme drives direct to the cpu and 2 Nvme drives thru the chipset.
Taking to account that current common Nvme drives are pcie 3.0 means that once they will be able to supply real 4.0 speeds, you will be able to double your sample streaming performance on the 3 "cpu direct" drives... which is like having streaming performance of 6 pcie 3.0 Nvme drives TODAY.
Not bad

For my needs that's enough, also 128GB for me *today* is enough... though I WISH it had 256GB capability just in case. my hope is that in the future, when 64GB dimms will be available, we will suddenly learn that Ryzen can actually support them unofficially


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## Alex Sopala (Mar 31, 2021)

Hendrixon said:


> For my needs that's enough, also 128GB for me *today* is enough... though I WISH it had 256GB capability just in case. my hope is that in the future, when 64GB dimms will be available, we will suddenly learn that Ryzen can actually support them unofficially


My understanding is that 64gb DIMMs are in the standard for DDR5, which is the next generation, so there's that. TR unofficially supports LRDIMMs, but I believe only certain ones people have tested that work. But we're also waiting on what's next in that space, so we'll see.


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## colony nofi (Mar 31, 2021)

Hendrixon said:


> What similar test is there?


A few different DAW manufacturers have their own internal test benches which do similar things to DAWBench. And one large composition house in the US has its own internal bench it uses when evaluating new DAWs. Not public unfortunately. Its *HARD* to make these benchmarking suites. We have our own internal test here that we run, but it is specific for our workload and our work pipelines. It is meaningful for us, but prob not for anyone else. And its a bit old, and didn't really line up to experiences once we started playing with high thread count machines (10940X performed very averagely on the bench, but killed a new mac pro for the particular project we needed it for. The benchmark wasn't taking into account the multi-software setup that we were using)


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## colony nofi (Mar 31, 2021)

@Virtuoso any updates?


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## Virtuoso (Mar 31, 2021)

colony nofi said:


> @Virtuoso any updates?


No issues yet - just speeeed!

I built this is a video rendering machine primarily but I'm happy to run benchmarks for audio if you have anything in mind? Cubase/Nuendo preferably. I don't have the Thunderbolt card yet so I can't run it with my UAD Apollos at the moment.


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## Laptoprabbit (Mar 31, 2021)

Nice build!  I'm shocked you got your hands on a 3090!


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## Virtuoso (Mar 31, 2021)

All it took was weeks of staying up all night following every single dubious lead for restocks.  

At the time I was actually trying to get one from Best Buy when they very briefly and unexpectedly popped up on Amazon when I was looking for something else. I've never moved so fast!


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## colony nofi (Mar 31, 2021)

Virtuoso said:


> No issues yet - just speeeed!
> 
> I built this is a video rendering machine primarily but I'm happy to run benchmarks for audio if you have anything in mind? Cubase/Nuendo preferably. I don't have the Thunderbolt card yet so I can't run it with my UAD Apollos at the moment.


I'm on nuendo for all our machines here. 
I might see if I have the time to re-work one of our internal test sessions that you could try mess with.
The trick is using things that are free. 
(Unless - do you happen to have Zebra, Kontakt, Fabfilter? An amazing test for kontakt involves really heavily scripted instruments like those by String Audio or Slate and Ash. I've got the whole suite here - do you have any? I just dont have the time this week to make something from scratch, although I also think its time we re-made our internal test and potentially I could do it with only free instruments, and even zip it all up with the required installers. Hm. I kinda REALLY want to do that - especially with another computer sitting next door needing to be tested properly...)

I'll see what time I can get - but its likely to be towards the end of next week before anything happens.


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## Virtuoso (Mar 31, 2021)

Some beauty shots for those who are into that sort of thing!













And this is how a 3090 compares to a 2080Ti!!


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## composingkeys (Apr 23, 2021)

Thanks for reporting your results! What a great CPU and GPU you have in that nice case!

Did you have to have the Define 7 front door open in order to have the temps at 63C or were you able to have the front door closed and the top lid sealed? Are you using stock fans from the case? What is the CPU Temp at Idle? How is the quiet level overall?

I'm looking at the Fractle Define 7 XL version and considering if a Noctua would be cool enough while remaining quiet or if I should go with an AIO Artic Liquid Breeze II and maybe add some more fans to what is there to get performance/quiet.

When you say undervolt, did you actually lower the voltage lower than what the 5950x stock usually runs at as a whole?


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## Virtuoso (Apr 28, 2021)

composingkeys said:


> Did you have to have the Define 7 front door open in order to have the temps at 63C or were you able to have the front door closed and the top lid sealed?


No, I want it as quiet as possible, so that was with the door closed and the non-ventilated top fitted.



composingkeys said:


> Are you using stock fans from the case? What is the CPU Temp at Idle? How is the quiet level overall?


No, I used 4 https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07655KF5C (Noctua 140mm fans). I didn't try the Fractal case fans. I've always been happy with Noctua products - I've used them in every PC I've built for the past 10 years.

CPU temp at idle is 33C, with the 2 CPU fans at 700rpm and the 4 case fans at 500rpm. It's _quite_ quiet, but not silent. It revs up occasionally for no discernible reason, but that's Windows for you! A seemingly low impact act like background downloading an update can cause the CPU to boost to full turbo, which then triggers the fan threshold. It's probably something that you can tweak, but I can't be bothered to get into the weeds - maybe when I have a lull in workload. (My Mac Pro, for comparison, is silent 24/7 even under full load).

It's moderately noisy at full load - I'm sure I could tweak the fans more but I like keeping the temperatures down to a reasonable level.



composingkeys said:


> When you say undervolt, did you actually lower the voltage lower than what the 5950x stock usually runs at as a whole?


Yes. It's very easy to do - there are tons of guides online on how to get the best out of the Zen 3 chips. In my case, I'm sure I could get more out of it, but stability is far more important than raw performance to me. I don't want it crashing in the middle of a 20 hour render!


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## Pictus (Apr 28, 2021)

Virtuoso said:


> CPU temp at idle is 33C, with the 2 CPU fans at 700rpm and the 4 case fans at 500rpm. It's _quite_ quiet, but not silent. It revs up occasionally for no discernible reason, but that's Windows for you! A seemingly low impact act like background downloading an update can cause the CPU to boost to full turbo, which then triggers the fan threshold. It's probably something that you can *tweak*,


Set Temperature Interval = *5*










Virtuoso said:


> It's moderately noisy at full load - I'm sure I could tweak the fans more but I like keeping the temperatures down to a reasonable level.
> 
> 
> Yes. It's very easy to do - there are tons of guides online on how to get the best out of the Zen 3 chips. In my case, I'm sure I could get more out of it, but stability is far more important than raw performance to me. I don't want it crashing in the middle of a 20 hour render!


To undervolt we can use curve optimizer with negative offset and zero boost override.
Conservative settings will not crash, but keep the CPU less hot.
Y-cruncher is good and a VERY heavy test, press 1 - 7 - 0 for all tests.


y-cruncher - A Multi-Threaded Pi Program


Before doing any stress test, better set the case fans to full speed.

The idea


The details





BTW, when using Curve Optimizer, better *NOT *set the "Minimum processor state" lower than 10.






UPDATE:
With this script it is VERY easy to find the proper offset for each core!








CoreCycler - tool for testing Curve Optimizer settings


Ah great, I destroyed the whole check, fixing... :poop:




www.overclock.net


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