# Ryzen 3000 Vs I9 9900K for music production



## Solarsentinel

Ryzen 3000 is available today, and some review too! So final verdict is Zen 2 architecture good for music production, or I9 9900k still top notch?

(If EvilDragon could participate and give his opinion it will be very nice because his processor's knowledge with audio production is very valuable for me  cheers!)


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## axb312

Excited to know about this as well..but it could be a little too early....


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## Solarsentinel

I'm waiting for the Scan Pro audio review!


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## EvilDragon

Solarsentinel said:


> I'm waiting for the Scan Pro audio review!



We all are! All the regular reviewers would never test for low latency audio scenarios.


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## Solarsentinel

EvilDragon said:


> We all are! All the regular reviewers would never test for low latency audio scenarios.


Thanks for your participation EvilDragon!

For now depends on benchmarks but:
i 9 9900k seems to have keep the best single thread score
ryzen 3900X outperform 9900k on multithread and is very close on single

The new X570 chipset comes with PPI express 4.0 wich seems to be best for SSD, and has thunderbolt 3.


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## Shad0wLandsUK

I am either waiting for the 3950X or getting a top-end i9 and building a dual-boot Hack and Windows 10 1903 monster


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## Ben J

(Thread Subscribed)

I'll wait a couple more months for the Ryzen 3950X (16-core) to come out before I get serious about a new build. But even if it isn't well suited for audio work, I'd have a MONSTER gaming machine for relatively little expense. Hopefully early adopters will report good news for us VSTi people, though. 

In the meantime, my 4790k/Asus Z97 is still performing admirably for audio.


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## zolhof

We ordered a 3900X mainly for video and post, so I'll probably won't be able to toy around with it as much as I want. I was told by a BH rep that they will ship out on 7/11. If scan audio does not review it soon, I'll try to put something together for you guys.

I'm really curious about the 3700X though. For 329 bucks, it's going to be hard to beat it. If the audio reviews are positive, I'll finally retire my trusty FX8350 -- seven years and still holding strong. 65W TDP is something that I need in my everyday life.


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## JohnG

Ben J said:


> In the meantime, my 4790k/Asus Z97 is still performing admirably for audio.



Yes that is an excellent combination. I was going to replace my 4790k with a 9900k but actually the benchmarks (and real world performance) of the former made me change my mind. The 9900k is a little better but surprisingly marginal. Not worth the hassle to me.


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## Solarsentinel

zolhof said:


> We ordered a 3900X mainly for video and post, so I'll probably won't be able to toy around with it as much as I want. I was told by a BH rep that they will ship out on 7/11. If scan audio does not review it soon, I'll try to put something together for you guys.
> 
> I'm really curious about the 3700X though. For 329 bucks, it's going to be hard to beat it. If the audio reviews are positive, I'll finally retire my trusty FX8350 -- seven years and still holding strong. 65W TDP is something that I need in my everyday life.



Thanks! we waiting gor your feedback 



Ben J said:


> (Thread Subscribed)
> 
> I'll wait a couple more months for the Ryzen 3950X (16-core) to come out before I get serious about a new build. But even if it isn't well suited for audio work, I'd have a MONSTER gaming machine for relatively little expense. Hopefully early adopters will report good news for us VSTi people, though.
> 
> In the meantime, my 4790k/Asus Z97 is still performing admirably for audio.



I don't know if a 16 core will be better than a 16 core with DAW performance. i've read that sometimes there's a limit of the number of core for good performance in the DAW. But i maybe wrong, because on the papers more core with same frequencies are better.
We'll see.


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## EvilDragon

Solarsentinel said:


> i've read that sometimes there's a limit of the number of core for good performance in the DAW.



Depends on DAW and how its own multicore support is written. Reaper can support literally any number of cores.


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## axb312

I'd also be interested to know how the 3700X fares for audio production.


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## jamwerks

So can they both handle 128gb ram?


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## axb312

jamwerks said:


> So can they both handle 128gb ram?


Yes most MBs I've seen can handle 128 GB RAM.

There are a ton of benchmarks out already. Which of these are relevant to music production?


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## Solarsentinel

Yes, 128go of ram on X570.


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## Shad0wLandsUK

The more I think about this, plus the growing number of benchmarks and real-world tests that are being done on the two platforms....

I wonder if the perfect Composing Setup would be an Intel DAW Machine and AMD VE Pro Slave(s)

You would have the high single-core performance of Team Blue for your DAW and therefore the real-time processing would be great, but you would get the benefits of the multi-core strengths of AMD for your VE Pro Servers


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## Shad0wLandsUK

Ben J said:


> (Thread Subscribed)
> 
> I'll wait a couple more months for the Ryzen 3950X (16-core) to come out before I get serious about a new build. But even if it isn't well suited for audio work, I'd have a MONSTER gaming machine for relatively little expense. Hopefully early adopters will report good news for us VSTi people, though.
> 
> In the meantime, my 4790k/Asus Z97 is still performing admirably for audio.


I am also waiting for this one


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## Pete Kaine

zolhof said:


> If scan audio does not review it soon, I'll try to put something together for you guys.



We’re currently carrying out the testing, although there has been a slight delay. You may have read that the chip samples went out late and that reviewers got them in the week leading up to release. We only saw the 3600 in the week prior to release and then the rest of the stock is slowly appearing this week. Needless to say, it's not the 3600 that everyone's excited about through!


I’m trying to get it tested as it lands, so just give me a day or two to get it all sorted and we’re looking to publish as soon as possible and certainly before the end of the week. One good thing with having to hold off is that we’ve managed to start the AMD testing with the launch day BIOS updates in place, which has (we’ve noted here) allowed us to ensure better clocking, so the delay has been positive for AMD in regards to smoothing out early performance results


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## EvilDragon

Nice to see you around, Pete!


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## chimuelo

JohnG said:


> Yes that is an excellent combination. I was going to replace my 4790k with a 9900k but actually the benchmarks (and real world performance) of the former made me change my mind. The 9900k is a little better but surprisingly marginal. Not worth the hassle to me.



I’m using my last i7 4790k from a build 4 months ago, and the spare has 2 years of excessive use.
For 6 years these CPUs were exposed to high heat, and already being inside of a 1U Chassis means cooling has to be really good.
The Z97 has less PCI-e lanes but I’m using 4 x SSDs and an NVMe for sample loading, not streaming.

I wanted a new AMD and they are excellent CPUs for so many games, video rendering, etc.
But Cinebench Single Core benchmarks are for ball park estimations.
They look really good so far, but on the Intel’s you can Overclock all cores at percentages that exceed the turbo boost maximum.
I don’t want to go that far but with exotic cooling you can get insane FPS for gaming.
I would want an AMD to OC all cores just by 500MHz, not even the maximum turbo boost on a single core. 2 different reviewers couldn’t get 500MHz on all cores, and one CPU was burned up and destroyed.
Granted these could be great for audio in a studio scenario where editing, programming recording can be forgiving.
I’m using mine for live performance where I’m pegging the Max polyphony for hours everyday and night.

I’m thinking AMD already has these CPUs near their threshold so even if they do perform as well as an Intel they lack the headroom I often enjoy.

I’m using 18 x Analog Devices ADSP-21369 Chips that combined use 40%, my 4790k hovers @60-80%.
According to AMD their CPUs lose performance if the DRAM is too fast, and 500MHz before crapping out means there’s little headroom.

Again, this is fine for projects, etc.
For live work I’m too accustomed to the safety margins where my profit margins are. A crash at one of my gigs is on par with death by hanging.
No Union protects me, and several performers and other groups are right behind me ready to cherish my demise.

Intel CPUs will be even better in 2020.
I git all kinds of time thanks to the i7 4790ks.
Bought 4 of these 6 years ago.
In 2020 I’ll buy 4 of Intel’s i10’s or whatever the new number is.

AMD is getting money from Me though as I admired their comeback and we need them.
So go buy a Ryzen 5 3600 or 7 3700X and be impressed with these incredible values.


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## Solarsentinel

Pete Kaine said:


> We’re currently carrying out the testing, although there has been a slight delay. You may have read that the chip samples went out late and that reviewers got them in the week leading up to release. We only saw the 3600 in the week prior to release and then the rest of the stock is slowly appearing this week. Needless to say, it's not the 3600 that everyone's excited about through!
> 
> 
> I’m trying to get it tested as it lands, so just give me a day or two to get it all sorted and we’re looking to publish as soon as possible and certainly before the end of the week. One good thing with having to hold off is that we’ve managed to start the AMD testing with the launch day BIOS updates in place, which has (we’ve noted here) allowed us to ensure better clocking, so the delay has been positive for AMD in regards to smoothing out early performance results



Hi Pete! Thanks for your reply. So we will patiently wait


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## Solarsentinel

Intel just throw in his lineup for comet lake 14nm++ with an i7 10700k 8c/16t 4.8 -5.2 ghz and an i9 10900KF 10C/20t 4.6 -5.2 ghz.
I don't know the release date but i think they will be more powerfull on single core, so maybe good to wait?


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## pderbidge

Solarsentinel said:


> Intel just throw in his lineup for comet lake 14nm++ with an i7 10700k 8c/16t 4.8 -5.2 ghz and an i9 10900KF 10C/20t 4.6 -5.2 ghz.
> I don't know the release date but i think they will be more powerfull on single core, so maybe good to wait?


I'm not too thrilled about this one to be honest. First off, it looks like it won't support current architecture, so you will need a whole new motherboard and chipset and who knows how affordable those will be. Second, this will be a short term fix for Intel and I can't see them supporting a new motherboard and chipset for very long with the inevitable 7nm architecture on the horizon, unless they find a way to make the new socket and chipset support both. It just feels like this will just be an interim short term response until they have time to release their long term solution. Now if they throw something like this out there as a $200 special edition type of deal then I'm all for it but we know that's not going to happen.


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## axb312

Solarsentinel said:


> Intel just throw in his lineup for comet lake 14nm++ with an i7 10700k 8c/16t 4.8 -5.2 ghz and an i9 10900KF 10C/20t 4.6 -5.2 ghz.
> I don't know the release date but i think they will be more powerfull on single core, so maybe good to wait?



Whether you wait or not depends entirely on your needs and what you have currently.

I am in the market for an upgrade and have the following choices:
1. i9900k - which most say is a very capable CPU.
2. 3700X - extremely worth it if it matches or comes close to the performance of the i9900k.
3. 3900X - worth it if is exceeds the performance of the i9900k for me, considering the risk of these new gen mobos, RAM issues etc. etc.


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## pderbidge

axb312 said:


> I am in the market for an upgrade and have the following choices:
> 1. i9900k - which most say is a very capable CPU.
> 2. 3700X - extremely worth it if it matches or comes close to the performance of the i9900k.
> 3. 3900X - worth it if is exceeds the performance of the i9900k for me, considering the risk of these new gen mobos, RAM issues etc. etc.



I am in the market as well. I would buy today in fact but I'm willing to wait a week to see what deals Prime Days has as well as hoping that Pete will be able to show us Dawbench results before then to finalize my decision. I'm looking at all options from i8700k ,i9900k to 3700x and 3900x. It will be one of these options. If Intel gives us a good enough discount on the 8700k by next week then that might certainly sway me.


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## kenose

Solarsentinel said:


> Intel just throw in his lineup for comet lake 14nm++ with an i7 10700k 8c/16t 4.8 -5.2 ghz and an i9 10900KF 10C/20t 4.6 -5.2 ghz.
> I don't know the release date but i think they will be more powerfull on single core, so maybe good to wait?



Just a quick note that this is confirmed to be a fake leak.


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## chimuelo

Guess Intel has lots of cores laying around from the (yawn-yawn) 14nm era of the last decade.
They better save the number 10s for something worthy instead of high binned high heat 14’s.

All I know is the AMD 3000s are bad ass gaming chips and cheap.
Thanks to them Intel is going to bring us a deadlier chip, but this ain’t it.


This is a sucker chip, same cores, same everything, bigger number.
AMD is chuckling watching Intel scramble for a Matisse equalizer..


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## Solarsentinel

pderbidge said:


> I'm not too thrilled about this one to be honest. First off, it looks like it won't support current architecture, so you will need a whole new motherboard and chipset and who knows how affordable those will be. Second, this will be a short term fix for Intel and I can't see them supporting a new motherboard and chipset for very long with the inevitable 7nm architecture on the horizon, unless they find a way to make the new socket and chipset support both. It just feels like this will just be an interim short term response until they have time to release their long term solution. Now if they throw something like this out there as a $200 special edition type of deal then I'm all for it but we know that's not going to happen.





chimuelo said:


> Guess Intel has lots of cores laying around from the (yawn-yawn) 14nm era of the last decade.
> They better save the number 10s for something worthy instead of high binned high heat 14’s.
> 
> All I know is the AMD 3000s are bad ass gaming chips and cheap.
> Thanks to them Intel is going to bring us a deadlier chip, but this ain’t it.
> 
> 
> This is a sucker chip, same cores, same everything, bigger number.
> AMD is chuckling watching Intel scramble for a Matisse equalizer..



You're both probably right. With the same architecture on 14nm, i m not sure intel can do quite much than the performance of a 9900k. Even with an optimisation. At least we ll see the same gap between 6700k and 7700k.
And as you said we have to change tve chipset again...
For the price it s already announced as 350 bucks for the 8C.

I really waiting the ryzen 3000 test on audio. The only thing i m afraid of is the inclusion of a fan cooler on the motherboard on x570. And on the test i ve read they don t mention the noise generation about this thing. The only thing i know about is that the vrm are pretty warm.
It may vary between several type of motherboard for sure, but for these type of price (250_300) for x570 it s a big needle...

And for me i m not considering to choose a x470 motherboad and loosing the benefit of pci express 4 and the full instant compatibility with the 3000 gen processors.


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## steveo42

I'm another 4790K refugee and was just about to pull the trigger on a new (drives aside) 9900k system but for me, VSTi user mostly, I'm not feeling the love I might get with the upgrade. Aside from the CPU Mark ratings which show a major difference, the other benchmarks seem to be reasonably close to each other so I'm not sure what my real world gains would be doing the upgrade? AMD makes me nervous so I'll wait until DAW specific compatibility benchmarks and user experiences are out in the wild. I'm probably going to keep running the 4790K for now unless I'm missing something here?

What am I missing, real world wise?


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## pderbidge

steveo42 said:


> I'm another 4790K refugee and was just about to pull the trigger on a new (drives aside) 9900k system but for me, VSTi user mostly, I'm not feeling the love I might get with the upgrade. Aside from the CPU Mark ratings which show a major difference, the other benchmarks seem to be reasonably close to each other so I'm not sure what my real world gains would be doing the upgrade? AMD makes me nervous so I'll wait until DAW specific compatibility benchmarks and user experiences are out in the wild. I'm probably going to keep running the 4790K for now unless I'm missing something here?
> 
> What am I missing, real world wise?



I have a 4770k which is close in performance to your 4790k. From what I measured my biggest bottlenecks are lack of SSD and more memory. CPU usage actually performs pretty well without overclocking. The only reason I'm upgrading is because my platform is limited to a max of 32GB so if I want to go 64GB I have to pretty much build a new system. Plus I want to move to Win10 from Win7 to ensure continued software support. If my current setup allowed me to upgrade my memory beyond the 32GB I already have then I would just upgrade memory and SSDs and Windows and be done with it saving money to invest in more virtual instruments.


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## Sarah Mancuso

I'm also on an i7-4790k, thinking of upgrading to i9-9900k in the near future.

I'm surprised by the comments in this thread from 4790k owners saying they don't expect to see much performance difference from the 9900k. Is the vastly improved multicore performance not relevant to your workflows? It's hard for me to conceive of the possibility that the 9900k _wouldn't_ be a noticeable improvement over my CPU from 2014 that struggles with complex projects at anything but the highest possible buffer sizes. Yes, my current system works, but it's clearly not optimal for what's being thrown at it these days.


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## Mikelo

Lol I'm still on i7 920 and believe it or not, it still rocks.
I'm hoping to make my old Scan Pro audio pc last another year (purchased in 2009).
I hope to purchase a new pc then after. Hopefully a 3rd generation AMD ryzen or what ever Intel might throw out by then.


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## chimuelo

Copy that. My P4 Northwood still rocks, but only with GSIF Drivers.

My only beef with all of these chip makers is there only giving us more cores.
Granted AMD is trying and deserves praise.
But even Intel is looking at the LEGO/Chiplet ideas now.

I’d like a Quad that is 30% more performance per core than my i7 4790k’s.
Someday I might get into loading entire orchestras and dozens of plug ins.
By then Scan Audio might have their own Audio OS and 24 Core Workstations.
But somebody please hold me over with a super fast Quad.
The i3 8350k was a step in the right direction but 25% more.
Call it i2, make me appear small, I don’t care. Just one last bad ass Quad.

Here’s why AMD better have some high IPC.

https://www.techspot.com/news/80912-amd-ryzen-3000-overclocking-youre-not-going-see.html


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## pderbidge

I'm not sure about this new x570 platform in it's current state. Even if a 3700x proves to be a contender to an i7 8700k or 9900k for VSTi's I still don't trust these chipset fans for longevity on the motherboards. The only one without a fan I've seen so far from Gigabyte is a $600 motherboard which sort of negates the cost benefits of Ryzen. Of course I could go with an x470 board since I'm not too worried about pcie gen 4 at this time, however they have a max memory support of 64GB which might be enough once I add SSD's but I already regret not buying a board with more than 32GB support the first time around and thus want to make my next build capable of 128 just in case I end up deciding I need it. 
I would love for someone to convince me that these fans are a non issue or find me an affordable x570 board without one.


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## EvilDragon

I don't think you need to worry about motherboard fans at all... Obviously the chipset requires some cooling in order to provide peak performance, but those fans are not really fast spinning at all. They're there to ensure the stability of the system. If reference design done by AMD calls for them, you'd want to have them for sure. Fans and heatsinks on mobo chipsets are quite common on high-end boards.


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## Pete Kaine

EvilDragon said:


> Nice to see you around, Pete!



Thanks, my collegues been telling me to stick my nose in here for years! 

Right, testing is now live.

http://www.scanproaudio.info/2019/0...00x-dawbench-tested-3-is-it-the-magic-number/


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## jamwerks

So these latest announced chips from Intel all have just 4 ram slots?


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## pderbidge

EvilDragon said:


> I don't think you need to worry about motherboard fans at all... Obviously the chipset requires some cooling in order to provide peak performance, but those fans are not really fast spinning at all. They're there to ensure the stability of the system. If reference design done by AMD calls for them, you'd want to have them for sure. Fans and heatsinks on mobo chipsets are quite common on high-end boards.


I'm not that concerned about the noise of the fan since my PC goes into a closet adjacent to my studio. I still try to build a fairly quiet pc though. My bigger concern is the longterm reliability of them. I have heard of some people plugging 128gb ram in x470 mobo's and working and if I could be confident it would work for me I might go that route. However, I haven't seen any Thunderbolt support on X470 yet but have seen the Asrock x570s have support for it. Even though I don't know if I'll ever upgrade to a Thunderbolt interface it would be nice to have the option.

Ps. I've heard rumor that Thunderbolt technology will be rolled into future iterations of the USB 3 spec which could make all motherboards with USB3 compatible. Not sure if there would need to be a usb driver update or if the TB device itself needs firmware to make it work.


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## EvilDragon

Pete Kaine said:


> Thanks, my collegues been telling me to stick my nose in here for years!
> 
> Right, testing is now live.
> 
> http://www.scanproaudio.info/2019/0...00x-dawbench-tested-3-is-it-the-magic-number/



Thanks for the test!


One suggestion, though. It's really really hard to discern different CPUs because you use very close shades of blue for Intels. I know this is probably because of Team Blue and Team Red, but I wouldn't mind if this is completely eschewed and you use wildly different colors per CPU. It should be easier to distinguish them. Right now I'm looking at Kontakt VI bench results image and I'm not sure if 3900X has more voices than 9900K or not at 64 samples buffer size. And I thought I had perfect eyesight


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## Gunvor

Pete Kaine said:


> Thanks, my collegues been telling me to stick my nose in here for years!
> 
> Right, testing is now live.
> 
> http://www.scanproaudio.info/2019/0...00x-dawbench-tested-3-is-it-the-magic-number/



Thank you for posting Pete.

I noticed you ran the memories in 3200mhz 
I have seen overall benchmarks for other productivity tasks and games that running memory clock at 3600mhz improves performance considerably as this also increases the clock speed of the infinity fabric bridge between the dyes on the cpu.

Will you be running any future tests to see if this could have any impact on performance for audio use?


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## Pete Kaine

EvilDragon said:


> One suggestion, though. It's really really hard to discern different CPUs because you use very close shades of blue for Intels. I know this is probably because of Team Blue and Team Red



Noted, I used to do it the other way with rainbow colouring, but a user on another board told me that they felt it made more sense being able to see it by vendor platform.

Both methods have their strengths, but I must admit I agree with your comments, I was finding it tricky to differentiate the shades too. 

I may change it back around on the next test round.



Gunvor said:


> I noticed you ran the memories in 3200mhz
> I have seen overall benchmarks for other productivity tasks and games that running memory clock at 3600mhz improves performance considerably as this also increases the clock speed of the infinity fabric bridge between the dyes on the cpu.
> 
> Will you be running any future tests to see if this could have any impact on performance for audio use?



I get asked this on every release, no it didn't in any previous testing. It helps accelerate none real-time tools like rendering or even gaming, but memory isn't the bottleneck to ASIO handling. 

On Ryzen 2 I could run 2133 or 3200 and it didn't make a difference. I'll take a poke at the Ryzen 3 memory too I guess next week when I test some more mainboards, but I'm honestly expecting to see zero difference again.


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## tack

Pete Kaine said:


> Both methods have their strengths, but I must admit I agree with your comments, I was finding it tricky to differentiate the shades too.


I like the idea of separating by family, but I'd take more liberty with the available colors.


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## pderbidge

Pete Kaine said:


> Thanks, my collegues been telling me to stick my nose in here for years!
> 
> Right, testing is now live.
> 
> http://www.scanproaudio.info/2019/0...00x-dawbench-tested-3-is-it-the-magic-number/



Very cool Pete! Did you happen to pay attention to the noise attribute of the x570 chipset fan?
Thanks for all your efforts. I agree with Evildragon that more colors would be welcome. Not too concerned with Team red and Team blue theme.

I was hoping to see 8700k in the Vi test but it's easy enough to compare older charts to get an idea and as far as I can tell at 512 buffer the 8700k was slightly ahead of i7 9700k in the older tests even at a lower clock speeds therefore comparing the i7 9700k to the Ryzen 7 3700x in this recent test I think it's safe to say that the 3700k has a healthy lead over the 9700k and the 8700k, plus the advantage in content creation to boot. If only it was capable of clocking to 4.9Ghz then I think it might actually beat the 9900k. Either way for the small difference the 3700x seems to be great bang for the buck compared to the 9900k.
Now I just need to watch the prime day sales and if Intel can give me a significant price drop on the 8700k then I might jump, otherwise it looks like the Ryzen 7 3700x will be the better purchase assuming I get over my fear of the chipset fan.


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## axb312

pderbidge said:


> Very cool Pete! Did you happen to pay attention to the noise attribute of the x570 chipset fan?
> Thanks for all your efforts. I agree with Evildragon that more colors would be welcome. Not too concerned with Team red and Team blue theme.
> 
> I was hoping to see 8700k in the Vi test but it's easy enough to compare older charts to get an idea and as far as I can tell at 512 buffer the 8700k was slightly ahead of i7 9700k in the older tests even at a lower clock speeds therefore comparing the i7 9700k to the Ryzen 7 3700k in this recent test I think it's safe to say that the 3700k has a healthy lead over the 9700k and the 8700k, plus the advantage in content creation to boot. If only it was capable of clocking to 4.9Ghz then I think it might actually beat the 9900k. Either way for the small difference the 3700k seems to be great bang for the buck compared to the 9900k.
> Now I just need to watch the prime day sales and if Intel can give me a significant price drop on the 8700k then I might jump, otherwise it looks like the Ryzen 7 3700k will be the better purchase assuming I get over my fear of the chipset fan.



How many kontakt instances at what buffer size are you expecting to run on average?


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## pderbidge

axb312 said:


> How many kontakt instances at what buffer size are you expecting to run on average?



I should keep better track but at times I have over 100 tracks with a mix of Kontakt and Synths and plugins. Kontakt generally acounts for anywhere from 50% to 80% of those tracks. I'll work in buffers of 512 and sometimes more. When it comes time to record a vocal, if the song needs one, at that point I'll have usually bounced all my VSTi's but will still have a lot of plugins (waves, Izotope, etc...). Using Direct Monitoring, Reaper does a really good job of accounting for the latency even when I track a vocal at high buffers. I'm actually amazed how well Reaper handles this.


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## Gunvor

Pete Kaine said:


> Noted, I used to do it the other way with rainbow colouring, but a user on another board told me that they felt it made more sense being able to see it by vendor platform.
> 
> Both methods have their strengths, but I must admit I agree with your comments, I was finding it tricky to differentiate the shades too.
> 
> I may change it back around on the next test round.
> 
> 
> 
> I get asked this on every release, no it didn't in any previous testing. It helps accelerate none real-time tools like rendering or even gaming, but memory isn't the bottleneck to ASIO handling.
> 
> On Ryzen 2 I could run 2133 or 3200 and it didn't make a difference. I'll take a poke at the Ryzen 3 memory too I guess next week when I test some more mainboards, but I'm honestly expecting to see zero difference again.



I am not so much after the memory boost higher frequency would bring. But the fact that it increases the speed between the dies on the cpu itself. Wouldn't the datatransfers between the dies directly on the cpu have an impact on non-partisan cpu performance?

The 3600 ram bandwidth option directly affects the die datstransfer bandwidth between the dies. That is what I am curious about if it would have an direct impact on non parallel cpu performance.


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## Pictus

To complement the excellent test made by Pete Kaine, a chart for anyone interested
to check if some old/new AM4 motherboard(VRM) can handle the new CPUs.
(Thunderbolt only with some ASRock x570 models).


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## axb312

Pictus said:


> To complement the excellent test made by Pete Kaine, a chart for anyone interested
> to check if some old/new AM4 motherboard(VRM) can handle the new CPUs.
> (Thunderbolt only with some ASRock x570 models).



Looks like the AORUS Pro Wifi (ATX) is a good option....


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## Virtual Virgin

Has anyone found an x570 with Thunderbolt or a Thunderbolt header?


----------



## dasbin

The ASRock X570 motherboards have Thunderbolt 3 headers that work with their own-brand Thunderbolt add-in cards. I think they are the only ones with headers.
None come with a port on the board itself from what I can tell.


----------



## Solarsentinel

So far, who will buy a ryzen 3000 for his main machine?


----------



## Velcro

Virtual Virgin said:


> Has anyone found an x570 with Thunderbolt or a Thunderbolt header?



ASRock Aqua $1000
ASRock Creator $500

These two have 2 TB3 outs already built in. Perhaps there are more coming, I haven't yet read through all 35+ motherboards in that article.


----------



## Pictus

Virtual Virgin said:


> Has anyone found an x570 with Thunderbolt or a Thunderbolt header?



Some ASRock have TB header and three models have built-in Thunderbolt ports:
https://www.anandtech.com/show/1446...creator-with-ddr44600-two-thunderbolt-10g-lan
https://www.anandtech.com/show/1445...st-flagship-motherboard-ever-with-thunderbolt
https://www.anandtech.com/show/14550/asrock-x570-phantom-gaming-itx-tb3-


----------



## Pictus

Solarsentinel said:


> So far, who will buy a ryzen 3000 for his main machine?



Many are waiting for the 16 core Ryzen 9 3950X. 
My next machine probably will be AMD.


----------



## Virtual Virgin

Looking at those AsRock boards above... is the X570 limited to 64GB RAM? I know theoretically you can get 4 sticks of 32GB, but good luck finding them. Let alone at a reasonable price.


Any word yet on RTL times with the Ryzen 3000 series? If these can perform like Intel does with the Presonus Quantum, then I'll be waiting until September for that 16 core.


----------



## Pictus

Virtual Virgin said:


> Looking at those AsRock boards above... is the X570 limited to 64GB RAM? I know theoretically you can get 4 sticks of 32GB, but good luck finding them. Let alone at a reasonable price.


The Taichi supports 128GB






> Any word yet on RTL times with the Ryzen 3000 series? If these can perform like Intel does with the Presonus Quantum, then I'll be waiting until September for that 16 core.


Too early, almost nobody has one.


----------



## Virtual Virgin

Pictus said:


> The Taichi supports 128GB
> 
> Too early, almost nobody has one.



The Taichi looks like a nice board. No Thunderbolt though! 
Man it's seem so difficult to get all the right specs together on one unit sometimes.


----------



## Velcro

Virtual Virgin said:


> The Taichi looks like a nice board. No Thunderbolt though!
> Man it's seem so difficult to get all the right specs together on one unit sometimes.



I think you just add in* one of these *for $100.
However I've read in a couple places that the Taichi fan is loud and whiny. Waiting to see if anyone reports a BIOS update fixing the problem. Also, whether the other (affordable) ASRock mobos have the same problem.


----------



## Virtual Virgin

Velcro said:


> I think you just add in* one of these *for $100.
> However I've read in a couple places that the Taichi fan is loud and whiny. Waiting to see if anyone reports a BIOS update fixing the problem. Also, whether the other (affordable) ASRock mobos have the same problem.


What kind of fan? Can it be swapped with a Be Quiet! fan?


----------



## Pictus

The chipset fan, but someone mentioned the new BIOS fix.


From reddit
"In the BIOS you can adjust the speed to silent and it pretty resolves it. 
It's been super quiet since. Either way ASROCK has some work to do on their updates."


----------



## pderbidge

As I shop and put together wish lists I'm finding that the price to build a complete system between an i9 9900k and a Ryzen 7 3700x the price is roughly the same due to the fact that the x570 boards are a bit more money and that I would need to invest in a Video card that does nothing for me when it comes to music production. It seems to me that the real gem is the 3900x seeing that it competes even with the Intel i9 9900x. It's roughly $100 more than the 9900k (talking about a complete system build, not a cpu price difference) but a decent performance boost in all tasks. The other downside to Ryzen are those motherboard chipset fans and the fact that currently Asrock seems to be the only ones with Thunderbolt support. I like Asrock just fine but if you are an Asus or Gigabyte or MSI fan and need Thunderbolt then for now you are out of luck. Of course the cost of the Ryzen gets much cheaper if you aren't concerned with Thunderbolt or memory bandwidth beyond 64GB then there are plenty of decent X470 and b450 boards. I think that is where the sweet spot against Intel is when looking at cost, at least on the 3700x and below. Just a few more hours to Prime days but I'm not sure they're going to have anything much better priced than what I've seen regarding the CPU's and motherboards that have everything I want so the wait might be in vein. Perhaps I'll get a good deal on some SSD's and a power supply at least. I'll know very soon whether or not I go AMD or Intel.


----------



## Solarsentinel

pderbidge said:


> As I shop and put together wish lists I'm finding that the price to build a complete system between an i9 9900k and a Ryzen 7 3700x the price is roughly the same due to the fact that the x570 boards are a bit more money and that I would need to invest in a Video card that does nothing for me when it comes to music production. It seems to me that the real gem is the 3900x seeing that it competes even with the Intel i9 9900x. It's roughly $100 more than the 9900k (talking about a complete system build, not a cpu price difference) but a decent performance boost in all tasks. The other downside to Ryzen are those motherboard chipset fans and the fact that currently Asrock seems to be the only ones with Thunderbolt support. I like Asrock just fine but if you are an Asus or Gigabyte or MSI fan and need Thunderbolt then for now you are out of luck. Of course the cost of the Ryzen gets much cheaper if you aren't concerned with Thunderbolt or memory bandwidth beyond 64GB then there are plenty of decent X470 and b450 boards. I think that is where the sweet spot against Intel is when looking at cost, at least on the 3700x and below. Just a few more hours to Prime days but I'm not sure they're going to have anything much better priced than what I've seen regarding the CPU's and motherboards that have everything I want so the wait might be in vein. Perhaps I'll get a good deal on some SSD's and a power supply at least. I'll know very soon whether or not I go AMD or Intel.


Futhermore the availability of ryzen 3000 serie is not full for now. Some stores have difficults to stock them. I think it will be full available on september.
And i have not seen any down pricing on i9 9900k. It still at 500 bucks.


----------



## Pete Kaine

tack said:


> I like the idea of separating by family, but I'd take more liberty with the available colors.



Yes, thanks. I may have to make use of that as a few more light greens and yellow would certainly declutter it. 



pderbidge said:


> Very cool Pete! Did you happen to pay attention to the noise attribute of the x570 chipset fan?



I wasn't paying a whole lot of attention to it, mostly as I was already considering other boards. The DPC on the TUF is a pass, but one that I wouldn't want to make use of long term. I was planning on going and finding a board without a fan, but it's since been pointed out to me that such a beast in rare indeed.

I'll get around to testing one in the studio this week when I set up a spec or two to sell, but the workshop I tend to benchmark in is a bit noisy most of the time.



Gunvor said:


> I am not so much after the memory boost higher frequency would bring. But the fact that it increases the speed between the dies on the CPU itself. Wouldn't the data transfers between the dies directly on the CPU have an impact on non-partisan CPU performance?
> 
> The 3600 ram bandwidth option directly affects the die data transfer bandwidth between the dies. That is what I am curious about if it would have a direct impact on non-parallel CPU performance.



Yes, they made the same claims last time and it had no impact for us. I've still got a 3900X on the bench, so I'll sit down this week and give it a quick second run to double check.


----------



## EvilDragon




----------



## Ben

Has someone already measured the CPU latency of the Ryzen 3 CPUs?
From the power-consumption, price and IPC standpoint Ryzen 3 seems to be on top of Intel.


----------



## Pictus

DPC latency Gigabyte X570 Aorus Ultra here
DPC latency depends on a lot of things like BIOS/Driver/settings...


----------



## chimuelo

Loading Kontakt Libraries is a joy on PCI Gen4?
Well hell I better buy the X570 then....NOT.

A thoroughly tested Workstation board, Low Watts, no thrills and frills using X470 designed for a 1U Rack is what I’ll get. But not until I actually need one.
Maybe later this year.

Seems this little low watt gem is not as fast or strong as the Intel, but a cool running low watt CPU with plenty of polyphony. Going to 100% is impressive too.

Hey get one on Amazon for 449 USD. AMD is selling them there. But it’s not Adavanced Micro Devices. Some smart ass schlemiel that thought he was tricky. 
Pretty easy to fool automated systems these days.


----------



## pderbidge

I took the plunge. I decided to go with the Ryzen platform after all. Here's why.

1. Future proof - By investing in the x570 Asrock Motherboard I have the option to get a Thunderbolt card in the future. I also have the option to upgrade to 128GB ram if I feel it becomes necessary. Also, this chipset is still new and future updates might only improve performance in the future. It also seems that whatever CPU I choose I can always upgrade to a better one in the future so I'll likely go with the Ryzen 7 3700x for now and maybe upgrade to a 3900x or even a Threadripper in the future.

2. Bang for buck. a 3700x with MOBO, case, ram, SSD's etc... ends up being roughly the same cost as an Intel i9 9900k, which does outperform the 3700x, except when it comes to multitasking and since the 3700x still comes admirably close to 9900k performance and when it comes to multitasking I find that I do that a lot even when I composing music so I think the 3700x will balance my workload a bit better overall. I also do a "little" bit of Video editing and that's another area where Ryzen comes ahead. With the 9900k I have no other upgrade path (at least not a real affordable one) but with Ryzen I do so even if 9900k is better with samples I can remedy that with a new CPU like a 3900x or a new Threadripper (when it comes out). However, my biggest bottlenecks are not CPU but rather lack of SSD's and memory so as I put my system together I doubt I'll notice any lack of CPU performance given I've focused on also upgrading Ram and Upgrading to SSD's.

Things I don't like about my upgrade:

1. There are always trade offs and I still don't like having a fan on my chipset but after looking at the video Evildragon shared I might decide, if it bothers me enough, do do a mod of my own replacing the fan (at my own risk) with an aftermarket heatsink.

2. I wish there were Integrated Graphics with the Ryzen since I don't particularly have a need for better graphics but my old system has a Radeon HD 6950 so I'll just use that and my old system can go back to using the Intel Integrated graphics (problem solved).

3. I'm not fond of the fact that X570 boards are currently higher priced than competing Z390 boards. If they were priced more competitively then making this decision would have been a lot easier (almost a no brainer). It still is a no brainer for people satisfied with what B450 and X470 have to offer.

4. Currently options are limited to Asrock for people that would like to have Thunderbolt. That will certainly change in the future and if rumors are true of incorporating Thunderbolt specs into future USB platforms then it becomes less of an issue.

So as you can see, in it's current form there are still trade offs to consider when moving from an Intel ecosystem but no matter how much money you spend on either platform that seems to be the case. I think I've carefully weighed the decisions and found what's best for me. At some point indecision was becoming my worst enemy and I really need to get back to work so there really was no wrong decision other than the need to just make a decision. Truth be told, flipping a coin helped me finalize my decision


----------



## derstefmitf

pderbidge said:


> It also seems that whatever CPU I choose I can always upgrade to a better one in the future so I'll likely go with the Ryzen 7 3700x for now and maybe upgrade to a 3900x or even a Threadripper in the future.



I might be wrong but does Threadripper not require a different CPU socket than Ryzen?


----------



## Pictus

derstefmitf said:


> I might be wrong but does Threadripper not require a different CPU socket than Ryzen?


You are right, Ryzen uses socket AM4 and Threadripper socket TR4


----------



## Andrew Aversa

It will probably be better for you to wait to upgrade to the 4xxx series Ryzens as opposed to a 3900x. The 1000-series got a refresh with the 2000-series, which was the same architecture but with improved clocks and efficiency. The same is likely to happen with the 4000-series.


----------



## Ben

You should always wait for a better and newer CPU unless you are currently in need of a new one. So if your current CPU still is good enought, save the money.


----------



## Mystic

zircon_st said:


> It will probably be better for you to wait to upgrade to the 4xxx series Ryzens as opposed to a 3900x. The 1000-series got a refresh with the 2000-series, which was the same architecture but with improved clocks and efficiency. The same is likely to happen with the 4000-series.


Correct me if I'm wrong but that will use the same socket, won't it? So if I bought a 3950X I would be able to put in a 4000 series processor to replace it next year.


----------



## Andrew Aversa

Yes that's correct. I'm just saying that rather than upgrading twice (and losing time/money in the process), might as well wait for the 4000 series.

Keep in mind when you do a CPU update, some programs/plugins may reset your authorization, which makes it a hassle. I try to do that as infrequently as possible.


----------



## pderbidge

derstefmitf said:


> I might be wrong but does Threadripper not require a different CPU socket than Ryzen?



That's right, I forgot. So really it would just be a 3900x upgrade, but honestly I don't think that would be a significant upgrade to the 3700x. I don't want to wait for the new Threadrippers because I honestly don't want to spend that much right now and I was planning to do this upgrade a month ago already. So in that case there could still be a case made for going with the i9 9900k since it still tics all the other boxes I mentioned. The thing that tips the scale to Ryzen for me is the multitasking performance.


----------



## kitekrazy

pderbidge said:


> I took the plunge. I decided to go with the Ryzen platform after all. Here's why.
> 
> 1. Future proof



For me future proof is a myth. Eventually lack of contentment sets in and you want something faster despite only being slightly faster. 

I am looking forward to your results with Ryzen.


----------



## pderbidge

zircon_st said:


> Keep in mind when you do a CPU update, some programs/plugins may reset your authorization, which makes it a hassle. I try to do that as infrequently as possible.



Good point though about the cpu update hassles with some programs. I didn't think of that one.


----------



## pderbidge

kitekrazy said:


> For me future proof is a myth. Eventually lack of contentment sets in and you want something faster despite only being slightly faster.
> 
> I am looking forward to your results with Ryzen.


I knew someone would call me out on that when I wrote it because I've thought the same thing. Having said that, if my current 1150 chipset with my trusty i7 4770k would have allowed me to upgrade my 32GB ram to 64GB , then I likely would not be doing a full upgrade right now and just added more memory and SSD's and been happy with that. This time around I wanted to make sure I didn't make that same mistake and gave myself room to grow. However, there is the real possibility that by the time I want to upgrade ram to 128GB that the DDR5 will be the new standard and DDR4 chips will be so scarce and costly that upgrading the whole system ends up being cheaper. Been there, done that


----------



## Quasar

pderbidge said:


> I knew someone would call me out on that when I wrote it because I've thought the same thing. Having said that, if my current 1150 chipset with my trusty i7 4770k would have allowed me to upgrade my 32GB ram to 64GB , then I likely would not be doing a full upgrade right now and just added more memory and SSD's and been happy with that. This time around I wanted to make sure I didn't make that same mistake and gave myself room to grow. However, there is the real possibility that by the time I want to upgrade ram to 128GB that the DDR5 will be the new standard and DDR4 chips will be so scarce and costly that upgrading the whole system ends up being cheaper. Been there, done that


I had a similar thought, not about 3000 vs 4000, but that you might have waited at least until the x570 made it to Main St. More choices, chipset maturity, potential heat dispersion/noise issues resolved, lower cost and all of that... My tentative plan is to rebuild again next January. My aging i7 2600 (maxed at 32 GB) is still running great, so I never even saw a reason to possibly upgrade until Intel gen 8 (improvements between Sandy Bridge and Kaby Lake, though not exactly trivial, were incremental enough to not be worth it on my meager budget).

But my hope is that by 2020 the dust will have settled on the current Intel/AMD wars, the post-Spectre/Meltdown landscape will have been addressed, and I can plop 128 GB of memory into 12 or 16 cores without being particularly expensive or cutting-edge. You're being an early adapter, which is cool. Hope it works out really well for you, and look forward to hearing how you like the performance of your new machine.


----------



## samphony

Does anyone know someone who tested the threadripper 2990WX for vep or composing workflows?


----------



## pderbidge

Quasar said:


> you might have waited at least until the x570 made it to Main St. More choices, chipset maturity, potential heat dispersion/noise issues resolved, lower cost and all of that


You're absolutely right. This whole fan on the chipset thing for example is a bit of a miss for most studio musicians who need an ultra quiet PC. I'm sure that will eventually be addressed. Since my PC is in an adjacent room to my studio I don't have to worry about the noise even though I still build with fairly quiet components (Noctua, Corsair RMX etc...)


Quasar said:


> You're being an early adapter



LOL, I'm never accused of that. I still buy used cars, used Homes and I'm still on Windows 7, haha. In fact Windows 7 support going away is the whole reason I decided to do this right now. I'm worried that something like UVI, for example, will have an update and become unusable since I'm not on Win10. It's only a matter of time before more of my plugins drop support and cause issues. I figured, if I'm going to go through the pain of doing fresh install of Windows 10, having to reauthorize all my plugins etc... (anyone who has done this knows what a long and painful process this is) that I might as well tackle a few worthwhile upgrades while I'm at it. I have some big and long term projects coming up and won't have time to do this for quite a while so now is the time for me. I could have gone with a more tried and true platform like the i7 8700k or i9 9900k but since the Ryzens have come out swinging and most of what I'm doing with my system isn't ground breaking, I figured going with the new Ryzen isn't really a big risk. There's nothing I'm doing that the current iteration can't handle. However, if I needed the PC to be in my studio then I would either buy the one and only x570 board without a chipset fan at a whopping $600 (which I don't think even had thunderbolt support, I could be wrong) or honestly just go with an i9 9900k. Can you tell I'm not a fan (no pun intended) of this design? It'll be interesting to see when my MOBO comes if this fan becomes a moot point and I could just be over dramatizing it all in my head right now.


----------



## kitekrazy

pderbidge said:


> I knew someone would call me out on that when I wrote it because I've thought the same thing. Having said that, if my current 1150 chipset with my trusty i7 4770k would have allowed me to upgrade my 32GB ram to 64GB , then I likely would not be doing a full upgrade right now and just added more memory and SSD's and been happy with that. *This time around I wanted to make sure I didn't make that same mistake and gave myself room to grow. *However, there is the real possibility that by the time I want to upgrade ram to 128GB that the DDR5 will be the new standard and DDR4 chips will be so scarce and costly that upgrading the whole system ends up being cheaper. Been there, done that



That mistake is not yours. It's the constant changing of platforms which makes me less fond of Intel. Plus there are enough bad developers out there that can bog down a future proof system.


----------



## EvilDragon

samphony said:


> Does anyone know someone who tested the threadripper 2990WX for vep or composing workflows?



Well of course, Scan Pro Audio:





__





ThreadRippers 2990WX & 2950X on the bench: Just a little bit of history repeating? | Scan Pro Audio







www.scanproaudio.info


----------



## LinusW

Thunderbolt. One word enough for me to dismiss AMD right now. 🙅‍♂️


----------



## EvilDragon

It exists for AsRock motherboards? And likely other vendors will follow. X570 chipset does support it - so not sure why would you be dismissing it.


----------



## Pictus

LinusW said:


> Thunderbolt. One word enough for me to dismiss AMD right now. ?????



Some ASRock have TB header and three models have built-in Thunderbolt ports:

https://www.anandtech.com/show/1446...creator-with-ddr44600-two-thunderbolt-10g-lan
https://www.anandtech.com/show/1445...st-flagship-motherboard-ever-with-thunderbolt
https://www.anandtech.com/show/14550/asrock-x570-phantom-gaming-itx-tb3-

*--------------------------------------------------------*



EvilDragon said:


> It exists for AsRock motherboards? And likely other vendors will follow. X570 chipset does support it - so not sure why would you be dismissing it.




Strange Gigabyte did not offer TB support this time, but I suspect they will for the new Threadrippers.


----------



## LinusW

So it seems Intel have made Thunderbolt specification royalty free in the beginning of 2019 so AMD can finally get Thunderbolt. Cool, seems AsRock were quick to implement it.


----------



## EvilDragon

AsRock has been doing TB via add-on cards for some time now, regardless of royalty fee. My Z170 board has it (TB2, tho - which is fine for my RME UFX+).


----------



## Solarsentinel

EvilDragon said:


> AsRock has been doing TB via add-on cards for some time now, regardless of royalty fee. My Z170 board has it (TB2, tho - which is fine for my RME UFX+).


So what do you think of this EvilDragon? Stay on 9900k or going for ryzen 9 3900x?


----------



## EvilDragon

Up to you to decide really. I'm staying on my i7-6700K for the time being. 

Next year is gonna be interesting for sure.


----------



## Solarsentinel

EvilDragon said:


> Up to you to decide really. I'm staying on my i7-6700K for the time being.
> 
> Next year is gonna be interesting for sure.


Yet i'm not decide. I think pci express 4 is a marketing thing (for now), and i don't care about thunderbolt. 9900k seems to be still the king for DAW usage and it is quasi equal in term of consommation and temperature than the 3900X. Furthermore the price is nearly the same.
The only big thing is that the ryzen is more "technological new" (7nm) and more efficient in multitasks.
It's very difficult then...


----------



## Pictus

Solarsentinel said:


> The only big thing is that the ryzen is more "technological new" (7nm) and more efficient in multitasks.



The current Ryzen is wayyyyyyyy more safe than the current Intel CPUs...
Every time there is a new CPU flaw and the fixes makes the Intel systems slower...


----------



## EvilDragon

Solarsentinel said:


> I think pci express 4 is a marketing thing (for now)



Actually no it isn't, it's indeed faster.


----------



## Solarsentinel

EvilDragon said:


> Actually no it isn't, it's indeed faster.


Seems i was wrong. But is SSD will be faster even if they not be pci 4?



Pictus said:


> The current Ryzen is wayyyyyyyy more safe than the current Intel CPUs...
> Every time there is a new CPU flaw and the fixes makes the Intel systems slower...


Is Ryzen Meltdown/Specter safe? I thought it will be only with Zen 3?


----------



## Pictus

Solarsentinel said:


> Is Ryzen Meltdown/Specter safe? I thought it will be only with Zen 3?







__





Transient execution CPU vulnerability - Wikipedia







en.wikipedia.org


----------



## EvilDragon

Solarsentinel said:


> Seems i was wrong. But is SSD will be faster even if they not be pci 4?



No, it has to be a PCIe 4.0 SSD, AFAIK.


----------



## chimuelo

I can’t believe how much money even older X470 boards are going for now.
I was going to build a 1U for shits and grins but since the 3000s were released the boards went up another 175 bucks? 
I can wait.

The ASRock Rack X470 is 450 bucks now.
Even this well designed 1U Barebones is 750 bucks.





__





ASRock Rack > 1U2LW-X470







www.asrockrack.com


----------



## Andrew Aversa

9900k is not affected by half of those issues, and even those it is affected by do not meaningfully affect real-world performance based on benchmarks/research I've seen.


----------



## axb312

*So we still leaning towards the i9900k here? *


----------



## Shad0wLandsUK

zircon_st said:


> 9900k is not affected by half of those issues, and even those it is affected by do not meaningfully affect real-world performance based on benchmarks/research I've seen.


Very true, instead they suffer from Intel's CVE vulnerabilities that seem to come out every month or so
Requiring patches, fixes and sometimes performance impact to the CPU

So it is not a perfect world in the Intel camp


----------



## pderbidge

axb312 said:


> So we still leaning towards the i9900k here?



9900 is a solid choice especially since I've seen the 9900kf come down to $420 recently, so if you already have a PCIe graphics card that could be an affordable option.

Personally, I've become sold on the new Ryzen so I'm going to give the 3700x a chance and the great thing is if I want to upgrade to a 3950x in the future I can. With the 9900k, you're at the end of the line and future upgrades will be a whole new platform. Honestly though I think every time I've decided to an upgrade I just built from scratch so in practice the idea of future proofing is more of a "peace of mind" thing than a reality.

The other reason I like the 3700x is the lower power draw. I've always tried to invest in CPU's that don't get as hot as the sun, which is why my last system was a 4770k. I've never had a single issue with it, and that was with a stock Cooler. This time, however I'm going with a Noctua cooler just to be able to push the CPU a little more.


----------



## Andrew Aversa

These vulnerabilities are much hyped by tech press but the real world performance impact of the fixes is minimal. And with Windows 10, patching is all automatic, not that the security issues discussed would affect everyday users (unless you are intentionally trying to get malware etc.) The workloads more affected are not the kind we deal with in the audio world.


----------



## chimuelo

LinusW said:


> So it seems Intel have made Thunderbolt specification royalty free in the beginning of 2019 so AMD can finally get Thunderbolt. Cool, seems AsRock were quick to implement it.



ASRock is always quick to do everything.
I never considered them as I was a Supermicro fanboy.
But when ASRock adopted NVMe and M.2’s months before everyone else I went to their website where I discovered their no frills server and Workstation boards.

Even as we speak ASRock was first to adapt the X470 chips into their ASRock Rack boards.
Everybody else uses Xeons and plays it safe with C Series chipsets, C222, C236, C246, etc.
ASRock has had no frill server boards on Z87, Z97, etc.
No other Tier 1 manufacturer does this that Im aware of, and if they were, wouldn’t use perpendicular DRAM DIMMs designed for a certain airflow associated with 1U chassis.

When I do go with AMD ASRock will be my choice again.

My 2$

Edit: ASRock Z97 matx Server-board with 4790k’s are still the best combo I’ve used ever. Never a crash, nothing but success. Polyphony extreme.


----------



## pderbidge

pderbidge said:


> 9900 is a solid choice especially since I've seen the 9900kf come down to $420 recently, so if you already have a PCIe graphics card that could be an affordable option.


Replying to my own post here but it just dawned on me to mention for some who aren't as into overclocking etc... that a 9900k is not the best value if you are going to just run at stock speeds on a mediocre motherboard without the best cooling solution (case and cpu coooling). In that case, there are other Intel and AMD options that would be a better value. I'd hate to see someone spend over $400 on a 9900k and get just mediocre performance boosts. The real power in this CPU is pushing it a bit and not running it stock. Even Turbo boost will only perform as well as your able to keep your entire system cooled and under control, otherwise there won't be much of a boost in performance there either. Just my 2 cents.


----------



## Quasar

pderbidge said:


> Replying to my own post here but it just dawned on me to mention for some who aren't as into overclocking etc... that a 9900k is not the best value if you are going to just run at stock speeds on a mediocre motherboard without the best cooling solution (case and cpu coooling). In that case, there are other Intel and AMD options that would be a better value. I'd hate to see someone spend over $400 on a 9900k and get just mediocre performance boosts. The real power in this CPU is pushing it a bit and not running it stock. Even Turbo boost will only perform as well as your able to keep your entire system cooled and under control, otherwise there won't be much of a boost in performance there either. Just my 2 cents.


Curious, what do you mean by better value? Why would some CPUs be better suited for non-overclockers? Higher performance is higher performance after all, no?

I don't overclock, and when I bought the i7 2600 I purposely avoided the K because I didn't want to be tempted by the unlocked multiplier, even though the cost difference was negligible and there was a minor performance disparity. But wouldn't you want the most powerful CPU you can get whether you overclock or not?


----------



## Ben

You pay a higher price for these CPUs because they are designed to be overclockable. The i5 8/9600k, i7 8/9700k and i9 9900k are designed to run at higher frequencies as long as the board can deliver enougth power and the cooling is good. The base clock is a sort of guarantee for the minimum clock rate.
Of course you can have bad luck in the silicon lotery and get a chip that runs unstable when overclocking.
I run the 8600k at a fixed clock rate of 4.4GHz (disabled energy-saving and Turbo-Boost) without much testing. I think I could easily push it to at least 4.8, but then I should change the cooler.


----------



## Quasar

It seems like OC'ing used to be "edgy", but has long since become entirely mainstream. My thought a few years ago was that for running a DAW, cool and rock-solid stable at stock speeds was preferable to taking chances, however slight. But this is probably old-fashioned thinking, since many of the higher-end CPUs (presumably targeting the gamers) are clearly marketed as OC friendly, or as you say, designed to be overclockable.


----------



## Ben

Keep in mind to buy a good mainboard. With solid hardware and a good BIOS/UEFI it is really easy to overclock a CPU and it is almost impossible to break the hardware as long as you are a little bit careful and use common sense.
For example the i5 8600k has a base clock of 3.1GHz and a turbo of 4.3GHz. You will find some overclockers that push this CPU to 5.2GHz.

AMD CPUs just don't like overclocking and it is mostly not worth it to invest time and money into overclocking them. Even the Ryzen 3xxx don't overclock good compared to Intel CPUs


----------



## chimuelo

This guy has always been one of my go to nerds.
He’s confirmed my suspicions as I was on a short list for a DeLidded 3700X.
But once I read more than one person saying they really didn’t scale well and required top shelf VRMs I knew DeLidding was a waste of time.

Cracked me up when he added the Liquid Metal, it was obvious it wasn’t going to work as well due to it being so much shorter in height than the substrate.

OC’ing aside, the good news is the 3000’s IPC improvement are a little better than AMDs prediction @ CES.

Once they get to the point they can overclock all core’s in the mid 4.5 range the IPC will be glorious.
I wouldn’t clock these, they seem to be the CPU everybody warned us about that will melt down, like the guy I follow who Clicked his to death..


----------



## Solarsentinel

Quasar said:


> Curious, what do you mean by better value? Why would some CPUs be better suited for non-overclockers? Higher performance is higher performance after all, no?
> 
> I don't overclock, and when I bought the i7 2600 I purposely avoided the K because I didn't want to be tempted by the unlocked multiplier, even though the cost difference was negligible and there was a minor performance disparity. But wouldn't you want the most powerful CPU you can get whether you overclock or not?



You had probably right before, but this didn't apply anymore because on the "k" intel chips the k is no longer just a possibility of an overclok but their base frequencies are much more higher than non k processors. (exple: i9 9900 = 3.1 ghz base clock i9 9900k = 3.6 ghz base clock)


----------



## Mornats

Quasar said:


> It seems like OC'ing used to be "edgy", but has long since become entirely mainstream. My thought a few years ago was that for running a DAW, cool and rock-solid stable at stock speeds was preferable to taking chances, however slight. But this is probably old-fashioned thinking, since many of the higher-end CPUs (presumably targeting the gamers) are clearly marketed as OC friendly, or as you say, designed to be overclockable.



Yeah I remember the days when me and my brother would sweat over voltages and FSB speeds and so on, hoping we'd not done anything to fry the chip. My i7 4790k is overclocked to 4.5ghz just by selecting the smart overclock button on the bios. Where's the fun in that?


----------



## pderbidge

Quasar said:


> Curious, what do you mean by better value? Why would some CPUs be better suited for non-overclockers? Higher performance is higher performance after all, no?
> 
> I don't overclock, and when I bought the i7 2600 I purposely avoided the K because I didn't want to be tempted by the unlocked multiplier, even though the cost difference was negligible and there was a minor performance disparity. But wouldn't you want the most powerful CPU you can get whether you overclock or not?



I'll give you an example of what I mean. Say you buy an i9 9900K and you have no intentions of overclocking so you pair it with a low cost board like the the Asus Prime Z390-P. This board uses a 4 Phase VRM with doubling and tiny heatsinks. Since the function of the VRM is to deal with the Power Draw on the CPU it is important to get a motherboard with enough VRM capability that it can handle the heat and the load so that it doesn't end up throttling your CPU. I think you might see where I'm going with this since this particular Asus board was not the greatest of the Z390 boards. So this particular board is known not to handle overclocking well but you might think "so what?" I'm not overclocking anyways. Well, the only issue is that in order to get your money's worth from the i9 9900k you still want to benefit from Turbo Boost, which is sort of Intel's own "approved" overclocking right? The problem is, even if you have a decent CPU cooler, when turbo boost kicks in and starts to boost the core frequency of the CPU the VRMS start to heat up and since this boards VRMS arent' the best and on top of that didn't use the best heatsinks they start to overheat and in turn will throttle the CPU back down to regain stability and your Turbo boost ends up not sustaining itself for long enough periods of time to benefit from the technology. So the only thing you are benefiting from, in this scenario, is the better IPC of the i9 at "regular" clock speeds but really nothing more than that. Those benefits would be like maybe 2 to 5 percent at best improvements. You would be better off investing into a cheaper CPU with similar clock speeds and the difference into something like an SSD where you would see more benefits.

I suppose that the argument could be made for the benefit of the 16 threads but now with Ryzen's 8 core CPU's it's a harder argument to make since the 3700x is fairly close in performance until you start to overclock the i9 and even then the 3700x performance is admirable.

Even if you paired the i9 with a better board like the Gigabyte Z390 Aorus Pro which would solve the VRM throttling issues I still think the performance increase would not be substantial. The real benefit would be to overclock or to lock in an all cores boost like what you see in the DAWbench results.

I just feel like a lot of people don't realize this and buy the cheapest Asus board and since it's Asus they think it should be good right? I know I've been guilty of this mentality so I'm speaking from experience

By the way, cheap doesn't always mean bad as some times there are cheap boards that do it right. Every manufacturer has these from time to time. People just need to educate themselves on these things before spending the big bucks because they might not get back what they put in.


----------



## fraz

Sometimes when chipsets and CPU's are end of life - and the next hot products are out the prices can tumble and bargains can be found on older technology so some high end boards can be half price on enthusiast mainstream if there are surplus stocks.

Take Gigabyte z270 Aorus Gaming 9 that was £$ circa 450-500 was available for 210 approx, OK it was for the Kaby Lake 7700 K which came down in price to around 250 - 4C/8T but the board was loaded with VRM and integrated thunderbolt 3 so a similar offer may occur later on for the Z390 equivalent where the best CPU's are 9900 K & 9700 K -


----------



## Solarsentinel

*So pderbidge do you have assembled your new machine? Could you give us a feedback?*


----------



## pderbidge

Solarsentinel said:


> *So pderbidge do you have assembled your new machine? Could you give us a feedback?*


Not yet. I've just put the pieces together in the case and booted to bios to make sure it all turned on. Looks like my cpu temps in the bios are 51c so my thermal spread method may not have worked the best. I'm going to remove the Noctua nh- U14s and try the pea method to see if that works better. Still a ways to go with little time to get it all done.


----------



## dasbin

Lots of people are encountering high idle temps (and idling at full voltage/clock) over on reddit. Seems likely a BIOS bug of some kind. Your 51c with a U14s seems to fall in line with what others are experiencing so far, unfortunately. Hopefully gets ironed out soon.


----------



## Pictus




----------



## pderbidge

dasbin said:


> Lots of people are encountering high idle temps (and idling at full voltage/clock) over on reddit. Seems likely a BIOS bug of some kind. Your 51c with a U14s seems to fall in line with what others are experiencing so far, unfortunately. Hopefully gets ironed out soon.


I was wondering if it it's just the idle temps that this was an issue. I knew that overall system power was a little higher at idle with what seems to be due to the chipset, but more likely the way the bios is handling it all but didn't know if this affected the CPU temp readings. Perhaps I'll run some tests on load first before going through the whole remove and reseating etc.. If the temps are in line then I just won't worry about it. Thanks for letting me know.


----------



## Solarsentinel

dasbin said:


> Lots of people are encountering high idle temps (and idling at full voltage/clock) over on reddit. Seems likely a BIOS bug of some kind. Your 51c with a U14s seems to fall in line with what others are experiencing so far, unfortunately. Hopefully gets ironed out soon.



Have you tried to change your thermal paste? The Grizzly Krionaut is my favourite and work really well.
But if it's a bios problem you have to wait an update...



dasbin said:


> Lots of people are encountering high idle temps (and idling at full voltage/clock) over on reddit. Seems likely a BIOS bug of some kind. Your 51c with a U14s seems to fall in line with what others are experiencing so far, unfortunately. Hopefully gets ironed out soon.


 Thanks for charing this info.



Pictus said:


>



Thanks for this too Pictus! It was a big question about X570!


----------



## Pictus

Solarsentinel said:


> Thanks for this too Pictus! It was a big question about X570!



You are welcome, more good stuff...
https://www.overclock.net/forum/13-...membench-0-8-dram-bench-489.html#post28064156


----------



## chimuelo

AMD is just not the typical x86 design.
Not sure how gaming differs from audio but I’m reading several different reviewers everyday because to more tests the better.

But with Ryzen CPUs it seems faster DRAM makes a difference, and turning of SMT increases performance too.

A fascinating design. I can’t stop reading about all of these revelations.


----------



## Solarsentinel

With Ryzen 3 it seems that the best RAM frequencie is DDR4 3600. No need to go more.


----------



## Ben

Solarsentinel said:


> With Ryzen 3 it seems that the best RAM frequencie is DDR4 3600. No need to go more.


The price / performance sweet-spot is DDR4 3200 at the moment.


----------



## Pictus

chimuelo said:


> But with Ryzen CPUs it seems faster DRAM makes a difference, and* turning of SMT increases performance *too.



It depends on the application...
*From https://www.techpowerup.com/review/amd-ryzen-9-3900x-smt-off-vs-intel-9900k/9.html
"*There's a second, major part of this review with the non-gaming applications. Here, the loss of SMT is way more pronounced, particularly with applications that scale well in a multi-threaded environment. WPrime posts a massive 31 percent performance loss, which is roughly 1/3rd the processor's performance. Can you imagine that an intangible feature such as SMT could make such a huge performance contribution? Cinebench R20 multi-threaded also sheds 21 percent (over 1/5th) of its performance. 

There are similar performance losses in our rendering tests with SMT disabled. Performance drops roughly 31 percent with Blender and Keyshot and 27 percent with Corona. With SMT-off, the 3900X falls behind both the 3700X and i9-9900K at Tensorflow AI tests. 7-Zip decompression tests show a gargantuan 39 percent performance loss. Media-encoding sprung a surprise with only a 3 percent performance loss seen with H.265 encoding. The H.264 encoder posts a 20 percent loss, though."


----------



## chimuelo

Definitely a mixed bag, anxious to see what it does with core locked synths.
Not that I need any departure from my happy rigs, just curious as it’s such an odd x86.
We’re so use to more, more, more being the answer to everything.


----------



## axb312

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







www.scanproaudio.info


----------



## pderbidge

chimuelo said:


> A fascinating design. I can’t stop reading about all of these revelations.


AMD is certainly piloting some unique processes to eek out every bit of performance they can. This is necessary for AMD to do partly due to the fact that the Intel Architecture is still in some ways superior and therefore doesn't necessarily need the constant monitoring that AMD employs to ensure the clocks and voltages etc... are boosting themselves when needed (much different than Intel's Turbo Boost). Intel's Ring bus is an example of what I perceive to be a superior architecture for core to core communication, although as memory prices come down and speeds get better AMD's architecture (infinity fabric) might prove to be better in the long run. Imagine if Intel took the same amount of care and detail to do the kind of process monitoring on top of its excellent architecture that AMD does, then they wouldn't be in such a rough spot right now with AMD encroaching on their performance. I suppose it could be argued that focusing on bettering the architecture itself is better than trying to boost performance through "programming techniques" for lack of a better term. However, AMD is trying to do both, which I think is the best approach. Then again, that's not quite fair to Intel either since Intel has piloted plenty of enhancements suchas Hyper-threading, SSE but it's just that none of these worked without developer involvement and optimizations.

I know Intel, and I'm sure we'll see a massive blow back, however I'm hoping that this time around AMD is prepared for that. I think they are, since they've been through this before and I'm sure they don't want a repeat.


----------



## Pictus




----------



## Mystic

Interesting video on RAM clock speed tests


----------



## chimuelo

Pictus said:


>





Sure glad you’re around here.
Thanks.

Probably the best RAM vid I’ve seen. Plus he uses the 3700X which I thought would be a gem for a low heat rig, but using X470 server board.

Syncing isn’t usually needed for us with Intel but this is great info about latency which is right up our alley.

I was impressed by the end of the 1st part one video then saw he had 2?
Had to watch that too.

Guy just tells you the shit you need to know and doesn’t bore you to death like a real slow synth Demo. Makes you want to yell at them they’re so slow.


----------



## Pictus

chimuelo said:


> Sure glad you’re around here.
> Thanks.



You are welcome.


----------



## chimuelo

I played with the ASRock X470 Server Board and a 3700X last night and it’s a server board so no overclocking but this is one of the retail chips, not a binned chip and it’s performance was similar to my i7 4790k CPUs.

My only tests are latency, noticeable or not by touch/MIDI, or audio, and high polyphony with heavy sustain which only PTeq and Kontakt allow.

But even with 6 and 7 way EPiano and Acoustic Piano layers the CPU didn’t gag once and looks to be a great CPU even for locked Core synths that I use.

I don’t need to build anything but pretty sure my next build will be the 3700X because I need low heat which most CPUs do if you don’t overclock, and the 3200 RAM is pretty cheap.

But this 65 watt CPU in a 1U Chassis runs so cool I can set my loud ass triple Barrel fans on silent, which isn’t silent, but as quiet as they get.

If folks really need extra horsepower I’d get the 3800X and the 3700 DDR that is the sweet spot for RAM. 

Other great news, while these Trade Tariffs haven’t hit home yet, Taiwan is stepping up with 24/7 manufacturing for more Boards and RAM.
The ASRock Server Board was 475 bucks earlier this year and they’re dropping by 30% just this month.


----------



## chimuelo

I love having somebody besides myself confirm things for me a couple days later...









AMD Ryzen 7 3800X vs. 3700X: What's the Difference?


The latest series of Ryzen CPUs has been out for six weeks and yet only about a week ago were we able to get our hands on...




www.techspot.com


----------



## Virtual Virgin

Any more x570 boards besides the Asrock Taichi which support 128GB RAM?


----------



## Solarsentinel

Virtual Virgin said:


> Any more x570 boards besides the Asrock Taichi which support 128GB RAM?



All X570 motherboards from all manufacturers support 128 GB of RAM.


----------



## pderbidge

Solarsentinel said:


> All X570 motherboards from all manufacturers support 128 GB of RAM.


Correct. The one thing that all Asrock x570 boards support that the others don't is Thunderbolt. Some allow an add in card for TB and others come with TB built in. I can't believe that none of the other manufacturers are taking advantage of this like Asrock has. Now that the X570 chip set support TB why not support it? Especially if their going to have boards costing $600+ and yet no TB. That seems like a joke to me.


----------



## Virtual Virgin

Solarsentinel said:


> All X570 motherboards from all manufacturers support 128 GB of RAM.



Are there any with 8 slots? 4x32 is $$$


----------



## steveo42

I went Intel 9900k and am very happy. System is a beast and I don't even come close to taxing it.
All I did was turn on XMP for memory and that was it.
It just works.
Here is my build:

GIGABYTE Z390 DESIGNARE Gigabyte (Intel LGA1151/Z390/ATX/2xM.2/Thunderbolt 3/Onboard AC Wifi/12+1 Phases Digital Vrm/Motherboard)

Intel Core i9-9900K Desktop Processor 8 Cores up to 5.0 GHz Turbo unlocked LGA1151 300 Series 95W

Noctua NH-D15, Premium CPU Cooler with 2x NF-A15 PWM 140mm Fans

Corsair Vengeance LPX 64GB DDR4 DRAM 3200MHz C16 Memory Kit

CORSAIR RMX Series, RM850x, 850 Watt, 80+ Gold Certified, Fully Modular Power Supply

CORSAIR FORCE Series MP510 960GB NVMe PCIe Gen3 x4 M.2 SSD Solid State Storage, Up to 3,480MB/s

Fractal Design Case FD-CA-DEF-R6C-BKO (USB C Version, no glass doors)


----------



## pderbidge

steveo42 said:


> I went Intel 9900k and am very happy. System is a beast and I don't even come close to taxing it.
> All I did was turn on XMP for memory and that was it.
> It just works.
> Here is my build:
> 
> GIGABYTE Z390 DESIGNARE Gigabyte (Intel LGA1151/Z390/ATX/2xM.2/Thunderbolt 3/Onboard AC Wifi/12+1 Phases Digital Vrm/Motherboard)
> 
> Intel Core i9-9900K Desktop Processor 8 Cores up to 5.0 GHz Turbo unlocked LGA1151 300 Series 95W
> 
> Noctua NH-D15, Premium CPU Cooler with 2x NF-A15 PWM 140mm Fans
> 
> Corsair Vengeance LPX 64GB DDR4 DRAM 3200MHz C16 Memory Kit
> 
> CORSAIR RMX Series, RM850x, 850 Watt, 80+ Gold Certified, Fully Modular Power Supply
> 
> CORSAIR FORCE Series MP510 960GB NVMe PCIe Gen3 x4 M.2 SSD Solid State Storage, Up to 3,480MB/s
> 
> Fractal Design Case FD-CA-DEF-R6C-BKO (USB C Version, no glass doors)



Looks like a great system. Make sure to max out the case fans. More fans running at slower speed will translate to cooler and quieter. With that Noctua CPU cooler you should consider overclocking the cpu. I think there should be a fairly basic setting in the bios to do an all core overclock without having to do too much tweaking similar to enabling XMP. You should easily get as close to a 5GHZ all core clock with an i9 9900K. Overclocking the 9900k is the only reason I would consider that cpu over Ryzen right now. Well, that and the fact that there are more options for Z390 motherboards. I would have easily gone Gigabyte on X570 if they would have supported Thunderbolt but oddly they don't on their X570 boards right now. My older rig has a rock solid Gigabyte board that's still chugging away and even though it's one of the lower end Gigabyte boards I was still able to get a good stable 4.3Ghz overclock on an Intel 4770k without breaking a sweat. I have not doubt I could have gone 4.6Ghz if I had one of their medium to higher end boards.


----------



## pderbidge

Virtual Virgin said:


> Are there any with 8 slots? 4x32 is $$$


Not if you go with this memory- At least if you're in the US
https://www.superbiiz.com/detail.php?p=D432G266S1&c=fr&hash=54cdEJqXSWIRDglJTc8ZE7%2F5SKiTFDFFo6%2BZX4MSKIOFGAH3Hts2MG%2BK0y1Cmxv7hncKC57OgDrHuTT%2FEYKHzcv3H3Pj4sidYyNIhVZ0n6HVEqUB8uo4seQ&gclid=CjwKCAjw44jrBRAHEiwAZ9igKGvX3i9NcRNVd1R0UI0qQDDLcWe535kCdkwtoVIRMJyN6GeiFuKuzBoCqAwQAvD_BwE


----------



## vitocorleone123

steveo42 said:


> I went Intel 9900k and am very happy. System is a beast and I don't even come close to taxing it.
> All I did was turn on XMP for memory and that was it.
> It just works.
> Here is my build:
> 
> GIGABYTE Z390 DESIGNARE Gigabyte (Intel LGA1151/Z390/ATX/2xM.2/Thunderbolt 3/Onboard AC Wifi/12+1 Phases Digital Vrm/Motherboard)
> 
> Intel Core i9-9900K Desktop Processor 8 Cores up to 5.0 GHz Turbo unlocked LGA1151 300 Series 95W
> 
> Noctua NH-D15, Premium CPU Cooler with 2x NF-A15 PWM 140mm Fans
> 
> Corsair Vengeance LPX 64GB DDR4 DRAM 3200MHz C16 Memory Kit
> 
> CORSAIR RMX Series, RM850x, 850 Watt, 80+ Gold Certified, Fully Modular Power Supply
> 
> CORSAIR FORCE Series MP510 960GB NVMe PCIe Gen3 x4 M.2 SSD Solid State Storage, Up to 3,480MB/s
> 
> Fractal Design Case FD-CA-DEF-R6C-BKO (USB C Version, no glass doors)



I purchased almost the exact same parts earlier today - I was trying to wait until the 3950x came out and then decide, but my computer is crashing more often and was in a boot loop on and off for 10 minutes this morning. I honestly don't know if my computer will last another month or whatnot, let alone another week. So I ordered what I KNOW will be great... even if it'll be outdated in a month. What can you do? It's tech! I've had the bones of my current computer for 7 years and it's only within the last one that it's starting to feel old. i5 3570K overclocked to 4.3GHz (and going down) with 16GB RAM.

Minor differences in what I bought, planning to put it together next weekend:

Corsair LPX 64gb C15 (4x16)
Noctua D15S (can always add another fan)
Samsung M2 1TB

I'll re-use my 970GTX GPU for now as I'm out of $$.


----------



## kitekrazy

chimuelo said:


> I played with the ASRock X470 Server Board and a 3700X last night and it’s a server board so no overclocking but this is one of the retail chips, not a binned chip and it’s performance was similar to my i7 4790k CPUs.
> 
> My only tests are latency, noticeable or not by touch/MIDI, or audio, and high polyphony with heavy sustain which only PTeq and Kontakt allow.
> 
> But even with 6 and 7 way EPiano and Acoustic Piano layers the CPU didn’t gag once and looks to be a great CPU even for locked Core synths that I use.
> 
> I don’t need to build anything but pretty sure my next build will be the 3700X because I need low heat which most CPUs do if you don’t overclock, and the 3200 RAM is pretty cheap.
> 
> But this 65 watt CPU in a 1U Chassis runs so cool I can set my loud ass triple Barrel fans on silent, which isn’t silent, but as quiet as they get.
> 
> If folks really need extra horsepower I’d get the 3800X and the 3700 DDR that is the sweet spot for RAM.
> 
> Other great news, while these Trade Tariffs haven’t hit home yet, Taiwan is stepping up with 24/7 manufacturing for more Boards and RAM.
> The ASRock Server Board was 475 bucks earlier this year and they’re dropping by 30% just this month.



Curious as to why you like to go with server boards.


----------



## STec

steveo42 said:


> I went Intel 9900k and am very happy. System is a beast and I don't even come close to taxing it.
> All I did was turn on XMP for memory and that was it.
> It just works.
> Here is my build:
> 
> GIGABYTE Z390 DESIGNARE Gigabyte (Intel LGA1151/Z390/ATX/2xM.2/Thunderbolt 3/Onboard AC Wifi/12+1 Phases Digital Vrm/Motherboard)
> 
> Intel Core i9-9900K Desktop Processor 8 Cores up to 5.0 GHz Turbo unlocked LGA1151 300 Series 95W
> 
> Noctua NH-D15, Premium CPU Cooler with 2x NF-A15 PWM 140mm Fans
> 
> Corsair Vengeance LPX 64GB DDR4 DRAM 3200MHz C16 Memory Kit
> 
> CORSAIR RMX Series, RM850x, 850 Watt, 80+ Gold Certified, Fully Modular Power Supply
> 
> CORSAIR FORCE Series MP510 960GB NVMe PCIe Gen3 x4 M.2 SSD Solid State Storage, Up to 3,480MB/s
> 
> Fractal Design Case FD-CA-DEF-R6C-BKO (USB C Version, no glass doors)



Wow, I'm building a new slave and I have exactly the same parts except for the motherboard (ASUS PRIME X2990A) and 128GB of ram. Enjoy your new beast!


----------



## chimuelo

kitekrazy said:


> Curious as to why you like to go with server boards.



Shorter traces because there’s no blinking light shows, no gamer gunk.
Plus the Quality Control at least @ Supermicro ASRock Asus and Tyan is like Intel use to do when they sold motherboards.
I still have an 875 Mobo with no audio, and that was fantastic with an 8600 Wolfdale Core Duo CPU.

Plus you’ll notice most have Perpendicular DIMMs meaning front intake fans to cool the DRAM then exit the rear of the Rackmounted Chassis.

I’m still using these live, and you get to avoid slower Xeons and use faster chips and CPUs, so it’s the best of both worlds with ASRock boards.






ASRock Rack > H97M WS







www.asrockrack.com





https://www.asrockrack.com/general/productdetail.asp?Model=Z97M WS#Specifications

Not saying Xeons suck, they don’t.
I just like faster chips and a no frills motherboard that fits in a 1U Chassis.


----------



## steveo42

STec said:


> Wow, I'm building a new slave and I have exactly the same parts except for the motherboard (ASUS PRIME X2990A) and 128GB of ram. Enjoy your new beast!



Congrats!
I agree, these things are BEASTS!!


----------



## kitekrazy

chimuelo said:


> Shorter traces because there’s no blinking light shows, *no gamer gunk.*
> Plus the Quality Control at least @ Supermicro ASRock Asus and Tyan is like Intel use to do when they sold motherboards.
> *I still have an 875 Mobo with no audio, and that was fantastic with an 8600 Wolfdale Core Duo CPU.
> 
> Plus you’ll notice most have Perpendicular DIMMs meaning front intake fans to cool the DRAM then exit the rear of the Rackmounted Chassis.
> 
> I’m still using these live, and you get to avoid slower Xeons and use faster chips and CPUs, so it’s the best of both worlds with ASRock boards.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> ASRock Rack > H97M WS
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.asrockrack.com
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> https://www.asrockrack.com/general/productdetail.asp?Model=Z97M WS#Specifications
> 
> Not saying Xeons suck, they don’t.
> I just like faster chips and a no frills motherboard that fits in a 1U Chassis.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> *



That's what I thought. I usually get the lower price boards for the same reason.


----------



## chimuelo

Only difference is the quality of the PCB that’s made with some composites for withstanding heat better, especially Supermicro boards.
I had 2 ASRock Extreme 6 boards that I beat up and they lasted 2 years as I’m pretty tough on PC Peripherals.
Since I went to a 1U and server boards I’ve never had a single issue and they’re 5/6 years old and still work.
To avoid any issues though I rotate them out after 3 years and turn them into spares.


----------



## vitocorleone123

My 9900K system (I wanted to wait for AMD to settle down and the 3950x to come out, but my old computer had other ideas) is up and functional. Got the hardware all assembled one entire evening, and am still working on installing and re-licensing/enabling all the software and plugins as I'd decided I wanted to start fresh on this computer and not clone the old boot drive like in the past. I have another case fan to purchase and the Fractal R6 comes with 3 fans, not 2 (oops) - I'm replacing them with Noctua fans. Still have a few hardware bits to transfer in to the new one, but I'm pausing while performing some backups. Last of all will come some modest overclocking. And some video encoding or something to really try out all those threads.

I can say that, already, just in regular usage tasks, it's FAST. My hope is by tomorrow or so to be trying out music.

9900K
Noctua D15S (1 fan... might add another or reuse a 120mm noctua from the old computer)
Gigabyte Designare
64 GB (16x4) C15 Corsair RAM
Fractal R6 USB-C case
1 TB Samsung 970 EVO Plus NVME + a couple Samsung SSDs and even, for now, a 1TB WD Blue
Nvidia GTX 970 (look to replace it next year)
Corsair RMX 850 PSU


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## shomynik

vitocorleone123 said:


> My 9900K system (I wanted to wait for AMD to settle down and the 3950x to come out, but my old computer had other ideas) is up and functional. Got the hardware all assembled one entire evening, and am still working on installing and re-licensing/enabling all the software and plugins as I'd decided I wanted to start fresh on this computer and not clone the old boot drive like in the past. I have another case fan to purchase and the Fractal R6 comes with 3 fans, not 2 (oops) - I'm replacing them with Noctua fans. Still have a few hardware bits to transfer in to the new one, but I'm pausing while performing some backups. Last of all will come some modest overclocking. And some video encoding or something to really try out all those threads.
> 
> I can say that, already, just in regular usage tasks, it's FAST. My hope is by tomorrow or so to be trying out music.
> 
> 9900K
> Noctua D15S (1 fan... might add another or reuse a 120mm noctua from the old computer)
> Gigabyte Designare
> 64 GB (16x4) C15 Corsair RAM
> Fractal R6 USB-C case
> 1 TB Samsung 970 EVO Plus NVME + a couple Samsung SSDs and even, for now, a 1TB WD Blue
> Nvidia GTX 970 (look to replace it next year)
> Corsair RMX 850 PSU



Congrats on the new build!

I've never felt a need to replace Fractal Design fans. I just fix them on low speed (as all other fans in my master PC) and they are inaudible to me. Are you finding much better performance of noctua case fans? 
I could use lower temps for sure, I'm idlling ~45C with 7820x... for the sake of total silence ofc (noctua fans with low rpm adapters, case fans on minimum rpm as well, gpu fans OFF under 60C).


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## steveo42

pderbidge said:


> Looks like a great system. Make sure to max out the case fans. More fans running at slower speed will translate to cooler and quieter. With that Noctua CPU cooler you should consider overclocking the cpu. I think there should be a fairly basic setting in the bios to do an all core overclock without having to do too much tweaking similar to enabling XMP. You should easily get as close to a 5GHZ all core clock with an i9 9900K. Overclocking the 9900k is the only reason I would consider that cpu over Ryzen right now. Well, that and the fact that there are more options for Z390 motherboards. I would have easily gone Gigabyte on X570 if they would have supported Thunderbolt but oddly they don't on their X570 boards right now. My older rig has a rock solid Gigabyte board that's still chugging away and even though it's one of the lower end Gigabyte boards I was still able to get a good stable 4.3Ghz overclock on an Intel 4770k without breaking a sweat. I have not doubt I could have gone 4.6Ghz if I had one of their medium to higher end boards.



I kind of left everything stock and the only change I made was turn on XMP for memory. It seems my CPU is running at 4.9Ghz so I'm not sure how that happened, but I'll take it ! 

I didn't play with C-States, Turbo etc like I did with my 4790k. I figured I'd try things out of the box and see how things went. So far so good!

Core temps aren't even breaking a sweat, they sit at about 82 deg F and I have all the Fractal fans connected in stock mode. So I haven't played with them either. I don't even hear them.

Overall, I'm very happy with this build.


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## vitocorleone123

shomynik said:


> Congrats on the new build!
> 
> I've never felt a need to replace Fractal Design fans. I just fix them on low speed (as all other fans in my master PC) and they are inaudible to me. Are you finding much better performance of noctua case fans?
> I could use lower temps for sure, I'm idlling ~45C with 7820x... for the sake of total silence ofc (noctua fans with low rpm adapters, case fans on minimum rpm as well, gpu fans OFF under 60C).



Much difference? Well, I didn't compare  I still have one Fractal fan in there. The Fractal fans, if I remember right, are something like 2db quieter, but the Noctua fans I have move more air. I might just leave it as is, depending on how temps go. I have 1 Noctua on the top front and then one in back (plus the one on the giant CPU cooler). The Fractal is in front below the Noctua. I think the main thing I want to do is get PWM cable extensions and try to NOT use the fan controller built into the case as that's currently plugged into the CPU Alt fan slot, so when the CPU ramps, the fans ramp - which is more/inconsistent noise than it needs to be.

I still aim to overclock a little after I get things settled. Also, it seems my Corsair keyboard for some reason is stuck in some "boot loader" mode and the keys are no longer backlit and there's no fix. Guess I'll be replacing all my old computer gear at this rate. After all, it's just $$$$ right? Ugh.

EDIT: Fixed my keyboard - took a couple hours to figure it out. Overclocked to 5Ghz on all 8 cores, which is all I wanted.


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## kitekrazy

vitocorleone123 said:


> My 9900K system (I wanted to wait for AMD to settle down and the 3950x to come out, but my old computer had other ideas) is up and functional. Got the hardware all assembled one entire evening, and am still working on installing and re-licensing/enabling all the software and plugins as I'd decided I wanted to start fresh on this computer and not clone the old boot drive like in the past. I have another case fan to purchase and the Fractal R6 comes with 3 fans, not 2 (oops) - I'm replacing them with Noctua fans. Still have a few hardware bits to transfer in to the new one, but I'm pausing while performing some backups. Last of all will come some modest overclocking. And some video encoding or something to really try out all those threads.
> 
> I can say that, already, just in regular usage tasks, it's FAST. My hope is by tomorrow or so to be trying out music.
> 
> 9900K
> Noctua D15S (1 fan... might add another or reuse a 120mm noctua from the old computer)
> Gigabyte Designare
> 64 GB (16x4) C15 Corsair RAM
> Fractal R6 USB-C case
> 1 TB Samsung 970 EVO Plus NVME + a couple Samsung SSDs and even, for now, a 1TB WD Blue
> *Nvidia GTX 970 (look to replace it next year)*
> Corsair RMX 850 PSU


*

Wht? It's still a great card in an inflated market. 
*


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## Mystic

AMD Ryzen 3000 CPU speed bump and 16-core 3950X will be here by Sept 30


AMD looks set to launch its enthusiast-grade Ryzen 9 3950X on September 30, 2019, around the same time new BIOSes will launch




www.pcgamesn.com





Looks like we may be seeing the 3950X on September 30th. This means we should be seeing reviewer videos and benchmarks soon as well since we're about 2.5 weeks out.


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## Pier

I'm building a new DAW machine with a 3700X and a B450 Gigabyte mobo. I'll post the complete specs and some results in a couple of days.

I'm surprised everyone here is comparing the 3700X with the 9900K. I live in Mexico and here the 9900K is about 50% more expensive.

I was actually considering either the 9600K or the 9700K but from all benchmarks I've seen the 3700X is the winner here in performance (and cost).


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## vitocorleone123

If you use the computer for more than a DAW, and you like to use long effect chains on a track, the 9900k is excellent - especially at 5ghz per core. Those are big reasons I did, anyway. My old computer started dying a couple months ago or I’d have waited for the 3950x, though.

Is the 9900k 50% better? No, probably not. Lots of good choices available now, thanks to AMD (and the pressure on Intel).


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## Mystic

It's pretty incredible seeing this sudden turn around from AMD as they are completely demolishing Intel right now on benchmarks with their new processors and Intel has no response at this point other than dropping their own prices to compete.

Sadly the 3950X was delayed till November. Still waiting on more information.


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## Gunvor

Are you testing the newly released 3950x ?


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## colony nofi

Gunvor said:


> Are you testing the newly released 3950x ?


The linus tech tips review was GLOWING on the 3950X. Can't wait to see it up against the i9's for DAWBench. But the chips are (going to be) hard to come by for a while.
Tops out at 128GB Ram - so threadripper still has a place for large ram machines... and only 20pcie lanes - but for most audio applications, I think this could be a really exciting middle ground for some solid machines.


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## Pier

colony nofi said:


> I think this could be a really exciting middle ground for some solid machines.



Good lord 128GB of RAM and 20 PCIe lanes is middle ground?


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## colony nofi

Pier Bover said:


> Good lord 128GB of RAM and 20 PCIe lanes is middle ground?


not for home desktops, but for workstations.....yeah it is. At least as far as AMD and Intel thinks about things. New mac pro's can have 1.5TB of Ram... and even X299 mother boards are able to have 256GB ram. And as for PCIe lanes... Cascade Lake X have at least double (40+) and threadripper at least that as well. Workstations today really can be incredible machines... not always great for gaming, and not as good for DAW work as they once were. However, with the right setup / cpu, they *can* be incredible.


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## chimuelo

Pier Bover said:


> I'm building a new DAW machine with a 3700X and a B450 Gigabyte mobo. I'll post the complete specs and some results in a couple of days.
> 
> I'm surprised everyone here is comparing the 3700X with the 9900K. I live in Mexico and here the 9900K is about 50% more expensive.
> 
> I was actually considering either the 9600K or the 9700K but from all benchmarks I've seen the 3700X is the winner here in performance (and cost).



I always run across fellow performers that use laptops or towers, some have racks and one chap I worked opposite of at the CalState Fair in Merced wanted an open frame rack like mine so I’ve helped him with a side to side ventilated 1U ATX chassis.
Spared no money, bought the 3733MHz CAS 16 DDR4 and ASRock X570, and the AMD 3800X.

Zebra2 and Diva each have 2 instances running, 4 Instances of Kontakt, 4 of PLAY, PianoTeq, B5 and a Rhodes using UVI, then a custom looper made in Bidule and ReLabs RHall and all mixed in a Harrison VST Mixer.

Impressive timings using an RME PCI-e based interface @48k/64/1.7msec.

I think I’ve found my next build.
The myth of 8 Cores not able to run the timings I like might apply to Intel CPU’s but not to the AMD 3800X.

I still want to see what the i3/5/7/9 10,000 Series CPUs have at CES 2020.
But if they still are pushing out 14nm CPUs and their latency/timings on 6/8 Cores hasn’t changed the Ryzen 3800X will be in my chassis.

Current i7 4790K will become a spare with extra parts as I build 2 x AMD Live rigs.

FWIW This was running at stock 3.8GHz.
Most Ryzens can do 400MHz boost on all core’s but with higher temps.
3.8GHz on AMD’s is fine from what I’ve seen.


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## Pictus

chimuelo said:


> I still want to see what the i3/5/7/9 10,000 Series CPUs have at CES 2020.



In 2020 AMD will bring another kick in Intel ass, the ZEN 3 architecture... 








AMD Confirms Zen 3 Brings Entirely Brand New CPU Architecture, Delivers Significant IPC Gains, Faster Clocks & Higher Core Counts


AMD's Senior Vice President has stated that their next-gen Zen 3 CPUs will feature a brand new architecture, delivering signifacnt IPC gains.




wccftech.com





Intel may have a response in 2021...
The new Intel Ice Lake/Cascade Lake CPUs are already flawed... 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transient_execution_CPU_vulnerabilities









The Mitigation Impact Difference On AMD Ryzen 9 3900X vs. Intel Core i9 9900K Performance - Phoronix







www.phoronix.com







This test is already outdated(9 October 2019), as time goes by the Intel CPUs are getting slower
because of the new fixes...






Benchmarks Of JCC Erratum: A New Intel CPU Bug With Performance Implications On Skylake Through Cascade Lake - Phoronix







www.phoronix.com










The Gaming Performance Impact From The Intel JCC Erratum Microcode Update - Phoronix







www.phoronix.com


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## Damarus

Me, a long time Intel user:


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## chimuelo

Damarus said:


> Me, a long time Intel user:



#MeToo

But their CEO just wasted so much time on 10nm, knew it was failing yet kept trying to tell us next week, next month, next year, etc.

I’m reading they can’t even meet demand without 3rd Party Fabs. 
So much for QC.

Last time I used AMD was after they bought Alpha and Tyan had those dual Athlon MP CPU’s.

Looks like AMD gets my money again.


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## Damarus

chimuelo said:


> #MeToo
> 
> But their CEO just wasted so much time on 10nm, knew it was failing yet kept trying to tell us next week, next month, next year, etc.
> 
> I’m reading they can’t even meet demand without 3rd Party Fabs.
> So much for QC.
> 
> Last time I used AMD was after they bought Alpha and Tyan had those dual Athlon MP CPU’s.
> 
> Looks like AMD gets my money again.



To add to all that.. I get nearly half off select Intel CPUs because a family member works for them.

FEELING CONFLICTED


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## chimuelo

Damarus said:


> To add to all that.. I get nearly half off select Intel CPUs because a family member works for them.
> 
> FEELING CONFLICTED



Friend of mine gets a similar deal but they say it’s cost and 10%.
Im cool with Intel, only pissed when I paid 1050 bucks for 1GHz Coppermine in 1999. But Gigastudio really liked that vrs. my overclocked 200A Celeron running @ 333MHz.


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## woodslanding

chimuelo said:


> I always run across fellow performers that use laptops or towers, some have racks and one chap I worked opposite of at the CalState Fair in Merced wanted an open frame rack like mine so I’ve helped him with a side to side ventilated 1U ATX chassis.
> Spared no money, bought the 3733MHz CAS 16 DDR4 and ASRock X570, and the AMD 3800X.
> 
> Zebra2 and Diva each have 2 instances running, 4 Instances of Kontakt, 4 of PLAY, PianoTeq, B5 and a Rhodes using UVI, then a custom looper made in Bidule and ReLabs RHall and all mixed in a Harrison VST Mixer.
> 
> Impressive timings using an RME PCI-e based interface @48k/64/1.7msec.
> 
> I think I’ve found my next build.
> The myth of 8 Cores not able to run the timings I like might apply to Intel CPU’s but not to the AMD 3800X.



Hmm. Just about to put an 8700 build into service, (yeah, I know, I expected to do it quite a few months ago!) but thinking about selling it off. This guy's setup is so analogous to mine, it's a very meaningful benchmark.....

EDIT: I'm only finding one ASROCK MATX 570x board on Amazon, and it has funky reviews. Which mobo did you use?


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## chimuelo

I’m still on ASRock H97 and Z97 as a spare.
But the ASRock X470 on their ASRockRack site is down to 290.00 now.
I figure it will keep going down in price as everyone thinks PCI 4 will somehow change their workflow. By summertime even the 450 dollar boards at the rack site might be half of that.
There’s 2 x X470s on that site that are mATX and even have the ASPEED AT2500 GFX chips onboard so no need on die GPU or a GFX Card.
Most guys don’t realize with those onboard chips you save lots of watts and boot quicker as the system is integrated really well.


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