# PC specs for lowest possible latency?



## chillbot

I wanted to ask this in the "buffers" thread but it's already at 4 pages and didn't want to hijack it.

Cost is not an issue. Assume a decent audio card and just focus on the PC. What would you assemble to give yourself the best chance of having super-low latency without pops or clicks.

Just hypothetically. (And because I'm getting a new PC built.)


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## zolhof

There are so many variables when it comes to low latency. Hardware-wise, for audio production, if you decide to go full balls to the walls i9 9900k (get a decent power supply and cooling solution), stay away from motherboards with PLX chips, as they add latency.

The Gigabyte Z390 AORUS Xtreme is (imho) currently the best motherboard money can buy. If you won't be doing any extreme overclocking, you are safe with the AORUS Master, which is also very reliable and $200 cheaper. For Thunderbolt check the Gigabyte Z390 Designare variant.

Also, skip Nvidia GPU cards to avoid driver headaches. I managed to tame my GTX 1070 but it wasn't fun. My next build will be Radeon just for a change.

There's also the Threadripper 2990WX which costs 3x the price of the 9900k and, for raw power, can't be beaten. It didn't go too well in DAWbench though _"Both chip ranges (1st and 2nd gens) are designed for certain tasks and optimized in certain ways, which ultimately makes them largely unsuitable for low latency audio work, no matter how much they exceed in other segments."_

A few good sources of information:

http://www.scanproaudio.info/2018/0...bench-just-a-little-bit-of-history-repeating/
http://www.scanproaudio.info/2018/10/19/intels-i9-9900k-and-the-coffee-lake-refresh/



Plot twist:


Hope that helps as a starting point!


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## tack

For lowest _latency_ I'd avoid the Threadrippers. I have a 2950X and like it, but I can't squeeze it on very low buffers, whereas the 8700k I came from could be pushed further. As far as the CPU goes, it really comes down to single core performance. I think the 9900k would make a fine choice with an all-core OC.


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## chillbot

Very interesting, thanks.

Cost aside would you consider 9940X @ 3.3GHz OR 9920X 3.5Ghz or still stick with the 9900k?


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## tack

Given the primary goal to optimize for lowest possible latency definitely still the 9900k. You can get some fairly good overclocks on it.


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## whiskers

tack said:


> Given the primary goal to optimize for lowest possible latency definitely still the 9900k. You can get some fairly good overclocks on it.


will be interesting to see what's in store re: zen2 and Icy Lake too...


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## Nathanael Iversen

I have an i9-9900k, overclocked to 4.7Ghz. I run my ~600 track Cubase 9.5 template across two VEP slave machines at 128 samples. VEP uses an extra buffer, so 256 practically. Works pretty well for me. That said, when I have a full orchestra mock-up going, the real-time system is 90% in Cubase. I don't get drop outs, but I am maxing out what it can do. Insert effects seem to really chew up the available Real-time performance. The less I use, the lower it is. That is only so workable.

I will upgrade to a 9940XE or one of the Zen2 processors later this year to just get more cores. The 9940XE will overclock to over 4Ghz, so it will be plenty fast enough. This MOBO+RAM will get turned into a 64GB VEP slave and have a long life in that capacity, so it will all work out.


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## Nathanael Iversen

To directly answer you question, "Specs for low latency":

- I look for boards with Intel on board NIC's - they have better drivers & lower latency
- I look for motherboards without WiFI (all I do is turn it off in the BIOS anyway)
- I turn off all ASMedia controllers in the BIOS and only use the ports supported by the SouthBridge chip
- I turn off all onboard sound in the BIOS, and any other hardware controllers that i can.
- I would use motherboard graphics if I could, but I have too many monitors, so I use AMD Radeon. I get consistently lower latency without the big spikes I got with NVIDIA (WIN 10 here)
- I use the Focusrite RedNet PCIe card as my interface. It goes into one of the 16x slots directly connected to the CPU. Rock solid 1.7ms latency for 128 channels of I/O. I gave up USB and won't ever go back. Audio goes straight to the CPU, not even through the SouthBridge. Some may claim the same for their Thunderbolt stuff, but I run close to 40 channels of I/O and it is just solid. As I used more and more of my old RME interface, it got to where only certain short USB cables would work. Lots of people have 8ch I/O and it works great, but that isn't my setup, and for the extra channels, I have been very happy with Dante and its practically limitless expansion. Super fast, just works, and I'm digital all the way to my monitors, so there's only one A/D in, and one A/D out in the whole system. 
- I have a Midas M32 console with a Dante card in it to provide low-latency monitoring for recording live in the studio. Cue mixes go to Rednet AM2 boxes scattered about the studio by the drums and the piano. The only latency is the 1.7ms AD and .83ms for the Midas. The MIDAS is an FPGA-based design and has fixed latency. There is a D/A at the AM2 boxes, of course. Total latency is certainly under 5ms for real-time recording in the studio. Professional drummers in the room have never complained.

Getting low latency is more complicated if your channel count exceeds the little mixers built into 8ch I/O boxes. You either need an analog console, or to plan your digital I/O very carefully. If you want to spend a few 100k, you can get an SSL L300 console and Dante gear like the good folk at VSL - they have fixed latency under 2 or 3ms from any in to any out for recording an entire orchestra at 96k.... 

You may already have all the IO stuff to satisfaction, so apologies if that veered too far off the CPU/MOBO/RAM dimension.


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## chillbot

Nathanael Iversen said:


> I use the Focusrite RedNet PCIe card as my interface. It goes into one of the 16x slots directly connected to the CPU. Rock solid 1.7ms latency for 128 channels of I/O. I gave up USB and won't ever go back. Audio goes straight to the CPU, not even through the SouthBridge. Some may claim the same for their Thunderbolt stuff, but I run close to 40 channels of I/O and it is just solid. As I used more and more of my old RME interface, it got to where only certain short USB cables would work. Lots of people have 8ch I/O and it works great, but that isn't my setup, and for the extra channels, I have been very happy with Dante and its practically limitless expansion. Super fast, just works, and I'm digital all the way to my monitors, so there's only one A/D in, and one A/D out in the whole system


No I'm still working on the I/O but I've been told that cost-wise there's not much benefit in replacing my old MOTU 2408mk3s. I use 3 of them connected to a PCIe-424 card, I also won't touch USB. Do you have an opinion on them? I use 56 channels out (via ADAT) and 12 channels in (via ADAT and SPDIF) and mix everything externally on two Yamaha 02R96s.

EDIT: I should add I also don't use VEPro in the traditional sense. I have 24 ADAT channels coming out of the slave computers but I use them like external synths. They receive MIDI from the DAW and output audio directly to the mixers, not back into the DAW.


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## Nathanael Iversen

chillbot said:


> No I'm still working on the I/O but I've been told that cost-wise there's not much benefit in replacing my old MOTU 2408mk3s. I use 3 of them connected to a PCIe-424 card, I also won't touch USB. Do you have an opinion on them? I use 56 channels out (via ADAT) and 12 channels in (via ADAT and SPDIF) and mix everything externally on two Yamaha 02R96s.
> 
> EDIT: I should add I also don't use VEPro in the traditional sense. I have 24 ADAT channels coming out of the slave computers but I use them like external synths. They receive MIDI from the DAW and output audio directly to the mixers, not back into the DAW.



Chillbot,
I haven't used MOTU since the original 828 box - my first interface! So I don't have any opinion based on direct experience. Quick thoughts:

1) If it is working, it is unlikely that conversion quality or such is holding you back. Nothing to gain there except extra cost. But it is an older rig... when do you upgrade... I get it. Not broken... but could it be better? Hard to justify on paper. 
2) Mixing out of the box keeps that load off your DAW. If you put it back into your DAW, presumably that is going to have some CPU "tax" implications. 
3) Hi-count I/O is a pretty limited game compared to the ubiquitous 8 channel IO with ADAT boxes. There is Dante, there is MOTU's AVB system. If you are on Mac, Apogee. Many vendors have ability to stack boxes, ie. Lynx and others. Live concert sound is transitioning from MADI to Dante. I went with Dante over AVB because of how much more it is deployed and the extensive 3rd party ecosystem. It seems that if you want/need to run 32+ channels of I/O, we are in the minority and pay "pro" prices to do so.
4) The new Allen&Heath SQ series takes Dante cards and runs at 96Khz. My studio runs at 48Khz since that's what the samples do, but it is nicer than my M32. Dante itself is not limited, but sometimes I/O cards are limited to 32 channels at 48 or 96khz, so you do have to watch that. The PCIe card runs 128 ch at full data rate.


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## Shad0wLandsUK

zolhof said:


> There are so many variables when it comes to low latency. Hardware-wise, for audio production, if you decide to go full balls to the walls i9 9900k (get a decent power supply and cooling solution), stay away from motherboards with PLX chips, as they add latency.
> 
> The Gigabyte Z390 AORUS Xtreme is (imho) currently the best motherboard money can buy. If you won't be doing any extreme overclocking, you are safe with the AORUS Master, which is also very reliable and $200 cheaper. For Thunderbolt check the Gigabyte Z390 Designare variant.
> 
> Also, skip Nvidia GPU cards to avoid driver headaches. I managed to tame my GTX 1070 but it wasn't fun. My next build will be Radeon just for a change.
> 
> There's also the Threadripper 2990WX which costs 3x the price of the 9900k and, for raw power, can't be beaten. It didn't go too well in DAWbench though _"Both chip ranges (1st and 2nd gens) are designed for certain tasks and optimized in certain ways, which ultimately makes them largely unsuitable for low latency audio work, no matter how much they exceed in other segments."_
> 
> A few good sources of information:
> 
> http://www.scanproaudio.info/2018/0...bench-just-a-little-bit-of-history-repeating/
> http://www.scanproaudio.info/2018/10/19/intels-i9-9900k-and-the-coffee-lake-refresh/
> 
> 
> 
> Plot twist:
> 
> 
> Hope that helps as a starting point!



Yay Level 1 Techs! Love those guys and gal of course


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## Shad0wLandsUK

Nathanael Iversen said:


> Chillbot,
> I haven't used MOTU since the original 828 box - my first interface! So I don't have any opinion based on direct experience. Quick thoughts:
> 
> 1) If it is working, it is unlikely that conversion quality or such is holding you back. Nothing to gain there except extra cost. But it is an older rig... when do you upgrade... I get it. Not broken... but could it be better? Hard to justify on paper.
> 2) Mixing out of the box keeps that load off your DAW. If you put it back into your DAW, presumably that is going to have some CPU "tax" implications.
> 3) Hi-count I/O is a pretty limited game compared to the ubiquitous 8 channel IO with ADAT boxes. There is Dante, there is MOTU's AVB system. If you are on Mac, Apogee. Many vendors have ability to stack boxes, ie. Lynx and others. Live concert sound is transitioning from MADI to Dante. I went with Dante over AVB because of how much more it is deployed and the extensive 3rd party ecosystem. It seems that if you want/need to run 32+ channels of I/O, we are in the minority and pay "pro" prices to do so.
> 4) The new Allen&Heath SQ series takes Dante cards and runs at 96Khz. My studio runs at 48Khz since that's what the samples do, but it is nicer than my M32. Dante itself is not limited, but sometimes I/O cards are limited to 32 channels at 48 or 96khz, so you do have to watch that. The PCIe card runs 128 ch at full data rate.


No thoughts or love for SoundGrid?


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## Nathanael Iversen

No love for Soundgrid. Totally proprietary, one vendor, no ecosystem. Why am I paying them to build low spec PCs and put their name and proprietary network protocol on them? Seems like exactly the sort of thing to be orphan technology in 5 years. Maybe they will get that ecosystem in place. 

Dante has it already, and the whole live sound community embraced it, with dozens of vendors producing products for it. I think Soundgrid is taking off for Waves, but I'm not that interested in being locked into one vendor. I am also not a plugin junkie. I am not of the opinion that some special EQ or something is going to transform my tracks. I am also not a sound-designer with exotic needs. For just working, I use the stuff built into Cubase. If I need color, I use Slate Digital's stuff - I have the subscription. I've never worked with the original hardware gear, so have no opinion about accuracy of emulation. This stuff sounds good to me, so I use it.


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## HelixK

Nathanael Iversen said:


> I have an i9-9900k, overclocked to 4.7Ghz. I run my ~600 track Cubase 9.5 template across two VEP slave machines at 128 samples. VEP uses an extra buffer, so 256 practically. Works pretty well for me. That said, when I have a full orchestra mock-up going, the real-time system is 90% in Cubase. I don't get drop outs, but I am maxing out what it can do. Insert effects seem to really chew up the available Real-time performance. The less I use, the lower it is. That is only so workable.
> 
> I will upgrade to a 9940XE or one of the Zen2 processors later this year to just get more cores. The 9940XE will overclock to over 4Ghz, so it will be plenty fast enough. This MOBO+RAM will get turned into a 64GB VEP slave and have a long life in that capacity, so it will all work out.



Are you hosting any instruments on the i9 machine? If so, how many Kontakt instruments plus insert effects you can load and play before getting drop outs? How much of an improvement you get from overclocking?

I was hopeful for the Zen2 but I don't know what to think now... I had the 1950X and sold it because the real-time audio was abysmal compared to my 8700k. No improvement on the newer 2050X-2090, so what makes you think the Zen2 is going to be any better compared to the 9900K or 9940XE?


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## JohnG

@Nathanael Iversen 

Thanks! 

I'd emulate a lot of what you describe, but I'm still running the now old-school system where sounds don't return to my DAW but go directly from slave PCs to a separate Pro Tools rig. Unfortunately that negates some -- perhaps a crucial "some" -- of what VE Pro can do to help reduce latency overall.

Maybe the thing to do is rewire everything, but that would no doubt drive anyone to self-harm...


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## Nathanael Iversen

I do host instruments, but mostly synths. I have no idea on total Kontakt instruments; not important to my application. I'm sure it performs similarly to any published test if I ran that test. The only thing that is important is, "Does my template work for the things I write". It does - but I almost max out the CPU doing whatever it is that I do. So I'll buy more CPU down the road. The i9-9900K is still a "value oriented" processor for what we do, so it was a bit of an experiment. It will make a great VEP sample server. 

I never ran the system without an overclock, so I can't possibly say. If the CPU can be overclocked, it is - that being the point of buying it. I purchase chips that can run all core over-clocks above 4.0Ghz.

Zen2 has newer micro-architecture that seems to address the limitations of Threadripper, but I have no idea. It will be thoroughly tested within days of release by dozens of sites. I am not a "fanboy". I just need stuff that works.


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## Nathanael Iversen

JohnG said:


> @Nathanael Iversen
> 
> Thanks!
> 
> I'd emulate a lot of what you describe, but I'm still running the now old-school system where sounds don't return to my DAW but go directly from slave PCs to a separate Pro Tools rig. Unfortunately that negates some -- perhaps a crucial "some" -- of what VE Pro can do to help reduce latency overall.
> 
> Maybe the thing to do is rewire everything, but that would no doubt drive anyone to self-harm...


Indeed. Tearing the studio apart to install the Dante and get everything routed was a big deal. The one thing that I've learned is that there are a lot of ways to do this. And local workflow needs drive most of the differences. I'd be loathe to criticize anyone with a working system. I know mine inside out, and it does what I need, but what does that mean to anyone else? That's harder to say for sure. If I integrate a Protools machine, I'd probably look to stick a Dante card in it, but that presumes all the work I've done, not a "fresh build". That's the other complication. This all looks different as a transition than from a "green field build". Those considerations are not insignificant.


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## JohnG

Nathanael Iversen said:


> Those considerations are not insignificant.



Right again. But I really wish my latency weren't making things so mushy!


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## HelixK

What a coincidence, AMD just teased the Zen 2 at CES2019! They didn't show much but there was a very promising comparison between an early sample 3rd gen Ryzen and an i9-9900K. It's a single die-cpu and that's a great move because this is going to reduce the latency from the intercore communication between the L3 cache and the actual CPU core, giving the snappiest experience possible. And significantly less power consumption compared to the i9.


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## Nick Batzdorf

JohnG said:


> Right again. But I really wish my latency weren't making things so mushy!



John, how much latency are you experiencing? Is it because you're monitoring through Pro Tools?


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## wst3

If I were building a networked audio studio today I'd go with Dante, it won the battle with AVB - largely a marketing victory, but what matters is that they won. I don't know that they won the war - AVB is huge in the auto industry, and like almost every other industry, it dwarfs us, even when you lump live sound, theme parks, theatre, etc in.

Are you aware that Samsung bought Harman (who bought Lexicon, BSS, AKG, Crown, JBL and handful of other audio companies)? Why would Samsung buy an audio company? Not for the audio, but because Crown and BSS had some real expertise in AVB. And Dante, and CobraNet, and their own proprietary network as well. When the folks from Harman used to introduce themselves at industry panels they'd call themselves the ABCD company because they had gear that worked on all four networks. But I digress...

AVB is making a small comeback in the professional audio market. I think it will be slow, and I do not think they will unseat Dante, but they could remain a force. So don't discount AVB.

IP over Ethernet, or just plain Ethernet (pick your poison) is the most promising way to get high channel counts at low latency at a reasonable cost. MADI is expensive and complex, PCIe cards are old news, Thunderbolt and USBc are promising, but even smaller niche players than Dante.

In a few years the idea of using multiple Lightpipe based solutions will seem as silly as magnetic tape seems today.

Back to the topic at hand (finally) - if I were Chillbot I'd build a faster machine, but I don't think I'd abandon the current workflow. It works, it is really flexible, and it works. Reducing latency may be more a tweak or two to workflow than expensive hardware. May be. Every studio is different, so these questions often become spirals into uncertainty.


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## chimuelo

wst3 said:


> If I were building a networked audio studio today I'd go with Dante, it won the battle with AVB - largely a marketing victory, but what matters is that they won. I don't know that they won the war - AVB is huge in the auto industry, and like almost every other industry, it dwarfs us, even when you lump live sound, theme parks, theatre, etc in.
> 
> Are you aware that Samsung bought Harman (who bought Lexicon, BSS, AKG, Crown, JBL and handful of other audio companies)? Why would Samsung buy an audio company? Not for the audio, but because Crown and BSS had some real expertise in AVB. And Dante, and CobraNet, and their own proprietary network as well. When the folks from Harman used to introduce themselves at industry panels they'd call themselves the ABCD company because they had gear that worked on all four networks. But I digress...
> 
> AVB is making a small comeback in the professional audio market. I think it will be slow, and I do not think they will unseat Dante, but they could remain a force. So don't discount AVB.
> 
> IP over Ethernet, or just plain Ethernet (pick your poison) is the most promising way to get high channel counts at low latency at a reasonable cost. MADI is expensive and complex, PCIe cards are old news, Thunderbolt and USBc are promising, but even smaller niche players than Dante.
> 
> In a few years the idea of using multiple Lightpipe based solutions will seem as silly as magnetic tape seems today.
> 
> Back to the topic at hand (finally) - if I were Chillbot I'd build a faster machine, but I don't think I'd abandon the current workflow. It works, it is really flexible, and it works. Reducing latency may be more a tweak or two to workflow than expensive hardware. May be. Every studio is different, so these questions often become spirals into uncertainty.




A most astute analysis and forecasting of technology.
Samsung ALWAYS gets the edge because they’re not nearly as regulated or restricted as the rest of the world and they buy patents and companies like candy.


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## Nick Batzdorf

wst3 said:


> Why would Samsung buy an audio company?



Also because Sidney Harman died a few years ago.

But one digresses...


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## JohnG

Nick Batzdorf said:


> John, how much latency are you experiencing?



It's like playing a church organ -- not a huge cathedral, but a real pipe organ so that the sound is not instantaneous. Very hard to play percussion accurately, and I write tons of that. Sort of rotten.



Nick Batzdorf said:


> Is it because you're monitoring through Pro Tools?



Only indirectly. Pro Tools itself is not the problem; it's the fact that I am not using VE Pro's ethernet for audio. Still lightpipe, which still works with my Digidesign interfaces, which works with old RME cards....etc.

I would have to have a month off.


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## chillbot

wst3 said:


> Back to the topic at hand (finally) - if I were Chillbot I'd build a faster machine, but I don't think I'd abandon the current workflow. It works, it is really flexible, and it works. Reducing latency may be more a tweak or two to workflow than expensive hardware. May be. Every studio is different, so these questions often become spirals into uncertainty.


You read it correctly, it's been a struggle. Won't tag him here but so much thanks to Evil Dragon for the help and input.

Latency is one factor that is a big deal to me, but it's not every factor. And I feel that I have a very unique workflow... in that I haven't actually ever met anyone who has the same setup as me. I'm somewhat of a hybrid between old school and current configs. So after much debate we are going with the 9920X @ 3.5GHz. Also going to give the Radeon a chance over the NVIDIA just because I've struggled a bit with NVIDIA so why not give something else a try.

For those that are into that sort of thing, here's the specs we went with, and adding about 6TB of SSD to this as well:


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## Gerhard Westphalen

wst3 said:


> Samsung bought Harman


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## Nick Batzdorf

JohnG said:


> It's like playing a church organ -- not a huge cathedral, but a real pipe organ so that the sound is not instantaneous. Very hard to play percussion accurately, and I write tons of that. Sort of rotten.



That sucks.

I don't have anything like that here, but I rarely even use two machines.


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## Mishabou

chillbot said:


> I wanted to ask this in the "buffers" thread but it's already at 4 pages and didn't want to hijack it.
> 
> Cost is not an issue. Assume a decent audio card and just focus on the PC. What would you assemble to give yourself the best chance of having super-low latency without pops or clicks.
> 
> Just hypothetically. (And because I'm getting a new PC built.)



For an upcoming gig, I'm using one the the HP Z8 workstation. Depending on your needs and budget, the sky's the limit. One single Z8 replaced my 12 cores nMP and 5 x i7/i9 PC slaves. 

I'm running PT and CB. DAW buffer is at 64 or 128 when Sonokinetics libraries are involved as they are a hog. When used with VEP pro, DAW is always at buffer 64 and VEP pro is at buffer 1. I use Dante where I can send/receive 128 channels of audio to/from any DAW and VEP.


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## Murphy

Mishabou said:


> For an upcoming gig, I'm using one the the HP Z8 workstation. Depending on your needs and budget, the sky's the limit. One single Z8 replaced my 12 cores nMP and 5 x i7/i9 PC slaves.
> 
> I'm running PT and CB. DAW buffer is at 64 or 128 when Sonokinetics libraries are involved as they are a hog. When used with VEP pro, DAW is always at buffer 64 and VEP pro is at buffer 1. I use Dante where I can send/receive 128 channels of audio to/from any DAW and VEP.



Sounds like a great solution! How much memory and what type of drives and CPU?


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## Mishabou

I'm still testing different workflows. The machine is definitely a beast.

Dual 12 cores, 3.2 GHz base frequency | Intel Xeon Gold 6146
512GB (8x 64GB) of 2666MHz DDR4 ECC
512GB NVMe M.2 Solid-State Drive (OS)
5 x 4TB SATA3 2.5" Solid-State Drive (Sounds)


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## Jdiggity1

Mishabou said:


> I'm still testing different workflows. The machine is definitely a beast.
> 
> Dual 12 cores, 3.2 GHz base frequency | Intel Xeon Gold 6146
> 512GB (8x 64GB) of 2666MHz DDR4 ECC
> 512GB NVMe M.2 Solid-State Drive (OS)
> 5 x 4TB SATA3 2.5" Solid-State Drive (Sounds)


Is that all...


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## EvilDragon

I think you'll miss those 5 GHz over all cores with 9900K which can certainly bring an edge with lower latencies, even in spite of having less cores (do note that main audio thread is always calculated by a single core, when that one falls over you get glitches, this is why faster per core speed is more important than number of cores!), but it's your call  I thought you'd listen to tack if not me at least


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## chillbot

I know. But this way with every pop or glitch I can think *WHY DIDN'T I LISTEN TO EVIL DRAGON* you'll be forever on my mind.


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## Pablocrespo

So the current best scenario would be 1151 with 9900k at least going to 4.7ghz?
(I don´t know if 5ghz on all cores would make it very noisy?).


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## JohnG

EvilDragon said:


> faster per core speed is more important than number of cores!



that's certainly been my experience.


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## chillbot

JohnG said:


> that's certainly been my experience.


We were trying to find a solid compromise between the two...


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## JohnG

...I'm watching a video about Dante now...

Plus he's my favourite or second-favourite poet. So obviously.


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## EvilDragon

Pablocrespo said:


> (I don´t know if 5ghz on all cores would make it very noisy?).



Depends on your cooling solution. I don't think it'd be too bad with some beefy Noctuas.



chillbot said:


> We were trying to find a solid compromise between the two...



Which is not really compromising the price, since the CPU itself is over $1k... 

As I said in PM, it's a host machine, you don't necessarily need 128 GB of RAM in it (actually, as it was mentioned in another thread, 9900K will actually support 128 GB of RAM via a BIOS update on certain Z390 motherboards - if RAM was your concern)... I would still go with the highest possible all core frequency.


Question that remains - on your host machine, how many tracks do you tend to have in a project? I assume VEPro takes up a big chunk of mixing unto itself, relieving the DAW from having a too huge track count, yes? If that's the case, there's even less reason to go with a huge core count over larger all core frequency...


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## chillbot

EvilDragon said:


> Question that remains - on your host machine, how many tracks do you tend to have in a project? I assume VEPro takes up a big chunk of mixing unto itself, relieving the DAW from having a too huge track count, yes? If that's the case, there's even less reason to go with a huge core count over larger all core frequency...


My DAW host machine barely wakes up from sleep. I might have 1 or 2 kontakt instances, omnisphere, stylus, zebra, engine, and 15-20 audio tracks. I don't use VEPro in server mode, just send MIDI out to slave computers. RAM was not a consideration for me, I'd probably make do with 16GB. But still I'd like to load taiko creator with less than a 1,024 buffer.


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## Mishabou

Jdiggity1 said:


> Is that all...



At over $20K that's all I can afford for now  

Anyways, I wanted one machine to replace my main DAW and 4 slaves. Tried different set up including the latest/greatest/fastest i7/i9, unfortunately the performance was nowhere near what I expected.

In my case, multi cores Xeon still outperform i7/i9 by a long shot.


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## EvilDragon

chillbot said:


> But still I'd like to load taiko creator with less than a 1,024 buffer.



Then get 9900K and OC it to 5 GHz on all cores 



Mishabou said:


> multi cores Xeon still outperform i7/i9 by a long shot.



In multi-core workloads, sure. In single core, where frequency matters, nope. It will also very much depend which plugins you're using in a project and how.


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## Pablocrespo

EvilDragon said:


> Depends on your cooling solution. I don't think it'd be too bad with some beefy Noctuas....


So with a d15 and a good case would it be doable?
Also, any good 2666 memory works for this or you have to go higher?


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## Nathanael Iversen

I've got a D15 and a 9900K running at 4.7Ghz on 1.20V. I've got idle temps at 35C. Case is BeQuiet Dark Base 900. It is closer to me than my old cheese-grater MacPro and runs as quietly. I'm sure that I could bump up the voltage and get it a few hundred Mhz higher, but 8 hyper-threaded cores at 4.7Ghz? It's not really a place to complain much, and it is definitely safe, long-term voltages. I ran a bunch of Cinebench runs and some other CPU-crusher type tests to make sure it was stable at full load. The fans get noisy and temps went up to high 70's to just over 80C as the load persisted, but stayed stable. Used as a DAW, it never hits 100% utilization. These CPU's run out of real-time capacity long before they run out of absolute capacity. I can hear the fans kick up when it is rendering a full mockup, but outside that, it just does its thing. If I took some things off of it and put them on sample servers, I'd get back some of my real-time headroom. It is a lot to ask a box to process a ton of dense MIDI data, soft synths, mixing, networking, etc. Eventually, they just say, "Enough!" no matter how many Ghz you have.

That said, Mishabou's report is the second I've heard of someone running giant Xeon systems with 512GB RAM. One of the composers on Spitfire's "Cribs" in Hollywood had also switched to that setup.

The trouble of course, is that none of us know how other people work, how their templates lay out, and how much load they really put on the box and in what way. How dense is the CC data? How many plugins, nested busses, etc. These things all really matter in the loads that sample servers and DAWs experience. The benchmarks give directional guidance, but I think there is a lot of variation in how people use this stuff, even when it sounds like we are doing similar things with similar vendors. For example, chillbot and I both have digital mixers. He mixes on them. I just do headphone mixes and auxiliary I/O on mine, and VEP audio comes back into the box. This puts a very different load on my DAW CPU than his. I think it is easy to talk in general, and expensive to get specific experience (it takes a while to get a template and VEP boxes working to optimal condition).


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## EvilDragon

Pablocrespo said:


> So with a d15 and a good case would it be doable?
> Also, any good 2666 memory works for this or you have to go higher?



I'd go with a good 3000 MHz memory, like HyperX, CL14 kit. Can probably be OCd to 3200.

D15 is a great cooler for sure (I have one, both 12cm fans mounted), and a good silent/soundproofed case like Fractal Design should do well.


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## JohnG

Nick Batzdorf said:


> John, how much latency are you experiencing? Is it because you're monitoring through Pro Tools?



Updated answer: At @Nathanael Iversen 's suggestion, I dropped my Pro Tools buffer from 512 to 128, which I guess provides double improvement overall, since everything comes in and goes out of Pro Tools before I hear it.

Quite a substantial improvement.


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## JohnG

wst3 said:


> IP over Ethernet, or just plain Ethernet (pick your poison) is the most promising way to get high channel counts at low latency at a reasonable cost. MADI is expensive and complex, PCIe cards are old news, Thunderbolt and USBc are promising, but even smaller niche players than Dante.
> 
> In a few years the idea of using multiple Lightpipe based solutions will seem as silly as magnetic tape seems today.



...you mean, the way I work? ["old man" chuckle, followed by extensive choking and phlegm / hacking]

This has been a great thread -- combined with some very helpful PMs from @Nathanael Iversen -- it's reminded me that I am putting up with latency that really is unnecessary, so I'll be on track to do something about it very soon.

Thanks everyone.


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## brett

I run a large and demanding orchestral template hosted in VEP alongside Cubase on my master computer. A good chunk of my ASIO headroom is consumed by simply connecting to each VEP instance. (As an experiment for those running a similar sized template, watch the Cubase ASIO meter drop as you disconnect each instance of VEP). I have to run at 512 to use the number of insert effects etc I need. 

I can’t help but think I would get better latency (and the ability to use more CPU intensive VST effects) by offloading *all* of my VST instruments / VEP instances to slaves, and just use my master computer for effects and audio etc, not hosting any instruments. 

What do you all think of this hypothesis? 

Has anyone flirted with Intel NUCs as a cost-effective way of setting up slaves purely to stream samples from VEP?

Thanks


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## Nathanael Iversen

It is almost certainly a true hypothesis. Insert effects trash the CPU on the DAW. The other thing you can do is write with a minimal set of things, then render out to audio and pull it back into a version of your template with all the plugins in. Then your system doesn't have to do it all.

Some pre-mix stuff out on the VEP slave machines for exactly this reason and load their plug ins there. 

I don't. The slaves are as simple as possible, and I'll buy more CPU if I need it, or even mix separately on the DAW. 

I don't know what large and demanding implies. I've got ~600 tracks here, but there are others with 2-7x that amount, I know. You may be crushing your DAW much more than I am, though I do give it a workout.

Haven't done NUCs. Have thought about it, but I've got the cases and power supplies already, so it is just motherboards and RAM to upgrade, so I never end up doing it.


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## brett

Thanks Nathan

I know that NUCs typically don’t have the same CPU grunt but if all they are doing is streaming they wouldn’t need to I expect. 

I figure, instead of upgrading my Master comp, for the same price I could get 2 or 3 NUCs, offload all VST instruments, drop my latency and delay upgrading my main computer by a couple more years. 

Or so the theory goes...


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## brett

@Nathanael Iversen whats your configuration and setup between master and slaves. Do you spread most of your instruments to your slaves?


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## Nathanael Iversen

Strings, winds, and percussion are all on slaves. SampleModeling Brass is on the DAW. Soft synths are on the DAW. I do have some ancillary libraries on the DAW (Metropolis I & II, etc). DAW is 64GB - with the full template loaded it has about 30GB used.


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## Piano Pete

The 9900k is a beast! I have been finding it hard not to recommend it based on its price, core count/speed, and performance.


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## Piano Pete

Nathanael Iversen said:


> To directly answer you question, "Specs for low latency":
> - I turn off all ASMedia controllers in the BIOS and only use the ports supported by the SouthBridge chip
> - I turn off all onboard sound in the BIOS, and any other hardware controllers that i can.
> CPU/MOBO/RAM dimension.



Question: how is the performance of your rig affected with the ASMedia controllers other sound drivers enabled/disabled? While I am all for disabling extraneous processes and devices if they are not going to be utilized, with the recent gear on the market, I have been finding myself hard pressed to go through these sorts of steps lately. Recently, I have been toying over some of the performance stats from recent builds, and I have found myself asking the question, "Do I really need to be going through all these extra steps?" With budget builds, yes, I still see enough of a gain to hit the tweaking and optimization train hard; however, when budget allows for good kit, I just have not been noticing enough of a gain--at this time--to justify the extra work. 

Curious about others' experiences in this manner.


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## Nathanael Iversen

I've spent so many hours troubleshooting extranous stuff that I don't even test it anymore - I do it before the first time I boot the system into Windows. Besides, if I'm not going to use it anyway, only good things can happen. One less driver is one less driver.


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## Nick Batzdorf

Nathanael Iversen said:


> Insert effects trash the CPU on the DAW



Nathanael, do you just mean they eat CPU because you're not sharing them, or is there something about inserting an effect that causes it not to use cores efficiently?

There are issues like that (with workarounds) in Logic, but I've never noticed that in VE Pro.


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## Piano Pete

Nathanael Iversen said:


> I've spent so many hours troubleshooting extranous stuff that I don't even test it anymore - I do it before the first time I boot the system into Windows. Besides, if I'm not going to use it anyway, only good things can happen. One less driver is one less driver.


Ya, that's pretty much what I do haha. I was just curious. Maybe I'll find someone ocd enough that documents all that stuff in detail.


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## Nathanael Iversen

Nick Batzdorf said:


> Nathanael, do you just mean they eat CPU because you're not sharing them, or is there something about inserting an effect that causes it not to use cores efficiently?
> 
> There are issues like that (with workarounds) in Logic, but I've never noticed that in VE Pro.



Only that as you add longer paths for the audio go through, more work has to be done before the audio is ready to put out to the interface. I have a template for "rock band" kind of work. There's a lot of bussing, FX, etc. But relatively few tracks compared to my orchestral template. It runs without any issue in that context.

If I import those tracks and busses to my orchestral template, my CPU load doubles - even with nothing playing. 

Obviously, modern processors are extremely capable multi-taskers. If you open Task Manager, you'll find over 10k threads all running "at once" on your DAW. It is amazing that it works at all. But if you have a lot of heavy FX and complicated bussing, you can definitely lower your load by simplifying the routing and FX layers. That's my only point. 

In part, this has to account for the significant success of UA and their DSP accelerator products....


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## Nick Batzdorf

Nathanael Iversen said:


> as you add longer paths for the audio go through, more work has to be done



Right.

As to UA, this sounds like a redux of the big early naughts issue: whether host-based audio could replace systems with add-on DSP. I'd actually given Digidesign my credit card to update to the latest Pro Tools TDM system, but I got cold feet while they were backordered and decided against it. It was a very good decision.

(No dis to UA, of course! I'm just saying that we've been in a totally different world for over 15 years.)


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## Nathanael Iversen

Also, I have read that each "audio path" has to be run as a single thread, so the more that you buss things and then buss the busses, then you are making that thread work very hard, and that thread runs on ONE core at a time by definition. This is why the single-core speed of a CPU is so important to us. We run "demanding" threads. If any of the threads get too complex, then the real-time needs can't be serviced anymore. I'm not a coder, so I can't say this is true, but it makes intuitive sense.


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## Nick Batzdorf

Nathanael Iversen said:


> each "audio path" has to be run as a single thread,



That's what I was getting at when I mentioned Logic's quirks.

And it's why I'm intuitively skeptical of machines that have fewer cores, or more cores at lower GHz.

And why I'm skeptical of computer benchmarks in general, even when they're testing the number of reverbs you can run (because we use computers in a unique way).


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## Gerhard Westphalen

Nick Batzdorf said:


> That's what I was getting at when I mentioned Logic's quirks.
> 
> And it's why I'm intuitively skeptical of machines that have fewer cores, or more cores at lower GHz.


There's an interesting bug in Samplitude and I believe in Cubase/Nuendo as well where if you send to certain group tracks while working at a higher sample rate, it'll essentially duplicate the processing on all cores. Say you have all the processing on one track which is making a single core be at 70%. When you change the routing so that it goes through an aux track, suddenly all of your cores are at 70%. Really annoying. When the Samplitude tech guys finally recreated it on their system, they stopped responding...


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## Piano Pete

Ahhh. The world of digital audio  Aint it grand. haha xD


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## mscp

EvilDragon said:


> I'd go with a good 3000 MHz memory, like HyperX, CL14 kit. Can probably be OCd to 3200.
> 
> D15 is a great cooler for sure (I have one, both 12cm fans mounted), and a good silent/soundproofed case like Fractal Design should do well.



Which Fractal Design case is soundproof?


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## Mornats

Phil81 said:


> Which Fractal Design case is soundproof?



I've got a Define R4 which has soundproofing but I'm not sure it's classed as completely sound proof and I can indeed hear one particularly loud HDD in there. The soundproofing does work though, just within reason. (It's a very loud drive!)


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## EvilDragon

Yeah it's not a 100% insulated case, but it does have sound absorbing foam which helps in reducing the loudness of whirring coming out of the case.


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