# Amd ryzen is here



## ranaprathap (Feb 22, 2017)

AMD just released all the juicy details of their top tier RYZEN CPUs.




Will you consider this over an i7 7700k, for example?


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## Przemek K. (Feb 22, 2017)

ranaprathap said:


> AMD just released all the juicy details of their top tier RYZEN CPUs.
> 
> 
> 
> ...




Sure, actually I'm planning my new workstation around either 1800x or 1700X. Lets see what all the reviewers have to say about AMD's new CPU's, but having a 8core at around 499 bucks instead of 1050 bucks is quite something nice.


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## Pablocrespo (Feb 22, 2017)

I wish it could suport thunderbolt , but I guess it's not going to happen


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## kitekrazy (Feb 22, 2017)

Prices would have to be lower before I'd consider one over Intel. With Intel most things work. I do like that these don't use a lot of watts.


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## gtrwll (Feb 22, 2017)

This is the reason why I hesitated from upgrading to Skylake last autumn, and it seems that 1700 or 1700X is the route for me. IMO 1800X seems not to be significantly better to justify the price difference.

If the performance is even nearly as good as they claim, it's truly a bang-for-the-buck deal.


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## Fab (Feb 23, 2017)

Intel have been pretty cushy at the top for a while, the competition Ryzen will bring is good...for us! tehehe


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## pixel (Feb 23, 2017)

Fab said:


> Intel have been pretty cushy at the top for a while, the competition Ryzen will bring is good...for us! tehehe


Yes I hope for price war. Intel was unbeatable for too long.

I'd rather wait some time to see what Intel will do. I'm not going to change platform just for one generation of CPU to find out that after Ryzen AMD can't keep on moving for another 10 years. Anyway I'm waiting for DAW real-time performance tests


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## jamwerks (Feb 23, 2017)

Pretty exciting. Am changing two systems soon. Was leaning towards 7700K as the next level of performance seems really to be the 6900K which is over $1k! If everything works as expected I might go for the 1800x instead. More power and less money!


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## tabulius (Feb 23, 2017)

Ryzen looks awesome on the paper and I'm looking forward of the reviews. It would be great if some music folks can post experiences how these CPUs work in audio world.

I'm very tempted of building bunch of DAWs with Ryzen. The price, performance and low TDP looks really good. Top of the line 1800X of course might be good and snappy but I'm also interested of 1700 (65W TDP) performance. I could run the system fans on really slow speed or go passive. And there might be some headroom for overclocking as well.

Only few weeks and we'll know more.


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## chimuelo (Feb 24, 2017)

I'm getting the R1600 just to keep Intel honest, and to see how virtual synths function.
Really want the 6 Core with no SMT and built in iGPU.
Later this summer those should arrive.
But 8 cores for 500 bucks is insanely cheap.


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## Zhao Shen (Feb 24, 2017)

Ryzen is the best thing that has happened to CPUs in a very long time. Not because they're better than Intel CPUs, but because they will _force_ Intel to make better CPUs...


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## jamwerks (Feb 24, 2017)

I'm a little disappointed in the MB offerings for Ryzen (Am4). The Gigabyte offerings (for example) just don't seem as good as their Intel conterparts.


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## gsilbers (Feb 24, 2017)

they look amazing


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## chimuelo (Feb 24, 2017)

I love this board, makes me want to pay full pop and max it out with the 1800/8 Core.


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## chimuelo (Feb 24, 2017)

kitekrazy said:


> Prices would have to be lower before I'd consider one over Intel. With Intel most things work. I do like that these don't use a lot of watts.



What watts?
These have a low TDP when compared to their Intel Octa and Hex designs.
If you're talking about Overclocking, you cant count on somebody else's configuration to verify max watts to hit 5GHz.
Older AMD Bulldozers or other AM3 series chips were just crap, waste of electricity actually.
But these DAWg's will Hunt...

I like having an M.2 slot that is purposely 2x speeds too.
No sense gagging the bus if the NVMe device will use up 4 lanes but throttle down to 2.

Just wait a while, you'll see something you like before years end.

Worst case scenario, Intel drops its prices so it is wise to wait in that respect.


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## markleake (Feb 24, 2017)

It may be a good idea to wait and see what Intel does, but I think we can be fairly certain they won't directly match AMD's price/performance.

These new CPUs look like a real game changer to me. Everyone is going to be buying them, which is why so many of AMD's partner companies have jumped on board so enthusiastically. I'm really looking forward to building a new system with one of these.


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## chimuelo (Feb 24, 2017)

When Supermicro jumps onboard you'll know Ryzen is truly fierce.
They offer other AMD Solutions like Quad Opterons, etc...?

I'm checking their site daily....


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## chimuelo (Feb 24, 2017)

Pretty interesting results on the 1700X.
VRMs need to be top shelf if you want 8 cores at 4ghz.
No mention about watts when overclocked, so its omission suggests they shot up drastically.
Which means you need quality VRMs and good cooling.
But Dayamn, 8 cores at 4 gigs for 300 bucks.....€#}€£+*^+¥

http://wccftech.com/amd-ryzen-7-1700-overclocked-4ghz/?utm_source=wccftech&utm_medium=related


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## Nathanael Iversen (Feb 24, 2017)

I'm watching this space with interest. I'll likely upgrade a sample slave later in the year, and if these pan out, the tech seems perfect. dual M.2, relatively cheap MOBO + Proc, and RAM is already cheap. There are boards with Intel NICs and shut off all the other stuff that isn't needed. If they pan out, I might even transfer the main DAW from Intel i7 to eight core. Even at $500, the 1800 is half price and runs stable at 4Ghz and less than 100W TDP!

The video edit crowd has to be ecstatic - some monster video edit machines just got cheaper.


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## Daniel Petras (Feb 24, 2017)

A lot of the Intel CPU prices are already fluctuating.

The i7 7700k is currently $310 here: http://www.ebay.com/itm/391685219289

The 6700k is $400 Canadian here: http://www.directcanada.com/products/?sku=12201111156


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## Przemek K. (Feb 25, 2017)

chimuelo said:


> I love this board, makes me want to pay full pop and max it out with the 1800/8 Core.



Oh yes, this one looks really great, also featurewise. Can't wait for all the reviews popping up in the next few days.


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## chimuelo (Feb 25, 2017)

Well my favorite CPU for stock speeds just dropped from 354 USD to 279 USD.
Think I'll get a 1800X and another i7 4790k.

12 Cores for 775 USD.
I like that...


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## chimuelo (Feb 25, 2017)

I'm really liking the way you can choose a chipset to match your usage.
I don't need more than 1 x 16x and 1 1x PCI-e.
Asus Prime B350 mATX is perfect.
But 90 bucks for a motherboard makes me nervous....
Supermicro FAT Server grade PCB would be most reassuring for live work...


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## gsilbers (Mar 2, 2017)

so does anyone have this cpu yet?


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## Zookes (Mar 2, 2017)

From the benchmarks, memory intensive tasks do not seem to do well with this chipset.

I am unsure the Ryzen will be a good DAW for sample streaming. Must find more tests, hopefully niche testing for ITB composers somewhere.


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## gsilbers (Mar 2, 2017)

hmm


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## tabulius (Mar 2, 2017)

Great review of Ryzen using audio benchmarks.

http://www.scanproaudio.info/2017/03/02/amd-ryzen-first-look-for-audio/

I think Ryzen looks pretty good as mixing computer but it is a bit let down in realtime performance at lower buffers. Things might be better when overclocking.


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## Przemek K. (Mar 3, 2017)

Reading through some reviews it seams that the BIOS of the tested mainboards still suffer. I think that when new and improved bios version come out most of the hiccups will go away. Also one has to bear in mind that the applications are not optimized for ryzen yet, so there's room for improvement.
Still having now the possibility of getting a 8 core cpu for about 560 € instead of appr. 1100€ is a big difference.
Well, I'll be waiting and watching when the reviews will be updated after all the bios updates and tweaks and what not.


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## gtrwll (Mar 3, 2017)

gsilbers said:


> so does anyone have this cpu yet?



Ordered the non-X 1700 version last night, figured it was best bang for the buck for my use. I know I'm betting a bit on the unknown here, but I believe getting more cores for the same money is a better bet for the future. In any case, it's a monster CPU and a huge upgrade for me even if it ends up lagging behind the 6700K/7700K in performance.


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## Przemek K. (Mar 3, 2017)

tabulius said:


> Great review of Ryzen using audio benchmarks.
> 
> http://www.scanproaudio.info/2017/03/02/amd-ryzen-first-look-for-audio/
> 
> I think Ryzen looks pretty good as mixing computer but it is a bit let down in realtime performance at lower buffers. Things might be better when overclocking.



Thanks for posting the link to the review. It was interesting


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## Przemek K. (Mar 3, 2017)

gtrwll said:


> Ordered the non-X 1700 version last night, figured it was best bang for the buck for my use. I know I'm betting a bit on the unknown here, but I believe getting more cores for the same money is a better bet for the future. In any case, it's a monster CPU and a huge upgrade for me even if it ends up lagging behind the 6700K/7700K in performance.



In that case, when you finished building your new workstation with Ryzen 1700, tell us about your experience with it.


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## gtrwll (Mar 3, 2017)

Przemek K. said:


> In that case, when you finished building your new workstation with Ryzen 1700, tell us about your experience with it.



Of course. I don't have a huge template (because my current rig couldn't handle one, haha) but I'll share my experiences with it when I've got it up and running. The CPU should arrive on Monday, hopefully the MB won't take much longer


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## Przemek K. (Mar 3, 2017)

gtrwll said:


> Of course. I don't have a huge template (because my current rig couldn't handle one, haha) but I'll share my experiences with it when I've got it up and running. The CPU should arrive on Monday, hopefully the MB won't take much longer



Great, can't wait. Oh, and don't forget to overclock it


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## chimuelo (Mar 3, 2017)

Heat, memory latency and single thread performance are issues that concern me.
These guys tested the 3 test I'm most concerned with.
I'm definitely getting an AMD CPU/APU, but not until I get the one with iGPU and 6 x Cores.

Seems memory latency is high, but it's not cache related so that's a quick fix.
Heat is like any other stack. More cores, more heat, also good news.
But Cinebench Single Core performance is perfect for my needs.

These single core tests are impressive.
Zebra2 HZ users will love these cheap fast chips.


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## Epicentrum (Mar 3, 2017)

gtrwll said:


> Of course. I don't have a huge template (because my current rig couldn't handle one, haha) but I'll share my experiences with it when I've got it up and running. The CPU should arrive on Monday, hopefully the MB won't take much longer



I can't wait to see your review. I have already postponed my system upgrade for a couple of months to see what this Ryzen is capable of.
I am mostly interested in how it handles VSTs (like 8Dio "lots of voices" stuff) and power drain plugins (mostly from Waves) but also, if you use, QL Spaces reverb (I experienced they kind of drain power if you use a lot of these instances, so can be a good test).
Single core performance, as I see in reviews for audio processing, does not always outclass Intel's 7700K (that was my choice so far).
Looking forward getting good news from you


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## gtrwll (Mar 4, 2017)

Epicentrum said:


> I can't wait to see your review. I have already postponed my system upgrade for a couple of months to see what this Ryzen is capable of.
> I am mostly interested in how it handles VSTs (like 8Dio "lots of voices" stuff) and power drain plugins (mostly from Waves) but also, if you use, QL Spaces reverb (I experienced they kind of drain power if you use a lot of these instances, so can be a good test).
> Single core performance, as I see in reviews for audio processing, does not always outclass Intel's 7700K (that was my choice so far).
> Looking forward getting good news from you



I'm not sure if I'd call it a review, but I can certainly share my thoughts about it 

I'll try to throw a busy track to it with a low buffer and mixing and mastering it without rendering or freezing the tracks. Something unnecessarily complex and using way more VST's than needed . I only have the Claire flutes from 8dio, but I'll try the more CPU-intensive patches from the EW Hollywood Orchestra, Omnisphere 2, NI synths etc.

I happen to use QL Spaces and the plugins from Waves Gold (although Slate plugins have replaced most of them), so I'll throw in separate instances of Spaces to each individual track and see what happens.


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## jamwerks (Mar 4, 2017)

Very interested. Will probably do a 1800x build for main daw built next month. Any news on an upcoming Ryzen that would support 128gb ram? That's what I'd want for my sole slave machine. Was planning to do that with a I7 5820.


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## Fab (Mar 4, 2017)

Przemek K. said:


> Great, can't wait. Oh, and don't forget to overclock it



If you haven't yet bought the cpu and already you are thinking about overclocking it, for the sake of stability....wouldn't it make sense to just buy a better one?


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## Przemek K. (Mar 4, 2017)

Fab said:


> If you haven't yet bought the cpu and already you are thinking about overclocking it, for the sake of stability....wouldn't it make sense to just buy a better one?



Well, this depends on many different factors. From what I read the Ryzen 1700 ( 65 W TDP) can be easily overclocked to 4 ghz. The same amount which the more pricier one 1800x can go too (+ additional 100 mhz on the X series). So there is the cost factor. The other one is silicon, some cpu's from the same range overclock better than others. SO its always a bit of a lottery. Anyway I'll probably get the 1700x to have a bit more headroom for OC. When I overclock I tend not to go for the max OC but go just slightly lower. Even with watercooling. Stability is a top priority for me.

But right now I'll sit and wait till BIOS updates are good. It will be interesting how good DPC latency is on Ryzen mainboards.


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## Epicentrum (Mar 5, 2017)

What I'm worried about is that a brand new AMD system (CPU, mobo, RAM, chipsets, all together) will have to fine-tune for sure in the next 6-8 months. I'm about to build a system for the next 4-5 years. Being a fan of performance, not brand, I wonder if it is a smart bet on this for the main daw system this year... 
Intel fine-tuned their Kaby Lake architecture for some time and for sure they'll respond to Ryzen in the near future with some CPus on 1151 sockets.
1151 socket base Z270 mobos are quite extraordinary in terms of what performance those chipsets can give.
Off course the target market has been always the gamers (like this is the only breathing race on Earth lol ).
Anyways, thanks to this race, components manufacturers are bringing also in the game really good stuff.
To conclude, my big questions are: leaving aside the inner strike for any new stuff that looks amazing, worth building a Ryzen based system now? How to forecast the cost for change/upgrade if anything goes not as planned?
Just my two cents while waiting feedback from gtrwll.


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## creativeforge (Mar 5, 2017)

My friend Jim Roseberry (studiocat.com) built and tested a computer using the *AMD Rysen*, and had this to share about the results:

QUOTE: Jim Roseberry "Going to assemble/test an AMD Ryzen 1800x based DAW today. AMD has made big performance claims for this new CPU. If audio stress-tests live up to the hype, it'll offer performance equal to the Intel 6900k ($1k) at half the cost. From a performance perspective, the past decade has been ruled by Intel. It would be nice to see serious competition from AMD. Intel socket 2011-3 (X99 motherboards) have the advantage of quad-channel RAM... and currently offer more advanced options (U.2, Thunderbolt-3, 128GB RAM, etc). I'm skeptical... but anxious to see the results."

*THE RESULTS*

QUOTE: "OK folks, the old adage, "If it's too good to be true..." is certainly applicable. The Ryzen 1800x is particularly good at heavy multi-threaded applications (video rendering). What it's not good at is heavy multi-threaded applications at ultra low latency audio settings. Loaded a heavy audio project as a stress-test. Listening to the entire mix... all seemed to be going well (playing at a 48-sample ASIO buffer size - RME UFX). Solo'd the kick drum... and found that there was some subtle garbling of audio. Removed a bunch of processing... and the garbled audio was still happening. For what we do, this rules out the Ryzen CPUs.

Another thing to keep in mind, the X1800 is "bleeding edge" (first gen motherboards with few BIOS revisions)... and applications not compiled/optimized with the Ryzen architecture in mind. At one point (running the latest beta BIOS), I changed settings in the BIOS... and SMT (Hyper-threading in AMD speak) stopped functioning all together (even though it was set to Enabled). Had to flash to the last release version to resolve the issue. In Sonar Platinum, things like Ctrl+ dragging PhoenixVerb (copying the plugin to another track) caused Sonar to crash. There were also lots of "general error" messages that popped up during use. These types of issues aren't AMD's fault, but working around them makes hour-to-hour use of the application somewhat of a pain.

Running an Intel 6850k, none of these issues were present. Back to the audio stress-test, when running the Intel 6850k, audio was completely glitch-free when solo'ing the kick drum. For video rendering (as other benchmarks have shown), the 1800x handily bests the 6850k. Both the 1800x and 6850k are $500 CPUs (thus the comparison). Another thing to keep in mind is that well-spec'd Intel X99 motherboards offer Thunderbolt-3, U.2, and other high-end options currently not available on X370 boards. Intel owns Thunderbolt... and I don't think they're going to be in any hurry to license it to AMD. I have no doubt that video editors will love Ryzen. Hard-core audio folks will want to stick with Intel."


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## gtrwll (Mar 5, 2017)

creativeforge said:


> What it's not good at is heavy multi-threaded applications at ultra low latency audio settings. Loaded a heavy audio project as a stress-test. Listening to the entire mix... all seemed to be going well (playing at a 48-sample ASIO buffer size - RME UFX). Solo'd the kick drum... and found that there was some subtle garbling of audio. Removed a bunch of processing... and the garbled audio was still happening.



Well that doesn't sound good (no pun intended). We'll see if that's a problem with Sonar, but not Cubase which I'm using. I also use a USB interface, so there's a lot of different factors at play. Could also be a driver issue, the platform has only been available for three days. But nevertheless, not good news.


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## jamwerks (Mar 5, 2017)

Does the Intel X99 plateform quad channel ram vs the AMD Ryzen difference mean anything as far dealing with samples?


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## G.R. Baumann (Mar 5, 2017)

Scan Pro Audio had a look as well:

http://www.scanproaudio.info/2017/03/02/amd-ryzen-first-look-for-audio/


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## chimuelo (Mar 5, 2017)

Good to see audio reviews coming out.
I trust these reviews so much more since they are our apps.
J.Rosenberry should have his own thread here.
Scan Audio too. Bring in the builders..

The fact that higher buffers shows excellent results means these CPUs will just get better and hopefully by the time APUs with 6 Cores show up.

The best part about Ryzens release is I got a pair of i7 4790k CPUs and 128GBs of DDR3 RAM for 875 bucks.
Yeah it's old tech but works great for me.
Don't need Z170, Z270 and who knows what chips for Cannon Lake.

Thanks Creativeforge...


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## creativeforge (Mar 5, 2017)

Jim has been formally invited, these guys are so busy, however I do hope they find time and energy to peek in from time to time!


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## chimuelo (Mar 5, 2017)

Could sell lots of DAWs here, especially for guys just needing VEP Slaves.


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## creativeforge (Mar 5, 2017)

chimuelo said:


> Could sell lots of DAWs here, especially for guys just needing VEP Slaves.



I conveyed the message, as I agree! I have been using Jim's rig he built for me since 2011. Still running Win7 64, for music and graphic design. Solid as a rock. Great support. And he's a professional musician too, so he understands.


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## chimuelo (Mar 5, 2017)

Life on a fine tuned 7 DAW is great.
Use 2 x 7 DAWg's for spares, etc. but 8.1 live as it reboots from an M.2 in seconds.
Loads are especially fast using NCW.
Fastest rig I ever had.

I fear change...


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## jazz72piano (Mar 7, 2017)

Just curious, any Ryzen results been posted for use as a VEP Slave? My samples are outgrowing my iMac and I'm ready to add a 2nd computer.


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## kitekrazy (Mar 7, 2017)

chimuelo said:


> Good to see audio reviews coming out.
> I trust these reviews so much more since they are our apps.
> J.Rosenberry should have his own thread here.
> Scan Audio too. Bring in the builders..
> ...



These are no slouch. Right now a good bang for the buck.


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## chimuelo (Mar 7, 2017)

I know they are great CPUs.
I just don't see Workstation boards or APUs yet.
But bought a 1600X for BioStar ITX w/ a Low profile RX480 and Corsair Bulldog for a gaming HTPC for my son to build.
He wants a DIY so of course those multicore games and M.2s are going to be speed demons.
It will be his first time building.
Glad to help out.


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## chimuelo (Mar 7, 2017)

For me later this year.
I don't care much for motherboards with perpendicular RAM DIMMs.
Not good for 1U builds.


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## gsilbers (Mar 7, 2017)

Do you guys think this new amd chip will be sucessfull in general? Will it get some traction and be a viable option against intel? or too soon to tell?


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## gtrwll (Mar 7, 2017)

gsilbers said:


> Do you guys think this new amd chip will be sucessfull in general? Will it get some traction and be a viable option against intel? or too soon to tell?



I think it's too soon. I've heard a lot of people are not happy with Intel's near-monopoly pricing, so they might be more than glad to jump onboard the AMD train. But we have to remember that we are the minority here, if we're talking about general consumers, it's the Ryzen 5 and Ryzen 3 markets, laptops and other OEM devices which will decide how AMD will do.

PS. CPU is already here, but still waiting for the mobo


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## gsilbers (Mar 8, 2017)

gtrwll said:


> I think it's too soon. I've heard a lot of people are not happy with Intel's near-monopoly pricing, so they might be more than glad to jump onboard the AMD train. But we have to remember that we are the minority here, if we're talking about general consumers, it's the Ryzen 5 and Ryzen 3 markets, laptops and other OEM devices which will decide how AMD will do.
> 
> PS. CPU is already here, but still waiting for the mobo



interesting.


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## kitekrazy (Mar 8, 2017)

gsilbers said:


> Do you guys think this new amd chip will be sucessfull in general? Will it get some traction and be a viable option against intel? or too soon to tell?



I would imagine those working in video would hop on these right away.


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## chimuelo (Mar 8, 2017)

Digital Archivers in Vegas I know built an 1800X and are pissed as they can't get more CPUs?
Not sure exactly why but these folks stream lots of files and use various compression Algos and RAID 6 Cards.
They saved 1500 on one machine and want to step away from Xeons.
So Ryzen will be popular regardless of audiophiles.

If Apple was smart they'd make profit again on MacPros using 1800X CPUs.
Intel better make a special deal with Apple quick.


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## gtrwll (Mar 13, 2017)

Ok, so here are my first thoughts about Ryzen 1700 / Asus PRIME X370-PRO / 16GB Crucial 2400MHz combination.

After a bit of a hassle with the memory (the manual suggested using slots 2 and 4 which didn't work for me, the machine wouldn't boot) I got it up and running and everything seemed fine. However, I think there are some driver issues with the MB and my somewhat old 1st gen Focusrite Scarlett 2i2. The official drivers were horrible on W10 even before I upgraded, so I had to hunt down the beta drivers I was using before, which of course I hadn't saved anywhere. Now they seem to be working OK, although my dreams of working with 16 or 32 buffer with a sample rate of 96kHz seem to be unrealistic. I'm not that experienced so I'm not sure if the culprit is the old interface or the new platform? I did a small test and it seems to handle 64 buffer on 44.1kHz very well with 7 Kontakt instances (Cinematic Strings 2), 6 Play instances (Hollywood Strings) and two FX channels with QL Spaces on them - but I think this should be expected on a high end CPU. Cubase seems to take about 20% of CPU, and VST Performance shows similar percentages. I'll do some more testing on a real world situation later on when I find some more time away from my day job, studying and being a family man at the same time 

Oh, and I didn't feel the need to overclock, since the processor seems to OC itself (boosting up to 3,7GHz) when needed.


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## chimuelo (Mar 13, 2017)

Please do share as you go along.
u-He is already in love with the Ryzen scores they had.
My i7 4790k/i7 5775C are bothe my current favorites.
They just don't have enough core, must have more....


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## Epicentrum (Mar 14, 2017)

gtrwll said:


> I did a small test and it seems to handle 64 buffer on 44.1kHz very well with 7 Kontakt instances (Cinematic Strings 2), 6 Play instances (Hollywood Strings) and two FX channels with QL Spaces ...


Thanks first for being a pioneer!
You have loaded how many mics for CStr and HStr?
I am curios how it deals with lots of voices VST. Interested also what HDDs for samples you bought for this new system.


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## ranaprathap (Mar 23, 2017)




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## Przemek K. (Mar 23, 2017)

Thanks for posting and taking time to do this review


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## ranaprathap (Apr 20, 2017)




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## Karsten Vogt (Apr 20, 2017)

512 samples? Try again with 64 samples please.


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## Jim Roseberry (Apr 20, 2017)

Not surprising.
We've done extensive testing of the 1800x.
The 1800x is great for multi-threaded applications (video rendering).
The 1800x is not great for multi-threaded applications at low-latency.

Run DAW Bench at a 32/48/64-sample ASIO buffer size.
The 6850k (also a $500 CPU) easily bests the 1800x.
You can push the CPU load much farther before audible breakup.
The 7700k ($300) also bests the 1800x.

We've repeated the tests using multiple motherboard makes/models.
With the latest revisions, things are a lot less flaky... but performance hasn't significantly changed.

We all had high hopes for Ryzen.
For those working with low-latency audio, the i7-7700k ($200 less) is a better performer... and the i7-6850k (same cost as the 1800x) is better still.

Best Regards,
Jim Roseberry
www.studiocat.com
[email protected]


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## Phryq (Apr 20, 2017)

Jim Roseberry said:


> Not surprising.
> We've done extensive testing of the 1800x.
> The 1800x is great for multi-threaded applications (video rendering).
> The 1800x is not great for multi-threaded applications at low-latency.
> ...



Thanks. Exactly what I wanted to know.

And have you done tests with PCIe drives? Will DFD streaming from one (or 2) of these allow you to lower you ram usage?

E.G. instead of 64gb, or even 128gb or RAM, could I get by with 32gb RAM and 2 PCIe (half my samples on each)?


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## J-M (Apr 21, 2017)

Has anyone tested the R5 series, especially the 1600x? I'm currently running AMD A8-6600k, so pretty much anything would be a huge upgrade...and I'm on a budget. :D


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## Jim Roseberry (Apr 21, 2017)

The latest PCIe x4 SSDs sustain 2600+MB/Sec (amazingly fast).

If you were loading samples into RAM (to enhance performance), then yes... you most likely could get away with less. With that kind of speed (depending on polyphony you're running), you could potentially lower the amount of RAM used to buffer initial transients.
That said, I wouldn't view PCIe x4 SSDs as a replacement for RAM.
Rather, use them strategically for libraries where you're pulling massive polyphony.

We have some clients (running multiple SSDs - including PCIe x4) who are pulling 4000 voices of disk-streaming polyphony from a single machine.

Note: If you're going to run a M.2 Ultra SSD (PCIe x4), make sure to use a CPU with 40 PCIe lanes.
If you run a CPU with 28 CPU lanes (fine for many purposes), the motherboard will often run the m.2 slot at x2 (reducing the speed of the SSD). Motherboard manuals typically don't document this detail. 

If you're running something like EWSO (which allows only a single location for the library)... and you need high disk-streaming polyphony; you can run a pair of SATA SSDs in RAID (nets ~1000MB/Sec).
This can be a more cost effective solution for folks who don't quite need the speed of PCIe x4 SSD.

Let your polyphony needs determine your drive configuration.

Best Regards,
Jim Roseberry
www.studiocat.com
[email protected]


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## Jim Roseberry (Apr 21, 2017)

MrLinssi said:


> Has anyone tested the R5 series, especially the 1600x? I'm currently running AMD A8-6600k, so pretty much anything would be a huge upgrade...and I'm on a budget. :D



The 1600x would be a significant upgrade.
If you're working at smaller ASIO buffer sizes (low latency), you'd actually do better with the 7700k ($50 more).

Best Regards,
Jim Roseberry
www.studiocat.com
[email protected]


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## J-M (Apr 21, 2017)

Thank you for the answer, Jim. I record guitars quite a lot, so a small buffer size is a must. My current rig is also used for gaming, so I also have to keep that in mind when upgrading...


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## Jim Roseberry (Apr 21, 2017)

If you're gaming, you'll want the 7700k.
Faster clock-speed

Best Regards,
Jim Roseberry
www.studiocat.com
[email protected]


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## Phryq (Apr 21, 2017)

Jim Roseberry said:


> The latest PCIe x4 SSDs sustain 2600+MB/Sec (amazingly fast).
> 
> If you were loading samples into RAM (to enhance performance), then yes... you most likely could get away with less. With that kind of speed (depending on polyphony you're running), you could potentially lower the amount of RAM used to buffer initial transients.
> That said, I wouldn't view PCIe x4 SSDs as a replacement for RAM.
> ...



Is this for random? I thought the 960 pro could do 3500 MB/Sec.


So if I had a 7700k, 3 960 pros, and 32gb ram, and set my buffers at lowest, would I be able to run a full template?

Would there be a benefit to putting the SSD into a PCIe slot rather than the M.2 (so it would connect directly to the CPU, rather than go through the chipset. Or does M.2 NVMe already go direct to CPU?)


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## snooks (Apr 21, 2017)

Jim Roseberry said:


> Not surprising.
> We've done extensive testing of the 1800x.
> The 1800x is great for multi-threaded applications (video rendering).
> The 1800x is not great for multi-threaded applications at low-latency.


Hmmm, the Scan tests with a slightly OC'd 1700x indicate a more nuanced situation. Certainly using a 1700x - which is effectively the same price as an i7-7700k - changes the variables in terms of buying decisions. In fact, going by their benchmarking, you're better off with a 1700x over an i7-7700k in every case apart from <192 buffer size whilst using only Kontakt/samplers. With low latency audio you are much, much better off.


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## Jim Roseberry (Apr 22, 2017)

Phryq said:


> Is this for random? I thought the 960 pro could do 3500 MB/Sec.
> 
> 
> So if I had a 7700k, 3 960 pros, and 32gb ram, and set my buffers at lowest, would I be able to run a full template?
> ...



The 960 Pro can do sustain up to 3500MB/Sec. 
The 950 Pro does about 2600MB/Sec.
This is why I put 2600+MB/Sec. 

There are so many variables when it comes to running large templates, I can't give a meaningful answer.

In both cases, the SSD is using 4 PCIe lanes.
No difference in potential performance...


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## Jim Roseberry (Apr 22, 2017)

snooks said:


> Hmmm, the Scan tests with a slightly OC'd 1700x indicate a more nuanced situation. Certainly using a 1700x - which is effectively the same price as an i7-7700k - changes the variables in terms of buying decisions. In fact, going by their benchmarking, you're better off with a 1700x over an i7-7700k in every case apart from <192 buffer size whilst using only Kontakt/samplers. With low latency audio you are much, much better off.



It's not hard to run DAW Bench and see for yourself. 
Running the Reaper version (using its multiband compressor for load) along with a Fireface UFX set at a 48-sample ASIO buffer size, you can push socket 2011-3 CPUs to 99% (before audio breakup).
Under the same exact circumstances, the 1800x craps out at about 82%.
The 7700k craps out at about 95%.

The 6850k can run 223 instances of the multiband compressor (48-sample ASIO buffer size) without glitches.
The 1800x can run 170.
The 7700k can run 180.

If you're working with heavy loads at small ASIO buffer sizes, Ryzen is not the best choice.


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## snooks (Apr 22, 2017)

Thanks for sharing your results, details are much appreciated. If we take a halfway point between Scan's 32 and 64 buffer results to roughly equate to 48 samples, they have:

1700x - 284
6800k - 230
7700k - 175

Both of your Intel results are pretty much the same (the 6800k is at 3.8GHz), but the Ryzen results are dramatically different. Perhaps it's the audio interface used, perhaps memory speed...



> ... to unlock the full performance of Ryzen 7 when stressing more than 4 cores, one must obtain the fastest DDR4 possible and OC the IMC like crazy.


http://www.eteknix.com/amd-ryzen-ccx-interconnect-infinity-fabric-tied-to-memory-speeds/

... or perhaps something else.


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## Jim Roseberry (Apr 24, 2017)

I will have updated figures posted shortly (1800x using DDR4/3200).
Testing with both Lynx E22 (PCIe) and the RME UFX.


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## Phryq (Apr 25, 2017)

So this is still unanswered. Some people are showing Ryzen as superior, and some are showing Intel on top...


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## chimuelo (Apr 25, 2017)

It's not superior.

It's basically the equivalent of 8 x i7 4790k @ stock speeds.
The question is whether you need more Cores or more speed.
Price is also a good consideration.
500 is the asking price but I bought my 1800X for 269 USD.

Amazon has at least 3 or 4 left. They say used, but opened box is my guess since they haven't been out long.
If you want a chip that can beat i7 quads, I'd wait and see the Ryzen 2 APUs with Vega iGPU.

But if you have synths using a single core and need more instances, the 1800X is perfect for that.
I don't use Native FX and use a Live optimized host.
The latency mentioned is not noticeable.
I seem to be pegging the CPU with 90-95% using multiple Diva Filters and haven't heard a crackle.

If you're running out of room the 1800X is a great choice.
If you're running out of power the 7700k is better.

I haven't overclocked it yet.
I'll need different RAM.
I prefer lower temps/watts as I use 4U/1U Chassis.

Stock speeds are fine for Zebra2 HZ with full poly and Triple Diva Filters/Triple XMFs.

Im a very happy camper.
1175 bucks for a powerful synth host.


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## Phryq (Apr 25, 2017)

What about for heat? What will run hotter under the same load? 7700k or 1800x?

When will Ryzen 2 be out? There's always something better around the corner...


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## snooks (Apr 26, 2017)

At stock speeds the 1800x uses slightly less, OC'd to 3.8GHz it uses more. I wouldn't bother looking at the 1800x though, OCing the 1700 or 1700x to 1800x speed or beyond is a better idea. It's exciting that a $300 ish chip OC'd to 3.9GHz has the CPU power of a 12 core trash can Mac Pro, which retail(ed) for the best part of $5000.


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## Phryq (Apr 26, 2017)

But I imagine an overclocked 1700x will be much hotter than an 1800x at the same clock, no?

I'm wondering, if you put an 1800x and 7700k on the same load (neither are overclocked, but running the same template with many synths / effects / Kontakt instances) which will be hotter?


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## snooks (Apr 26, 2017)

I have no idea, I don't think the temperature would be too much different since they are made with exactly the same silicon, but are programmed differently. There's apparently a quality process that they go through to grade the chips from 1700 to 1800xs, but I don't know what that entails or how much difference that makes in real life for people who aren't looking for 4GHz+ overclocks.


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## Jim Roseberry (Apr 28, 2017)

I decided to re-test the Ryzen 1800x.

Infinity Fabric's speed is directly linked to RAM speed.
Thus, with fast RAM... the 1800x's low-latency audio performance should improve.


I set out on what would become a *quest* to run DDR4/3200MHz RAM (at 3200MHz) with the 1800x.

I tested all the highest-end X370 motherboards from Gigabyte, Asus, ASRock, and MSI.For RAM, I used the both 8GB and 16GB sticks from Crucial, Corsair, and GSKILL.
None... repeat... *none* of the eight motherboards I tested would run more than 16GB RAM at 3200MHz.



One motherboard would run 32GB RAM at 2933MHz.

Only one motherboard would run 16GB RAM at 3200MHz. 

Most wouldn't boot with the RAM above 2667MHz.



With the one motherboard that was able to run 16GB RAM at 3200MHz, if you changed nearly ANY setting in the BIOS, it would no longer boot with the RAM at 3200MHz. That same motherboard had a setting to disable onboard WiFi. Well... I don't know why they included the setting... as it had zero effect. WiFi was still operational...








Right now, the X370 BIOS' feel like they've been rushed out the door.

On one motherboard, there are dual LAN ports. In the BIOS, there's no means of disabling either.

If you're running a Ryzen based machine, the first generation motherboards are essentially beta stage.

There are a plethora of small (basic function) issues to be worked out... as well as larger issues such as broad support for DDR4/3200.





With the motherboard that almost ran the desired configuration, I was at least able to get some meaningful test figures.





I've also included figures for the i7-6850k (for comparison).



_General Benchmarks_

*1800x at stock speed with RAM at 2933MHz*


Integer Math = 43816
Single Thread = 2067
Floating Point = 16117


*1800x at 4GHz with RAM at 2933MHz*


Integer Math = 47379
Single Thread = 2132
Floating Point = 17420


*6850k at stock speed with RAM at 2400MHz*


Integer Math = 29468
Single Thread = 2335
Floating Point = 12212


_Audio Benchmark_

Tested with the Reaper version of DAW Bench... using their multi-band compressor (64Bit version) for load... along with a RME Fireface UFX set to a 48-sample ASIO buffer size/44.1k. Also tested with a Lynx AES/16e. At a 64-sample ASIO buffer size (48 not available for the Lynx), performance was virtually identical to the UFX.



*1800x at stock speed with RAM at 2933MHz*


528 instances of the multi-band compressor without glitches (CPU load @ 93%)


*6850k at stock speed with RAM at 2400MHz*


434 instances of the multi-band compressor without glitches (CPU load @ 99%)


Running DAW Bench, you can push the 6850k to 99% load without glitches.

The 1800x is good to about 93% load.

Both measured via Task Manager.



With the 6850k, there's no significant performance boost using DDR4/3200.

The X99 motherboard had no trouble booting/running with the DDR4/3200 running at 3200MHz.



When running audio projects, there's very little advantage to running the 1800x at 4GHz.

Granted, it's only a slight over-clock.



AMD is back in the game with Ryzen...

BUT... and it's a big one, the platform is super flaky at this (still very early) moment in time.

As a professional builder, there's absolutely no way (at this moment in time) I would build an 1800x machine for clients.

There's not a rock-solid motherboard out of any of the higher-end choices.

If you go with a Ryzen build, you will be beta-testing.





With second generation motherboards, I expect things will be far more solid.


Best Regards,
Jim Roseberry
www.studiocat.com
[email protected]


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## Jim Roseberry (Apr 28, 2017)

snooks said:


> I have no idea, I don't think the temperature would be too much different since they are made with exactly the same silicon, but are programmed differently. There's apparently a quality process that they go through to grade the chips from 1700 to 1800xs, but I don't know what that entails or how much difference that makes in real life for people who aren't looking for 4GHz+ overclocks.



If you're not trying to significantly over-clock, there's effectively little difference.
Both run cool/quiet with quality 3rd-party cooling.


Best Regards,
Jim Roseberry
www.studiocat.com
[email protected]


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## Jim Roseberry (Apr 28, 2017)

BTW, For anyone who's stress-testing Ryzen using the Reaper version of DAW Bench; make sure you're using the 64Bit version of the multi-band compressor. Both the 32Bit and 64Bit dlls are included in the folder.
If you don't remove the 32Bit version, Reaper will use it instead of the 64Bit version.
Running the 32Bit version of the multi-band compressor, the 6850k outperforms the 1800x.
I didn't catch this before... and that would explain some of the radical differences.

AMD is back in the game... but the platform (this very moment) needs to solidify.

If you're wanting to run 64GB RAM, good luck getting any current X370 motherboard to run it at 3200MHz.

BIOS parameters are missing/inoperable/etc.
On one motherboard, if you changed almost any BIOS setting, it would no longer boot with RAM at 3200MHz. 
Note it would only run 16GB at 3200MHz.
Another motherboard, if you tweak totally unrelated parameters, SMT (AMD speak for Hyperthreading) would disappear.
Yet another motherboard had dual LAN ports... with no parameter for disabling either.
One motherboard had onboard WiFi. If you disabled it in the BIOS, it was still happily running.

The last three or four days... I went thru every higher-end X370 motherboard I could get my hands on.
There's not one I would consider rock-solid...
The Gigabyte Gaming 5 was the best of the lot.


Best Regards,
Jim Roseberry
www.studiocat.com
[email protected]


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## snooks (Apr 28, 2017)

Thanks very much for all the vigilant work you put in there - it's great seeing more, detailed information. Nice catch with the 32 bit vs 64 bit anomaly too. It'll be interesting seeing where the platform goes as it matures, but it does seem as though the supporting hardware has been rushed out of the door somewhat at the moment.


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## juliansader (Apr 30, 2017)

A comment from Asus, according to Overclockers forum:



> I’ve decided to provide some recommendations on DDR4 limitations concerning AM4 currently.
> 
> As it stands the AMD code has restricted RAM tuning options which means many RAM kits at launch will not be compatible. This is the same for our competitors also.
> What we recommend is the following:
> ...


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## Nathanael Iversen (Apr 30, 2017)

Jim, Thanks for for the professional and detailed writeup. You have provided a great service to the community here.


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## J-M (Apr 30, 2017)

Nathanael Iversen said:


> Jim, Thanks for for the professional and detailed writeup. You have provided a great service to the community here.



Indeed. If things don't improve during the following months, I guess it's safer to pay a bit more and go with Intel.


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## Vastman (Apr 30, 2017)

Nathanael Iversen said:


> Jim, Thanks for for the professional and detailed writeup. You have provided a great service to the community here.


Indeed... looks like there's potential, once the birthing pains are sorted. FWIW, I'm going to have Jim create my next rig, once home sale is finalized... My current 5+ yr old maschine, which I researched and bought parts for and was assembled by a friend's computer shop personnel, has never run as smoothly as many studio-cat owners report. I will NOT make that mistake again!

Jim gives a lot of his time helping others on our Sonar forum and I look forward to supporting him and getting one of his monster DAW creations.


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## lightning mike (May 8, 2017)

Hey Jim, thanks for the updated testing! Just curious if any of those ram modules were Samsung B die? I have the MSI b350 tomahawk board with this gskill ram: f4-3600c16d-16gtz and I have been able to run it stable at 3200mhz since I've had it. From what I've read the hynix modules have the most trouble with Ryzen. 




Jim Roseberry said:


> I tested all the highest-end X370 motherboards from Gigabyte, Asus, ASRock, and MSI.For RAM, I used the both 8GB and 16GB sticks from Crucial, Corsair, and GSKILL.
> None... repeat... *none* of the eight motherboards I tested would run more than 16GB RAM at 3200MHz.


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## Phryq (May 8, 2017)

Jim, this video seems to contradict you,



I'm wondering, at what point will Ryzen be 'stable'? When will the second-gen motherboards come out?


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## Karsten Vogt (May 8, 2017)

Just get an Intel rig now and ask again when you have to renew that one. MSI and Asus recently launched the X370 boards. I doubt that these new boards will solve the problems the Ryzen is having.


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## Phryq (May 9, 2017)

Well; I'm planning to wait for 2018 for RAM prices to come down anyhow. 128gb, or even 64gb of DDR4 is just way too much at the moment.

And in early 2018, I likely won't have the chance to build, so most likely September 2018 is my build.


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## Jim Roseberry (May 18, 2017)

Phryq said:


> Jim, this video seems to contradict you,
> 
> 
> 
> I'm wondering, at what point will Ryzen be 'stable'? When will the second-gen motherboards come out?




FWIW, I'm not doing gaming benchmarks.
Those are not nearly as meaningful to our purposes as running low-latency audio stress-tests.

BTW, X370 motherboard behavior is still (as of 5/18/17) far too flaky for us to consider building for clients.

We have a 1800x DAW running in the studio.
The RAM running at 3200MHz.
The combinations that work at full speed are limited.

For now, running more than 64GB of RAM is impossible... so that's a turnoff to harder-core composers (who want the ability to move up to 128GB).


Best Regards,
Jim Roseberry
www.studiocat.com
[email protected]


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## Phryq (May 19, 2017)

Ok, thanks.

It looks like it'll be 2018 before I can build anyhow, so by then it'll be Ryzen 2 vs Intel's 10nm, and I'm guessing the 10nm will win.

What about a stable Ryzen system using exactly 64gb ram at 3200MHz?


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## Symfoniq (May 19, 2017)

Phryq said:


> Ok, thanks.
> 
> It looks like it'll be 2018 before I can build anyhow, so by then it'll be Ryzen 2 vs Intel's 10nm, and I'm guessing the 10nm will win.
> 
> What about a stable Ryzen system using exactly 64gb ram at 3200MHz?



AMD is supposed to release another microcode update at the end of May to improve RAM stability. As things currently stand, hitting 3200 MHz with four sticks of RAM on Ryzen appears to be a crapshoot.

I have pretty mixed feelings about Ryzen right now. The architecture of its Infinity Fabric will likely turn out to be its greatest strength and greatest weakness. The fact that each CCX communicates at RAM speed makes it extremely important that AMD gets the RAM compatibility situation straightened out. On the other hand, Ryzen is only officially rated for 2667 MHz RAM, so higher RAM speeds are technically overclocking, and void the CPU warranty. As a result, I'm skeptical that Ryzen will be able to drastically improve the memory latency situation for those of us who aren't interested in overclocking.


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## Symfoniq (May 19, 2017)

Jim Roseberry said:


> FWIW, I'm not doing gaming benchmarks.
> Those are not nearly as meaningful to our purposes as running low-latency audio stress-tests.
> 
> BTW, X370 motherboard behavior is still (as of 5/18/17) far too flaky for us to consider building for clients.
> ...



Jim:

Do you have any insights into how Ryzen's higher memory latency (compared with Kaby Lake, for example) is affecting ASIO performance? I realize it's still early, and difficult to know when shortcomings are due to architecture vs. teething issues...


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## EvilDragon (May 19, 2017)

As noted before - it affects performance at lower ASIO buffer sizes.


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## chimuelo (May 20, 2017)

I can concur that for large Orchestral work using a DAW there's too many issues with their memory controller.
All fixable but they're concentrating on new drivers for specific markets like gaming.


Meanwhile the new Intel i9 CPUs are increasing L2 Cache to 1MB.
That's a sign the Speed is starting to peak, but less trips to RAM from increased Cache equates to speed.


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## SEA (May 20, 2017)

Jim Roseberry said:


> We all had high hopes for Ryzen.
> For those working with low-latency audio, the i7-7700k ($200 less) is a better performer... and the i7-6850k (same cost as the 1800x) is better still.
> 
> Best Regards,
> ...



Thanks for all your hard work Jim! Helps us out tremendously!

So the i7-6850K would be a better choice than the i7-7700K?


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## EvilDragon (May 21, 2017)

Depends on what you need. More cores, or better per-core speed? 7700k is much more recent too, so more energy efficient.

However for composing, 7700k supports up to 64 GB of RAM, whereas 6850K supports up to 128. Also 6850K doesn't have built-in graphics so that's a separate purchase if you go with that one.


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## SEA (May 21, 2017)

EvilDragon said:


> Depends on what you need. More cores, or better per-core speed? 7700k is much more recent too, so more energy efficient.
> 
> However for composing, 7700k supports up to 64 GB of RAM, whereas 6850K supports up to 128. Also 6850K doesn't have built-in graphics so that's a separate purchase if you go with that one.



Thanks ED! I'll be going with a separate graphics whichever processor I choose. Probably the GTX 1070 since it's only $150 more than the 1060. 

Also the ASUS X99 DELUXE II supports the 128 GB of RAM, but would the newer Z170 and Z270 be better for future processors if a year or 2 one decides to upgrade their processor?


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## SEA (May 21, 2017)

EvilDragon said:


> Depends on what you need. More cores, or better per-core speed? 7700k is much more recent too, so more energy efficient.



If I can run Falcon, Omnisphere, in multi (like 3 or so instruments each), plus other VSTi effects, Kontakt etc., at 64 latency using the RME PCIe RayDAT or Hammerfall, AND do video editing with Adobe Premier CC, then whichever processor will be best.

My thing is more cores for video editing rendering might be best BUT with the 7700K it might not matter. I was going to water cool and if more cores makes sense, then perhaps OC the 6850K to 4.3 or so. But if the 7700K can handle all the above then I would go with that.

Also, I could always start with the 7700K and upgrade my processor in the future if needed.


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## Karsten Vogt (Jun 2, 2017)

Alright, it's coming soon:
https://community.amd.com/community/gaming/blog/2017/05/25/community-update-4-lets-talk-dram
Faster memory is on the way.


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## chimuelo (Jun 2, 2017)

Good to see, but I'm concerned with fake news.
I noticed an ASRock motherboard for Ryzen using a Z270 chipset.
I know my brothas' here are mostly DIY types or system integrators for their own builds.
So please correct me if I'm wrong.
Top right Ryzen motherboard is using a Z270 chipset.

Please tell me I'm not tripping.
I've been distracted by the rather tall beautiful Asian ASRock models, just need my suspicions confirmed.


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