# Duel Intel Xeon E5-2697 v4



## jononotbono (Sep 4, 2018)

I’m starting to seriously think about building a new PC to use exclusively with Cubase (eventually a couple of new slaves too) and I have been looking at Dual 18 Core Intel Xeon E5-2697 v4 CPUs and wondering whether anyone here has experience with them? 

I’m thinking a few 36 Core beasts are the way forward


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## jononotbono (Sep 4, 2018)

Also, been looking at this motherboard...

*Asus - Z10PE-D16 WS SSI EEB Dual-CPU LGA2011-3 Motherboard*


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## Gerhard Westphalen (Sep 4, 2018)

That's pretty slow for a DAW computer. I'd go with an i9-7900X or something similar. If that with 128GB doesn't suite your needs, and you're not HZ or JXL, then I'd rethink my template.


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## URL (Sep 4, 2018)

Why old gear...?
I ordered this MB with I9 CPU, Asus WS x299 Sage/10G/TB/128 Ram Socket 2066.


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## jononotbono (Sep 4, 2018)

Oh really? I thought having more cores is a good thing for a Slave. Sure, the master computer could do with a fast clock speed. Perhaps I should rethink building the master and then different computers for slaves?


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## jononotbono (Sep 4, 2018)

URL said:


> Why old gear...?
> I ordered this MB with I9 CPU, Asus WS x299 Sage/10G/TB/128 Ram Socket 2066.



I thought it was only two years since it’s release?


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## jononotbono (Sep 4, 2018)

URL said:


> Why old gear...?
> I ordered this MB with I9 CPU, Asus WS x299 Sage/10G/TB/128 Ram Socket 2066.



I went onto Vision DAW and they build workstations (for RCP) with the Xeon 2690 (dual 14 core) and I was thinking if it’s good enough for them etc


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## URL (Sep 4, 2018)

jononotbono said:


> I thought it was only two years since it’s release?


No this is new arrived in June..., I haven't arrived yet I get this Mb next week Ihope this is the one with 10G network on the Mb with thunderbolt and 7 Pci-e slots...I have 2UAD and I want more cards to make room for.
They have done one bios upgrade so its alive


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## Gerhard Westphalen (Sep 4, 2018)

jononotbono said:


> Oh really? I thought having more cores is a good thing for a Slave. Sure, the master computer could do with a fast clock speed. Perhaps I should rethink building the master and then different computers for slaves?


Ya but an i9 should already be more than enough for a slave. I guess maybe if you're trying to run a low buffer you might top it out then but the Xeon probably wouldn't work much better either. Using a single i9 computer should be able to handle everything you need. The only time my 5820k tops out is with mastering. It's fine with anything else. An i9 slave I recently built for someone can handle anything. Many of the top film composers are running a single slave and in most cases could run their DAW + PT on that computer as well.


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## URL (Sep 4, 2018)

jononotbono said:


> I went onto Vision DAW and they build workstations (for RCP) with the Xeon 2690 (dual 14 core) and I was thinking if it’s good enough for them etc



yeah but nice price on Visiondaw?, they build I9 also, there are Xenon for LGA 2066, but they are a little slower than I9 for master DAW. I have "old" Xenon as slaves and they are cool , the old one use 85 watt on a LGA 2011-3 Asus M-board, works great.Watt consumption is something to consider.


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## jononotbono (Sep 4, 2018)

URL said:


> yeah but nice price on Visiondaw?, they build I9 also, there are Xenon for LGA 2066, but they are a little slower than I9 for master DAW. I have "old" Xenon as slaves ande they are cool , the old one use 85 watt on a LGA 2011-3 Asus M-board, works great.Watt consumption is something to consider.



Ok, well, I would never pay that kind of money as I could buy the parts secondhand and save a fortune. So, for Slaves, I should go more cores and for master, faster clock speed with less cores?


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## jononotbono (Sep 4, 2018)

I’m now feeling confused. Here is a screen shot of what Vision DAW say about their Dual 14 Core Xeon Server machine...






“This workstation is ideally suited to be used as Main DAW Workstation (Cubase etc)”


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## URL (Sep 4, 2018)

You can build a similar setup with workstation board that have more Pci-e slots and 10G network/TB and well 128Ram
with the Mb I have ordered and the I9 GHz you can overclock, this Xenon is locked, so I can't recommend but.
Master DAW
Asus WS Rage 10G
I9 X 10 Core
Pc Slaves
8-core Xenon "Old"
10G network/netgear switch
Win 10 Pro



If you wanna find the optimum in High Performance that is not too costly for master DAW and do not use too much power then I would recommend Xenon as slaves/master who consume small amount watts they are really stable. Master Daw with high clock speed and several core is the way to go, but if you need 18-core to be satisfied no, you can think about whether it's worth it. A 18-core I9 in full action consume up to 500-700 watt and that is not cool.

A 10/12-core with clock speed around 4GHz or higher if you have a engine room where you can cool with multiple fans/water. I will use an I9 10-core with clock speed 3.5-4.0Ghz with 2 slaves(machine room), if you go too high in Ghz it gets hot.
But what the optimal DAW design is for price and performance is hard to say. But using a dedicated computer for mixing is preferable. So to answer your question, both parts are important to a certain level of core and frequency, since I find it impossible to determine without testing what gives better results ...Daw program/plugins/softsynth how they use core is impossible to know... I have checked the core balance when mixing huge template and there are som unbalance in the core some are more used then other when there is heavy load of plugins etc.

Sorry for my bad English, I hope I can help anyway.


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## jononotbono (Sep 4, 2018)

URL said:


> You can build a similar setup with workstation board that have more Pci-e slots and 10G network/TB and well 128Ram
> with the Mb I have ordered and the I9 GHz you can overclock, this Xenon is locked, so I can't recommend but I will go this way.
> MasterDaw
> Asus WS Rage 10G
> ...



Thanks. I’ve just messaged Vision DAW with a few questions and you have answered a few of them. I don’t want to invest in the wrong thing but I also don’t want to invest in computers that aren’t a massive upgrade to what I have. I’d rather have a huge amount of computing horsepower than not enough!


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## jononotbono (Sep 4, 2018)

jononotbono said:


> Thanks. I’ve just messaged Vision DAW with a few questions and you have answered a few of them. I don’t want to invest in the wrong thing but I also don’t want to invest in computers that aren’t a massive upgrade to what I have. I’d rather have a huge amount of computing horsepower than not enough!



Does having a 10gb LAN connection help with latency from VEPro? Curious to how noticeable the difference between 1gb and 10gb.


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## URL (Sep 4, 2018)

There is a test on You Tube about this, personally I didn't expect a difference, but there is a advantage for 10G when using multiple slaves an of course heavy load on the net. Check this, I will see if I find the test about 10G.


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## URL (Sep 4, 2018)

its all about the speed-this is one, not the one that explain the theory about this ,


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## URL (Sep 4, 2018)




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## Joakim (Sep 4, 2018)

I have a similar setup with the older dual E5-2690 v1, and the equivalent older asus motherboard that you are looking at. I got it all for a great price and it is super stable so I am really satisfied with it. But I do not think they will provide the performance you expect from the price, v4 xeons are still current gen so I don't know how you could possibly get them at a reasonable price. And the problem is the very low clock speed + the issue of dual cpu's do not scale even close to linearly, at best you might get the performance of about 1.6 cpu's not 2.

I'd probably look at an i9 or a threadripper: http://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Intel-Xeon-E5-2697-V4-vs-AMD-Ryzen-TR-2950X/m233836vsm569025


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## URL (Sep 4, 2018)

When upgrade a computer for Daw or slave why use components that have been out there for 2-3 years, computers get old to fast, I always get the latest if need to upgrade. I'm interested what kind of optimization Vison Daw does for their setup, is there a huge secret...no active firewall/no power save on etc.?


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## Sami (Sep 4, 2018)

Dual CPU systems come with penalties to cache latency and especially memory access latency. Threading is a huge problem for Cubase with people having to implement registry changes to get performance from machines with more than a certain number of cores, this being a windows issue.
If you want to reduce the number of machines you own, acquire an i9 system with 14-16 cores, that being a sweet spot for price vs. performance, get 128gb of ram and a low latency interface, which you already own.
If you need slave systems, get some 64gb overclocked quad or hexa core i7s.
If you desperately need fast networking, go 10 Gbit, but either have someone who knows LAN implement it for you or get to grips with packet prio and traffic flow and optimize it yourself.
I disagree strongly with the marketing notion that dual xeon systems are good for low-latency midi applications with VIs. The platform is inherently higher latency, the frequency is slower, and the six-channel ECC RAM is the opposite of what we need as composers. The computer sold by the company above is very capable for specific workloads, but I cannot overstate how much I caution you against buying it for what you want it to do.


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## URL (Sep 4, 2018)

jononotbono said:


> I thought it was only two years since it’s release?



I miss understood you I thought you referred Asusboard I purchased,haha,okey yes the LGA 2011-3 is 2+years, isn't that old...?


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## jononotbono (Sep 5, 2018)

URL said:


> I miss understood you I thought you referred Asusboard I purchased,haha,okey yes the LGA 2011-3 is 2+years, isn't that old...?



I'm still using a Mac Pro 5,1 I updated to max specs (12 core) and a PC with an i7 2600k in it... so a couple of years isn't old to me. I shall look into an i9 for main computer as I'm not sure what to get now.

Is it possible to dual i9s with high clock speeds or is that the permanent trade off from dual CPUs(more cores, lower clock speeds)?


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## Sami (Sep 5, 2018)

jononotbono said:


> I'm still using a Mac Pro 5,1 I updated to max specs (12 core) and a PC with an i7 2600k in it... so a couple of years isn't old to me. I shall look into an i9 for main computer as I'm not sure what to get now.
> 
> Is it possible to dual i9s with high clock speeds or is that the permanent trade off from dual CPUs(more cores, lower clock speeds)?


Forget the dual cpu business. It is entirely unsuitable for your needs as a composer.


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## jononotbono (Sep 5, 2018)

ok, so only using a single CPU, something like this...

https://www.scan.co.uk/products/int...e-36-thread-26ghz-42ghz-2475mb-44-lane-165w-r


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## Sami (Sep 5, 2018)

I offer this as advice as well:
https://helpcenter.steinberg.de/hc/...ws-10-audio-dropouts-on-multi-core-CPU-setups


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## jononotbono (Sep 5, 2018)

Sami said:


> I offer this as advice as well:
> https://helpcenter.steinberg.de/hc/...ws-10-audio-dropouts-on-multi-core-CPU-setups



Do you know how long that has been on the Steinberg site for? It's not the first time I have seen information that is not exactly up to date. Thanks for the link.


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## shomynik (Sep 5, 2018)

There is a microsoft's registry edit that unlocks how many threads are used for a media processe. Steinberg support is providing it to everyone who needs it.


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## URL (Sep 5, 2018)

There are people that use 18-core and Cubase, look at Cubase forum. OC 18-core to 4,5Ghz and the electricity bill is
on the limit, and lamps start blinking. I also want 18-core to expensive, I go to UAD-Cards and I use them to their limit to and choose Cpu 10-core, but Im sure 10-core gonna be to slow in 2 years time...


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## URL (Sep 5, 2018)

shomynik said:


> There is a microsoft's registry edit that unlocks how many threads are used for a media processe. Steinberg support is providing it to everyone who needs it.


How do you get,microsoft's registry edit change?


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## Sami (Sep 5, 2018)

URL said:


> How do you get,microsoft's registry edit change?


Open a support ticket. I personally use 14 cores at 4.5 and I saturate 128 gb of ram way before I achieve even near a level of polyphony that would endanger real time performanceand that is with 128 buffers, no vepro in the middle and heavy algorithmic reverbs and mixing plugins. Naturally, I am somewhat hesitant to overtly recommend the 18-core sku...


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## jononotbono (Sep 5, 2018)

Sami said:


> Open a support ticket. I personally use 14 cores at 4.5 and I saturate 128 gb of ram way before I achieve even near a level of polyphony that would endanger real time performanceand that is with 128 buffers, no vepro in the middle and heavy algorithmic reverbs and mixing plugins. Naturally, I am somewhat hesitant to overtly recommend the 18-core sku...



That's great to know! Thanks!


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## URL (Sep 5, 2018)

Thanks Sami, support ticket at Microsoft I suppose?, yes 18-core is nice but...


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## shomynik (Sep 5, 2018)

URL said:


> Thanks Sami, support ticket at Microsoft I suppose?, yes 18-core is nice but...



No, at Steinberg's! Just contact them, tell them what CPU you got, say that you know about the edit and that you want some  They are kind of strange about the thing, I guess they have reasons for it. They are kindly ask ppl not to share it publicly.


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## URL (Sep 5, 2018)

shomynik said:


> No, at Steinberg's! Just contact them, tell them what CPU you got, say that you know about the edit and that you want some  They are kind of strange about the thing, I guess they have reasons for it. They are kindly ask ppl not to share it publicly.



Ah, that is fun, thanks I will have a chat with them


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## InLight-Tone (Sep 6, 2018)

Sami said:


> Open a support ticket. I personally use 14 cores at 4.5 and I saturate 128 gb of ram way before I achieve even near a level of polyphony that would endanger real time performanceand that is with 128 buffers, no vepro in the middle and heavy algorithmic reverbs and mixing plugins. Naturally, I am somewhat hesitant to overtly recommend the 18-core sku...


I take it you are running a large template all on one machine yes? How many tracks do you have? Are they enabled?


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## URL (Sep 6, 2018)

VisionDaw do "Windows 7 or 10* Professional - Tweaked and Optimized" , what is that, firewall/antivirus, windows update, energy savings not active, more?


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