# Can intel breathe a little more easily



## novaburst (Feb 6, 2020)

Some news about the new intel cpu leaked but it does look like intel are showing some fighting spirit against AMD









Intel Core i9-10900K leak shows CPU has the upper hand vs AMD Ryzen 9 3900X


3DMark results point to a powerful 10-core CPU




www.techradar.com


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## chimuelo (Feb 7, 2020)

Actually this war is beneficial for the stock market too.
CoronaVirus and Boeing have contained the markets @ 29,000.
But right now 11 analytic houses have concurred the markets in the next 4 months can go up or down according to the revenue created in SemiConductors.

Its going to be a fantastic year for us in hardware and CPU’s.
So many exciting synths at NAMM this year.

I pray AMD sells tons of high end TR CPU’s.
But 64 Core’s might be limited in apps that can be used.


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## José Herring (Feb 7, 2020)

I wonder what it means for us in the real world of music. I just read a rumor that somebody tested the brand new 32 core Mac Pro and could only get 5 instances of Massive X to run on it. 

If true it would seem to suggest that plugins are still capped by running on one core per instances and that audio processing isn't fully optimized for the new machines. 

So in spite of CPU advances our audio cards, plugins and DAWS are way behind in utilizing all the horse power efficiently. 

Or, AMD and Intel are blowing some smoke up our rear ends by playing to the benchmark numbers with little regard for how the advanced tech actually functions in the field. 

At any rate, I'd like to see some real DAW bench text on the new machines.


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## novaburst (Feb 7, 2020)

I have always maintained that Hardware is light years ahead of software, software is always playing catch up, and when it does catch up hardware has made another thousand steps into the future.

I think i can say that our future bottle neck will indeed be software limitation, i think a 3rd party team can really take advantage of this time and start to fill in the gap with special apps that can unite the differences together between software and hardware,

Perhaps someone from F 1 racing or true rocket science


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## d.healey (Feb 10, 2020)

Still has the management engine backdoor though...


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## Technostica (Feb 10, 2020)

chimuelo said:


> I pray AMD sells tons of high end TR CPU’s.
> But 64 Core’s might be limited in apps that can be used.


There’s a major issue if your CPU has more than 64 cores or virtual cores as does the 64 core TR CPU.
Windows 10 Home and Pro treat it as a dual socket system which impacts performance.
W10 for Workstations doesn’t share the problem.
See the Anandtech review for details.


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## Mornats (Feb 10, 2020)

josejherring said:


> I just read a rumor that somebody tested the brand new 32 core Mac Pro and could only get 5 instances of Massive X to run on it.



This doesn't sound right so I did a test. I'm on a PC with an i7 4790k, 32GB Ram. I loaded up Reaper with 5 instances of Massive X, threw in a selection of random, evolving patches and struggled to get past 10% CPU usage. Maybe there's an optimisation issue with Massive X and OSX affecting this? A Mac Pro should eat my PC for breakfast!


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## chimuelo (Feb 10, 2020)

josejherring said:


> I wonder what it means for us in the real world of music. I just read a rumor that somebody tested the brand new 32 core Mac Pro and could only get 5 instances of Massive X to run on it.
> 
> If true it would seem to suggest that plugins are still capped by running on one core per instances and that audio processing isn't fully optimized for the new machines.
> 
> ...



I check Scan Audio all the time waiting for any reviews on new 10nm Intel’s or anything AMD.

CineBench for single core will show improvements, but the polyphony and DAWBench tests are still great references.

After 5 years my i7 4790k’s are still as fast as the newest CPU’s.
My 8086k is able to load more and only 100-150 more voices likely from the extra 2 Cores.

In other words a lot of power I won’t need.

But overclocking 8 core’s to 5GHz is damn tempting.


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## chimuelo (Feb 10, 2020)

Technostica said:


> There’s a major issue if your CPU has more than 64 cores or virtual cores as does the 64 core TR CPU.
> Windows 10 Home and Pro treat it as a dual socket system which impacts performance.
> W10 for Workstations doesn’t share the problem.
> See the Anandtech review for details.



Actually read about the Windows Thread Scheduler and Pro 10 @ HWBot.
Seems AMD pushes that and Linux is coming up quick too.

Great Days for us.


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## kitekrazy (Feb 12, 2020)

novaburst said:


> Some news about the new intel cpu leaked but it does look like intel are showing some fighting spirit against AMD
> 
> 
> 
> ...



I just hope Intel becomes less pricey.


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## novaburst (Feb 12, 2020)

My feeling is it could possibly rise in price or at the very least remain the same, i think because AMD my be a better buy but Motherboard and cooling are very high in price for AMD and i think Intel know this, 

If you purchase a £450.00 Intel you can get a board for under a £100 but if you purchase a £399.00 12 core AMD a MB will set you back about £250.00 minimum £300.00 average and then you may need a certain type of memory, so its kind of gong to be a preference thing rather than a price thing


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## Gerhard Westphalen (Feb 12, 2020)

josejherring said:


> If true it would seem to suggest that plugins are still capped by running on one core per instances and that audio processing isn't fully optimized for the new machines.


Yes and what sucks even more is that DAWs run a single track per core meaning that if you have a lot of intense plugins on a single track you'll run into more problems than using those same plugins on separate tracks. I had to upgrade from a processor boosting to 3.6Ghz to one boosting to 4.7 because I was often maxing out a single core with the rest of the cores doing barely anything. Mostly happens for mastering. Even if I went down to a quad core I'd probably still be OK if I have enough speed. Until DAWs start running tracks on multiple cores something like a Mac Pro would be useless for me.


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## Technostica (Feb 12, 2020)

novaburst said:


> My feeling is it could possibly rise in price or at the very least remain the same.


The AMD Ryzen 3000 series are already dropping in price at retail despite dominating the sales charts for retail parts, so Intel may struggle to lower prices.



novaburst said:


> I think because AMD my be a better buy but Motherboard and cooling are very high in price for AMD and i think Intel know this,
> If you purchase a £450.00 Intel you can get a board for under a £100 but if you purchase a £399.00 12 core AMD a MB will set you back about £250.00 minimum £300.00 average and then you may need a certain type of memory, so its kind of gong to be a preference thing rather than a price thing.


That’s not generally true and in some cases the opposite is true:
You can run a Ryzen 3000 series on the previous generation motherboards which start well below £100.
The latest generation X570 boards start at <£140 not £250. The main advantage of X570 is PCIe 4.0 support which doubles the maximum potential throughput for SSDs amongst other things. You do need a PCIe 4.0 SSD to benefit of course.

Intel’s 8 core is already consuming more power than AMD’s 16 core and Intel’s 10 core is reportedly going to be closer to AMD’s 32 core Threadripper in wattage terms.
This relates to actual power consumption under load and not TDP which relates to base clock speeds.
What this means is that cooling for Intel’s platform is going to be more expensive than for AMD’s and potentially noisier also.
Plus you need a beefier motherboard to support a circa 250W CPU so it would be a risk to buy a £100 board and run that type of CPU so more expense there also; the quality of the VRMs and their cooling is an issue.

For RAM though AMD’s platform does generally seem to respond to faster RAM than Intel’s but it’s optional to chase every last drop of performance which is where value disappears quickly beyond a certain point.
PC4-25600 (3200) is fine and inexpensive and the highest that is officially supported.
I haven't seen any benchmarks that show how DAW performance improves when jumping to say PC4-28800 (3600).


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## easyrider (Feb 12, 2020)

novaburst said:


> If you purchase a £450.00 Intel you can get a board for under a £100 but if you purchase a £399.00 12 core AMD a MB will set you back about £250.00 minimum £300.00 average and then you may need a certain type of memory, so its kind of gong to be a preference thing rather than a price thing




Absolutely not true. You are misinformed. Memory compatibility has been addressed with 3000 series chips and motherboards...And you do not need a x570 motherboard to run a 12 core 3900x.

Also if you did want x570 the Gigabyte Aorus Elite X570 can be had for as low as £169

*My basket at https://www.overclockers.co.uk (Overclockers UK):*

1 x https://www.overclockers.co.uk/amd-ryzen-9-3900x-twelve-core-4.6ghz-socket-am4-processor-retail-cp-3b5-am.html (AMD Ryzen 9 3900X Twelve Core 4.6GHz (Socket AM4) Processor - Retail)= *£449.99*
1 x https://www.overclockers.co.uk/msi-b450-tomahawk-max-socket-am4-ddr4-atx-motherboard-mb-33t-ms.html (MSI B450 TOMAHAWK MAX (Socket AM4) DDR4 ATX Motherboard)= *£98.99*
1 x https://www.overclockers.co.uk/corsair-vengeance-lpx-black-16gb-2x8gb-3600-mhz-amd-ryzen-tuned-ddr4-memory-dual-kit-my-4bw-cs.html (Corsair Vengeance LPX Black 16GB (2x8GB) 3600 MHz AMD Ryzen Tuned DDR4 Memory Dual Kit)= *£98.99*
*Total: £658.47 *(includes shipping: £10.50)​https://www.overclockers.co.uk/amd-ryzen-9-3900x-twelve-core-4.6ghz-socket-am4-processor-retail-cp-3b5-am.html (<script class="js-extraPhrases" type="application/json">
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## novaburst (Feb 13, 2020)

It possible could mean the site I was on only revealed MBs for AMD for £200.00 upwards, meaning they will not sell a board that is not guaranteed to function resulting in a more expensive board

But under reviews I could not find consistency as there have been many complaints that ether the cheaper MBs fot AMD needed a lot of configuration and Bois update to function correctly or even to function. 

Some needed to return the cheaper MBs and opt for the more expensive one to get the AMD and the memory to work, 

When compared to an Intel that is plug and play. 

My thoughts are AMD are offering the better package once you can assure the hardware you choice is a working one and does not bring a lot of head bang


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## Technostica (Feb 13, 2020)

novaburst said:


> It possible could mean the site I was on only revealed MBs for AMD for £200.00 upwards, meaning they will not sell a board that is not guaranteed to function resulting in a more expensive board.
> But under reviews I could not find consistency as there have been many complaints that ether the cheaper MBs fot AMD needed a lot of configuration and Bois update to function correctly or even to function.
> Some needed to return the cheaper MBs and opt for the more expensive one to get the AMD and the memory to work


It’s possible that you are thinking of some of the initial high prices at the time of launch where there was fairly low stock levels so some retailers were price gouging.
We were talking about the X570 boards and they ALL work with the Ryzen 3000 series CPUs.
Maybe you have confused this with the situation where the previous 400 series and older boards needed a BIOS update to work with the Ryzen 3000 series CPUs?
That is normal procedure for most platforms and not limited to AMD, although in some cases you can even update the BIOS with some boards without a CPU present. AMD also offered a free service where they would mail you an old CPU so you could install that to upgrade the BIOS prior to installing the 3000 series; free postage both ways.



novaburst said:


> My thoughts are AMD are offering the better package once you can assure the hardware you choice is a working one and does not bring a lot of head bang



My general advice is don’t buy into a platform in the first 3 months at least unless you have to. I say this for hardware and for O/S releases.
I bought an Asus board with the Intel 6 series chipset that had a recall due to a fault with the SATA controller. They recalled every board from every manufacturer at a cost of around three quarters of a Billion dollars.
Generally I’d say Intel tend to have less teething issues on release but they are usually just that and not deal breakers. Many of them seem to relate to not being able to run RAM at the maximum speed. Hardly a big deal and wait for a few BIOS updates and that tends to get resolved.
I’m not aware of there being so many issues with the Ryzen 3000 series as with previous ones. 
As the quality of their hardware continues to put Intel to shame and sales increase it seems as if vendors are giving a lot more attention to optimising for AMD. There are RAM kits which have optimised profiles for Ryzen CPUs for example.
Keep in mind that initial reviews are more likely to find issues and my sense is that AMD release stuff on tighter timescales and definitely budgets. My wait 3 month rule is definitely in play with AMD.

You seem to be more of a glass half empty guy when it comes to AMD?
I am conservative so tend to favour Intel for various reasons.
But when I look at all the security issues they have had over the last 2 years which have required updates that reduce performance I find it harder to recommend Intel. They are certainly no longer the conservative choice of 2 years ago. 
Then there’s their increasing loss of power efficiency which now leaves them way behind AMD.
They’ll be back but maybe not for a couple of years.


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## kitekrazy (Feb 13, 2020)

Don't the Ryzens come with their own cooler? I hate shopping for those. Intel stopped including those which brings me back to Intel = pricey.


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## easyrider (Feb 13, 2020)

Yes 

I have a 3900x under a AIO and it’s a magnificent cpu


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## chimuelo (Feb 19, 2020)

Only thing Intel has caught my attention with is this.









Optane persistent memory: Is the end of conventional client storage almost here?


Intel's Optane persistent memory continues to make strides in data centers, but should we expect it to do the same in tomorrow's client systems?




venturebeat.com






And it most definitely will be a new 10nm CPU with Optane DC that excites gamers, and content creators working in real time.

This is always good for us.
This is where my 14nm CPU’s will go...


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