Pier
Senior Member
I've mentioned in other threads that I've been building a Ryzen machine for music production. I'd like to share my specs, comments, and results.
TL;DR: For my use case which is mostly using virtual synths, this thing is a beast.
Specs
CPU: Ryzen 7 3700X
Motherboard: Gigabyte Aorus Wifi Pro B450
RAM: 16GB 2133Mhz (I used 2 8GB sticks from a previous build)
GPU: ASUS Strix 1070
PSU: Corsair RM850x
SSD: Kingston Digital HyperX Predator (also used this from a previous build)
Cooler: Noctua NH D15 (still waiting for this, using stock cooler for now)
Audio interface: Audient iD4 via USB (latest drivers and firmware)
Installation notes
I bought the B450 board because it was relatively cheap and I'm not interested in overclocking. Unfortunately I didn't read the fine print which is: the B450 boards need a BIOS and firmware update to be able to run Ryzen 3000 CPUs, and you need a supported CPU to do this. So after running the machine the first time and panicking I figured it out and had to buy a cheap 2200G Ryzen CPU to be able to update the BIOS. Apparently AMD offers free boot kits for this but since I don't live in the US I really didn't want to wait.
I also needed to install the Windows Firmware drivers from the AMD website since the ones from Gigabyte are not the latest.
Windows 10 installed some old Nvidia drivers. I manually installed the latest ones but did not install Nvidia Bloatware Experience.
About noise and temps
The 3700X is rated at 65W of TDP, but I've found this to be very misleading. I'm sure this technically correct but it's not the whole story.
I have a gaming machine with a quad core i5 6500 which is also rated at 65W and I can run it at ambient temperature on idle with a medium sized cooler (Scythe Kotetsu). I expected the same from the Ryzen. Boy I was wrong.
The first time I ran Windows the CPU was running at 60ºC on idle and the stock fan was screaming. After some googling I found a post on Reddit and they recommended the firmware drivers from AMD which did lower the idle temps to about 35-40ºC. Still too high. After reading some more I learned that Ryzen CPUs usually have higher temps on idle than Intel, much like an engine running at higher RPMs to be able to turbo boost at any moment or something like that. It was frustrating at first, but knowing all this it was just a matter of adjusting the fan speeds on the BIOS to run very low until the CPU was higher than 50ºC similar to what Apple does. After doing that the CPU is almost inaudible when the room is in complete silence.
With the stock cooler the max temps have never gone beyond 77ºC when checking with Ryzen Master.
I'd like to add that the Strix GPU and the Corsair PSU do not turn the fans on until there is a significant work load so the only noise I hear is the CPU fan. I also have 2 Nanoxia Deep Silence fans on the case which are inaudible from the sitting position running at low RPMs.
Special configs
I haven't messed around much with any custom configs:
Latencymon is all green and reports a max DPC latency of 248us which is fine for me. I've been using the Wifi chip from the motherboard during the monitoring.
CPU-Z benchmarks report results a bit better than the average for the 3700X I guess I got a bit lucky with the silicon lottery.
At 256 samples of buffer Ableton Live reports 10ms of latency which is totally fine for my use case.
So here comes the most interesting result for me. I run a small benchmark in Ableton Live with Hive 2 in the machines I have. I use the default preset (a bass with effects and a couple of unison voices). So I write 1 note 1 bar long and start duplicating tracks until I hear audio artifacts at 256 samples of buffer.
After the initial bumpy road with this build I'm now starting to salivate at being able to throw pretty much anything I can probably need at it. :D
I will run more tests with Diva and other synths but this is all for now!
TL;DR: For my use case which is mostly using virtual synths, this thing is a beast.
Specs
CPU: Ryzen 7 3700X
Motherboard: Gigabyte Aorus Wifi Pro B450
RAM: 16GB 2133Mhz (I used 2 8GB sticks from a previous build)
GPU: ASUS Strix 1070
PSU: Corsair RM850x
SSD: Kingston Digital HyperX Predator (also used this from a previous build)
Cooler: Noctua NH D15 (still waiting for this, using stock cooler for now)
Audio interface: Audient iD4 via USB (latest drivers and firmware)
Installation notes
I bought the B450 board because it was relatively cheap and I'm not interested in overclocking. Unfortunately I didn't read the fine print which is: the B450 boards need a BIOS and firmware update to be able to run Ryzen 3000 CPUs, and you need a supported CPU to do this. So after running the machine the first time and panicking I figured it out and had to buy a cheap 2200G Ryzen CPU to be able to update the BIOS. Apparently AMD offers free boot kits for this but since I don't live in the US I really didn't want to wait.
I also needed to install the Windows Firmware drivers from the AMD website since the ones from Gigabyte are not the latest.
Windows 10 installed some old Nvidia drivers. I manually installed the latest ones but did not install Nvidia Bloatware Experience.
About noise and temps
The 3700X is rated at 65W of TDP, but I've found this to be very misleading. I'm sure this technically correct but it's not the whole story.
I have a gaming machine with a quad core i5 6500 which is also rated at 65W and I can run it at ambient temperature on idle with a medium sized cooler (Scythe Kotetsu). I expected the same from the Ryzen. Boy I was wrong.
The first time I ran Windows the CPU was running at 60ºC on idle and the stock fan was screaming. After some googling I found a post on Reddit and they recommended the firmware drivers from AMD which did lower the idle temps to about 35-40ºC. Still too high. After reading some more I learned that Ryzen CPUs usually have higher temps on idle than Intel, much like an engine running at higher RPMs to be able to turbo boost at any moment or something like that. It was frustrating at first, but knowing all this it was just a matter of adjusting the fan speeds on the BIOS to run very low until the CPU was higher than 50ºC similar to what Apple does. After doing that the CPU is almost inaudible when the room is in complete silence.
With the stock cooler the max temps have never gone beyond 77ºC when checking with Ryzen Master.
I'd like to add that the Strix GPU and the Corsair PSU do not turn the fans on until there is a significant work load so the only noise I hear is the CPU fan. I also have 2 Nanoxia Deep Silence fans on the case which are inaudible from the sitting position running at low RPMs.
Special configs
I haven't messed around much with any custom configs:
- Custom fans config in the BIOS
- Ultimate Power Plan (added with a terminal command)
- Disabled the onboard audio chip in the BIOS
- Uninstalled a bunch of games and Microsoft crap included in Windows 10
Latencymon is all green and reports a max DPC latency of 248us which is fine for me. I've been using the Wifi chip from the motherboard during the monitoring.
CPU-Z benchmarks report results a bit better than the average for the 3700X I guess I got a bit lucky with the silicon lottery.
At 256 samples of buffer Ableton Live reports 10ms of latency which is totally fine for my use case.
So here comes the most interesting result for me. I run a small benchmark in Ableton Live with Hive 2 in the machines I have. I use the default preset (a bass with effects and a couple of unison voices). So I write 1 note 1 bar long and start duplicating tracks until I hear audio artifacts at 256 samples of buffer.
- Old gaming machine (i5 6500) 34 tracks
- 5K iMac (i5 7600K) 40 tracks
- New machine (Ryzen 3700X) 111 tracks
After the initial bumpy road with this build I'm now starting to salivate at being able to throw pretty much anything I can probably need at it. :D
I will run more tests with Diva and other synths but this is all for now!
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