My new AMD build
A month has past in building the perfect super music production / mixing machine. I’ve opted for an AMD Ryzen 9 3950x CPU as it’s benchmark is 36,000; compared to my old Sandybridge i7 3.4 2600k with its benchmark of 7600!
I completed it 3 days ago following motherboard issues and opened a hefty project during the first few tests. Found that rather having used up a wopping 95% on the CPU, I’m on only 35% with the new machine. With this am using a buffer size of 64, rather than the typical delayed 512!
On building this machine over the last month I had some issues trying an Asus x570 Prime Pro Motherboard, which ended up not allowing certain PCIe cards to work, including a TI Firewire PCIe card with my Fireface 800 sound card, which the Asus board froze during system boot.
Have learnt that Asus made a buggy Bios update and do not plan to fix it.
There are apparently issues with AMD with UAD cards and think the true issue is simply that various newer mother boards bios’ are not supporting older PCIe cards. It’s not the CPU that’s the problem here, it’s the bios updates.
Following installing the new Asrock x570 Extreme with AMD Ryzen9 3950x, 2x Ryzen 3600mhz 16GB ram cards, old Nvidia 560 graphics; I started a new track yesterday. Had 3 instances of Serum (which would have cracked and popped the old machine (guaranteed), abbey road piano in Kontakt (which I previously could never use the default sounds and reverbs), abbey road drums (which I would have needed to freeze at times with all the other plugins), Absynth5, and a load of VTM (hmm, should I say anything about this?) tracks on various groups. The CPU was at 10% with all these plugins, which would have started to crackle and pop in the i7 machine. This AMD machine however, is solid as a rock!!
Was running at 64 buffer size, monitoring through Cubase and recording vocals with an artist with no issues at all.
So, just wanted to give a confident thumbs up on using and building an AMD Ryzen9 machine… And looking forward to getting more into intensive analog emulator plugins from now on, without any glitches
Damn, I’ve always been an Intel and ASUS guy, but everywhere I see information giving me an inkling to switch it up and go AMD and different Mobo company.
Is that ASUS problem only pertain to that specific model or series, do you know?
I was going to build a new Intel system off their workstation series WS X299 or WS C621E SAGE.
ASUS Workstation mobos have always been solid and stable for me for the most part.
Am actually disappointed with Asus as the board looks, feels and bios is great. I had 2x these Asus X570 Prime Pro’s and had Scan computers test also. We decided that Asus’ bugged bios is not the way to go and do Asrock was the way forward as Asus all had the same issues with the PCIe issues and refusing to fix it with updates.
Not sure if it’s the same with Intel, mind, which is interesting… That’s for another topic and who’s behind who I guess.
For the price, AMD works with the right Motherboard and gives more power hands down
On a slightly unrelated note, my son has bought an HP laptop to use for audio and video editing while traveling, and its DPC latency has been impossible to live with. After searching the entire internet, no bios cures seem to be available, and no prospects of BIOS updates from HP or AMD. Avoid HP, if you’re using AMD. .
Im alittle bit nervous now when reading about the problem of pci-e cards issue of ryzen. I building right now a similar pc for music production. My cpu will arrive in some days now and its the same cpu 3950x as you have Jouleskeys. My mobo is a gigabyte x570 auros master. The thing is that i have a thunderbolt pci-e card wich i need to connect my soundcard (apollo x6) to. And also i have 2 pci-e card uad2 solos wich i want to use.
I hope there will not be problem to get these to work. My first time with amd now and that make me a little bit nervous to hear your issue about pci-e card
When I look at last generation AMD motherboards, some had up to 14 bios updates in a year.
Intel had 1, the 1 that the motherboard was born with. That is a little bit scary, but could be a non issue.
Anyhow, please report back, Any real life experience using Ryzen in a DAW is rare.
Hope it is a smashing success.
I had bad experiences with my last, and I do mean LAST, AMD. It seemed to me that AMD just doesn’t get their fair share of Quality Assurance Testing from other manufacturers. So, for me it is Intel. It seems pretty unfair to AMD… IMHO.
Congrats on your new blazing machine. I have a similar system to you: Fireface 800, FW Ti card and UAD2 Quad. So I’m curious, did the UAD work without problem on the Asrock Mobo? Also, what did you do for cooling, since that CPU doesn’t come with a fan. Did you buy a standard one or go with a liquid cooler?
After two months with Ryzen 3950x, all I can say is:
Thumbs up!
See my signature for system details.
Ps. BiOS updates are not scary. There are even mobos with dual BIOS support if you happen to have a power failure during upgrade. Never in my 25 years of using computers did I ever break a mobo because of an update. BIOS updates can be crucial, just read the Changelogs…
Actually, mostly optimizing and adding to or improving the initialization procedure library (AGESA)
ASrock X570 Extreme4 BIOS Versions and info
Version Description
2.20 Update AMD AGESA Combo-AM4 1.0.0.4 Patch B
1.90 Update AMD AGESA Combo-AM4 1.0.0.3 ABBA
1.70 1 Update AMD AGESA Combo-AM4 1.0.0.3 ABBA
2 Improve Destiny2 gaming experience with Matisse CPU.
1.60 Improve compatibility with DDR4-3000 or above memory.
1.50 Optimize the SYS_FAN1 Setting
1.40 Enhance Ryzen 9 CPU performance
1.30 Update AMD AGESA Combo_AM4 PI 1.0.0.3
1.10 First release.
I’ve been building my own computers since 1996 and have gone through over a dozen motherboards and have updated the BIOS on every one, often multiple times. Plus I’ve updated probably 30 or more computers at work. I’ve never had a single problem. The utilities provided make it pretty easy.
