Amd ryzen processors and cubase 11.5

Cubase
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I may consider AMD for this next upgrade, after all… I don’t trust MS to test Win10 with AMD’s for their updates releases. I still remember an update to Win7 that broke millions of AMD’s including mine and they had to back-out that upgrade with a “special” patch to get our broken AMD systems to be able to receive the next re-worked update - After that I promised myself no more AMDs! (Do you suppose MS learned their lesson?) Also remembering an AMD system that I bought for Win98 that simply would not work with USB! My brother had bought the same system and both of us, just had to “brick” $400 MOBO & CPU… hmm… remembering this as I type this out… I just don’t know If I CAN break that promise!?

BUT to utilize a known recipe per Dom’s specifications specifically with Cubase - Well what could go wrong there - Right? - :thinking: - Now, what was that about AMD not optimized for NI? Hmm? :thinking: Do I really want to gamble on that promise??? :thinking: I will at least take a look at the performance diffs - for what I am considering for my upgrade as the i9-10900X vs Dom’s AMD 5950X

Well the performance diff appears to be as much as 70% more AMD power on the SOS comparisons specifically for DAW Audio. (first image)

But then at UserBenchmark there is only a 16% AMD advantage. (second image)

Any thoughts from you all?

core_wars_SOS
core_wars_SOS1000×569 147 KB

core_wars_userbenchmark
core_wars_userbenchmark1221×932 125 KB

core_wars_userbenchmark2
core_wars_userbenchmark21168×593 89.8 KB

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userbenchmark, you mean the site that got paid by Intel to hinder AMD in lowering the weight of multicore perfs vs single core perfs for their bench results? AMD is really bothering Intel and Nvidia in their business right now. Google the “gamers nexus” issue with Nvidia when they said their new card was average in one of their reviews on Youtube. Same applies to Intel.

And don’t worry about your benchmark score on this affiliated site. This is only useful to check if you’ve got some problems with your new build.

Regarding your initial issue, install Windows 10 Pro and defer your feature updates by 5-6 months in the Group Policy and problem solved. Don’t forget to install motherboard chipset drivers directly from AMD website and activate the AMD Ryzen High Performance power mode in Windows Power Options.

I’ve been using a 3900XT for 4 months now with Cubase 11 / Kontakt / Omnisphere with no issue. The only crashes I had were while playing Witcher 3 but I would blame more CD Projekt than Microsoft, Nvidia or AMD for this.

Anyway, just buy whatever high end CPU you want, Intel or AMD, you will get a lot out of them. Just don’t dismiss AMD because you read a random bad review on an affiliated website.

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You can forget about “Userbenchmark”. It’s garbage. I think “Hardware Unboxed” had a very good breakdown of why, specifically, it’s garbage.

As for any particular issues you can probably rest easy on MS having specific issues with AMD. As for connectivity problems I saw an Intel user having issues with TB just a couple of days ago, so there are going to be users with specific combinations of hardware/software that have issues on both platforms.

All I can say is that my previous set up was fine, and the current one (check my sig) has served me very well so far, I quite like it. I’m of course not telling you to emulate my setup, but I really wouldn’t be that concerned about AMD - you just have to use the same diligence when building as you would with Intel.

When it comes to NI I thought that was an issue with Cubase/Nuendo, not AMD. Perhaps it was AMD. I have their stuff but don’t really use it so to me it’s a non-issue.

You seem to feel strongly against AMD so I would suggest you buy Intel instead and just feel good about it. At this point it’s not like you’re going to get a bad system (probably) regardless of what you buy.

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Innervision: See, Userbenchmark discriminating against AMD is just the kind of unfair trade practice that concerns me about AMD, suggest they still are not getting any favors by these big market players. I really think it is unfair, but don’t want to be on the losing end again.

Rest assured as you suggest I absolutely never just apply updates for a few months. Windows 10 makes it nearly impossible to stop those, but there are ways. So difficult that I don’t remember how that is done, it’s in my hardware sys notes. MS also have more than one pathway for their updates, which is infuriating – but that is another rant-hole, not for now.

I appreciate your info about AMD. I wish that Dom or someone had done the performance compare with Cubase with the 3900XT vs 10900K which are not that far in price and may good options.

MattiasNYC: Thanks for that info re the benchmarks. Just last week was my first foray into anything NI and not with much significance yet, they are pretty seductive. I got Method 1 by Sound Yeti and it is pretty cool. I liked how it looked and figured I would take an $80 “gamble”, and it is a helpful way for me to program Drums, fast and without much brain damage, so far, that is…

You have got me right, about having strong reservations with AMD, had some really bad experiences there. It also seems like every time I sort out a new system, I always still feel like more power would be a good thing. Now on a i7-5960x 3Ghz 16Gb & 2 UA-TB/Apollos. I’m still happy with all my UA. Mine are the original silver FireWires with the TB2 cards and would just a soon not get the 4TB option for its $200 – my latencies and through put’s are fine and I get enough horse power from the Apollos, don’t feel upgrade needs there. I use a little TB2 to TB3 converter on an optical wire, hope to use that with the new system.

SO, because of my Intel bias – thinking it will be the i9-10900K. I like ASUS. I will need to figure out for sure if the Z490 chipset is best as I am thinking or If the Z590 is advisable. There doesn’t seem to be a compelling reason the stray from the Intel between these systems in the current market, for price, or power. So, I can stay with what I know best, for this upgrade and hope I can finally get that sweet spot of not pushing my system to its limits whilst I abuse it mercilessly.
Really Best Wishes for all you AMD guys – and Thanks

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That’s not really true though. Userbenchmarks isn’t a big market player, to me that would be Microsoft. So Intel can strong-arm Userbenchmarks and get them to do things Intel’s way, but that doesn’t necessarily translate to MS.

There’s a reason AMD has won huge contracts for high-end super-compute systems. This isn’t 2010 any more.

SoundOnSound compared them. AMD won.

No offense - but why did you even bother asking?

Your mind was already made up. I doubt there was anything anyone could have said that would have changed your mind…

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For me Intel has always been the more stable long lasting workhorse without problems, long term compatibility with windows, etc. Never a problem.

I’ll take that over splitting hairs on performance.

Intel
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ASUS
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Nvidia

rock solid. Mission critical stability is more important to me than, a few % gains on performance.

edit

Recent article
AMD vs Intel 2021: Who Makes the Best CPUs? | Tom’s Hardware

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I wouldn’t really call it a useful comparison, perhaps a useful test. But it’s comparing two different computers one old, and one new full spec’d demo from a builder, more than it is comparing Intel vs Amd

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I appreciate your perspectives. And I was not trolling you. I also REALLY don’t want to throw rocks at you’re AMD preference – they appear legit at this point. I don’t follow the market trends and just FINALLY got my funds for this upgrade. I really wanted to know if there was a monumental reversal in the top CPU power metrics - As I have caught up with what is going on - It does look like in the end of 2019 and till Q2 of 2020 (just a general impression, my research is pretty cursory) that AMD - WAS wiping the floor with Intel until the recent generations of Intel processors. Now it seems for similar dollars Intel as largely diminished the gap, if not closed it.

The Userbenchmark thing – I agree is not Userbenchmark as the unfair operative, but as you say, their succumbing to those strong-arm influences – I think we agree on it.

My concerns with the SOS tests are that they used Reaper and not Cubase, and by concerns I only mean that the results may not be as applicable to our platform as we would like to think. Seems I have read that reaper is kind-a killing it as far as multi-core processing and Steinberg… Steinberg has just recently made “improvements” to multi-core processing - but while I have not read even most of the post of the forums, I haven’t really seen any professing really convincing testimonials of really major improvements in v11 or v10.5.30. Even Steinbergs multi-core processing improvements release statements were not tremendously concrete. I suspect that it IS important to still have a really fast single core performance, thus pushing that edge, maybe a little more to Intel, or not, just can’t be sure without those specific metrics, and I haven’t seen them anywhere.

I to feel safer with my $3-4k going with Intel + Asus + Nvidia as LoveGames described and same for MY past experiences.

And - thanks for your comments - I value your input, and did look into the things you brought up.

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If Intel is good enough for NASA, it’s good enough to make beats with

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I was also an intel Nvidia only but on MSI at one stage and now I’m on AMD on Asus. I won’t willingly buy another Asus board again and I’m happy with my AMD and was happy with my Matrox Pharelia cards until I was forced to Nvidia which at the time raised my latency.

so was an intel 486, a Roland MC50 and a Nikon F3 but we don’t see anyone using them anymore :joy:

In all reality its like the os debate mac vs pc/ intel vs amd it’s all down to our experiences and how comfortable we are with each platform. Like a lot of things its about preference and past experiences.

There is something said about staying away from the “bleeding edge” and letting things mature. AMD is currently in a fairly mature platform stage. imho
Intel has been severely unstable in the past. We had to wait months to get bios update after bios update for their cliplet glued together multicore xeon processors for Intel’s random crashes and software freezing and general instability, now we have a choice not to buy something. Nvidia drivers for Microsoft vista were so unstable they cost Microsoft Billions as everyone blamed Microsoft and the court case is still ongoing. Now everyone is complaining about Nvida drivers Hogging CPU resources compared to previous driver versions and vs the competition.

The Fact is Intel is stuck which means that if you buy a 3year old intel system and a new one your performance will be much the same.

If you were to work on an amd system the only real difference you will notice to the intel system is how much extra you can load into the project before it chokes.

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ASUS > msi

It sounds like you did a bad build tbh.

Why not talk about Windows 7 and intel/nvidia - probably still today one of the most stable operating systems and hardware combos. My main system is still Windows 7, ASUS Workstation, Intel chip - works great 10 or 15 or how many years later.

Intel has from what I’ve seen always been more stable and less errors, quicker to release updates/fixes, etc. Of coarse there are going to be issues when when a brand new OS is released, which is why so many people/businesses held onto their Windows 7 machines for as long as possible.

ASUS Workstation motherboard, drop in an Intel chip… and don’t look back. Is an AMD going to be able to have 10 more tracks at a 32 buffer? Okay, I can freeze some on my Intel machine, or change the buffer.

Not sure how Intel is “stuck”, they maybe have a slower development cycle… AMD is pushing their stuff out quick to win the video gamer market. I don’t mind waiting for new intel chips, I’m not playing video games.

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Yip spot on. The weak link was the ASUS motherboard. a bit too quirky. Previously I only had Intel IBM and HP motherboards on my studio machines and MSI on my home system.

But this is my point. The systems are subjective to our experiences. I am using AMD now for my system right now and I am happy, you are using Intel now and your happy. I will go back to intel on the next system if its better but currently for me and many others it isn’t.

I must apologies I didn’t mean to make this an Intel vs AMD shill fest. I am saying is the days of being forced to buy one system is over there are options for people who want more capacity in their systems without having to pay for a Xeon platinum’s and the latency penalty if it needs to be a duel socket system.

Being happy on AMD or Intel is a thing now, we not just stuck on one.

My point is that other than AMD being faster or cheaper on a desktop system there is no real difference when using either system.

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was it a workstation ASUS, or was it a gaming ASUS?

All I know is that ASUS Workstation Mobos - specifically ‘Workstation’, Intel, and NVIDIA has been nothing but stable, minimal system tweaks, works out the box, easy stable driver updates, etc.

Maybe I’ve been lucky, or maybe there is a reason NASA and %90+ of server arrays are Intel.

The performance gains of AMD are attractive, but I’m not going to chase relatively small performance gains and risk stability, and instead be patient for the next Intel chips that will compete closer to or beat AMD.

From what I gathered, Intel was busy in 2020 extending their hyperthreading tech down to their lower range tier products as well as developing new dedicated graphics GPU released this year with all their new high end CPUs.

Perhaps AMD will just completely capture the gaming market, and Intel will maintain it’s rein on the IT and server market, leaving creators in the middle to decide between the two. With needing to switch my main studio PC from Windows 7, to a new Windows 10 compatible machine which is going to cost at least $10,000 - I’m not rushing into anything, I’ll be waiting at least a year for all the dust and AMD hype to settle before I do my new build.

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Well I hope Cubase will like the combo I select to build, I’ll put that on a new topic.

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No, that’s not it. It’s about what fundamental CPU architecture they’re using in their lineups.

You didn’t start it.

And what would it take to convince you? I’m actually genuinely wondering. Because the same caveats I see today (in general) are the same caveats I saw a decade ago. But today isn’t a decade ago.

First of all, the one gaining market share is AMD, not Intel. And this includes desktop consumer, the prosumer line which is arguably the 8-16 core range Ryzen CPUs, the workstation market which is Threadripper, and definitely also the IT/server market with EPYC. As far as I can see Intel has nothing to respond to AMD with on server. I think there’s a niche where ARM outperforms AMD but otherwise the one selling argument for Intel is that “It’s Intel”, which by itself means virtually nothing.

Secondly, what “AMD hype”? I bought my first generation Ryzen 1700 (see sig) almost a year after it was announced, about 10 months after release. I always do this to give the vendors time to iron out any issues. But it’s first generation. So it’s been years since the “hype” began and the improvements over the CPU I have and what AMD is offering today is just crazy.

Now, my setup with Win 10 Pro is stable. It works. I do work I get paid for on it. I’ve got my feature updates deferred by a year and quality updates by a month. What is this “hype” that needs to die down today and when would that be? It’s already been close to half a decade but people are still comparing Ryzen to CPUs we ran under Win 7 10-15 years ago. So in 2025 we’ll still be talking about my R7 1700 I bet… Know what I mean?

If you’re a die-hard Intel customer you’ll never find satisfactory evidence that AMD is better.

And so my question still stands: Why are ‘you people’ even bothering posting in an AMD thread?

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Why don’t you start your own thread about your Intel build?

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Ya that makes sense it doesn’t really belong here

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Asus did not have workstation boards for AMD at the time I purchased mine. Gigabyte did but weren’t available in my country. The most annoying thing was it would lose fan control and either ramp up the fans to full or not spin them up and the CPU would overheat under load and the system shut down. I now have a corsair fan control on the CPU.

The desktop has already transitioned to Majority AMD 51%+, laptops people are waking up to AMD’s 20% and Servers will wake up as they are normally 3years behind due to the lengthy validation process.
Intel’s latest 11th gen cpu’s are in many respects slower the 10th gen. I think it will take a long time for AMD to build confidence on the High-end systems as for the desktop it’s a no brainer.

I was forced into my upgrade due to my PC dying of old age after 9years service. I would have liked to upgrade to another dual xeon Lenovo flavoured but that was $14k in the end I am happy with my gen1 threadripper. AMD have made it so we can do what we did on Xeon Workstation on the desktop without much fuss.

If you are waiting for the dust to settle, I think it will take another 2 years for the mindset to change. The AMD workstation processors to compete with the Intel Xeon for all-round set and forget has not been released yet and Intel is still stuck on 14nm with the 11th gen change to the new architecture that was originally designed for the failed 10nm process. Windows 10 and AMD is stable and most software is stable on it.
In 2 years, mindset issues that remain AMD would have complete ironed out and we can see where intel is. For the desktop AMD is a no brainer.

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@MattiasNYC
How is your system for latency?

I have some helpful win 10 pro tweaks that will help everyone that not many are doing.
Like enabling windows “Ultimate performance” power mode option from the command line and unhiding some of the power profile options like “Disable Idle Process.” These two tweaks has a drastic performance boost on my system.

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My buffers are never lower than 512. I do post-production for radio/TV/Film so I don’t need them to be lower than that. As a matter of fact I frequently max them out when rendering hour+ long content to speed things up.