Anyone using the i9 7900x or higher?

Anyone here rocking any of the new i9 chips?

Highly considering a build based around the 10-Core i9 7900x, but I’m wondering if I should go even higher and get one of the 12 or 14 core processors.

I use large orchestral templates via VEPro. I have two Mac Pros from 2010 and 2012, one acting as a slave machine. I’m worried they’re so old that they would become bottlenecks if I tried to use them as slave machines with something as new as the 7900x, so I’m half hoping I can actually run my entire template on the new i9.

Any guidance? Should I spend extra and nab a CPU with more cores to better handle all of my VEPro instances? Will using the older MacPros as slave bottleneck everything else?

Better to post this in Computer/Studio Hardware & Setup forum. But to keep it short…I’m also considering something like this but still not sure to go for the i9 or i7-7820X 8 core? I9 get much hotter. And frankly I’m not really sure if it’s worth almost twice the money for 2 extra more cores and a little extra L2 cache.

Absolute complete and total disaster!

Processor (CPU) Intel® Core™ i9 18 Core Processor i9-7980XE (2.6GHz) 24.75MB Cache
Motherboard ASUS® WS X299 PRO: ATX, USB 3.1, SATA 6 GB/s
Memory (RAM) 128GB Corsair VENGEANCE DDR4 2133MHz (8 x 16GB)
Graphics Card 3GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 1060 - DVI, HDMI, 3 x DP

Ran it with Windows 10 and the multicore problem kicked in with a vengeance. Poor performance and clicks and pops everywhere. Then went to downgrade to Windows 8.1 as per Steinberg advice and discovered the i9 doesn’t officially support anything other than W10. However managed to get 8.1 pro running fine and found all the drivers - all the little yellow triangles gone. Result! BUT… Cubase won’t run. APPCRASH every time with both 9.0.30 and 9.5.21. So I now have to faff around in the bios turning stuff off and working out what’s causing the appcrash or I wait for Steinberg to get their act together and support windows 10. But Im a working composer and life is too short. I have another working rig so Im going to stick with that and come back to this when I have time. SO in short…be very careful about the i9 thing. My Xeon rig is rock solid and I bitterly regret ever going down the i9 path.

Here’s the error I get on startup. I’ve completely uninstalled everything and reinstalled same problem.

Problem signature:
Problem Event Name: APPCRASH
Application Name: Cubase9.exe
Application Version: 9.0.30.266
Application Timestamp: 597060a7
Fault Module Name: Cubase Plug-in Set.vst3
Fault Module Version: 6.1.30.259
Fault Module Timestamp: 59686b7b
Exception Code: c000001d
Exception Offset: 00000000006af984
OS Version: 6.3.9600.2.0.0.256.48
Locale ID: 2057
Additional Information 1: 6fce
Additional Information 2: 6fce053ee798a87672e9ed2320cd2c65
Additional Information 3: 9f99
Additional Information 4: 9f9958e8c95a7b7c67d4cec3b169669d

Read this before spending money thinking you’ll get better performance than your current computers…

Sorry to hear you’re having such massive issues with this system. I know how frustrating this can be! I manage to get mine (see sig) running stable on Windows 10 Pro but it took me a while also. In the mean time switching from one system to the other, which became a big pain after a while.

In my case the main things that made the difference where:

System setttings:

  1. Turn off Hyper Threading in the bios. (In your case with 18 cores probably a must!)
  2. Turn off all power saving in the bios (c-states, Intel speedstep) except for Turbo mode.
  3. -Optonal- Overclocked to 4,2 GHZ with XMS enabled (for your processor most likely not as high. Just use the auto tune function in the bios.)
    Windows settings:
  4. Turn off Hibernation
  5. Turn off Virtual Memory (Paging file)
  6. Disable Core Parking (Disable CPU Core Parking Utility)
    Cubase settings:
  7. Activate Multi Processing
  8. Activate Asio Guard (Normal)
  9. Acitivate Steinberg Audio Power Scheme (Or optionally make your own in Power plans? I only want it to run at 4.2 GHZ when Cubase is running. When running regular Windows programs it can just dynamically change the core speed as far as I’m concerned.)

I can now run my interface on 96 samples/48khz which gives me around 5 ms latency without any glitches and it’s very stable. Depending on how many and what plugins used I can even go to 64 samples around 3 ms but that’s not really necessary.

Hope this helps?

Thank you very much that’s enormously helpful. Fabio from support has given me a regedit solution that has helped and it seems Im up and running but not at it’s full potential. Still we;re getting there. I will try your suggestions. hyperthreading and c step are now off and Ill try the rest.

Thanks again!

Guy

Wow. Sounds like I just bought the exact same machine. It’s neing delivered as I type. Could you send me the Reg edit fix?

I also ordered one. Is it running okay now? I’ll see how it runs without changing anything first.

I have also ordered one - albeit with a different ASUS MB, Asus ROG Rampage VI Extreme.
Would appreciate it if I could have the regedit fix too, please? :wink:.


Further more, motherboard manufacturers post detailed lists of the components that are tested to work with a particular MB. The QVL (qualified vendor lists) are a good go-to when building systems.


In the case of the system mentioned above by guymichelmore, The relevent docs can be found at:

HI Guy Michelmore, Larry from ASMAC out here in LA. I hope things are going well for you and ThinkSpace.
I’m thinking of getting one to work with C10 in the coming months.

I just watched Junkie XL video and this is what he’s using but he has a rackmount (sideways) physical version he had built for him.
He seems to think they are working wonderfully, so I’m wondering if you figured out your setup to run great at this point months later.

(Referring to: Junkie XL video called 'Here are my computer’s specs!)
One of Junkie XL’s version of this computer spec was built by Heavy Duty Audio company.
So I know he has access to the best techs (with his Hans Zimmer’s techs having helped him in the past) to have tweaked his setup.

Did you get yours to work and has it been up to your expectations for the money spent?

best,
Larry G