Looking for someone who has ACTUAL experience using this CPU with Cubase 14. I saw one other post from last year asking about this CPU, but there were literally hundreds of irrelevant replies. You could spend all day trying to find one relevant comment.
So please, unless you have actual experience using Cubase with this CPU or know someone who has, please refrain from junking up this thread.
If you do have experience with this CPU and Cubase:
How is it working in general?
Any issues?
What Motherboard are you using?
I just got my system built with this almost a week ago so I haven’t gotten around to doing many tests yet, but others using this CPU with Cubase who I trust have gotten even better performance than the top of the line AMD 9950X3D. Only the AMD ThreadRippers are faster (or ARM-based processors but then you basically have to go MacOS until we get higher end Windows ARM CPUs). So the 285k is probably your best choice for Cubase at the moment if going with a PC and you don’t want to spend the crazy amount of money for a ThreadRipper system.
I got the ASUS ProArt Creator Z890 WiFi motherboard and 256GB of Kingston RAM (four modules of KVR64A52BD8-64) due to an ASUS/Kingston partnership that allows use of AEMP III overclocking with these specific memory modules, giving an official manufacturer overclock so that you don’t lose as much performance as you normally would by going up to 4 modules. You can also use the same overclock with 2 modules of RAM and it is even faster. So if 128GB is enough for you, two of those modules would work great.
The CPU runs extremely cool, which means that the system is quite quiet compared to all previous systems I have owned.
I have been using it in Steinberg Dorico (which uses Cubase as an audio engine) and it is a few times faster than my previous Ryzen 9 3900X from 2019.
I got the Noctua NH-D15 G2 (standard) air cooler and Thermal Grizzly duronaut thermal paste.
It is about the best air cooler you can get before going up to water cooling. The problem with AIO water cooling, other than the risks of leaks etc, is that it doesn’t last as long as air cooling, possibly needing to be replaced after a few years. At first I thought I was going to go with water cooling for this based on how hot my previous Ryzen 3900X ran but I’m glad I didn’t - it wasn’t necessary with this processor.
Great. I see several folks going liquid cool and I’m just don’t want to go that route if I don’t have to.
I’ve been trying to figure out the video card tonight as well. What did you go with? I didn’t think much about it until I looked up the GPU they were using in a video I was watching. The price of some of these things is beyond belief. The one in the video I was watching literally costs $3500. They were doing video editing so maybe they can justify that. I have no need for a fancy video rig as I don’t do high end video or gaming. I don’t mind spending 200-300 if I need to for good DAW performance, but I have no idea where to go on this one.
The GPU is not important for audio. The built-in Intel graphics might be good enough for you unless you need to connect a few displays.
I got the Radeon RX 9070 XT but I’m playing some games on this system too, and that’s why.
Sometimes there is “GPU offload” available for certain plugins and Nvidia GPUs might be better supported by such things (I think there is something like this in SpectraLayers that only supports Nvidia). Some GPU offloading is Nvidia only, some supports Nvidia or AMD - I don’t think anything supports Intel GPU offloading. However, the Nvidia drivers are more likely to cause issues with DPC latency and give audio pops and clicks. The AMD Radeon drivers are generally regarded to be better behaved in this way.
Something along the lines of the RX 9060 XT 16GB might work for you if you need a GPU (but again you might not need to bother).
I actually use the Intel Graphics of my i9 12900 instead of my AMD 7900 XTX. Zero issues using mostly Waves, Plugin Alliance, Arturia plugins and sample libraries in EastWest Play/Opus and Kontakt 7. (Resting the GPU after playing games - oh, the horror!)
I wouldn’t expect any issues - it is more to do with whether the plugin has some kind of GPU offload where the GPU takes some of the processing from the CPU. For instance some of the VSL plugins will do GPU offload to take some load from the CPU if you have “Vienna Power House” installed - but Intel doesn’t help with this. It shouldn’t perform any worse with the majority of plugins out there that don’t do any GPU offloading.
Ask me in 2-3 weeks. I’ll be using it with an ASUS TUF GAMING Z890-PLUS WIFI LGA 1851 ATX and be quite! Dark Rock Elite CPU cooler. I went with that motherboard over another I was considering mainly due to having 5.1 audio on the back for my computer speakers (an old Logitech system) as the others I looked at only had stereo outs.
I think the rest of the components should arrive tomorrow (Sunday), in which case I’ll probably start my build on Monday. I’ve got a load of software and peripherals to migrate, so it’ll probably take me at least a week to get everything over and be functional with Cubase again. My current system is one I initially built in 2014, so pretty long in the tooth at this point.
I noticed you also asked about GPU, and I’m planning on an MSI (NVidia) GeForce RTX 3060 Ventus 2X 12G. This is more for Photoshop, and for potential SpectraLayers GPU offloading, than Cubase. Apparently, Adobe strongly favors Nvidia for that, and a video I watched on configuring for current Photoshop recommended going with more than 8 GB of VRAM if possible. From what I’ve seen on the SpectraLayers forum, more VRAM can also be helpful for the GPU acceleration.
FWIW, here are the basics of my new system:
ASUS
TUF GAMING Z890-PLUS WIFI LGA 1851 ATX
Intel
Core Ultra 9 285K 3.7 GHz 24-Core Processor
be quiet!
Dark Rock Elite CPU Cooler
Corsair
Vengeance DDR5 DRAM 64 GB (2 x 32 GB) DDR5-6400 CL32 Memory
WH16NS40 16X Blu-ray BD/BDXL/MD M-DISC Burner Drive
MOTU
828x
Fractal Design
Define 7 ATX Mid Tower Case
ASUS
VA247HE 23.8" Monitor
ASUS
VA247HE 23.8" Monitor
The SATA SSDs, hard disk, and optical drive will be moved over from my current system, as will the monitors and MOTU interface (though I’ll have to switch from Thunderbolt 2 to USB on that since Thunderbolt 4 is not backwardly compatible with Thunderbolt 2 on Windows).
It is true that Adobe Premiere heavily favours Nvidia GPUs (I have heard about this before), but you mentioned Photoshop, which does not seem to, at least according to most of the searches I have done:
While I looked at other sources, too, the main advice I found on configuring PCs for Photoshop was this video (with the link going straight to the part about Nvidia compared to AMD):
He specifically does mention Photoshop, along with other parts of the Adobe suite, and the key bits he mentions are Nvidia’s CUDA cores for AI-enhanced features, which Photoshop does have quite a number of, and driver stability. Some of Photoshop’s AI features use cloud-based processing, but there are also quite a number that do that processing on the PC itself, and that is an area I’ve used fairly heavily, even before the generative AI features came around.
I’d also watched a separate video that interviewed Puget Systems’ DaVinci Resolve specialist on PC configurations, and they were also leaning heavily toward NVidia for performance. That is my video editor at this point (I switched over from an older version of Vegas Pro in the last couple of years). Mind you, I’m not getting one of the latest cards, in large part due to cost reasons.
Separately, I’d noted, in the Spectralayers forums, mention of the number of CUDA cores’ being important, but I didn’t go as far as comparing specs between NVidia and AMD in any range I could afford. At least for now, though, I’m not using SpectraLayers all that much, though I do think there will be some projects where it may play a key role in the future (e.g. remixing old demos where all I have is stereo masters).
Of course, I don’t personally know, one way or the other on what Photoshop does internally. I have used AMD cards in the distant past, though I’ve been using Nvidia since at least my late 2014 build (I don’t recall what my PC just before that had at this point). The relative safety of having used NVidia (especially since I updated my current card to one that could run Studio drivers), along with this (and other) Photoshop recommendations, and added to on the Resolve front, was what led me to only comparing between NVidia GPUs when I got down to actually making my decision.
Right - I’m not saying that Nvidia is a bad choice (they are the most common choice by far for GPUs which means they are the best tested in third party apps). But they do have potential downsides in the area of DPC latency with DAW’s and causing pops and clicks. So it is a matter of balancing the risks with the benefits in the case of each user. Most people I know who primarily have DAW workflows have preferred AMD cards recently due to driver issues with Nvidia causing these audio dropouts, unless they have to do things like you do.
SpectraLayers has had a few compatibility issues with non-Nvidia cards that they were working on fixing, not necessarily performance issues, but it amounted to the same thing. Assuming they fix all the issues, performance shouldn’t be all that different.
“Number of CUDA cores” is only relevant when deciding between Nvidia products since CUDA is a proprietary Nvidia thing. Other vendors have their own equivalents but they aren’t called “CUDA cores”.
Another question:
You said you used the Proart MB which I had not looked at. I was looking at a similar MB, the ROG MAXIMUS Z890 HERO. I think I still may go with that one based on the amount of USB connections it has.
Not sure if you looked at that one, but as you seem to be a bit more tech savvy than I am, I’m wondering if there is any reasons why you would NOT go with the Hero MB (other than the price)?
I think that board should be just fine. There’s a comparison of boards here:
Both are 8 layer PCB’s which are good. I wanted the 10G ethernet in the Creator model because I also work in IT as a network engineer doing homelab type stuff, but that’s probably not a big deal for you. Otherwise, your board is better - you get more USB, more M.2, and a POST code display instead of the LED’s on the board I have. All very useful.
In the past I would have gotten as many USB ports as possible (like on my last system built 6 years ago) and that was a big factor for me, but since the eLicenser dongle has gone by the wayside, and another third party dongle I needed to use before is no more, I don’t have as many things to connect as I did 5 years ago.
The ROG ones have RGB - if you have a sealed windowless case you’ll want to turn that off, to avoid generating extra heat from lights you aren’t going to see anyway.
Also careful with the built in software - the ROG is going to have a built in thing in the BIOS where it wants to install Armory Crate and DriverHub - you’ll want to turn those off. ASUS makes great boards but not great software. A lot of the ASUS add-on software is bloated and heavy on the system, with potential security risks, you don’t want that stuff in a DAW.
When I moved up from a 2013 TB2 MacBook Pro to a 2015 TB3 MacBook Pro, I too went from using Firewire to USB-C. I soon bought a Motu M4 bus-powered unit.
If you are happy with Motu, and just use the audio outs - then the Motu M4 is a great little unit. The older multi-channel Ultralight mk3 can be had cheap, and features an Spdif out, which I now use. A good quality USB cable is recommended. A basic 1.5m Supra at $40 will do just fine.
I use a very exacting monitor setup, and the M4 comes up very well in comparison to a Bryston BDA-2 DAC. Just slightly more forward, with less depth. But workable. The Ultralight mk3 also performs well with a good Spdif cable into the DAC. A bad cable will smear detail on busy stuff like hi-hats.
I no longer use the audio-outs on my soundcards, since my preferred audio-interconnects are so expensive. So the M4, which sat 3 meters away, is now not used. The Ultralight Spdif out, into the DAC, is more spacious, and defined.
I would have liked to go up to an RME ADI soundcard, but $1500 seemed awfully steep to me, and my sound-quality straight into a Bryston DAC from the computer - is simply staggering. I found the Ultralight, 828, and M4 to all be great input devices, but older 828’s can suddenly fail. I avoid all UA products due to their appalling customer service. So Motu sit quite nicely with me.
If you have a chance to hear it, installing an AES/ABU PCI-E card, and running that balanced to a Bryston DAC - that’s about as good as it gets. But the problem is that you have to switch Asio drivers to another card for inputting. Generally my Ultralight gets me close, monitoring whilst recording externals, then I switch over to the Bryston for microscopic detail, and the huge potential for imaging and depth in your soundscape. After just 1 month of doing this, I can honestly say it’s incredible.
Don’t know much about the 828, but the headphone level at 400ohm on the Ultra and M4 is a bit quiet. So a good headphone amp is needed. You’ll need a power-supply for the 828, to run off USB.
I don’t know many home studio people that run a monitor system like this, but the investment was well worth it. I used well-known CD’s as benchmarks, and many weeks, buying cables, crossover resistors, and getting settled. Once I tweaked it all to give a very natural, flat presentation - I am then assured that my mixes will translate onto anything you can throw at them.
Tannoy System 12 DMT mk1’s, Bryston 4BSST, BDA-2, BP6. With NVA TIS interconnects, and NVA LS6 speaker cables fully bi-wired. Spdif and USB cables are DH Labs Mirage. All input is digital.
Lastly, I wouldn’t be Pete Cockcroft without mentioning my recent move to a Mac Mini M4, which was instantly rewarding. The incredible Mac Max Studio 16-core, with 64GB and a 1TB, is under $3000 new. But, of course, it necessitates buying enclosures and docks for your other drives, so more expensive overall.
