Building a new PC with Ryzen CPU

Hello everyone,

Has anyone experience with using a Ryzen CPU for Cubase?

According to Steinberg’s website https://helpcenter.steinberg.de/hc/en-us/articles/206929270-DAW-Components there should not be any problems, yet I have heard many people complain about problems with Ryzen and Cubase…

Are these problems of the past or is still better to stick with Intel?

I am about to build a new PC and would prefer the massive CPU Power Ryzen has to offer… but only if I don’t invite new issues by doing so!


I appreciate any Input on this!

Thanks a lot,
Cheers!

I think most of issue are related to the ones with build in GPU. And I think the 5xxx series is a lot better for DAW due to it’s different cache.

Neat! I was thinking to get a B550 - so thanks a lot!

Intel and Nvidia seems to be the safe sure bet combo to work imo, despite AMD squeezing a bit more performance.

Can you explain the risks of going with AMD?

all stories are different, on windows computers, even macOS/apple computers… or all stories…
i think there is no risk, but it seems that developers tend to favour intel, compilers… optimized for intel… don’t know how much this differs, if it differs.
intel processors work differently than amd processors.

so it is only guessing. a lot of happy amd users, a lot of disappointed nvidia users, or amd GPU users…

AMD isn’t squeezing more performance anymore, intel does, they really squeeze nowadays, the 10th generation…

and i am biased for intel and nvidia, but if AMD outperforms, and the price is better…

whatever you choose: look also at the single core performance, not only the core count. single core performance is very important, and the best of course is: high core count and high single core performance. and high core count mainly; real cores; not logical cores.

steinberg demands nowadays a decent GPU, not a real expensive one, and also many plugins… are GPU accellerated.

a motherboard that is build well, can feed the core enough power, when on high load.

there are no guaranties, that a system will perform well. things you have connected. etc.

Thats the chipset. not the CPU. (But it is a good chipset. Probably the best work DAW since it does have fan and have pcie4.

Ryzen CPU’s work very good, they get better and better latency performance for each generation. I run with an old PCI card from RME in a pci-e adapter 3 ms no sweat and stable performance for recording and mixing. I am building a new computer with an X570 motherboard and a 5900x CPU in a week or 2. just waiting for the CPU to get here. I expect great things!! now that AMD is getting more and more popular also software developers make sure to optimize their code for multithreaded performance. You will most likely be extremely happy with an AMD CPU if you haven’t updated computer for a few years.
Run with a pci-e 4 disk and you will be happy

Has anyone experience with using a Ryzen CPU for Cubase?

I’ve been running it for over three years on a 1950X. Works great! (10, 10.5, 11 Pro)

I won’t feel the need to upgrade until the 5970X comes out. Almost pulled the trigger on going 3970X this fall but the NVIDIA debacle of the RTX 3000 series held me off and then the Zen 3 announcement didn’t include Threadrippers and now I might as well wait. Because, as I said, the current system is actually Just Fine and cost zero new dollars :smiley:

If you have to build a system right now, the 5950X looks very good bang-for-buck, and should work awesome for DAWs on Windows.

Hi Glenn, I’m planning to build a new Cubase 11 Daw Ryzen computer.

What PCI=> PCIe adaptator works for you with the RME 9652? (have a link?)
How can you sit the card in a chassis slot?
I don’t want to add a RayDat purchase to the bill for now…

Thanks for your answers.

According to Steinberg, the Ryzen Threadripper 3970X and 3990X should be avoided.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/PCI-Express-PCI-e-to-PCI-Adapter-Card-PCIe-to-Dual-PCI-Expansion-Card-USB-3-0/383647797022?hash=item595330cf1e:g:O~kAAOSw0kxfGdIM


I bought a no-name product on eBay. I don’t know if it was this exact model but it most certainly looks the same. so as you can see you place the PCI-e in your PCI-e port. I dragged the USB cable out thru the hole on the bracket, I placed the expansion on top of my cabinet with the RME card inserted. It’s been there for 2 years and I had absolutely no problems with this solution. You don’t need any power from your power supply, just the USB cable inserted. Then I would connect the RME card like normal and install the drivers for the card just like normal.

I dont know how 3970x / 3990x behave right now, but I’m really happy about how my 3960x is performing! My personal optinion after working with audio, video/2D/3D animation & graphics stuff for years now finally is – in hardly any case my problems derived from the CPU itself, regardless if Intel or AMD – but a poor chipset especially in combination with some mediocre mainboard can be regarded as best known way leading directly into desperation. Of course I did some decent tweaking to get this machine configured in the best possible manner (I run a 2x Win10 Dual Boot config for seperating graphics/rendering setup) but good mainboards offer plenty room for tweaking in BIOS setup…

I’m running a 3700X with an X570 and cubase 10.5/11 no issues at all.
I also used a pci-pcie adaptor for my RME pci card which allows mounting the card inside the case. Works great.
ebay item 174420021860

I used this card for my RME PCI card (Digiface) and it’s working fine in my new 3950x setup.

We have ordered the latest models to run extensive tests, and we are in contact with AMD to address the issue as soon as possible. Unfortunately, we cannot recommend using these two processor models with our software until further notice.

You know what would be great? If that statement had … a date.
3970X was released a year ago. An entire full version release of Cubase has happened since then.
I imagine that caution must be old by now … right?

What size/scale of project(s) are intended? Lots of 3rd party plugins or sticking with what comes in Cubase with a few extras? Are your projects heavy with virtual instruments and what type of virtual instruments are they (heavy synth engines, or mostly sample based)? How many continuous audio tracks will you require?

I believe it depends on a number of factors, including the motherboard chip-set, memory size/type, storage type/speed, interfaces and other hardware you’ll be hooking to the system. All system drivers are not equal…sometimes hardware is fine but drivers that ship with it are garbage for a given platform…etc. In short, the CPU and motherboard chipset are only the beginning when it comes to a stable and high performing system.

These days I believe it’d be safe to say that Cubase performs well with any midrange or better offerings by BOTH AMD and Intel for the average user. Each platform has both pros and cons. The average home or small studio user probably won’t notice much if any difference in terms of ‘raw real time work flow performance’ that will be the ultimate fault/responsibility of the CPU.

For larger scale enterprise class projects/builds…of course it ALL DEPENDS on what is connected, how it’s connected, and how it gets pushed. It can also depend on what gear you might already have on hand and hope to keep using to full potential in a new rig. I.E. Intel CPUs and chipsets have perks when it comes to dealing with Thunderbolt devices. AMD has advantages when dealing with onboard NVMe storage. If using slotted SAS or Thunderbolt expansion cards for storage…the only way to truly know is to find someone with a test bed and have them try it out and do the benchmarks and other tests (benchmarks and real time use can be quite different as well, and sometimes bench marks reflect performance boosts or hits that rarely if ever pop up in real work flows).

I do small scale stuff in a home studio. I do more composing than mixing and mastering, so I’m good to keep things audio on 44.1, or 48k clocks, and recording/playing back resolution at 24bit (though I leave the DAW’s internal processing at its defaults…64bit floating I think?), and for my needs I rarely demand extremely tight latency on the audio interface (I haven’t pushed any limits to test what this rig can do there…just sticking with 512k asio buffers for now…very tolerable latency for composing mostly using the editors with occasional live playing through a keyboard or wind-jammer, but I suspect this rig can do much better there). My primary virtual instruments are HALion and Garritan/ARIA based (largely sample based so not much CPU use involved unless I really pile on a lot of complicated effects). In my case the ancient Phenom II 1090T was enough for my Cubase sessions (heavier on virtual instruments than audio tracks), but a bit sluggish with Dorico when scores grew larger than the maximum ram I could put on the old DDR2 motherboard (again, lack of memory rather than CPU power being my issue). The old motherboard finally gave up after something like 15 years of 24/7/365 powerup…so rather than hunting down an old motherboard that could take a Phenom II, I finally gave in and built a more modern rig.

I just installed Cubase 11 on a Ryzen 9 3900XT/X570/64gb DDR4 3200Mhz/Radeon R9 270 (It’s a terrible time to buy graphics cards, so I just stuck this old one back in). I’m running regular NVMe.M2 and SATA3 storage from the built in motherboard connectors (midrange consumer grade stuff, nothing enterprise class, no SAS nor Thunderbolt). I’m also running a very dated M-Audio Delta 1010 audio interface through a PCIeX1 to 2 PCI slot riser card. Out of the box, the motherboard I chose (AUSUS Crossfire VIII Hero) set things up with all 12 cores (24 threads) running a little above 4.2ghz. Another nice touch was that the built in audio of this particular motherboard seems to have native ASIO drivers (I have not tried using it yet, but seeing it show up as an ASIO compliant device was a pleasant surprise).

This thing doesn’t even break a sweat with my small scale projects in Cubase, nor Dorico. I’ve yet to see total CPU usage top 12%, and that’s with a bunch of other random things running in the OS along with Cubase (Sometimes Sibelius, Finale, or Dorico, plus browsers, tutorial videos, etc.)…the few spikes I’ve observed on individual threads has yet to top 40%.

Right now it would seem the main factors in choosing between the two platforms involve proprietary code (some titles are optimized a better for one platform or the other, or use specific CPU or chipset features that one or the other doesn’t have). It would seem to me that those things are mainly relevant to things like special encoders for video streaming/storage at ultra high resolutions, major 3d object/texture rendering, specialized server tasks involving specific models or proprietary enhanced-protocol complaint hardware, or attempting to implement really high resolution video monitors or virtual reality head-sets and so forth ($600 and up graphics cards usually involved). So unless you’re also doing video encoding/streaming, ultra high resolution gaming and or game development, or specialized file serving or streaming on the same rig as Cubase, I don’t think it matters much. If you’ve invested in a bunch of Thunderbolt storage devices and want motherboards with built-in support for that, and/or do work that can actually push the limits of that technology, you might want to research the pros and cons of going Intel over AMD, but otherwise…not convinced there would be much perceivable difference these days unless you just happen to have a bit of kit or software that doesn’t like one platform or the other. If you haven’t invested in thunderbolt…to me, AMD holds the edge with great performance to onboard NVMe M.2 media, which has a great price/performance ratio…not easily hot-swappable…but great for someone that just needs a modest system drive, and one larger drive to host audio files and samples. Bog standard SATA3, USB3 performs similarly on both platforms, and in my mind, if you need larger storage arrays with improved write transfer, SAS (which should perform about the same with either platform) is probably the way to go (over ‘intel favoring’ Thunderbird…but that’s just my opinion).

Yes, I could have come up with a considerably less expensive build that would have been well more than enough for my digital music needs, but I’m hoping this one will last 10+ years like the old Phenom II rig did, and it’ll be nice that I can multi-task more apps, and keep some things running in the background and not have to worry about it. I was too impatient to source a decent generic or OEM motherboard (without all the dazzle and flash of gaming motherboards aimed at system builders) known to handle the power requirements of the XT3900 well, so I went with one of the ‘touted to handle power reqirements of 12 and 16 core processors’ gaming models that includes of a bunch of overpriced stuff I could care less about (LED lighting features). I do appreciate the gobs of built in latest generation USB3 ports, SATA6 ports, USB2 headers, built in Ethernet/Wi-Fi/Bluetooth though, and I figured the X570 might be a little more future proof in terms of taking future generations of processors (doubt I’ll ever need it, but if I do, can get a cheaper MB for this R9 later, and put a newer CPU in this expensive class of motherboard).

Thank you guys!
Happy to know those adapters do work.
This was a little off topic, sorry for that.

Usually people have not actually heard many people complain about their problems,
they’ve heard people say they’ve heard people have problems.
It’s not the same thing.

Go with the better Single Thread CPU PassMark CPU Benchmarks - Single Thread Performance