Performance with new AMD CPUs with dual CCDs and certain X3D CPUs

Cubase
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So I recently built a 9950X3D PC and at first it was doing great.
Running Cubase 14 with 16 Buffer 184 Samples, 3.9ms round trip latency with absolutely not a crackle or pop. even when opening other programs and playing Youtube videos.

Later I realized that it started the crackle pops for some reason.
I thought maybe the CPU was acting up.

I found out that I had ticked the Activate Steinberg power scheme.
And also I had the Performance power scheme selected in windows settings.

Well these type of chips require the Windows Balanced power plan in order to function correctly.

So if you have a dual CCD AMD CPU, you may want to untick the Steinberg power scheme, and go into windows settings and set the Balanced plan, and edit to your liking. Keep the CPU at Min-0% and Max-100% this will allow your chip to function properly.

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My recently built Windows 11 machine uses a mid-range 9700X and I’ve intentionally left everything at default unless something was actually causing problems (which mainly meant removing large amounts of Microsoft bloat) and I’ve been more than happy with it.

Have you tried the Scan/Dom Sigalas Cubase-specific benchmark? It’s about 4 years old but still useful for comparing machines. I get to 105 tracks.

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Very interesting. User Axiom got to 216 with his AI Max+ 395 mobile with 128/GB memory. I’m a bit surprised he’s getting almost double seeing that it’s a mobile CPU and stuff like this usually doesn’t scale linearly with core count. I wonder if it’s the faster memory that does it…

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I’m confused by this statement.

You are running with a 16 sample buffer, and that gives you 3.9ms RTL? If you mean the buffer size is 184 samples, that’s a number I’ve not seen before. But either way, the numbers don’t add up.

Pete
Microsoft

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Here is the settings dialog.

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image322Ă—300 9.67 KB

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I have not tried this, might test it out.

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Right. It’s not actually running at the buffer size you have set. Pretty much no USB device is usable at 16 samples for anything but benchmarking.

The 184 samples RTL shown at the bottom is proof of that.

If it were actually able to run at 48k 16 samples, the RTL would be under 1 millisecond.

Pete
Microsoft

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Ahh my version maxes out. I only have Elements.

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I know that on my old PC I can only set to as low as 32 and still gets pops and clicks . On this PC I can set it 16 and not get pops and clicks, so that’s good right? I understand setting it to 16 just means the CPU is can process 16. The actual latency is the RTL and interface is the bottleneck..

I think I understand, but IDK really.

It’s set 16 samples, but really only does 184

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I’m not really surprised, in fact I had first looked at the Framework Desktop , but eventually decided I didn’t need the power, but did need more PCIe connectivity, and at the time couldn’t find any real-world Cubase experience reports.

I think the comparison of my 9700X with the AI Max+ 395 does hold up though, with the Max+ 395 having double the cores, soldered-in RAM running at 8000 MT/s versus my 6000 MT/s, and using 120W against my 65W.

I wonder if that level of performance in a laptop wouldn’t suffer heat dissipation problems though, if running full tilt sustained over a period of time , whereas the Framework Desktop seems extremely well thought out in terms of thermals.

It should be noted that the Framework Desktop mainboard will also fit into a standard Mini-ITX case, so if you’re happy with one PCIe slot and plan the thermals right, it would make a monster of a machine. My only concern in a laptop is that eventually you could be frying eggs on it …

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Ah, I didn’t realize the power limit was set that low.

I think the “cost” is also likely fan-noise in addition to some performance limitations.