FWIW, I installed Cubase 9.5 and tried my test and get the same poor performance results as Cubase10. Cannot play my 90 track project more than 15 seconds before it drops out all audio completely.
Youāre completely right Dewdman, I love the features and functionality of Cubase but the CPU usage is just sad compared to other DAWS, I posted a quick little comparison a while back. Cubase can host a lot of FX VST3ās like Fabfilter for instance, but running several instances of Kontakt or Reaktor it cannot.
Unfortunately I have to agree. Same on my Mac Pro ā every direct comparison Iāve done on it leaves Cubase clearly at the bottom of the pack performance-wise. Letās hope thereās some very hard work being done on that.
dewdman, you tried the internal audio device to rule out any kind of Asio>Coreaudio issues that may be occurring with your audio interface? There is a translation layer in there I believe?
yes, i was using the internal audio device in this case.
Did you post the project files for each DAW anywhere? Iām thinking someone with the same plugins on a different, or newer Mac could take those and try to reproduce your findings. If one or two people got similar results using different Macs and audio interfaces, Iād think that would confirm the culprit is Cubase. If however, other people got results with Cubase that were in line with Logic and the like, then it might just show that Cubase doesnāt run so hot with older Macs or thereās something up in your particular setup.
Whatās so strange with the Mac performance is that all the tutorials and hangout videos all run on MacOS machines, so itās not like MacOS isnāt favoured.
The tutorial projects are much smaller and potentially less complex projects. I run both LPX and Cubase Pro 10.x; Cubase does not provide as good of performance as LPX when using a load of virtual instruments. Also, I have found that the disk drive performance for projects with any amount of audio tracks, performs a lot better with a faster HD and that is with both Cubase and LPX.
Just seen a similar discussion on this forum in regards to multicore performance on Macs:-
Quite interesting, looks like the older Mac Pros with the larger core count will be affected due to something internal within Cubase.
Thatās a topic from 3 years ago. I do not think that it is valid anymore.
Cubase 10.0.30 has drastically improved performance on the Mac.
See info here:
Summary
in 10.0.20, I had a test project which could not play back more then 20 seconds without crapping out audio completely and very high CPU usage. With 10.0.30 the project easily plays back with a 50% reduction in average CPU usage.
Bravo Steinbergā¦much better!
The performance is now better then several other DAWās that I tested, including Reaper and DP. Its about even with StudioOne. Unfortunately LogicPro is still the clear performance winner with significantly better performance then all of the DAWās tested, in terms of average CPU% to play the project.
See above link for more details.
Iām also seeing this improvement with 10.0.30
Damn, Iām not getting much of a difference in CPU. Later tonight Iāll try trashing prefs, etc., and see if I can get this, too.
DAWs and CPU performance are such case-specific things that itās entirely possible that you may not see a big improvement, whereas for an entirely different workflow or PC, the improvement could be huge. For example, the last big Studio One release improved the CPU performance of multi-instruments and multi-timbral instances. Kontakt CPU was reportedly improved by up to 50% if running it in a multi-timbral manner. But if you were running all instances of Kontakt on a separate channel, youād see no difference at all. Another one: U-heās been hunting down GUI sluggishness on Macs that only affect some Macs with certain display combos, but the same Mac with a different display could be fine.
So in short: if you donāt notice an improvement, you may not. Itās possible any changes may not impact your workflow, or any sluggishness some people were experiencing may not have applied to your machine. I wouldnāt go nuts feeling left out if you donāt notice a change.
Good points, yes. Iām so yearning for the kind of performance I can see with other DAWs on the same Mac, so Iām of course eager for any possible changes. I do immense scoring sessions with VE Pro so I was hoping to see what others are seeing here and at VI-Control with that kind of setup. Iāll see after trashing prefs later tonight.
You might want to consider upgrading to Mojave. I know that is a totally cliche thing to say, I was a hold out on Sierra until recently when VSL recommended I upgrade to Mojave, so I did. My Geekbench scores improved by 25%! Everything runs better on Mojave for me. I think it must be related to the metal card and Mojave making more use of it. Just a guessā¦
Me too
I hear you, ya. Iāve been on Mojave for a while now.
I trashed my prefs and am seeing a small performance improvement - definitely not as big as the graph above, but certainly an improvement.
Well the other thing is this, when I measured the original poor performance, it was not so noticeable with only a few tracks. As the tracks piled on the performance problems multiplied until it could not even play them all. Under 10.0.30 it plays them all with room to spare. Make a big project with 100 tracks and compare the two versions.
My scoring projects typically have around 350 tracks or more (including many from VE Pro). 
I will need to re-download 10.0.20 to compare ā there is definitely a bit of improvement, just not a lot here for whatever reason.