# We Tested A Bunch of CPUs' Performance with Varieties of Plugins in Cubase 14. Here are the results **URL:** \ **Category:** Steinberg Lounge\ **Tags:** computer-and-devices\ **Created:** [August 31, 2025, 7:11am UTC](https://forums.steinberg.net/t/we-tested-a-bunch-of-cpus-performance-with-varieties-of-plugins-in-cubase-14-here-are-the-results/1007113 "2025-08-31T07:11:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Tweswend](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/50afbb/32.png) [@Tweswend](https://forums.steinberg.net/u/Tweswend)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2025, 7:11am UTC](https://forums.steinberg.net/t/we-tested-a-bunch-of-cpus-performance-with-varieties-of-plugins-in-cubase-14-here-are-the-results/1007113/1 "2025-08-31T07:11:18Z")
## **Original Video:** 【全平台音乐编曲性能横评！Mac/Intel/AMD哪家最适合Cubase？-哔哩哔哩】 > **[全平台音乐编曲性能横评！Mac/Intel/AMD哪家最适合Cubase？\_哔哩哔哩\_bilibili](https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1xqtTzEEWz/)** > > 等候多时了！这个测试从十几个月前就已经开始，到现在也算是完结了。补全了音乐制作的生产力详细性能横评的缺失，算是比较冷门的测试了。不仅涵盖了M4Max，9950X3D，265K等等大量高端平台，还包含了一些入门平台。测出了很多意象不到的结果，DAW编曲的性能没有想象的那么简单。主要测试Cubase，FL Studio走带测试见 BV1p6jGzaEwX ，Ableton Live用户可以参考FL。仅, 视频播放量 52745、弹幕量 149、点赞数 2391、投硬币枚数 1876、收藏人数... We gathered a few musicians and tested many CPUs’ performance in Cubase. These are what we got. We haven’t made a video for English version yet but we can compare the graphs here. Details about the test platforms and how we set up the tests are also in the video above. As for the Bilibili platform: If the website pops up a window asking for logging in, just close it and continue playing the video. ## # Graphs: ### Cinebench 2024 Score for Reference: 1. Single Core ![image](https://europe1.discourse-cdn.com/steinberg/original/4X/3/5/4/35485a77ba9a53a56e81827bcbcdb75f3aa788b3.jpeg) 2. Multi Core ![image](https://europe1.discourse-cdn.com/steinberg/original/4X/1/8/8/188d7c70051c4e8f5911e02ebab885cbd8eaa7a0.jpeg) ### Cinebench 2023 Score for Reference: 1. Single Core ![image](https://europe1.discourse-cdn.com/steinberg/original/4X/6/d/a/6da9986f7f841ec83cf2abcd00753e437180d9b8.jpeg) 2. Multi Core ![image](https://europe1.discourse-cdn.com/steinberg/original/4X/5/2/8/528dc82b809b28e3efa84849cec7c6921cfe3762.jpeg) ### TBTech SpecCraft Oversampling: 1. Layering in Series: ![image](https://europe1.discourse-cdn.com/steinberg/original/4X/9/5/0/950bb02ee0213f3913f00f94531d02a6c3bf99a6.jpeg) 2. Layering in Parallel: ![image](https://europe1.discourse-cdn.com/steinberg/original/4X/1/d/5/1d517bf79d1b71652011e3f8dca3bcff37e85a5c.jpeg) ### Fabfilter FXs 1. Due to low cpu consumption for single plugins, only 7 FXs chain layered in parallel results here: ![image](https://europe1.discourse-cdn.com/steinberg/original/4X/a/0/8/a0884d37d9f4cadd537733180b36b41e3dfec06f.jpeg) ### U-He Diva Polyphony Count 1. Layering Tracks: ![image](https://europe1.discourse-cdn.com/steinberg/original/4X/c/5/d/c5d2c1955d8bc451781df8356ccde971d87a2936.jpeg) 2. AFX in Reaper has a even higher default buffer (200ms) than ASIO Guard High (~100ms) in Cubase, and some big.LITTLE Intel CPUs are less problematic with DIVA in reaper: ![image](https://europe1.discourse-cdn.com/steinberg/original/4X/8/a/d/8ad04ebfa1c16e35a39641e91a1a9acf01b99638.jpeg) ### Xfer Serum 2 Polyphony Count 1. Layering Notes in Single Track (Single Serum 2 Instance): ![image](https://europe1.discourse-cdn.com/steinberg/original/4X/9/1/c/91c79d2cacea9f865f4ebb6c31b61b42df3df540.jpeg) 2. Layering Tracks: ![image](https://europe1.discourse-cdn.com/steinberg/original/4X/0/3/c/03cc018a3238104409154fc09c5551950aa387ec.jpeg) ### Amplitube 5 1. Layering in Series: ![image](https://europe1.discourse-cdn.com/steinberg/original/4X/0/3/0/0308d5c150f333bb807fe7d23184545a673fc0de.jpeg) 2. Parallel: ![image](https://europe1.discourse-cdn.com/steinberg/original/4X/f/0/a/f0a8f03ae9a60709516e4d7ad3496bb6e21d170d.jpeg) 3. Low Buffer Realtime Route Test (Up: Serial; Down: Parallel): ![image](https://europe1.discourse-cdn.com/steinberg/original/4X/d/0/c/d0ca79d34e0772514293061974cf5af85cabda24.jpeg) ###iZotope Ozone 11 1. Made high consumption for each instance, Serial: ![image](https://europe1.discourse-cdn.com/steinberg/original/4X/a/a/0/aa0fe0f2fe6c9e4bc884d173f016dac4f0e2e958.jpeg) 2. Parallel: ![image](https://europe1.discourse-cdn.com/steinberg/original/4X/2/7/1/271d0d07f70fbb6edd2df65bdd59aec41b557bff.jpeg) ### Acustica ASH 1. Serial, Highest possible oversampling number count in one track: ![image](https://europe1.discourse-cdn.com/steinberg/original/4X/a/b/3/ab3d3e78ec8c72a3c3f0fb423a8a72a9b246bd9c.jpeg) 2. Parallel, Highest amount of tracks that can reach for fixed plugin setting: ![image](https://europe1.discourse-cdn.com/steinberg/original/4X/d/0/f/d0f927c15f439b0787da1e0fe7754f77bade5016.jpeg) ### Kontakt 7 with CSW All ASIO Guard OFF. Because we encountered many weird results, probably due to threading issue with Kon7 + ASIO Guard On, making them not directly comparable. 1. Buffer Size 64 ![image](https://europe1.discourse-cdn.com/steinberg/original/4X/d/0/e/d0e4adca8133a54b7842b04bf23890eafeefcdf8.jpeg) 2. Buffer Size 256 ![image](https://europe1.discourse-cdn.com/steinberg/original/4X/9/7/9/9794a14938516c952523652dd1fdeae2cd8c5ba1.jpeg) 3. Buffer Size 2048, Only platforms with enough RAM gets comparable results ![image](https://europe1.discourse-cdn.com/steinberg/original/4X/8/7/a/87a5e9f3ea43099db6a8efc60572dd64dc63df1a.jpeg) and we also tested K7 with Spitfire. Apple M-series get consistently low scores. Combined with other results we assume that RAM Latency matters for Kontakt sample engine. ### High Consumption FX Chain (Serum2 → Amplitube + ASH + O7 +…) Track Layering Test: ![image](https://europe1.discourse-cdn.com/steinberg/original/4X/8/6/1/8614592637d3a68ebfb9d71be6046fabfa3058d8.jpeg) Note: Performance of Intel U7-265K here is _not_ very stable. Most of the time it is very powerful but sometimes it could even drop to Zero. Threading Problem. ### RAM Bandwidth and RAM Latency Matters; CPU Cache alleviate a little. 1. Test with i7-14700K ![image](https://europe1.discourse-cdn.com/steinberg/original/4X/b/2/f/b2f261e6448f807a7465cbdfed90736ecd3b4618.jpeg) 2. Test with R7-9700X ![image](https://europe1.discourse-cdn.com/steinberg/original/4X/0/1/e/01eadd421485e564706a966b586d3d0d3df5007a.jpeg) 3. Test with R9-9950x3d ![image](https://europe1.discourse-cdn.com/steinberg/original/4X/2/b/0/2b0c7428da7809762440d7c9fa253b6f6e9533a3.jpeg) 4. R7-9700X+ddr5 5600C46 may Even sub-perform R7-7700+ddr5 6000C28 ![image](https://europe1.discourse-cdn.com/steinberg/original/4X/3/6/2/362fcb5a782c0c1bffb7ab35b046f8f838d7ac1d.jpeg) ## Brief / Summarise Graphs 1. Serial Layering ![image](https://europe1.discourse-cdn.com/steinberg/original/4X/2/4/0/240c76853aaafc103397f78fa51eb8deaf0054d5.jpeg) 2. Parallel Layering ![image](https://europe1.discourse-cdn.com/steinberg/original/4X/9/0/1/901a2f17f314afff87bfaa53c567e53168db034b.jpeg) #### There are also some more information in these posts that I wrote before: > [@Are there performance issues with Nuendo and Apple's M4 Max CPU?](https://forums.steinberg.net/t/are-there-performance-issues-with-nuendo-and-apples-m4-max-cpu/984612/16): > > We observed many interesting result. To briefly conclude what I and my friends have got these days: I have not come across any compatibility issue on M4Max (4e+12p) yet. Cubendo project scaling tests. M4Max is as slightly more than 2× powerful as M4 base(6e+4p) on my Uplifting Trance projects with tones of synths and plugins. Similar to Cinebench R23 scores. For x86 chips: We have no economy to test Threaddripper or any newer Xeon. So only ‘consumer brand chips’. For most of those p… > [@Intel Ultra Core 9 285K Cubase behavior](https://forums.steinberg.net/t/intel-ultra-core-9-285k-cubase-behavior/950112/101): > > additional: we observed significant performance boosts if you raise manually your RAM frequency and lower RAM timings with Core Ultra 200s (eg 265k, 285k). Overall they are not as good as 9000series Ryzen in our test. However they might have higher performance to price ratio now considering those real stock prices. Considering and Core Ultra 200s have really fast E cores and there are a lot of E cores, you may get high performance in one project, but unexpected low performance in an… Most of us in the project are composing amateurs, it is very time consuming to get done all these test. If you have any question or suggestion, please feel free to tell us. Thanks for everyone in the test project, and the Steinberg forum, and you. ---
**Author:** ![noise](https://dub1.discourse-cdn.com/steinberg/user_avatar/forums.steinberg.net/noise/32/173558_2.png) [@noise](https://forums.steinberg.net/u/noise)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2025, 11:17am UTC](https://forums.steinberg.net/t/we-tested-a-bunch-of-cpus-performance-with-varieties-of-plugins-in-cubase-14-here-are-the-results/1007113/2 "2025-08-31T11:17:25Z")
For the graphs, is shorter better? ---
**Author:** ![Tweswend](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/50afbb/32.png) [@Tweswend](https://forums.steinberg.net/u/Tweswend)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2025, 1:55pm UTC](https://forums.steinberg.net/t/we-tested-a-bunch-of-cpus-performance-with-varieties-of-plugins-in-cubase-14-here-are-the-results/1007113/3 "2025-08-31T13:55:10Z")
Longer the better. For example, in Kontakt 7 tests, the result number stands for the highest note count one device could handle before the sound starts to glitch / performance meter gets red. So the more powerful one device is, the more notes it could play without glitch, the longer the bar. ---
**Author:** ![Easto](https://dub1.discourse-cdn.com/steinberg/user_avatar/forums.steinberg.net/easto/32/350025_2.png) [@Easto](https://forums.steinberg.net/u/Easto)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2025, 4:52pm UTC](https://forums.steinberg.net/t/we-tested-a-bunch-of-cpus-performance-with-varieties-of-plugins-in-cubase-14-here-are-the-results/1007113/4 "2025-08-31T16:52:22Z")
Info overload and not really clear. ---
**Author:** ![MattiasNYC](https://dub1.discourse-cdn.com/steinberg/user_avatar/forums.steinberg.net/mattiasnyc/32/83_2.png) [@MattiasNYC](https://forums.steinberg.net/u/MattiasNYC)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2025, 5:13pm UTC](https://forums.steinberg.net/t/we-tested-a-bunch-of-cpus-performance-with-varieties-of-plugins-in-cubase-14-here-are-the-results/1007113/5 "2025-08-31T17:13:48Z")
Is there a pattern and logic behind the different sample rates and buffer sizes? To me it seems like the best practice would be to focus on settings that people find usable. In other words an instrument playing back at 1024 (hypothetically) would yield a really long delay that a musician would object to if playing live. A higher sample rate would help of course and increase the load. I don’t play virtual instruments live but I’ve seen people prefer buffers of 64-128, with outliers demanding 32 and some being ok with 256. In contrast Dolby Atmos is (was?) locked to 512 samples, so for a lot of people mixing Atmos that isn’t just acceptable but is (was?) required. In other words, realtime VSTi use = lower buffer, mixing = higher buffer. Not sure I see what you decided on and why (?)… ---
**Author:** ![Norbury\_Brook](https://dub1.discourse-cdn.com/steinberg/user_avatar/forums.steinberg.net/norbury_brook/32/94420_2.png) [@Norbury\_Brook](https://forums.steinberg.net/u/Norbury_Brook)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2025, 6:36pm UTC](https://forums.steinberg.net/t/we-tested-a-bunch-of-cpus-performance-with-varieties-of-plugins-in-cubase-14-here-are-the-results/1007113/6 "2025-09-02T18:36:03Z")
I think , after looking thorugh all the metrics/graphs, this shows that for Cubase a high end Windows machine still is the best performer, the M4 is good on single core stuff but overal the windows CPU’s are still better performers, and they didn’t test the 285 either which is the best performer at the moment. And, the M4 mac will be twice the price too.. For mobile use I still think an M4 MBP is one of the best machines as a portable DAW platform. M ---
**Author:** ![C-thru](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ea5d25/32.png) [@C-thru](https://forums.steinberg.net/u/C-thru)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2025, 7:52pm UTC](https://forums.steinberg.net/t/we-tested-a-bunch-of-cpus-performance-with-varieties-of-plugins-in-cubase-14-here-are-the-results/1007113/7 "2025-09-02T19:52:38Z")
i dont think so.. i would think mac mini m4 max would clean up the pc’s because in a daw multi core can only be as good as the best single core - like i know you know all your plugins in a chain would be on one core.. for me m4 max is winner ---
**Author:** ![Monotremata](https://dub1.discourse-cdn.com/steinberg/user_avatar/forums.steinberg.net/monotremata/32/160546_2.png) [@Monotremata](https://forums.steinberg.net/u/Monotremata)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2025, 8:14pm UTC](https://forums.steinberg.net/t/we-tested-a-bunch-of-cpus-performance-with-varieties-of-plugins-in-cubase-14-here-are-the-results/1007113/8 "2025-09-02T20:14:14Z")
Those look like they’re the ‘regular’ M4 as well (except for the Max of course). Aside from it only have 4 performance cores and 6 ‘efficiency’ cores, the base M4 has a FSB speed of half what the Pro CPU does (and the SSD read/write as well). The Pro chip has 8 Performance/4 Efficiency cores and a FSB of 273GB/s vs 120.. I would think the Pro/Max/Ultra would eat the base CPU alive in most cases.. ---
**Author:** ![Norbury\_Brook](https://dub1.discourse-cdn.com/steinberg/user_avatar/forums.steinberg.net/norbury_brook/32/94420_2.png) [@Norbury\_Brook](https://forums.steinberg.net/u/Norbury_Brook)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2025, 8:27pm UTC](https://forums.steinberg.net/t/we-tested-a-bunch-of-cpus-performance-with-varieties-of-plugins-in-cubase-14-here-are-the-results/1007113/9 "2025-09-02T20:27:16Z")
?…no…that’s not how it works…just look at every DAW benchmark. Single core and multi core are not related. M ---
**Author:** ![Norbury\_Brook](https://dub1.discourse-cdn.com/steinberg/user_avatar/forums.steinberg.net/norbury_brook/32/94420_2.png) [@Norbury\_Brook](https://forums.steinberg.net/u/Norbury_Brook)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2025, 8:28pm UTC](https://forums.steinberg.net/t/we-tested-a-bunch-of-cpus-performance-with-varieties-of-plugins-in-cubase-14-here-are-the-results/1007113/10 "2025-09-02T20:28:45Z")
They’re using M4 Max 16 core. Look at the graphs properly.. M ---
**Author:** ![Monotremata](https://dub1.discourse-cdn.com/steinberg/user_avatar/forums.steinberg.net/monotremata/32/160546_2.png) [@Monotremata](https://forums.steinberg.net/u/Monotremata)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2025, 8:31pm UTC](https://forums.steinberg.net/t/we-tested-a-bunch-of-cpus-performance-with-varieties-of-plugins-in-cubase-14-here-are-the-results/1007113/11 "2025-09-02T20:31:18Z")
Yeah the Max and the base CPU, no Pro stats listed. ---
**Author:** ![Norbury\_Brook](https://dub1.discourse-cdn.com/steinberg/user_avatar/forums.steinberg.net/norbury_brook/32/94420_2.png) [@Norbury\_Brook](https://forums.steinberg.net/u/Norbury_Brook)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2025, 7:31pm UTC](https://forums.steinberg.net/t/we-tested-a-bunch-of-cpus-performance-with-varieties-of-plugins-in-cubase-14-here-are-the-results/1007113/12 "2025-09-04T19:31:16Z")
How can you test a 9950x3d with DDR4 ram? that’s impossible as the 9950 is AM5 which only uses DDR5….. AM4 like the 7950 used DDR4. The only platform to compare DDR4 and DR5 is Intel M ---
**Author:** ![Tweswend](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/50afbb/32.png) [@Tweswend](https://forums.steinberg.net/u/Tweswend)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2025, 8:55pm UTC](https://forums.steinberg.net/t/we-tested-a-bunch-of-cpus-performance-with-varieties-of-plugins-in-cubase-14-here-are-the-results/1007113/13 "2025-09-04T20:55:41Z")
You’re right. So actually it says “DDR4 3200C16 (Simulated)”. It is actually single channel DDR5 6400C32 to reach about the same latency and bandwidth with DDR4 3200C16. We know there are other differences but here we just wanted to stress how memory bandwidth is important to run a large amount of plugins. ---
**Author:** ![Tweswend](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/50afbb/32.png) [@Tweswend](https://forums.steinberg.net/u/Tweswend)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2025, 9:44pm UTC](https://forums.steinberg.net/t/we-tested-a-bunch-of-cpus-performance-with-varieties-of-plugins-in-cubase-14-here-are-the-results/1007113/14 "2025-09-04T21:44:52Z")
We can speculate on M4 Pro Multi-core, though. Given that M4 Pro shares the same memory bandwidth limit with M4 Max (yes, M4 Max CPU clusters cannot make full use of those 8 channel LPDDR5X, they are limited to ~270GB/s which is the same to M4 Pro CPU clusters. Only GPU cluster can use all the ~540GB/s bandwidth), the P-core (Everest V3) is about 3 times the performance of E-core (Sawtooth V3) and multicore performance increases almost linearly when there aren’t too many cores, we can just do simple maths. Just assume 3 E-cores = 1 P-core, for example. Then M4 6e+4p = 6p(45%), M4 Pro 4e+8p = 9.33p(70%), M4 Pro / M4 Max 4e+10p = 11.33p(85%), M4 Max 4e+12p = 13.33p( **100%** ). We tried this method on M4(6e+4p) and M4Max(4e+12p) It matched our observation with some extent of accuracy in tests that are not bandwidth bottlenecked. But don’t take this as a solid reference, anyway. ---
**Author:** ![Paul\_J](https://dub1.discourse-cdn.com/steinberg/user_avatar/forums.steinberg.net/paul_j/32/322274_2.png) [@Paul\_J](https://forums.steinberg.net/u/Paul_J)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2025, 10:24pm UTC](https://forums.steinberg.net/t/we-tested-a-bunch-of-cpus-performance-with-varieties-of-plugins-in-cubase-14-here-are-the-results/1007113/15 "2025-09-04T22:24:57Z")
I would be curious to know how well some of these performed on a HEDT system. I was thinking of going back to an older threadripper platform. The RAM bandwidth would be there for sure, but high clocks and die latency would not. 🤔 ---
**Author:** ![SteveOakley](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/838e76/32.png) [@SteveOakley](https://forums.steinberg.net/u/SteveOakley)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2025, 5:36am UTC](https://forums.steinberg.net/t/we-tested-a-bunch-of-cpus-performance-with-varieties-of-plugins-in-cubase-14-here-are-the-results/1007113/16 "2025-09-05T05:36:04Z")
what do the bars & numbers even mean ??? this is the worst comparison I’ve ever seen outside of the cinebench comparisons. also 44.1k ? no one uses that. the world is 48K min, and many are 96K. so who knows what this really means since its sample rate limited. ---
**Author:** ![Tweswend](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/50afbb/32.png) [@Tweswend](https://forums.steinberg.net/u/Tweswend)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2025, 6:47am UTC](https://forums.steinberg.net/t/we-tested-a-bunch-of-cpus-performance-with-varieties-of-plugins-in-cubase-14-here-are-the-results/1007113/17 "2025-09-05T06:47:41Z")
To all those are confused about the graphs: We are gradually working on translating the whole report into English so all the meanings should be clear for you then…But I can’t guarantee when could we get this done, because all people involved in the test are busy in the day, and we are not English native speakers. My point is that you can see the relative value to make a general impression about one cpu’s performance. Sorry about all the inconvenience. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_Moneto](https://dub1.discourse-cdn.com/steinberg/user_avatar/forums.steinberg.net/johnny_moneto/32/329861_2.png) [@Johnny\_Moneto](https://forums.steinberg.net/u/Johnny_Moneto)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2025, 9:56am UTC](https://forums.steinberg.net/t/we-tested-a-bunch-of-cpus-performance-with-varieties-of-plugins-in-cubase-14-here-are-the-results/1007113/18 "2025-09-05T09:56:32Z")
> [@SteveOakley](#): > > also 44.1k ? no one uses that. That’s a bold statement. Since I have seen several people working on 44.1 I can also say it is an incorrect one. ---
**Author:** ![Monotremata](https://dub1.discourse-cdn.com/steinberg/user_avatar/forums.steinberg.net/monotremata/32/160546_2.png) [@Monotremata](https://forums.steinberg.net/u/Monotremata)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2025, 12:25pm UTC](https://forums.steinberg.net/t/we-tested-a-bunch-of-cpus-performance-with-varieties-of-plugins-in-cubase-14-here-are-the-results/1007113/19 "2025-09-05T12:25:18Z")
I work at 44.1k nowadays. Don’t see or hear any reason to do otherwise. ---
**Author:** ![Puma0382](https://dub1.discourse-cdn.com/steinberg/user_avatar/forums.steinberg.net/puma0382/32/92081_2.png) [@Puma0382](https://forums.steinberg.net/u/Puma0382)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2025, 1:20pm UTC](https://forums.steinberg.net/t/we-tested-a-bunch-of-cpus-performance-with-varieties-of-plugins-in-cubase-14-here-are-the-results/1007113/20 "2025-09-05T13:20:08Z")
Similar here, on 44.1Khz 24bit source material yesterday; my deliverables were well received and approved by artist/director/producer. Last week too, on some live concert recorded (multitrack) material… (show was back in late July). Does that make me a bad boy.? A nobody.? Diving deeper, there are more opinions out there - this google search returns some helpful responses:- _Is 44.1Khz 24 bit audio ok for editing and mixing.?_ [Next page](https://forums.steinberg.net/t/we-tested-a-bunch-of-cpus-performance-with-varieties-of-plugins-in-cubase-14-here-are-the-results/1007113.md?page=2)