What MB and CPU is working well for you?

WaveLab
#1

Hi All, I am looking to upgrade my system as the performance is just not there since C8 was released. I have the common problem of CPU spikes and performance meters being way higher than they were for same setup in C7. Problem may have crept in at C7.5?

I basically run the vast majority of tracks using VST instruments. The main ones being Omnisphere 2, Ultimate 10 stuff, Korg Legacy and Steinbergs stuff.I have added a UltraNova and a Virus Snow to try relieve so of the stress on CPU. But find using external gear a bit of a faff on.

I was considering either Asus X79 Pro with 3930k or Asus X99 Pro with 6850K. If i go with X79 i can basically just swap out MB and CPU as I have 32GB of DDR3 RAM. If i go with the X99 I will need new RAM on top of the already more expensive X99 MB and CPU.

I dont really want to upgrade if i am not going to see a big benefit.

What I would love to hear from you guys is if you are running either of the above or similar with large projects, say 32 tracks of VST and 8 Audio without any issues.

I also think it would be a great idea on this forum to have a section showing performance against downloadable projects.
I realise we all have different gear but we all have the basic Steinberg stuff. We could then see how our systems are performing and look for trends in motherboards and cpu combinations. Just a thought.

#2

Can’t comment on your request, but the idea of a collection of benchmark projects is interesting.
Shame you can’t really measure performance properly, other than ‘this runs without dropouts on this buffer setting’

#3

we could show the performance meter at rest and then while running the tracks. At least if we just had this small amount of feedback we could see which systems seem to be able to handle stuff.
I realise there are other factors like the audio interface but it would be a good place to start for me.
If I could see a few dozen people running a certain setup without issues then i would tend to try get myself setup with the same gear.
I think I might start us off and see if we have any other posters as it would only take a couple of minutes to download a project, screen shot of meter before and after. Our specs are mostly listed in the footer of our posts.

#4

I will run a list of the VST’s which are included with C8 and knock up a project and see if there is any interest.
Perhaps have results based on 64, 48, 32 and 16 tracks. Have one project with 64 tracks, run it, screen shot meters, delete bottom 16 tracks then do the same so will be 4 sets of results?

If someone already has something similar please feel free to upload and we can use that?

#5

You could use the demo project, or any other project as long as it only uses plugins available in most Cubase versions.
Like you say, it’s heavily influenced by audio interface and buffer size settings, but it could still give some interesting insights.

#6

i will use the pluggins that are also included with the Artist version then we can get more involved.
I am wanting to upgrade my system so this is of particular interest to me.

#7

I have both of the systems you specified in your thread. They both run smooth, but after some driver fiddling. I cant stress enough how you need to tune your particular rig. It is less about CPU and ram, and more about apps and drivers competing for CPU time.

What you have is probably plenty adequate for what you described. Tune the OS and you will likely get rid of most CPU spikes.

At the end of the day, i could have lived with just my now Slave PC, but I had gear lust and some coin to burn, so I built a new DAW machine. Of course, i love it…but i could have added another high end Martin guitar to my collection that will never become obsolete…rather than more computing power.

#8

I followed most guides on how to optimize windows 10 but still having poor performance. Its pretty infuriating, because I had sessions that worked before that no longer run since upgrading to Cubase 8.5/Win10 because of the spikes. A 3930k shouldnt be having this much trouble. Anyone willing to help me out? I can pay you for your time.

#9

I have an i5-2500k CPU on an ASUS P8Z68-V LE motherboard with 16GB RAM.

I removed my Nvidia GTX650Ti card (the model itself is not important, it’s just the fact that it was an Nvidia) and replaced it with an ATI 6750 and that made a world of difference. Also nice that this model has dual DISPLAYPORT output and drives my dual 25" 2K monitors wonderfully. I cannot go back to 1080p resoultion after getting these new monitors. The amount of extra real estate with a 2560x1440 resolution is awesome - in my case I’m actually getting 5120x1440 rez!!!

I read countless forum posts about people have problems with NVIDIA cards. I bought a used ATI on eBay and latencymon immediately stopped having problems.

I suggest anyone on PC that has NVIDIA card, swap it out for an ATI and see how you get on.

#10

Great tip about the nvidia cards. Another bit of news is i seem to have trouble with cubase 8.5.20 specifically, but my session runs fine in cubase 8.0.20. in 8.5.20 the spikes make the session unplayable.

#11

Got tbe same mystical spikes issue with 8.5.2 /win10’pro
A lot of people have this problem, i don’t think it’s an nvidia issue, but a win10 pro 8.5.2 combo issue

#12

8.5.20 runs fine on W7 but not W10?

#13

Another update, disabled my NVIDIA Card in device manager, so that I was only running off a USB3.0 display adapter. Cubase 8.5.20 still choked.