Is the I9 9900K overkill for music production?

[cnt]

cnt, that's pretty impressive by AMD. I look forward to the new Ryzen 12 and 16 core processors coming soon.

yea, best case scenario they will be available in Q2.. they are using same TR chipset so mobo doesnt need to be replaced.

[benjamind]

I think the Ryzen 3000 series will use the same type of chipset, but it is supposed to be significantly improved memory-wise in how it handles RAM. I know the Threadripper 1st and 2nd iterations had a thing with how memory was accessed differently. I think the 3000 series is supposed to address that.

If I do go Ryzen I'll probably stick to 12 core or 16 core in the series, since that will allow me to run more on my projects. Currently using a 6700K that I had built in 2016.

[egbert]

New Kids on The Block: Comet Lake (still 14nm) will have 6,8,10 cores - later this year.

https://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/ne ... o-10-cores

[benjamind]

egbert, they look good but I bet the new Ryzens will outclass them.

[Delta Sign]

Yeah, this time it looks like AMD may actually be able to compete rather well. We'll see! At least they will force Intel to seriously do something now. Let's hope AMD will be able to get higher clock speeds as well this time. For most users, higher clocks are still far more important than more and more cores.

Now AMD just need to get their graphics department sorted out. If they released Navi earlier this year, they might have had a chance, but now Nvidia had time to sort their low/midrange out already.

I'm an Intel/Nvidia guy, but some competition is desperately needed. 1200$ for a GPU is just madness. It will be interesting to see Intel's GPUs as well, although that probably still takes a while.

[egbert]

egbert, they look good but I bet the new Ryzens will outclass them.

Yep - this is Intel trying to keep up with the new Ryzens before they finally get their 10nm kit out the door. Competition is excellent stuff for the consumer.

[hypotc]

I'm building a new computer this summer. Will hold out to see what Zen 2 brings.

[egbert]

A few more crumbs on the laptop 9th gen Intel processors, USB4 and Intel's graphics chips:
https://www.tomshardware.com/news/intel ... 38877.html

[ozonepaul]

Seeing that the 3rd gen. Ryzen processors will be available from July the 7th, I would wait to see how they perform, so I would delay any DAW CPU purchase. I know music production/DAW usage is a completely different animal than photo/film rendering or gaming but according to techradar, already the Ryzen 7 3800X put up against the Core i9-9900K in PlayerUnknown Battlegrounds performed identically (for much less) and the Ryzen 9 3900x in Blender outperformed the Core i9-9920X CPU by 18%. And even this AMD CPU (with it's 12 cores and it's insane 70MB total cache) is cheaper than the i9-9900k.
https://www.techradar.com/news/amd-ryze ... out-july-7

Prices:
$329 for the AMD Ryzen 7 3700X ( with 8 cores and 16-threads, featuring a 3.6GHz base clock with 4.4GHz boost and 36MB cache, with just a 65W TDP );
$399 for the Ryzen 7 3800X (8 cores and 16-threads, base clock 3.9GHz, boost clock 4.5GHz);
$499 for the Ryzen 9 3900X (with 12-cores and 24 threads and base clock 3.8GHz, boost clock of 4.6GHz, 64+6MB Cache).

Looking at the performances, these are phenomenal on paper as far as performance/value. I'm looking forward to see a Scanproaudio review by Pete Kaine in the near future.

https://www.amd.com/en/products/specifi ... processors

[egbert]

These look pretty interesting. The 3900x has its 12 cores spread over 2 dies like the first gen Thread-Ripper. I would expect a 16 core version at some stage. It will be interesting to see whether the low latency audio issues have improved.

[ozonepaul]

...It will be interesting to see whether the low latency audio issues have improved.

Yes, I agree, this is the key question for most commercial production/studio usage. We need to send a petition to AMD to send some pre-production CPUs to Pete Kaine at Scanproaudio for testing . His test of the first gen. Ryzen/Threadripper was the one that convinced me to rather stick with intel at that time.
http://www.scanproaudio.info/2017/03/02 ... for-audio/

I have to add though that I know a few producers who built Ryzen/Threadripper based PCs for recording and mixing (these are small production/home studio use cases where they never record more than 1-2 channels at a time) and they're super satisfied with their PC rig. Low latency is not necessarily a priority for all audio production use case scenario. Anyway, I'm really curious how these new chip sets will perform.

[egbert]

Here's the ever reliable Tom on Intel's 10nm kit: Ice Lake etc
https://www.tomshardware.com/news/intel ... 39477.html

[Kaine]

We need to send a petition to AMD to send some pre-production CPUs to Pete Kaine at Scanproaudio for testing .

Both sides do send us pre-production (although admittedly I have to fight my video systems team for them) and I've learnt over the years that they tend to be "Golden Samples" which has kicked me in the ass a few times.

More than a couple of times I've achieved some tasty overclock before launch, only to have all the systems then get knocked down a few notches as the final release isn't quite up to the same grade.

I'll normally attempt to publish around the point that the NDA lifts if they've managed to ship final release stock with a few days spare to nail out the benchmarking.

[egbert]

Thanks, Peter. I will look forward to reading your verdict on the new red and blue beasties.

[Scotty]

Specific to AMD Ryzen 3 ...Low latency only has to be "good enough" even if it isn't at Intel levels. If you can track say 16 to 24 channels at 32 samples with a good PCIe based interface and then increase the buffers as you build the mix and capitalize on the extra cores (where performance levels out with Intel on a per core basis) that would be fine for me and I bet many others. The other issue that ScanAudio commented on (Threadripper) was random drop outs before the CPU was anywhere near fully maxed. Lets hope the new CPU design addresses this. If so, I'll be replacing my Intel 3930K rig in the late fall.