I need a high end music pc - advice appreciated

[Kaine]

Actually, that build is not quite decent at all if you compare it to the performance of more recent chips. For instance, the OP's i7-4790 is barely faster than my 6 year old 3770k!

Sandybridge, ivybridge and Haswell were all about 10% apart from each other, so your comment above isn't surprising.

The last generation however made far more interesting gains.

Using CPU benchmark.

4790 = 9997
8700k = 16031
7820X = 18575
7900X = 22045

[EnochLight]

Sandybridge, ivybridge and Haswell were all about 10% apart from each other, so your comment above isn't surprising.

The last generation however made far more interesting gains.

Using CPU benchmark.

4790 = 9997
8700k = 16031
7820X = 18575
7900X = 22045

Indeed. I'm looking forward to the new i7-8086k "special edition" Coffee Lake that's coming out shortly. Base clock of 4 Ghz and a (single core turbo) clock of 5 Ghz, and overclockable.

https://www.anandtech.com/show/12875/in ... e-at-5-ghz

Better yet, it'll have an integrated GPU and be perfect for a silent running studio machine.

[V0RT3X]

Wait until they release the 5ghz 28-core from Intel.

https://www.anandtech.com/show/12907/we ... ed-to-know

[EnochLight]

Wait until they release the 5ghz 28-core from Intel.

https://www.anandtech.com/show/12907/we ... ed-to-know

I'm willing to wager that "5 Ghz" is only for 1 or 2 cores at most, and it's only for Turbo. You certainly won't be able to clock all 28 cores to 5 Ghz. Also, Intel was actually running a refrigerant system on their 28 core demo at Comdex. At least AMD is releasing their 32 core Threadripper 2 with adequate air cooling options, this time.

https://www.anandtech.com/show/12906/am ... 99-refresh

[diaper@ky]

I just built a 1U for live performance.
Nobody here would want it because of the powerful triple 22k fans.
But the innards are quite fast, much faster than my 4000 series rigs.
I use external hardware synths, Solaris via AES/EBU, and SE-02 via XLR.
Kontakt with 48 instruments, PianoTeq 6, Zebra2 HZ, Omnisphere/Keyscape and Blue3.

Supermicro X11-Q (Q370)
i7-8700k delidded
32GBs DDR4-2400
Samsung NVME M.2 512GBs (samples for Spectrasonics)
Samsung 850 Pro 1TB OS+Apps
Samsung 850 Pro 1TB Sampled Instruments

I delidded for lower temps, about 5-10 degrees it seems.
I measure polyphony on Kontakt and CPU % on core locked synths like Zebra2 HZ.
I’m seeing a 20% decrease in all areas.
Updated synths and instruments could be part of the reason.
Windows 10 and new Q370/i7 8700k also is another factor.

Fastest PC I’ve ever built.
Been building PCs since ‘98 for my rigs.
Glad I skipped 5000/6000/7000 series.

[Kaine]

Indeed. I'm looking forward to the new i7-8086k "special edition" Coffee Lake that's coming out shortly. Base clock of 4 Ghz and a (single core turbo) clock of 5 Ghz, and overclockable.

I'm willing to wager that "5 Ghz" is only for 1 or 2 cores at most, and it's only for Turbo. You certainly won't be able to clock all 28 cores to 5 Ghz.

Aye, it's the same in both cases, in that it's single or dual core turbo. I'd say I'm a little more confident in the 8086k model, than I am in the 28 core edition. It didn't surprise me in the slightest to see that $1000 fridge under the desk.

I'd be interested in the 8086k only if its binned well enough to handle a 5GHz running with that locked on all cores. Given I already run 8700K's at 4.7 all core, I'm not overly convinced about paying a premium for an extra few hundred MHz on each core, not when it's going to offset by the staggered clocks across those turbo managed cores.

[EnochLight]

Aye, it's the same in both cases, in that it's single or dual core turbo. I'd say I'm a little more confident in the 8086k model, than I am in the 28 core edition. It didn't surprise me in the slightest to see that $1000 fridge under the desk.

I'd be interested in the 8086k only if its binned well enough to handle a 5GHz running with that locked on all cores. Given I already run 8700K's at 4.7 all core, I'm not overly convinced about paying a premium for an extra few hundred MHz on each core, not when it's going to offset by the staggered clocks across those turbo managed cores.

I can guarantee you that the 8086k special edition won't hit 5 Ghz on all cores, not at the same time anyway (not unless they've introduced some alien tech into the mix). It's built on the same platform as their current line, and short of de-lidding and exotic cooling, they just can't have all cores overclocked that high.

As for the 28-core demo? Yeah, that was a total scam. There's absolutely no way their 28 core will be able to hit 5 Ghz without de-lidding and/or exotic cooling. They're just trying to throw a smoke screen up since AMD is doing Threadripper 2 with 32 cores and clocked on air.

I have to say, if the memory latency between the two sets of 16 cores on Threadripper 2's 32 core chip is manageable in a low latency DAW setting, I'm totally in on Threadripper 2. We all know it'll be massively cheaper than Intel's offering, and the thought of throwing 32 freak'n cores at my DAW and VST is just mind boggling. I also do quite a bit of video encoding and transcoding on the fly, so it'll clearly benefit from all those cores.

I just worry about Threadripper 2's single core/thread performance. The previous generation didn't do too well with that, and it tends to be limited by clock speed. Word is that Threadripper 2 will have a pretty low base clock.

[V0RT3X]

Apart from the fact you might need a small fridge for the 28-core 5ghz system, I think it will be pretty awesome to have. It might not be for everyone (especially Reason users.. ), but for power users who run a lot of tracks in real-time this will be amazing!

[ganetcodrin]

As far as I know synths use very little ram... but they are very heavy on CPU.
On the other hand, everything that has to do with samples is loaded into the RAM (Kontakt for example) so if you use multiple sample-based instruments I can understand why you would need a lot of RAM.

Best practice is once you're satisfied with a track just render it to a wav and then disable the track and work with the wav file. If you ever need to tweak stuff just enable it again and render until perfection.

Also a good practice is to use multiple hard drives to balance the load between them.
(SSD's are preferred but regular HDD's do the job just fine, it only takes longer to load on a HDD)

Your system is good enough but if you think you need more just consider going for the latest intel proc (the latest i7 or even i9 although they are pricey it will feel like a big boost in performance. and if you do that you will have to go for a new motherboard, don't be cheap with it because when it comes to them, pricier means better, and I know you'll want 128gb of RAM). Now I don't wanna start a debate, but I feel for workstations AMD would be better than Intel, and Threadripper is slightly cheaper than it's Intel counterpart.
On a side note I'm actually waiting for the latest Threadripper (32 cores, 64 threads OH BOI).

I'm no expert, just thought I'd share what I know.

In the end it just comes down to preference and you, what plugins you use (some plugins are more demanding than other), samples, the kind of music, etc.. (it's also a good practice to save on CPU to use buses and sends for your tracks and use less plugins, you wouldn't believe how many people I've seen stacking the same plugins with the same settings on a lot of different tracks).

In the end I just wanna say you don't need the top of the line super NASA computer to make music.. People have been doing it since early '90s, although I do recommend a Mac for producing just because it's a lot more stable than Win.

[Lucas-Paris]

Before thinking of a multi-core CPU with 8 or more physical cores, please check the following article:

https://helpcenter.steinberg.de/hc/en-u ... CPU-setups

The limitation of 14 logical cores (= 7 physical cores with hyperthreading) for real-time audio is a general Windows 10 issue and will occur with any DAW (I am using REAPER and had to limit the number of logical cores used for RT audio to 14 to avoid having audio issues)...

[EnochLight]

Before thinking of a multi-core CPU with 8 or more physical cores, please check the following article:

https://helpcenter.steinberg.de/hc/en-u ... CPU-setups

The limitation of 14 logical cores (= 7 physical cores with hyperthreading) for real-time audio is a general Windows 10 issue and will occur with any DAW (I am using REAPER and had to limit the number of logical cores used for RT audio to 14 to avoid having audio issues)...

Strange that Reaper and Cubase/Nuendo seem to be affected by this. I know a Reason user that has a CPU with more than 14 logical cores (dual Xeons), and they haven't reported this sort of problem. * shrugs * Will point him to this thread/post and see what he says.

UPDATE:

Saw this over at Gearslutz, and I have to agree with their posts. Seems more like a Steinberg issue (and Reaper, apparently, according to your experience):

People who build DAWs for a living testify to supplying dual Xeon computers with these amounts of cores to customers without problems. The issues are clearly dependent on more factors than just cores.

https://www.gearslutz.com/board/steinbe ... st12795017

[cron]

Actually, that build is not quite decent at all if you compare it to the performance of more recent chips. For instance, the OP's i7-4790 is barely faster than my 6 year old 3770k!

Sandybridge, ivybridge and Haswell were all about 10% apart from each other, so your comment above isn't surprising.

Indeed, and I'm curious to know how much of those 10% gains came simply from having faster clocks out of the box. Overclocking involves playing the silicon lottery of course, but even the poorest examples of Sandybridge and Ivybridge chips could hit 4 GHz on stock cooling. There's a 20% gain straight away. At 3.4 GHz I'd argue it was thoroughly underclocked out of the box. Everything since then has pushed the stock clock higher but hasn't increased the highest achievable overclock appreciably. Running my own Ivybridge chip at 4.5, there was simply no reason to upgrade until Ryzen and Coffee Lake appeared in the last year. It's like "I might still only be able to hit 4.5 on a Skylake chip, but it's a whole 800 MHz faster out of the box now!"

[Lucas-Paris]

Strange that Reaper and Cubase/Nuendo seem to be affected by this. I know a Reason user that has a CPU with more than 14 logical cores (dual Xeons), and they haven't reported this sort of problem. * shrugs * Will point him to this thread/post and see what he says.

It all depends on the required processing capacity per core. Users who will only run a few tracks with some plugins while using a multi-core CPU will not have any problems. But when considerable CPU capacity is needed in the case of large-scale projects with many VSTs, the issue will occur at some point.

[EnochLight]

Running my own Ivybridge chip at 4.5, there was simply no reason to upgrade until Ryzen and Coffee Lake appeared in the last year.

Well, except for the Meltdown/Specter fixes that kills performance on Ivybridge chips. I've kicked my old 3770K up to a stable constant 4.5 Ghz clock on air just to offset some of the performance hit. That alone has me looking at the new Threadripper 2's.

[EnochLight]

Strange that Reaper and Cubase/Nuendo seem to be affected by this. I know a Reason user that has a CPU with more than 14 logical cores (dual Xeons), and they haven't reported this sort of problem. * shrugs * Will point him to this thread/post and see what he says.

It all depends on the required processing capacity per core. Users who will only run a few tracks with some plugins while using a multi-core CPU will not have any problems. But when considerable CPU capacity is needed in the case of large-scale projects with many VSTs, the issue will occur at some point.

Yeah, I still think this is not as widespread a problem as you think (see the Gearslutz thread I linked to above). The Reason user running dual Xeons is a power user that has dozens upon dozens of tracks with CPU/DSP heavy plugins running, from what I understand. No issues.

He's running dual Xeon E5 2670's, 16 cores, 32 threads.