AMD Ryzen - Our first look and thoughts for audio.

[Kaine]

I've spent the last week with it and also spent the last few days sorting the results and getting it all in order.

I've written an essay found at the link below and the is a video overview that I also put together today. Plenty of info for audio and the testing throws up some unexpected results that we'll continue to look into going forward.

http://www.scanproaudio.info/2017/03/02 ... for-audio/

[pljones]

Nice first look write up. I'll have to bear that DAWBench Vi test in mind when I'm next looking at a system -- my drum kits really stress out my FX 8350. It doesn't sound like the new Ryzen architecture's strengths lie in the areas I'd be interested - but the price point on the Intel chips above may be pulled lower sooner now, of course.

[paterpeter]

Thanks for the interesting read

[PurpleSunray]

Ok, so it about the same for audio as other reviews (games, apps) report as well.
The memory controller seems to be a real bottlneck. It's super fast on number-crunching benchmarks, but as soon as a lot of traffic between the CCX (unit of 2 cores) and/or RAM is happing, it falls behind intel systems noticeably.

[nIGhT-SoN]

We also have to keep in mind that it's a new platform, it needs some time for motherboard producers to fix most of the stuff with bios updates. Right now data isn't the same for everyone, some report good performance, some not so good. But I think once the dust has settled down we will have a pretty good CPU at a great price. I'm curios about R5 series how will compare to Intel at the same price range.

[Dominus]

I'd say that the numbers are definitely encouraging, as is the price. Give them a little bit of time to iron things out, and if people can run Windows 7 on it, I think it'd be worth upgrading my system one last time.

[fluffy_little_something]

So, are those bottlenecks something they can fix, or do they think there is nothing wrong about the way it is?
I don't quite understand why they made such compromises. When you go after the incumbent, you got to be better than him...

I read something about outsourcing the number crunching to graphics cards, whose throughput is about 20x as high. But it said that the constant bidirectional exchange of data between CPU and GPU still poses a problem. So I was wondering, how do AMD's APU's fare with DAW's? There the CPU and GPU are on the same chip and very well integrated. Do modern APU's like the A12-9800 use the graphics cores for traditional number crunching as well or still just for graphics?

[MFXxx]

Currently sitting on the fence waiting to upgrade from an i7 1st gen (8 years back) which still handles a lot pretty well, but I really want to get more function in projects using reverbs, nebula4 and plugins rather than creating midi parts, bouncing and mixing and bouncing.
From what I can see it seems to be Intel would still be the best option for DAW users. Hopefully this will reduce the price point of Intels. Is there a new range of Intel chips, post Kirby latter part of this year?
I just feel from reading through the review (which is great and insightful so thank you), Ryzen is still in its infancy at this time for DAW work.

[PurpleSunray]

So, are those bottlenecks something they can fix, or do they think there is nothing wrong about the way it is?
I don't quite understand why they made such compromises. When you go after the incumbent, you got to better than him...

I read something outsourcing the number crunching to graphics cards, whose throughput is about 20x as high. But it said that the constant bidirectional exchange of data between CPU and GPU still poses a problem. So I was wondering, how do AMD's APU's fare with DAW's? There the CPU and GPU are on the same chip and very well integrated. Do modern APU's like the A12-9800 use the graphics cores for traditional number crunching as well or still just for graphics?

It's not about the PCIe bus speed to the GPU (1700X has no integrated graphics).
The Ryzen is build like:
2 FMUL (multiplication pipelines) and 2 FADD (addition pipelines) build the the FPU.
4 ALUs (arithmetic logic unit) build the integer until.
That's a 'core'.
4 cores build a CCX (Core Complex). They share same L3 cache.
There are 2 CCX, 8 cores in total.
The CCX connects to the memory controller - which does run on RAM frequency (intel runs it near core frequency).

First benchmarks show a drop of performance, if there is lot of traffic between the CCX/L3s and/or RAM (memory controller sits in between).
But as already said.. it's very early state of hardware and software, let see if they can fix it

[fluffy_little_something]

They must have run zillions of tests, that's why it is hard for me to imagine they simply overlooked that issue...

[scottishraver]

Thanks for the great detailed info Pete much appreciated , il need to rethink things now for my next upgrade

[incubus]

Lower performance at lower buffer rates? SIGN ME UP!

I don't know what to say. On one hand, it's possible that I was wrong and that it's shizzle. On the other hand I'm not holding my breath for a "proper" whatever to give better results as low latency.

[PurpleSunray]

simply overlooked that issue...

Dude, that CPU is build of 4,8 billions transistors.
They are not designing that by try&error, but there is an architecture behind (including tradeoffs).
It's like back in the days where Intel CPUs still had the glorious "front side bus". Biggest bottleneck in PC history
They had to design a whole new CPU architecture (Sandy-Bridge) to get rid of it.
But looking at Intel.. they build a 15 core with double amount of memory channels (4 instead of 2) with 4,7 transistors. So this tells me AMD still needs to do some more homework to fully catch up with Intel.

AMD did a really good job with Ryzen according to Benchmarks.
It's just not at the level of the top Intel systems yet, BUT Intel system is twice the price. You pretty much pay 600$ for the faster Intel memory controller.

[Numanoid]

I'd say that the numbers are definitely encouraging, as is the price. Give them a little bit of time to iron things out

Can they still iron things out when the production has started?

[PurpleSunray]

I'd say that the numbers are definitely encouraging, as is the price. Give them a little bit of time to iron things out

Can they still iron things out when the production has started?

Yes. There lots of things theys can do.
Like, don't address the L3 cache as one big block, but as 2x8MB. Avoids traffic bettween the CCX. ect. pp
Compilers don't know about that CPU yet, neither do operating systems, driver & co