Is there any host sequencer on Windows that can effectively use 32 cores/64 logical cores?

[Jim Roseberry]

^ For music production, I think that all this is pretty much overkill,

I'll stop your right there.. it might be overkill for YOU, but maybe you have absolutely no idea how much processing power the sort of music I produce requires. I am using pro tools HDX cards, AND external synths, and a 10 core mac pro and that's what gets me by. I need now to replace all the effects processing power of the HDX cards as well as having the option of using more VIs than I currently do (cause the 2013 mac pro doesn't cut it for heavy VI use), since I'll be sacrificing some of the external setup to fit into a 64 input setup rather than 96. I don't think you know what you are talking about and have missed the entire point of my topic and what my needs are.

Agreed.
Folks doing large scale composition (often for TV/Film/Video Games) are pushing hardware much further than a typical home studio user.
We've got one particular composer who wants to be able to pull 4000 simultaneous voices of disk-streaming polyphony (from sample libraries)... along with all processing involved.
That takes a beast of a machine.

Avid doesn't officially support the 3970x... and that's not good for a professional.
That said, ProTools Ultimate ran just fine with the 3970x (audio interface was a Fireface UFX+).

You've settled on what is IMO currently the best CPU choice.
28 processing threads at 5GHz is the best of all worlds.
Go with a 360mm water-cooler... so you can keep the RPMs low.

If you're pulling heavy disk-streaming polyphony, the new M.2 Ultra (PCIe 4.0) SSDs are sustaining up to 4000MB/Sec. If your motherboard is PCIe 3.0, they'll sustain ~3400MB/Sec.

[EvilDragon]

If you're pulling heavy disk-streaming polyphony, the new M.2 Ultra (PCIe 4.0) SSDs are sustaining up to 4000MB/Sec. If your motherboard is PCIe 3.0, they'll sustain ~3400MB/Sec.

Just a note here, that disk streaming is not relying at all on sustained sequential read speeds (which is what you're quoting). For Kontakt in particular, random 4K QD1 reads are the most important (since Kontakt's DFD engine is not optimized for SSDs, hence it doesn't employ higher queue depths at all). And those speeds are not at all in the gigabyte range.

[buzz1]

If you're pulling heavy disk-streaming polyphony, the new M.2 Ultra (PCIe 4.0) SSDs are sustaining up to 4000MB/Sec. If your motherboard is PCIe 3.0, they'll sustain ~3400MB/Sec.

Just a note here, that disk streaming is not relying at all on sustained sequential read speeds (which is what you're quoting). For Kontakt in particular, random 4K QD1 reads are the most important (since Kontakt's DFD engine is not optimized for SSDs, hence it doesn't employ higher queue depths at all). And those speeds are not at all in the gigabyte range.

Are you saying in practice that normal SSDs are as good as-or better than m.2s for audio streaming?

[EvilDragon]

Well, considering m.2s are usually faster at every stat compared to regular SATA SSDs, they'd still be better for Kontakt. But then you compare 4k read QD1 benchmark numbers and look at price per GB and ask yourself if it's worth the premium.

[buzz1]

Does not seem to be a huge difference in price. On the Scan website 512gb m.2 drives come in at about £25 more than SATAs.
I did hear somewhere that SATAs have better non sequential speeds?

[EvilDragon]

No, NVMe m.2s have better speeds, since they're going over PCIe basically they have a lot more bandwidth to use, and there's also the case that a proper m.2 SSDs will use SLC instead of MLC/TLC, which is also making them faster, AND more durable (regarding write-erase cycles).

m.2 can also go over SATA, in which case they have identical performance to SATA (and closer in price, which is probably what you saw on Scan website. You need to look for NVMe!)

Here's a rough comparison:

https://ssd.userbenchmark.com/Compare/S ... 1vsm494791

Same capacity, roughly same release date, but hugely different performance and nearly twice the price.

[buzz1]

Got it. Thanks.

[jonljacobi]

M.2 SATA SSDs are little faster than their SATA bus cousins. M.2 PCIe/NVMe SSDs have 4 to 6 times (8 times over PCIe 4) the sustained throughput and roughly ten times faster seeks, aka, random access. Smaller capacity drives, usually 256GB can be half as fast as the larger capacities due to fewer chips to shotgun data across.

Sustained writing can drop significantly once the NAND cache (TLC treated as SLC by writing one bit instead of three) runs out. I've seen it drop to as low as 500MBps on an NVMe SSD but this is almost always after at least 10GB. Not really an issue in most scenarios.

Pricier drives have around 1% DRAM primary cache, and then the SLC secondary NAND cache. Some drives are smart and dynamic about allotting secondary cache, some just allot a percentage. It's pretty scattershot, but any newer NVMe drive will outperform SATA by quite a bit.

Note that I saw slower read seeks (0.09 ms versus 0.02 ms) with AMD PCIe 4.0, but both drives I've tested were Phison OEMs and I have no idea if its Ryzen, the PCIe implementation, or this particular design.

[EvilDragon]

Those read seek differences are really negligible in Kontakt DFD use case, I would reckon...

[stamp]

Can you please tell where to find an slc nvme at reasonable prices? I'm looking for a 1tb unit. Afaik even the best samsungs are just tlc 2bit. Most of the stuff you find around is mlc 3bit.
Maybe I'm not well enough informed.

[Amelia70]

Can you please tell where to find an slc nvme at reasonable prices? I'm looking for a 1tb unit. Afaik even the best samsungs are just tlc 2bit. Most of the stuff you find around is mlc 3bit.
Maybe I'm not well enough informed.

Why is a particular NAND of importance? Isn't the most important part the read/write speeds of the device, and the durability for how many times it can be written over?
I am just curious, not trying to berate you in any way. I am hoping you can help me understand why i'd choose SLC over MLC or TLC.
I know MLC used to be preferable to TLC but TLC caught up.

Anyway, my audio drive is a 1 terabyte samsung 860 pro because of the write durability. I put it in a USB3 enclosure separate from all other drives and on it's own bus, and will do the same on windows when my new machine is built. I no longer have any spinning drives whatsoever and will never use them again, as I simply can not deal with their noise when the rest of the system is quiet. (and those ones that undulate up and down, just shoot me!).

[Amelia70]

Ahh I just looked them up.. I see SLC is the ultra most durable of the SSD nand. Understood.
I might look at some local prices now out of curiosity. I think the 860 pro is MLC but I am probably wrong.

[jonljacobi]

SLC = Single Level Cell/1-bit, MLC = Multi Level Cell/2-bit, TLC = Triple Level Cell/3-bit, QLC = Quad Level Cell/4-bit. You won't find many real SLC or MLC drives anymore. Nearly all of the top drives use TLC, but treat it as SLC or MLC as necessary to reach the performance and durability levels they want (and charge for). I know of one MLC that may still be available from Micron but it's SATA 2.5-inch. I'm not sure if they're even fabbing SLC or MLC anymore, but if they are, it's for enterprise/data center and very expensive.

EvilDragon... I also doubt the seek times for those PCIe 4 drives matter. They're still quite a bit faster than SATA and, by any definition, very fast.

You'd have a very difficult time telling NVMe drives apart subjectively. I can't until the long copies. I will say that a couple of the drives that use "smart secondary cache allotment" occasionally glitch in performance if you perform a long operation then don't give it enough time to switch gears. This is because the drive is doing housekeeping: copying data to TLC, or readjusting cache size, etc. It picks up quickly, but it is a bit like watching a large truck change gears on a hill.

If you really want fast continuous reads and seeks and small ops performance, look at Optane. They play tricks with it such as combining them into onboard RAID on the cards to make up for the relatively slow writes, but the random read and write ops, not to mention the longevity are insane. Alas, they're really expensive.

Of the NAND drives I've seen recently, I'd say the WD Black SN750 and Samsung 970 Pro are still the best overall. The Addlink S70 tests well, but the Kingston KC2000 seems to beat it in real world stuff. The latter two are quite affordable.

If you're on a Mac, stay away from the Samsung 970 EVO Plus as it doesn't work. The 970 EVO is fine. But again, even a slow NVMe drive is really fast.

With modern wear-leveling and over-provisioning techniques, durability really isn't an issue anymore. I wouldn't worry about that. It was always a bit of a tempest in a teapot. Erase-before write contention is also a thing of the past unless you really fill up the SSD and then throw a lot of data at it.

[Shabdahbriah]

Why is a particular NAND of importance? Isn't the most important part the read/write speeds of the device, and the durability for how many times it can be written over?
I am just curious, not trying to berate you in any way. I am hoping you can help me understand why i'd choose SLC over MLC or TLC.
I know MLC used to be preferable to TLC but TLC caught up.

https://www.howtogeek.com/444787/multi- ... c-and-mlc/

[stamp]

The 970 pro is mlc, isn't it?

Edit: yes it this. I guess that's the best you can get at the moment as long as longevity.