Yep, for those on a tight budget this is an excellent solution, probably the best.
I just beg to differ on the passive cards as you know hehe, i have seen too many of them wither and die in a matter of 2 years, so unless the airflow in the case is top class i would not recommend a passive card. Anyway if you are not running any games its most likely you will never hear the fan.
I just finished a new Ryzen 2700x build for a friend of mine, man, i am totally sold on AMD, Intel is out of their minds, almost 600 euros for the new 9900k. The 2700x goes for half this money and is like 10-15% slower in single thread and almost equal in multithread performance. And they rate the 9900k as a 95 watts whereas it may reportedly consume up to 200watts lol. So the graphics card is an MSI Armor Radeon RX570 with 8gb ram which we got for 175 euros. The card is totally silent when in casual computing or daw etc, supports up to 3 monitors and it can game up to QHD adequately. Even for people who don't game or do graphic editing or video, a slightly better card will not break the bank imho.
Cheers

 

@taskforce Precious info from you, as always. Thanks, man!

I noticed some actively cooled VGAs being incredibly quiet, fans not even spinning when you just work with audio programs, but it is a hit and miss. One should find a good review of such a card before buying, or get informed about cards which work that way. GGF RX 570 is an excellent gaming card! Of course I wouldn't mind having one like that.

 

@taskforce and @SineWave .. you guys rock our technical world here and are precious beyond comprehension.

 

which is the "other sided" GPU for RX580? I mean, which is the nVidia card that is at the same level?

 

most graphics cards nowadays don't spin fans up unless passing 60°C threshold, always check exact model info,
I have EVGA 980Ti Classified and it spins up only when playing games or color grading and rendering videos,

that 15% performance (which can actually be more, as Intels nowadays reach 5GHz without problems while most Ryzens struggle passing 4.2GHz) on less cores is the dealbreaker for low-latency and realtime applications, because in such tasks, multicore processing balancing isn't efficient and isn't often even properly implemented - for ex. DAWs nowadays try to rebalance plugin resources when rendering, but when live playing, the usually don't have "time" to reallocate cpu resource changes realtime

@JudoLudo for ex. GTX1060 is roughly same in performance as RX580

 

I have notice too this problem. The strange this is that my old nvidia card with VGA+HDMI had better latecy. What I am suspect is that if the card has DVI output then probably the NVIDIA high definition audio driver is the problem. I have notice a tiny improvement when I disable this driver. However since I have made a brave update to my PC with Intel I9 cpu / 266 (don't ask about money ) now the improvement is not noticeable. With older motherboards improvement must be bigger.

 

A large proportion of the newer VST's have high resolution graphics for imagery and some of them for their faders, knobs and sliders have the same couple with the pretty GUI interface. It all adds up to video memory. When that runs out it goes to your RAM or at worst, to a cache on your HDD or SSD.

So yes I agree, a decent Graphics card is pretty crucial.
I do not believe all nVidia or Radeon cards are bad, that's not feasible, but some are definitely better than others.

 

Could you mention a VST with high resolution graphics that I can test on my Internal Intel HD Graphics 530. Like I said I have not noticed any issues with this card and I'm running in 4k resolution. I use Ableton 10 on windows 10

 

Certainly..

If you REALLY are happy to let your system potentially crash I am happy to oblige.
This is potentially only because this is a half decent way to test how good your system is.
PLEASE do the following first in order not to damage an existing project:
1. Create a new session.
2. Create an empty stereo audio file.
3. Import 4 to-32 bars of any stereo drum pattern or loop into that empty audio file.
4. Open your VSTi and load KONTAKT 6 and load Ethereal Earth. If it asks to create a new track say "yes".
5. Now go to your drum track.
6. Open iZotope Neutron. Use the assistant rather than manual no matter how much you prefer not to.
7. Solo the drum track and run the assistant.
8. Now play something into the KONTAKT MIDI to work with the drums or hand write the MIDI if desired.
9. Now on the master stereo out, select iZotope Ozone master assistant, again ignoring the fact that you probably would not use it this way. Select CD and high..
now open every VSTand VSTi on the screen and switch between the settings in Ozone and Neutron as each section has its own GUI.

At best if you have a great system, you should only notice a slight slow down. At worst you will crash.

The Arturia DX7 is also another good video card cruncher when used in the above environment.

 

Last edited by a moderator: Nov 13, 2018

oh wow! are the first time that i heard that nvidia cause latency problems, I have a GTX 750 TI for games in my audio system AMD Phenom II X4 and never has latency problems running Presonus Studio One and Presonus Studio 26 audio interface.

 

do you recommend an i5-8600K (not a 9xxx) over a Ryzen 5 2600X? even with that price difference (300€ vs 220€)? is it still worth? 9600K won't be a decent buy for months, until it will be around 250€ (in Italy I can only buy it at around 400€)

could a 2600X handle a Cubase projects with many VST (5 Keyscape, 2 Superior Drummer 3, 5 Kontakt, some Amplitube and a Valhalla - about 50 tracks max) without problem? or will I run through annoying problems? thanks and sorry for the OT

 

well, let's some up the facts,

without overclocking, 8600K is slightly better in single core performance, 2600X is noticeably better in multi core performance tasks,
8600K can be overclocked beyond 5.2GHz while 2600X around 4.2GHz max, performance in most tasks which use 6 or less cores becomes very similar,

8600K offers integrated graphics which can save money if the rig is targeted for just audio workflow and if no demanding video processing required, else dedicated graphics card purchase is highly recommended, 2600X will require dedicated graphics card,
8600K package doesn't include any cooler, will require separate purchase of some aftermarket model, 2600X is provided with generic cpu cooler, for best performance/noise/efficiency aftermarket cooler is recommended anyway,

prices of similarly-equipped motherboards are priced relatively same (for ex. ASUS PRIME Z390 and ASUS PRIME X470), ram modules can be used essentially same, TDP of both cpus is about same too,


when I think about it, I would consider both options as valid, might actually decide depending on price sum of entire solutions (cpu+cooler+mobo+gpu+ram etc..),
since I prefer hackintosh over Windows 10, I would be probably biased towards Intel, but that's just my personal stance

 

Nicely balanced summary, tzzsmk.

 

Depending on what you mean by "demanding" Intel's integrated GPU is actually extremely capable in this area. Far better than most people think. Quick Sync is extremely efficient for encoding typical video even - it's probably more efficient pound for pound than dedicated gaming cards. If, by demanding, you mean relatively hardcore projects involving things like, say, After Effects then you would be right but I don't actually know if you'd notice a difference between general mid-range consumer cards (gaming) and on-board.

IMO the Intel option is better for more purposes due to that surprisingly powerful integrated graphics but specific builds (especially gaming) I'd agree with your summary. There's no compelling winner. The end cart-price on the day should probably decide.

 

Hi mate. You seem to forget that the Intel gpu is integrated in the cpu and uses system ram . Both these have impact on system performance, daw (real time) performance (dependent on the various project types of course) and concentrated heat output on the cpu die which results in various negative outcomes : from not turbo boosting properly up to throttling on heavy daw projects with lots of disk activity too.
But if someone must use the on-chip Intel graphics and can't afford a dedicated gpu, then at least get a decent cooler for the cpu, which is much cheaper than a new semi good gpu. 40-50 euros will buy an almost decent air cooler.
Cheers

 

Since I mentioned integrated I'm pretty sure I remembered it's integrated.

The impact on system performance in the circumstance you mention is, in my experience, negligible and, in fact, it avoids the problem some people (at least) have with some nvidia cards for audio systems. I've had some issues with a 970 and even tried a 1080TI recently (which wasn't as bad) but had eliminated all problems by disabling dedicated GPU and switching to integrated (not even uninstalling nvidia drivers). Heat and RAM usage were negligible (though I do have a heap of RAM and a very decent, quiet cooler).

Anyway, for general system use (not even just a dedicated audio studio PC) like HTPCs, workstations etc I stand by my statement that Intel's on-chip is surprisingly good - beats the hell out of the old onboard motherboard solutions. Otherwise an AMD GPU would seem to be a safer option for audio production if one must have a dedicated GPU unless someone can nail down the exact cause for the nvidia issues and solve it for every case.

 

Thanks for that info muffball, I have wondered if I can get around the problems with my nividia gt720 because it seems to crash when im running fl studio all the time but I have a decent enough computer.

 

couple of month ago i upgraded my pc to brand new 8700k fast nvme and 16gb of ram, if you planning to make music, and dont do ANY really demanding gaming, integrated 630 intel graphics is really what you need, all the daws iv tried runds smoothly with no problems at all.
Later on when 16gb of ram will be not enough, only then i will consider insterting dedicated gpu, for now, im good