Hi,

I'm looking at upgrading and am thinking of going for AMD Ryzen 9 5950X.
Does anybody in here have one and can recommend for music production?
Thanks.

 

I have the 3950X and I can produce with almost no limitation at 48Khz/128 buffer. Since the 5950X is about 20% faster it will be even better.

 

Expensive CPUs sounds better, almost like analog with ssl circuits . . .

 

What kind of production?

If you are doing large console format type work in your DAW than yes.

If you are using lots of virtual instruments with heavy CPU loads yes.

Otherwise the 5900X will do for most situations. Just make sure you use the QVL recommendations & stay with 3200 or 3600 at CL14 to CL16. Tight timings are key with Ryzen. Example: CL16 (16-16-16-35).

 

from my understanding they are in short supply , like everything computer related right now. im gonna upgrande to the 5600x as soon as i can find one at a normal price.

 

Just a week ago. Client wanted the latest and greatest and yeah the new AMDs are kings of the hill alright, but the prices on the new cpus are ridiculously high. In Europe prices atm are like: 5800X @ 600 euros, 5900X @ 800 euros and 5950X @ 1000-1100 euros whereas the 3950X goes for 650-680 euros. Anywhere you see the new cpus listed in normal prices as announced earlier this year, they are quite suspiciously out of stock, fishing for the customer to pre-order and wait God knows how long.
So, if i can give a tip (as i gave my client), either wait until prices are normalized and cpus are back in stock or if you can't wait just go for the 3950X. 1000 euros is not normal anymore for a consumer desktop cpu, it's HEDT territory and if you are willing to go this high you 'd be better off going for Threadripper or even Intel HEDT since the 18 core 10980XE (socket 2066) goes for a little over 1000 euros now and comes with 48 pci-e lanes.
Cheers
PS: And because i didn't answer directly on the OP, the 5950X is monstrous. I was only demo'ed one but my hardware supplier let me install a few daws on it and run some benches for a couple of hrs. The thing is killer!, destroys everything, i managed 800 Waves plugs on 200 24bit audio ch and 16 full multitimbral Omnisphere instances with the cpu sitting at 75-80%. Mobo was the x570 Asus ROG Strix-E which is one of my fav mobos for the platform, great oc and vrm and fully featured.

 

Last edited: Dec 2, 2020

For audio stuff (DAW, PlugIns etc.) the single core performance are very important and crucial unlike multi threading.
That's why my advice, if you like to save money get the AMD Ryzen 7 3800X 8 core and you will have a monster PC.

 

Last edited: Dec 2, 2020

I still have my i5-4590 , working ok for what I do ! :D

 

some basic textbook notes may help in decision making process:
• A program/software is a set of instructions that a computer follows to perform a task.
• When a computer is performing the tasks that a program tells it to do, we say that the computer is running or executing the program.
• The central processing unit, or CPU, is the part of a computer that actually runs programs.
• You can think of main memory (RAM) as the computer’s work area. This is where the computer stores a program while the program is running, as well as the data that the program is working with.

Conclusion:
faster cpu, runs program faster.. that's all..
huge ram, result in ability for computer to stores program/data on the run more more-er .. something like that..

Also dont forget economical decision making factor between wants and needs. Maybe deciding do you want to upgrade or do you ned to upgrade to runs your software..

heheh nerdy me.. just random

 

I'm on a Ryzen 2700 and it can run tens of channels no sweat, a 5950x should have no problems running audio.

 

Right now, especially during the Coronalypse, the question about buying the 5950X is: do you want the fastest chip no matter the price?

For DAW work there's much more balanced CPUs, be it 3000s or 5000s.

Damn man, I would have a geek hard-on trying that beast.

 

That CPU is overkill for audio work. You won't need 32 threads, even 16 should be more than enough.

 

quote this: see Acustica Audio plugins manual, they suggest latest Intel processor due to its max CPU speed. no Xeon, no Ryzen.

 

Agreed. Especially AMD CPUs are known to have a few additional special instructions within the CPU microcode that helps produce more analogue like sound. It's hard to find out which plugin developers make use of these instructions, though.

 

Depending on what you do, it might also make sense to spend more money on a good audio interface.
For example when you really want to crank the latency down and still have it working reliably.
If you do orchestration, or something with lots of large samples in general, you'd also need large ssds and ram to load everything.
For the typical homestudio composer that kind of CPU performance is overkill.

 

Rumor has it AMD just signed "Analog Obsession" developer for an exorbitant salary and soon they'll become AOMD (Analog Obsession Mojo Devices)...

 

Bro, honestly, i am hardly impressed by hardware these days but this cpu is crazy good. It even rivals the previous gen 24core Threadripper in multi-threaded apps. And because someone mentioned single threaded performance, i can confirm all the press reviews, the 5950X i tested hits 5ghz in single thread and 4.35 ghz all core boost with just factory settings-no tweaks, memory was GSkill 2x32gb of DDR4 3600 CL17 which is not the tightest CL you can find but that was avail to me, but hell, this cpu smokes everything. Oh and the other little thingie the guys had for me installed in that test bench was a 1tb Samsung 980 Pro. Except my installations, i only tried PcMark and CrystalDiskMark on it but i was blown away by its performance. 7gb/sec max seq read - 0.04 ms latency - 1mil IOPS random read max - 22000+ IOPS at QD1.
Bottom line is... nice season to be rich lol.
Y'all stay safe guys
PS: For the guy who said Acustica recommends Intel, man, they just haven't tried the 5950X yet. It kills every desktop Intel in single and multi threaded performance.
EDIT: The GSkill ram was Ripjaws cl18 not 17.
EDIT2: The client in my previous post just confirmed he'll pay 1000 euros for the 5950X if he can get it within the end of next week tops. Talking about crazy peeps lol.

 

Last edited: Dec 2, 2020

I saw those benchmarks, really crazy stuff.

This left me salivating...

I got you but we have to be honest here. Until this very recent 5000 line Intel still had that advantage in single-core. So the Acustica Audio guys don't want trouble until I guess they test them personally.