Greetings to the community. Any idea on how many tracks and how many PLUGINS can be run with the Ryzen 9 9950x if you have 32 GB of RAM? I know that some plugins have more latency then others. But, in general how many audio plugins and tracks can be used with the Ryzen 9 9950x? I use Cubase Pro 13 for mixing. Thanks in advance.

 

https://www.scanproaudio.info/2024/...-round-up-intel-ultra-series-and-amd-9800x3d/

^ Benchmarks.

Conclusion's up to you and your needs. For my workflow, I'm limited by what's on my master bus. In other words, my tracks are always waiting on the master bus to finish. I'd need more single core performance before I could start taking advantage of additional cores.

 

Indeed, these numbers are theoretical as it doesn't take into account real world usage as signal chains and routing can highly skew whether your workload is more parallel (able to be spread over more cores) or serial (more reliant on single core performance).

 

Welcome to the forum. Enjoy your stay.
On 7950X with 64gb ram, Cubase 14 @24bit/96khz, test done only using nvme ssds, i counted 300 audio tracks with 300 Waves SSL EV2 (channel strip plug) at about 65-70% cpu load. There's some people here with a 7950X to give you more details, not one that i know of with a 9950X. The latter Zen5 cpu might pull ahead like 5% but not more. The just launched 9950X3D on the other hand, will definitely have a performance uplift on VIs, mainly Kontakt and other sample based instruments, but not one on track and fx count. With one exception being convolution plugs (ie. Acustica ones) which also benefit from the X3D V-Cache architecture since technically they are sample based too. Seeing that AMD's X3D cpu launch this time is not plagued with lackluster software, is a great relief for anyone wanting to go high end and the price launch at 699$ is most welcome.
Cheers

 

The 9950X is incredibly fast for any kind of productive work. It will virtually never be the bottleneck in audio, no matter how many plugs, channels and other things you throw at it. A fast SSD, efficiently coded plugs and other S/W and you're going to be fine whatever you do.
I have a 7950X (w 64GB RAM and several SSDs) and that is also super fast. I run lots of stuff - s/w synths, fx, automation, loads of audio loops, 40 channels, real time mastering etc and my cpu is almost asleep.

 

I'd guess it can run about 9950 plugins, depending on the plugins, of course. It can surely run that amount of Waves Renaissance Compressors.

edit: what I find really astonishing about these new DAWBench results is the low performance difference between different ASIO buffer sizes. 512 sample ASIO buffer @96kHz is only about 13-14% more efficient than 64 sample (1-2ms!) ASIO buffer! 128 (2-3ms) and 256 (5-6ms) still being the optimal choice, but this is crazy good.

oh, but Kontakt polyphony test is a different story and ASIO buffer still matters a great deal... and this is a real world test which matters the most.

p.s Intel i7-14700K seems like a really great deal for about 400 euro since all same and lower performing AMDs cost more... this saddens me a bit, but it's the truth. Generally slower AMD 7700X or 9700X (same or lower price than 7700X now) based computer (+Asus Prime TUF Plus mbo, 2x16GB Kingston Fury DDR5 RAM) currently costs only around 40 euro less than Intel 14700K based computer.

 

Last edited: Mar 12, 2025

Hey 'sup mate? I hope all fine. You are right, actually the two have switched sides and Intel is the more budget friendly company now. But honestly speaking i wouldn't risk going for Intel 14th or even 13th gen and i don't care what their owners say. These cpus are the culprit of Intel's biggest disaster ever that is still going with seemingly no end between class act lawsuits and angry customers & ex-employees etc etc. Add to this that Intel since 12th gen uses an uneven big/small core architecture for their cpus which isn't supported universally by all DAWs, you may be left with a bunch of efficiency cores that will sit idle for ever when making music in your fav daw. I do dig their single core performance but apart from that, if Intel was a choice i 'd go for the new Ultra series (TSMC made feels a bit more safe atm) given that the architecture is supported by the DAW at hand.
Cheers

 

That's a beast of a processor. It'll more than serve your needs. I'd maybe go 2 x 32GB RAM.

 

hi,
I didn't try the 9950x myself, but I watched a couple of benchmark videos and readed a bit about it and what I do can tell you is that if you use Cubase you are using the most optimized DAW for any kind of multicore processor, along with Reaper and ProTools, so you can rest that whatever CPU you buy, you will get the most out of it.

 

I now have a 9950X3D, and it absolutely eats through EVERYTHING!

 

Bravo for your new cpu mate. I really would like to know its performance vs the 7950X. I 'm really interested in Kontakt, i assume a 10-15% better than 7950X is kinda logical but give us some info man. Cheers

 

My 7950X is currently in a retail box now waiting to for a buyer to want it (if anyone's interested?), so cannot test unfortunately. I didn't really do any music production specific benchmarks, or actually any benchmarks that I stored in general. However, I did run some tests using things like Cinebench R23 and R24, Geekbench, PassMark, 3DMark etc on both the system as a whole and CPU-only where possible. In those synthetic tests, I actually saw more like a 12-20% bump, depending on the benchmark. However, in the real world use case, whatever I have used it for to date (and it's only been a couple of weeks as I ordered on release date), it has not come close to hitting a wall yet.

Do you have a specific test you were interested in me doing (or trying to ham-fist my way through)?

 

Whatever processor you buy, make sure your mobo can take = or > 128GB RAM, and then incorporate the 128GB RAM into your budget
Reason for this is, A good processor will be limited in the amount of tracks you want by its lack of memory! 32gb is going to do a dis-service to that processor as it will not be utilising its full power.

 

I already have 96GB (2 x 48GB) DDR5 6000MHz RAM in my system. With more recent Ryzen (and DDR5 in general), it's important to keep to two sticks where possible or the RAM speeds will be severely hampered if using 3 or 4 sticks. So if you do go 128GB, then it should be using 2 x 64GB sticks (are there 64GB DDR5 sticks available even?). This is why I have 96GB (2 x 48GB), and 48GB sticks were the largest reasonably priced sticks I could find, and so 96GB was the limit with 2 sticks.

 

Sure. Kontakt polyphony is one. That is how many Kontakt instruments will it run simultaneously, all playing a continuous 5 note chord. Preferably with a heavy lib like Spitfire Classical/Orchestral/Studio Series or Cinematic Instruments etc etc., will do.
The other one would be VSTis bulk in general, like how many Divas or Serums or even Omnispheres before hiccups occurs hehe.

Interesting question. Not for the desktop parts, at least not yet. But. The Ryzen platform supports ECC memory and there are various 64gb ECC ram sticks. Thing is these 64gb server mem parts are way more costly vs the 48gb desktop counterparts.
I recently made a build with a X870E Taichi Lite & 7950X and was looking at the possibility of 64gb sticks. My best bet was Micron's 5600MT/s 64gb sticks at ~340 euros each! I quickly abandoned the idea and got G.Skill Flare (EXPO certified) 2x48gb, 6400 MT/s for 300.
Cheers

 

if Intel is the only choice, I would also tend towards the ultra 9 285k. and 96 gb ram, because building bottle necks is not worth it.

and not necessarily the cheapest RAM, but least a medium-performance RAM. depending on your budget...

 

Ok. I can give these a go once I have some stuff installed.

Got a specific process you want me to do, or just:

1 - load an instance of Kontakt 8.3.0 (latest, in case optimisations for latest CPUs) into a track. Add a 5 note chord in MIDI. Load in one of the heavier Kontakt instruments. Duplicate the track until I hear atrifacts from CPU load. Any preferred DAW, as I generally use Ableton?

2 - load in instance of Diva/Serum 2/Omnisphere. Add a 5 note chord in MIDI. Duplicate the track until I hear artifacts from CPU load.

Is there any good way to isolate the CPU from the audio interface? I use an Audient ID14 MkII USB C audio interface, but wondering if there's any easy way to ensure the artifacts are from CPU load rather than from any audio interface artifacting? I don't do testing generally, as you may be able to tell

 

a computer is more than its cpu. thats like asking how many miles can i drive on a tank of gas? lots of variables there, like terrain, season of the year, driving style, amount of other traffic, pit stops, dining, loaded weight of vehicle.etc.etc.

How many tracks of what? Midi? .wav,? types of wav, bit depths, sampling rate etc.
drums are percussive,have a rather limited frequency range and don't occupy a whole lot of space or spectrum. Piano and voice are gonna need a lot more room,cpu, etc. - see there are lots of variables that need to be populate with data in order to calculate what you want.

I'd start by figuring out how many tracks you actually need, and of what material, write it down, make a spread sheet, do some calculations, look up the Ryzen specs, how many cores, how many threads, and then consider whether your plugins can use multiple cores or threads.

good luck, and remember joe jackson said, "you can't get what you want, til you know what you want"

 

The question is not as much 'how many plugins can I throw in'. It's more how low can my latency be. A very beefy machine (a 9950x IS very beefy) can run a complex project down at 32 samples buffer. If you do not need low latency because maybe you're more the programming guy than the live playing guy, you crank the latency up to 4096 samples and at that point: the 9950x most likely provides more power than needed.