CPU Performance vs. Real-Time Performance in Digital Audio

Discussion in 'Computer Hardware' started by aleksalt, Jun 21, 2025 at 6:13 PM.

  1. PulseWave

    PulseWave Rock Star

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    Here is the answer to your question - it is the L3 cache (3D)

    AMD - Ryzen 7 5800X3D --> SOLD OUT


    Basic clock speed - 3.4 GHz
    L1 cache - 512 KB
    L2 cache - 4 MB
    L3 cache - 96 MB
    Standard TDP - 105W

    Ryzen 7 5700X3D --- > THE SUCCESSOR - € 222,95 --> https://geizhals.eu/amd-ryzen-7-5700x3d-100-100001503wof-a3094294.html

    Cores - 8 (8C)
    Threads - 16
    Turbo Clock - 4.10GHz
    Base Clock - 3.00GHz
    TDP - 105W
    Graphics - No
    Socket - AMD AM4 (PGA1331)
    Chipset Compatibility - A320, A520, B350, B450, B550, X300 (AM4), X370, X470, X570
    Codename - Vermeer
    Architecture - Zen 3
    Manufacturing - TSMC 7nm [Compute Die], GF 12nm [I/O Die]
    L2 Cache - 4MiB (8x 512KiB)
    L3 Cache - 96MiB (32MiB + 64MiB 3D Cache)

    Bargain Ryzen 7 5700X3D re-tested: The legacy of the legendary Ryzen 7 5800X3D

    Do you remember? At the end of 2023, rumors first began to circulate that AMD was planning more processors with 3D V-Cache for the AM4 socket. The Ryzen 5 5600X3D had already been released in mid-2023, albeit exclusively in the US. This hasn't changed to date. Although the CPU is listed as a tray version in the PCGH price comparison, it isn't available at any retail outlet. PCGH, as the only editorial team in Germany, nevertheless insisted on testing the Ryzen 5 5600X3D in early August 2023.

    But a lot of time has passed since then, and you might be wondering why we're testing the Ryzen 7 5700X3D again. The reason is simple: The Ryzen 7 5800X3D is virtually unavailable anymore, and it's obvious that the legendary 5800X3D is disappearing from the market and the 5700X3D will take its place. We're taking this as an opportunity to test the processor again, using updated games and applications.

    Ryzen 7 5700X3D: Overview and Technical Specifications

    The Ryzen 7 5700X3D is an eight-core processor that, according to AMD, clocks at up to 4.1 GHz. SMT can provide up to 16 threads. The base clock speed is 3.0 GHz. Beyond clock speeds, the Ryzen 7 5700X3D is in no way inferior to a 5800X3D: It offers up to 128 GB of DDR4-3200 memory (DDR4-2666 when fully loaded), 24 PCI Express 4.0 lanes, native USB-C support, ECC memory, and a TDP of 105 watts. According to AMD, you can install the 5700X3D on B450/550, X470/570, and A520 motherboards. Please note that a BIOS update is required for this. Unfortunately, AMD still hasn't said a word about whether a Ryzen 7 5700X3D will differentiate itself from its predecessor in any way or make it otherwise special thanks to improved manufacturing at TSMC.

    Source/More/German: https://www.pcgameshardware.de/Ryze...sts/Benchmark-vs-5800X3D-TDP-Release-1456739/

    Because both CPUs are equipped with 3D V-Cache, they can process larger amounts of data before having to communicate with RAM, increasing gaming performance compared to systems without 3D V-Cache at similar clock speeds.
    Read more: www.corsair.com/de/en/explorer/gamer/gaming-pcs/amd-ryzen-5700X3D-vs-5800x3d-whats-the-difference/
     
    Last edited: Jun 22, 2025 at 9:49 PM
  2. aleksalt

    aleksalt Producer

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    Here you are:

    How many CPU cores do I need to run Virtual Instruments in a Digital Audio Workstation?
    (the same guy who made 1st video):
     
  3. PulseWave

    PulseWave Rock Star

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    Thanks @aleksalt for the informative video!
    My CPU: AMD - Ryzen 7 5800X3D - Number of CPU cores: 8 - My settings are always 256 Buffers!
     
    Last edited: Jun 23, 2025 at 8:56 PM
  4. ArticStorm

    ArticStorm Moderator Staff Member

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    A bit also depends on how the OS is tweaked. for example having an AV installed is instant cpu spikes, because the AV randomly scans, same goes for Windows features like Defender, etc.

    then there is Windows Telemetry stuff.

    I think with tweaking your windows you can do a lot!

    Having an audio interface with native ASiO drivers (yeah not you Behringer, selling ASiO4all as native ASiO driver :rolling_eyes:) will also help to reduce latency and overall stability.

    my cups of tea here.
     
  5. MFSAKA

    MFSAKA Ultrasonic

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    8 cores at least.
    The higher CPU clock - the better.
    Single core performance is still a key to lag free audio.

    Mac, Linux just a bit more stable for audio than Windows.
    Because of architecture of OS and how kernel works.

    Mac Core Audio - is not the charm. Still have Reaper crashes and CPU interrupts (x-runs) randomly.
    I used M1 Mac mini.
    Real-time Kernel based Linux distro's - same problem. On my AMD PC.

    But Windows without tweaks on self-build PC it's a definition of mess.

    Maybe what Stuart said about custom build PC specially for audio production is the key.
    PC parts need to be tested on exact tasks how they work together in synergy.

    Not just watch a random PC build guide and stack finest AMD\Intell CPU on top of ̶f̶l̶a̶g̶s̶h̶i̶t̶ flagship motherboard,
    with random videocard, RAM, drives, etc.

    This ZOO will not work stable. That's why on the Apple side things just a bit better.
    But IMHO - Mac OS is not for power users. It's so slow. Windows (Apps) management is sluggish. I need to wait like 1.6 sec to just drag and drop file from one App to another. And a many things like that. Hell no!

    People who said that Windows tweaking is useless may be ignorant, or just too lucky with PC build.

    I experienced with many troubles on Intel, AMD systems in my work.
    I prefer Ryzen chip over Intel. IMHO.
    AMD video card over NVIDIA.
    Firewire RME audio interface over any other USB interface.

    Win 10 LTSC over Win11.


    I install on my system only AMD\RME drivers, Link Shell Extension and Microsoft Visual C++ libs to run apps.
    Everything else (browsers, DAW, plugins, etc) is portable.
    Plugins is Symlink NO INSTALL versions pre-installed with Sandbox.
    So i can install\uninstall all my plugins with simplicity of running one *bat script file.

    Not bad results i think.

    upload_2025-6-23_22-44-2.png

    65 processes in Win Task Manager.
    With closed Firefox results are even better. Never leave the Internet Browser open while you work on audio in Windows.
    It's the source of all CPU interrupts.

    For Windows i tweak this:
    - Right after mint LTSC install i boot from USB stick with Acronis, so i can create a LEGIT back-up of clean system and recall it anytime.
    Don't install Acronis on the machine! Just make a USB stick with bootable *ISO
    - Install the software i mention before (drivers, etc)
    - Run MSI Tool and set devices that needs to be in MSI mode to "high"
    - Run Interrupt Affinity Policy Tool and set devices that way, so CPU 0 is not overloaded by pipeline of interrupts anymore.
    - Boot in Linux Live USB stick and delete from there anything related to Windows Defender on my "C" Windows drive.
    - Boot in Windows run portable PowerSettingsExplorer - delete all generic power schemes.
    - Run the Delay-Destroyer-V2.0.bat and choose what i need there. I suggest be carefull with it and prepare ACRONIS system back-up file (not the Windows one!!!).
    - Install new poweschemes in Delay-Destroyer-V2.0.bat is mandatory! Scheme with no CPU idlle give you best performance possible.
    - Reboot after Delay-Destroyer-V2.0.bat finish his thing.
    - Goin to BIOS and turn off EVERYTHING what related to AMD SMT\Intel HT. Virtualization. Build-in audiochip. Build-in network card (i use Wi-fi card). Turn off EVERYTHING what's related to auto core performance boost and CPU idle state (C-states etc). They dosen't work right anyway thought.

    And that's basically it.

    I still wish somebody smart, lucky and rich enough make something really usefull on the Linux real-time kernel.
    OS strictly for Audio production without any gliches or voodoo dances around terminal, Wine, DXVK, Yabride etc.
    But for now it's just a fantasy that so far from reality.

    Closed source operating systems is a scam.

    Fuck Microsoft and Apple. Peace to the real heads.
     

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  6. Neurolepticer

    Neurolepticer Noisemaker

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    The crackling is caused by the graphics card, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Ti. I also have an NVIDIA card, and I was able to resolve the issue by changing the "Power Management Mode" setting in the NVIDIA control panel from "Adaptive/Normal" to "Prefer Maximum Performance" before opening the DAW. The GPU is used to scale the DAW interface and plugins, so if the GPU is underpowered, the crackling occurs.

    [​IMG]
     
  7. Plendix

    Plendix Platinum Record

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    You got a point there! And lets not forget: We're lucky that there is gaming out there. If it wasn't we would've never got consumer hardware that is capable of todays latency. I recently bought a presonus interface and was quite impressed. For the first time I had 'real' sub 2ms latencies. On a usb interface! If it wasn't for gamers to have the lowest input lag on their mice / keyboards / gamecontrollers, usb would've never been up to that. It's a little different with mac. they always had a soft spot for artitst, but pc? No way.
     
  8. Neurolepticer

    Neurolepticer Noisemaker

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    I use "ASIO2WASAPI", and it works much better for me than "ASIO4ALL".
    https://github.com/levmin/ASIO2WASAPI
     
  9. tzzsmk

    tzzsmk Audiosexual

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    lots of obsolete info frankly,
    if you post almost 10 years old video, you should take a look on what CPUs were available in 2015 then (i7-6700K for ex.),
    it's rather funny when I realize my i7-5820K rig is just as old, and well, I have zero problems (running non-modded W11 23H2),

    sure you can go obsess about DPC latency and tweaking Windows (and I do slip in that regard from time to time) but the "easy fix" is to acknowledge and learn how to prioritize cpu cores to certain tasks,
    and key to audio performance consistency is cpu clock/frequency consistency - unlike what most companies and people try to upsell as efficiency and (turbo)boosting, audio (or any other latency-critical processing) needs predictable resources, not fancy random speeding,

    [​IMG]

    if you open LatencyMon and look at "CPUs" tab, you can see the interrupts are mostly happening on very first core, rarely on first four cpu cores - you can only guess nowadays with consumer cpus having 8+ cores you can try forcing your DAW (or OS) to ignore those first four cores and have literally a completely crackle-free experience,
    if anyone keeps saying consumer cpus aren't good enough, then they probably still live in 2015 when even something like a 6-core 12-thread cpu (I still have) was considered a HEDT platform, and only thanks to AMD's rise of Ryzens Intel was forced to evolve beyond 4-core 8-thread desktop cpus - nowadays you can go relatively cheap for 12 or 16 cores (and 24 or 32 threads respectively) on a budget of casual consumer cpu and have a workstation-like experience - obviously if you skip the proper driver install, you ask for trouble, but that's a different topic
    :chilling:
     
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  10. PulseWave

    PulseWave Rock Star

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  11. MFSAKA

    MFSAKA Ultrasonic

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    This shit is so generic and outdated.
    You don't gain anything really good from it.
    Reed what i said before - this works and confirm on the real practice.
     
  12. shinjiya

    shinjiya Platinum Record

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    This used to be true back in the day, but not anymore. All modern AVs, including Windows Defender, do behavioral analysis. What that means is that they usually will only act when something suspicious is going on. If a program is creating a bunch of files, or deleting, moving them around, whatever, the AV will go take a look at it. Usually, when the AV detects that something needs CPU, it will stay put, especially if it's known to the system that you do this thing often. That's exactly why AVs can have a "game mode" that is able to detect what is a game and what isn't, that's all because AVs are getting increasingly good at detecting what an application is and what it is doing. Modern AVs should be invisible when nothing is going on.
     
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