Nice one I don't even use the ASIO Guard myself, it is unticked. Try without to see if any improvement. My PC is probably half of yours... I'm always 3 or 4 years behind with building my own PCs and saving some £. Not sure if AMD Ryzen 9 have Hyperthreading like Intel but I always disable that too but I've only ever had Intel Processors so not sure how AMD work.
This is what Steinberg say:

Spoiler: Hyperthreading/Simultaneous Multithreading and ASIO Guard

https://helpcenter.steinberg.de/hc/...ng-Simultaneous-Multithreading-and-ASIO-Guard

 

Last edited: Jun 7, 2025 at 6:26 PM

hmm there's another thing worth checking - make sure ALL the cpu cores are running at same frequency and there are no fluctuations (in CPU-Z or HWmonitor again) - for audio you want consistency instead of highest peak performance,
for example I configured my 6-core cpu (in BIOS) in a way that max frequency at all 6 cores is same as max frequency at 4/2/1 core (it's technically still an overclock anyway) - this helps also when a process that doesn't utilize many cores isn't picking certain highest-clocked core when all run at same frequency

 

yea this is also an advice worth trying,
5950X already has 16 cores, and indeed has hyperthreading with its 32 threads which may actually yield inferior performance - you can disable hyperthreading in BIOS and see if having "only" 16 proper cores helps or not

 

@Bamboozled
Cubase is a very primitive program, but because of this it has very good performance

Cubase itself can't really be “not working”. But external factors can affect it very much.
If you fix all these external factors, you will get a very stable program that will work like a Swiss watch.
I've been using cubase for over 15 years, and I've forgotten what performance problems and crashes are (except for 3rd party plugin problems)

Some things that make a big difference in Cubase performance:
- power savers (both in the bios and in the system)
- System and driver updates (always keep them up to date)
- Video card settings - Max performance
- Background processes (especially cloud updates, browsers, and other background processes/tasks)
- Antiviruses (you can add to exclusions folders with cubase and its pressettes, as well as all samples, synthesizers, etc.)
- Checking all VST3/VSTi for the current version for your system
- Libraries like Net.Framework, vcredist, etc.
- Checking all connected devices on your machine (preferably don't use old devices, or update their drivers).

Programs for tracking problems:
- LatencyMonitor
- HWinfo
- WinDbg (for decrypting Cubase .dmp files)

 

glitches at 2048 buffer ?? something seriously wrong. i'm at 64samples on my 5700x no probs with tons of virtual instruments, kontakt, superior drummer, uad keyboards, u name them

 

There are so many different ways a DAW can cause problems with CPU use through the roof, if everything is not set correctly. Some DAWs, and even synth plugins can "ship from the factory" with really dumb settings as their default. The one for me that may have been the worst ever, was how the Roland Cloud plugins all default to "Run Optimized" being unchecked in their preferences menus. I turn most things like that to the more optimized settings until I begin to consider rendering. Even just oversampling options.

I'm not sure why you are using Audiogridder or VSL hoping it will help without a second machine serving cpu-heavy plugins. They distribute the load; but without anywhere to distribute the load, all you are getting is more load. I would personally get rid of them until you really know you need them for something.

Using a fully de-bloated Windows configuration can help, but i'm surprised no-one has mentioned switching to some highly stripped version like X-Lite. Whatever those suggestions are these days.

 

In your system itinerary you failed to mention what sort of audio hardware was being employed? It can make a difference in that the audio hardware is how you're able to hear what you're doing (pretty important). Good ASIO driven audio system hardware WITH THE PROPER SOLID OEM DRIVERS to support it is the desired platform for success on any windows system. RME Audio is my preferred weapon of choice for audio hardware.

Windows 11 (or any win system) out-of-the-box, is not sufficient in most cases for any kind of computer use model. Cubase has it's own issues (just as all DAW's do), but on it's own should provide relatively stable operation especially when an adequate amount of system resources is at hand, like in your case.

You said the "system" crashed - what did you mean by that exactly? Are you saying that Cubase itself crashed or the entire OS crashed? If the OS crashed you may have a system hardware issue that is causing things to be unstable like a bad memory stick, flaky SSD, or possibly a thermal issue. If it was just Cubase that crashed make certain that the Cubase version and your audio drivers are up to the latest versions available.

Windows 11 has much more overhead and garbage to clean up out-of-the-box than windows 10 or any other previous windows version. Mickeysoft has again gone another extra mile to attempt to lock down the OS from reverse engineering. Reverse engineering is the only thing that will make the OS useable in any case.

I would recommend the following;

- Remove internet from the machine completely. If this is a production machine it should be set up for use in that capacity. In which case I would recommend paying a visit to sisite and replacing any/all internet tied production-ware with their scene released counterparts. In this way you can completely remove your production platform from the internet and never look back.

- Disable all windows "junk" that doesn't need to be there. Here's a list - it's windows 10 pro centric, but should mostly translate to win 11 as well.

- Personally, I would ditch that win11 home thing you are currently running and rebuild the system, ground up, with a nice optimized win10 pro ISO like GhostSpectre or TinyOS. Then proceed with the rest of the optimization. All that would need to be done in this respect would be to nuke the system drive. Your work drives etc need not be touched - make a backup image of the ENTIRE system before proceeding obviously. Running an optimized ISO means you can ditch that idiotic TPM, if there is one, because you don't need it anymore... You would be amazed at how much this all can help.

Once you get a stable and efficient system up and running to your liking, backup image the entire system with a well proven backup imager like Acronis, AOMEI, Macrium, etc. Do regular re-images when you do major system additions or subtractions so you're protected in case of hardware failure.

 

Last edited: Jun 8, 2025 at 12:00 AM

Remember reading some post's from Tafkat on GS about Cubase's use of multi cores on Ryzen's, here's one I could find
https://gearspace.com/board/showpost.php?p=17066430&postcount=9

this might explain some things, there's probably version of his post's where he talks about it more, but I can't find them right now, yeah, sometimes I read random stuff and this one kinda stuck with me for some reason, maybe dig in that rabbit hole further

 

Interesting. Wonder if that applies to specific Ryzen chips or the broad spectrum of AMD Ryzen entirely? Seems like there's a large number of multi-cored Ryzen chips in use on various people's systems here that do not seem to have the issues described.

 

Yeah, quite interesting stuff, wish I knew more or someone that know what's up chipped in, Tafkat or someone from here like @taskforce who is building and testing audio rig's for a living.

Best I can do is to paste some answer from ChatGPT

Spoiler: ChatGPT answer

Cubase has had ongoing issues with multicore performance, particularly on AMD Ryzen processors, especially when dealing with high core/thread counts (like Threadrippers or newer Ryzen 9 CPUs). Here's a detailed breakdown of the problems and what users (including TAFKAT on Gearspace) have observed:

Core Cubase Threading Issues on Ryzen
1. Cubase thread scheduler limitations

• Cubase (especially versions before Cubase 13) doesn't scale efficiently beyond 32 logical threads (16 cores with SMT).
  
  
• This is not due to Windows or hardware but Cubase's internal thread manager.
  
  
• On Ryzen CPUs with more than 16 cores (e.g. 7950X, Threadrippers), Cubase may:
  • Underutilize cores
    
    
  • Pile audio threads onto a few cores
    
    
  • Result in poor real-time performance, high latency, and audio dropouts

⚙️ 2. ASIO Guard + MMCSS conflicts

• Cubase uses ASIO Guard to manage plugin pre-processing, separating it from real-time audio threads.
  
  
• This system struggles with Ryzen’s core topology, particularly when:
  • Core Parking is enabled
    
    
  • SMT (Simultaneous Multithreading) is on
• MMCSS (Multimedia Class Scheduler Service) thread priority handling can interfere with Cubase's scheduling on Ryzen, especially on Windows 10.

3. Poor core distribution

• On Ryzen CPUs, users report that Cubase often uses only a few cores heavily, while others remain idle.
  
  
• Load balancing can be uneven, causing crackles, dropouts, and poor plugin performance at low buffer sizes.
  
  
• This is exacerbated when using virtual instruments or UAD/AAX-native plugin wrappers.

✅ Workarounds & Optimizations
BIOS/OS Tuning

• Disable Core Parking and CPPC (Collaborative Power Performance Control)
  
  
• Set Windows power plan to High Performance or AMD’s Ryzen Balanced
  
  
• Disable SMT (Hyperthreading) in BIOS for some extreme cases
  
  
• Use Process Lasso to manually set core affinities for Cubase

Cubase Settings

• Enable ASIO Guard, and experiment with different levels (Normal/High)
  
  
• Increase audio buffer size
  
  
• Avoid real-time effects on input channels when tracking

Version-Specific Behavior

• Cubase 13 reportedly handles multicore CPUs a bit better, though still not optimal for more than 16 physical cores.
  
  
• Cubase 11/12 users have experienced more severe thread bottlenecking on Ryzen 9/Threadripper.

Compared to Other DAWs

DAW Multicore Scaling on Ryzen (32+ threads)
Reaper Excellent
Studio One Decent with ASIO Guard
Ableton Poor (especially with VST instruments)
Cubase Poor beyond 16–32 threads
FL Studio Weak parallelism; CPU-bound
Summary

• Cubase struggles with high-core Ryzen CPUs, especially above 16 cores/32 threads.
  
  
• These issues are rooted in Cubase’s outdated thread handling model and are not Ryzen-specific—but Ryzen’s many-core architecture exposes the flaw more prominently than Intel’s.
  
  
• If you're using a Ryzen 9 or Threadripper and working on large projects, you may not see linear CPU scaling unless tweaks are made—or you switch to a DAW with better multicore support (like Reaper).

Would you like specific tuning recommendations for your Ryzen CPU or insights from TAFKAT's DAWBench scores?

 

What's your PSU?

Skimming through what's been said so far, most technical possibilities have been covered but the Nvidia Ti cards are power hungry.
Depending on who made the card, you may need a 1000w PSU.

Not having enough powr to run the graphics card processor properly will cause it to choke when it gets up to high work load and give you issues.

So who made your NVIDIA GeForce RTX2080Ti and what size PSU do you have?

Gigabyte recommend 750w minimum for their standard and more for the overclocked version.

 

I couldn't really say either. All I have ever used in my system builds are intel chips. Needless to say I have never had issues with Cubase (or any DAW or Video NLE) in these regards...

 

I forgot to add.

Bad CUP & motherboard combo will result in a computer not being able to even boot so you can rule that out.

if the CPU and motherboard are miss matched. When you try to turn it on, the CPU fan will spinround once then stop.
You get nothing on the screen. It litterally stops and dosen't boot.

it's not hard to guess who try'd to install a intell Xeon E3 processor into a Z chip set board last week without thinking.

 

I have a 850W psu in my latest build which utilizes a Nvidia RTX 3070Ti GPU. I have zero power issues. I have acquaintances who have similar systems running 3080 and 3090 GPUs that do not need 1Kw psu's or even close. I know for a fact that the EVGA and NVidia branded cards are not power hungry to that extent. Which manufacturers were you referring to?

 

Hey! I have the same exact processor 5950x and for the last 2 years have been going through EXACTLY what you are. Even at 2048 buffer. I'd have to program drums, stem it, start guitars in a new session, etc etc rinse and repeat. Even then id start adding guitar sims andx it would start dropping out STILL.Tried like a dozen soundcards, huge specs 128gb ram. samsung 980 ssd's, this week i took the plunge and installed a watercooler aio. NZXT Kraken x63. I knew my cpu ran really hot but i didn't know throttling was a thing. So after installing it my cpu is 60 degrees cooler and i simply CANNOT get cubase to glitch or drop out. see if your cpu is getting up around 190 farenheit , its probably throttling like mine was! it would go between 170-205 depending on the session now it's usually around 130-150. perfect performance now. like i said at first i'd tried everything over the last couple years since i got it (summer 2023). debloating, all optimizations, even modded windows installs. this is what did it for me.

 

Has noone suggested some of those benchmark tests yet? If I had a problem like this, the first thing I would do would be to stress test it with REAPER, the same way those benchmark tests work.

I would load up a project with a dozen stems, and add another dozen until it gave me a problem.

I would disconnect the audio interface because that is another rabbit hole. You don't need any sound to test this way.

Next, do the same thing with the most CPU-intensive synth plugin you have. Then do it with channels packed with audio effects.

Rule out the entire machine and interface using another DAW that is not as bitchy as Cubase can be.

I have helped a number of people with Cubase crash dump files and the issue has turned out to be Nvidia drivers a good majority of the time. If you can get it to crash, post the crashdump file and we can all take a look at it.

Don't throw parts at your problem. Yet. I'd throw I Mac Mini M4 Pro at it before that, and worry about this again in 2030. (yes, I had to)

 

Last edited: Jun 8, 2025 at 1:22 AM

Hehe, here we go down the rabbit hole again. To the Op and AlexF. I went quickly through the whole thread.
I 'll keep it brief. 5950X & 128gb ram, top ssds, this should handle a heepload of vstis and fx. Taichi mobo is fine, don't think bout it. I didn't see written what type of production you do and vstis/plugs you use. It would be helpful to know if perhaps one of them brings your system to its knees. SSL 2+ is a robust little interface, many of my clients have it with np and i personally have installed it one too many times with np as well.
The only fishy part i can think of that maybe fucks up here, is memory mate. 4x32gb @ 3600mhz means you are running the cpu's mem controller to its max and frankly i am surprised it allowed you to go 3600 with four sticks. Typically it should be 3200mhz max for most mobos.
Is EXPO on? PBO on ?
Anyway try this. Run Memtest for one night and see what gives the next day when you wake up. If you come up with errors, first try lowering the ram speed manually to 3200 and run again for 6-7 hrs. If again you get errors, go back to 3600mhz and just try two sticks (in the correct slots please hehe). If you still get errors it's time for different memory. If you don't then try 4 sticks at even lower speeds like 3000mhz and repeat memtest.
Fff enough memtest for today haha.
See if you get any progress
Cheers
PS: Oh and if nothing works it also might be you are running your projects on a very small ssd. Try moving one work project (with all its associated files) to another ssd and see what gives.

 

Last edited: Jun 8, 2025 at 1:29 AM

Great that you got it all sorted, Congrats!

System temps, memory tests, stress tests, should all be done/checked at first build completion time to make sure the system will perform OK in super ridiculous conditions. On a new system, I'll run memtest for a half day or so to make certain the ram sticks hold up. I have found bad sticks of RAM in the past, brand new out of the box, and shudder to think what would have happened had I not tested them beforehand. Once the Memory shakes out ok, then its time to run HeavyLoad for a 1/2 day or so, monitoring with Coretemp and HWmon to see how temps, fans, and speeds hold up. It is at this time that the fan speed controllers will get set (if needed) to optimal ranges to keep things quiet and cool. Personally, not an advocate of water cooling, but to each is own. If/when it all passes the ridiculous, you know you'll have a system that can perform in a production environment.

Personally, I never overclock. It's just too much of a wild card to play around with, and headaches are plentiful enough without adding to the fray. The windows mods, optimizations, and reverse engineering MUST be done anyway no matter what - it is windows after all.

 

Last edited: Jun 8, 2025 at 2:35 AM

Memory is a good suggestion, but you forgot the one memory related tip which fixes a lot of seemingly unrelated issue. Reseating the memory physically.

Open case, remove memory, reinstall memory and make sure it is securely clicked in.
Clean if you need to, while you are already in there.