I just spent four hours looking at graphs and reading reviews and posts about Ryzens. Now I think I know less then before which would be a good choice.

Which Ryzen to pick for 300€ max? Is x3d an advantage or disadvantage?

I use Ableton and a bit of Kontakt and Omnisphere but that's not my main thing.

Which one would you pick?

 

This One @fnord23:

AMD Ryzen 9 5950X 16x 3.40GHz So.AM4 WOF - € 278,89

 

7900x probably, but I think you will be happy with 7700X too or with non X variants with lower TDP, if you are interested in AM5.

Personally I was thinking about both AM4 and AM5 builds, right now I'm heading towards budget AM4 build with 5700X, but it was close call to just go for 5900X, still debating with myself.

 

Great because I already have my Am4 board.

I thought that the new generation of CPUs would bring cheaper performance but it's not really happening so far isn't it? (At least in this price segment?)

One more question: at the moment I use a 5600G, which has a very similar single core performance than the 5950x. Is there any way I can test the single core to know if I need more then I currently have? In Ableton I hit high CPU usage sometimes but I don't know if it's a single or Multicore problem. Do I need to stack as many plugins as possible on one single track to test the limits?

 

https://www.scan.co.uk/info/proaudio/presszone/dawbench

 

This can give you some insight, have in mind 5600G will score little less then 5600X, so yeah

https://www.scanproaudio.info/2023/10/20/intel-14-series-cpus-tested-for-the-studio/

 

Thanks. I wish there was a new comparison with the 8xxx and newest chips.

How come the non-x versions have almost half wattage and still about the same performance? For a music workstation less watts is great because it's less noise and cheaper bills, doesn't it make sense to go non-x for the studio?

How about the 8700G? Integrated graphics -> no GPU needed. Much cheaper and more quiet in the case which is very important. Where's the catch?

 

I'd play devil's advocate here and mention Ryzen 8700G - it has integrated graphics while still featuring 8 cores 16 threads which should be plenty for decent allround workstation, and if you're not planning buying dedicated graphics card, it may save you few bucks (and PCIe lanes),
its "catch" is it doesn't support PCIe 5.0 at all if I remember correct (but PCIe 4.0 standard is still plenty),
if you know you absolutely need more cores/threads, then older 5950X with 16 cores 32 threads just fits your budget limit

do note your current 5600G uses older AM4 socket, so any newer Ryzen 7000/8000/9000 series require AM5 socket motherboards

 

How does pcie 4.0 affect the system? Is there any other disadvantage like slower SSD speed or ram when using an apu?

 

i'm on an asus b550 rog strix gaming wifi II/5700x/32gb ram/gen4&3 nvme/rtx3060/750w ps combo. the thing is flying. daws(ableton 12.1 & reaper) on 64 samples@48khz. 5700x can do dozens of midi tracks with plugins, no sweat. i can go down to 16 samples no prob. cpu cooler : Thermalright Assassin King 120 se, 5 heatpipe ; recently i put the 5 pack arctic pwm pst fans in. pwm pst means that my front 3 fans are daisy chained and they connected to one fan header on the mobo. 2 exhaust fan. positive pressure=very little dust build up. idle temp : 22! celsius. gaming : 40. crazy cool. pbo enabled. ok i live in Ireland, that helps too. windows 11 with revios 11 playbook. 8 core cpu is the sweet spot if you game a bit outside of daw work. if only daw(s), 5950x. 5800 is difficult to cool. x3d's are the gaming kings. i'm getting 120 fps(locked) easily w/3060. happy building !

 

Last edited: Oct 11, 2024

There are various guides for optimizing your PC for music production!
Also available on the manufacturer's website.

 

Last edited: Oct 14, 2024

+1 for the 5700X, this one has been rock solid since I got it last year. Even on my old Asus X370, it's super stable with busy mixes.
Just bought the 5950X for a new build for less than 300 euros, I don't feel the need to upgrade to AM5 for audio production

 

Sorry I don't understand why you post Steinberg essay about DAW?

5700x seems to be a little faster then 5600G, but since I already hit the limits with the 5600 I am looking for something fast. The 5950x would be good but it's about same in single core. So far the 8700G seems to be a good choice especially since I don't want a noisy and expansive GPU.

 

The 7900X. Ebay lists it new at ~290 euros. Amazon at 320-350euros depending where you buy it from, it 's the best cpu at the price point +-50 euros. Why?
1. I have a 5950X. The 7900X is faster in almost all cases although it's a 12core cpu against the 16cores of 5950X and only about 5% slower than its Zen5 successor the 9900X that costs about 500 euros atm.
2. The 7900X platform comes with support for the latest DDR5 & Pci-e gen. 5 standards, anything older is ddr4 and pci-e gen4 or lower.
3. Adding to the previous fact, anything older has no upgrade path. The X670E/X870E mobos (and their cheaper variants) that are compatible with this cpu offer a clear upgrade path to Zen 5 cpus (9xxx series) if and when needed.
4. It has integrated graphics that will drive at least one 4k monitor with built-in support for HDMI 2.1 and DP 2.0. Against the G series cpus that come with integrated grfx as well, it is a much faster cpu, as all of the AMD APUs go up to 8 cores max and with much lower single and multi core frequency boost.

GPUs don't make noise unless you make them do so hehehe.
The most logical upgrade would be the 5950X because it (most likely) won't need a new mobo. But you will surely need a beefy cooler and to make sure your existing mobo's VRMs can handle the 16 core cpu. Oh and what you wrote about the single core speed and such is pretty much nonsense, the 5950X will smoke your 5600 anytime on anything including single core speeds (+500mhz) and the 7900X even more so will knock it out the park entirely.

 

Last edited: Oct 12, 2024

You should really get out of the "Single Core" mindset. Most modern DAWs use muilti-core (load balancing) as standard. Some better than others.

• Ableton Multi-core CPU handling FAQ

Games are also being developed to take advantage of multi-core systems to improve performance more & more.

RAM, fast SSDs & a properly optimized system are also key. Regardless of CPU platform. 32GB of RAM minimum should be used for an 8 core CPU (4GB per core).

 

Bro I just seen a ryzeen 7 on newegg for like less then 200 bucks

 

Thanks for the great reply. But In the very link you posted the importance of single core/thread performance is explained:

"How many threads are used per Live track?
Live uses one thread to process a signal path. A signal path is a single chain of audio flow. In tracks where instrument or effect racks are used, with multiple chains in parallel, Live may use one thread per chain depending on how CPU-intensive each chain may be. If two tracks are "chained" by routing, for instance by a side-chain routing, they are considered dependent tracks and count as one signal path. Any dependent set of tracks will use one thread each."

You can hit CPU limits with a single track or a group even though only a fraction of the CPU is working. I don't know if that's Ableton specific but I can confirm with my current Ryzen.

"Which is more beneficial, a faster CPU speed or more cores?
Both are important."

 

Last edited: Oct 12, 2024

Dunno how Live works, Bitwig spreads the load evenly on all cores and I never hit the one core to the fullest still, this is 8 core M1 Air which have 4 performance and 4 efficiency cores, single core is in the same ballpark as AM4's. So I essentially need more cores to spread out, more RAM because I'm going into swap, that's the reason behind my build.

I'm still undecided, prices of AM5 components are almost double, but I just need to get out of swap and have little more CPU headroom, that's it, but if you are hammering 5600G hardly, that's a pickle.

 

1. AMD Ryzen 7 9700X [€ 360,90]
Best Mid-Range CPU for Music Production

• Architecture: Zen 5
• Socket: AM5
• Cores/Threads: 8 / 16
• Base Frequency: 3.8GHz
• Top Boost Frequency: 5.5GHz
• TDP: 65W
• PassMark - CPU Mark: 4300

• Fantastic price-to-performance ratio
• Only 65W TDP
• Same socket as older generations (easy upgrade)
• Supports both DDR5 and DDR4
• Performs slightly above older AMD processors
• No bundled cooler

The latest AMD Ryzen Ryzen 7 9700X, powered by Zen 5, deliver excellent single-threaded performance ideal for music production. They outperform price-comparable Intel models in speed and efficiency while consuming 40% less power. With their low TDP, these processors run quietly, making them perfect for noise-sensitive music studios.

2. DAWs are more comparable with games than usual compute workloads since they require real time computation i.e. low latency. All the powerful threads are of no help if they take too long to deliver results latency wise. For such Intel has been better so far, but the Ryzen 5000 series may be about to change that.

You need a fast SSD, fast RAM and you should optimize your PC for music production. Instructions and links are below.

The Ultimate Guide to Optimize your Windows PC for the Stage - PDF
https://gigperformer.com/docs/ultimate-guide-to-optimize-windows-for-stage/The Ultimate Guide to Optimize your Windows PC for the Stage.pdf

Disable ‘C-states’ in the BIOS
“C States” are conditions under which a computer's processor can work in a slightly different way to save power. Different processors support different numbers of C States (some don't support C States at all).
We've found that having C States enabled can cause adverse performance on some systems. If you're having audio performance issues we recommend disabling C States.
To disable C States you will typically boot into the BIOS (Basic Input/Output System) of your computer– please contact the motherboard manufacturer if you're not comfortable doing this. Focusrite Technical Support cannot help you tweak BIOS settings as the BIOS layout and the available options are different for every machine.

Optimizing Your Computer for Audio - Windows 10
https://support.presonus.com/hc/en-...Optimizing-Your-Computer-for-Audio-Windows-10

Optimising Windows for Audio
https://support.focusrite.com/hc/en-gb/articles/207355205-Optimising-Windows-for-Audio

 

Last edited: Oct 12, 2024