Jim Roseberry

On the contrary, I'd say there FAR more to tweak with Win10 vs. Win7. Lots of extraneous "stuff" running in the background, automatic-updates, etc...

I like most of the guys at our local GC. I've been buying gear from them for years. Like Bat, I know what I'm looking for before I walk in. Recently wanted to check out a Spector Euro LX 5-string bass. These are normally ~$2650. Online, a white one was listed for ~$1700 (I assumed it was lightly used). Got there and the white Euro LX was marked at $2650. Since the serial number matched the listing on the website, I got it brand new for $1700 plus change.

Luna is reinventing the wheel. They'll be 5+ years playing catch-up to all the major DAW applications. The only advantage is slightly tighter integration with the Apollo series. In the live NAMM demo, the engineer claimed "zero-latency" for the monitoring of effects/processing. There's no such thing as zero latency... not even with hardware based DSP. Luna is using (re-purposing) UA's "Unison" technology from the Apollo series. Unison allows you to monitor any UAD plugin with ~2ms round-trip latency (which is excellent). Note that Luna and Unison won't do this (2ms round-trip latency) with non UAD (3rd-party) plugins. Lowest possible round-trip latency (with 3rd-party plugins) is not Apollo's forte'. RTL is on par with many of the better USB-2 audio interfaces. You can use an Apollo with any DAW application... and be able to monitor thru UAD plugins with ~2ms round-trip latency.

Note that mixing RAM with different memory chip config can cause issues. Having the same timing alone doesn't eliminate all compatibility issues.

You can try... FWIW, To eliminate compatibility issues (instability), you generally want ALL sticks of RAM to match 100%.

The drummer who launched a million drummers. I found out early Friday evening (from my wife). The radio station called her from their hotline. The band's publicist had confirmed the news. Neil Peart's influence will live on for generations. Rush my first concert when I was 15 years old. Walked into the arena as they were starting Spirit Of Radio. The performance, lights, and sound were amazing. Some one recently called Neil the Ultimate Rock Craftsman. I think that fits perfectly... RIP Neil Peart "Some are born to move the world..."

In your scenario, I'd go with the 9900k.

What types of projects are you running? Are you doing video editing/rendering? Do you need Thunderbolt-3? Are you running ProTools? There's zero risk running the 9900k with all cores locked at 5GHz.

If you're into extremely low round-trip latency, Presonus Quantum is hard to beat. It'll allow you to run a 32-sample ASIO buffer size at 96k (1ms total round-trip latency).

Patrick, we really aren't disagreeing about much. ? I'm "obsessed" with high clock-speed, because at that point, Threadripper (performance wise) is superior on all facets. Keep in mind that the 10980xe is going to be on shelves soon. 18-cores 4.8GHz max turbo $1000 or slightly under That's Intel's "stop-gap" until they release a 32-core model.

Unless you're wanting to compare IPC, who's going to slow the 9900k down? ? It'll happily run all 8 cores locked at 5GHz. It'll do so running near dead-silent. To get the 3970x to run anywhere close to stable at 4.2GHz (across all 32 cores), vCore would have to be thru the roof. I had it at 1.26v... and it was nowhere close to 100% stability. Even with amazing luck of the silicon draw, you're not going to achieve 4.5GHz across all 32 cores. If you could set vCore high-enough to achieve 100% stability (4.5GHz across all 32 cores), a 360mm water-cooler isn't going to keep it both cool... and quiet at that setting. At stock-speed, with quality 360mm water-cooler, quiet case/fans, etc... the 3970x isn't what I'd call extremely quiet. ? FWIW, I tested the 3970x myself. I've benchmarked it both with audio and standard tests. In standard tests, single-core performance of the 3970x does not best the 9900k. In heavily multi-threaded scenarios (both standard and audio tests), the 3970x smokes the 9900k.

It's in all our best interest for AMD to be competitive. Competition drives performance... and keeps cost down.

AMD Threadripper bests Intel i9 in IPC... but If you benchmark the 3970x, single core performance does not best the 9900k. Also, the 3970x won't get all cores anywhere near 4.6GHz. In fact, you won't even get 4 cores to run 100% stable (vCore cranked) locked at 4.2GHz. Where the 3970x smokes the 9900k is in heavily multi-threaded applications.

Have you actually built a Threadripper machine and benchmarked running Audio stress-tests? The 3970x will *not* run all 32-cores rock-solid at 4.2GHz. With vCore set high (1.22v), it'll barely get to 4.1GHz. With vCore at 1.22v, 3970x can't run 4 CPU cores stable at 4.2GHz. With vCore set to ~1.25v, I was able to get the 3970x thru a quick benchmark (all cores at 4.2GHz). Just barely beat stock-speed scores... Stock vCore is ~1.1v. Bottom line, if you buy a 3970x, plan on running it at stock-speed. I wouldn't run a Threadripper with anything less than 360mm water-cooler. As with previous Ryzen CPUs, there's virtually no over-clock headroom. In heavily multi-threaded applications, the 3970x will smoke the 9900k. Threadripper has better IPC (instructions per clock), but Intel bests Threadripper in clock-speed. Keep in mind the 9900k is a quarter the cost of the 3970x, can run all 8 cores at 5GHz, and will do so near dead-silent with quality air-cooling. At stock-speed, 3970x single core performance is slightly slower than the 9900k. On typical project-studio projects (like the Adam Nitti demo for StudioOne), you won't notice much performance difference between the two CPUs. Regarding latency, Threadripper 3970x had no issues running fairly dense audio projects using a 32-sample ASIO buffer size. That's an improvement over past Ryzen releases. Clock-speed isn't everything, but it's still the single most important factor (for DAW purposes). As I've said many times, not all processes in a DAW can be multi-threaded (spread across cores). ie: Playing and monitoring in realtime (thru software) with a 32-sample ASIO buffer size at 96k isn't something that lends itself to being heavily multi-threaded. Some virtual instruments like UVI's Falcon won't address more than one core. In a perfect scenario, you want highest clock-speed... and the most cores available. For the reasons above, you don't want to choose more cores at the expense of significant clock-speed. Intel's 10980xe (18 cores) is going to be $1000. Clock-speed is slightly higher than the 3970x. Based on experience with the 9980xe, I expect it to compare well (for DAW purposes) to the 3970x. For video rendering, the 3970x will smoke the 10980xe. A note about TRX40 motherboards: All the critical CPU tweak components are available... but the motherboards (like the original Ryzen release) seem just a bit "rushed-out-the-door". ie: On the Gigabyte AORUS series, there's no option to disable things like Onboard Audio, Onboard WiFi, etc. Unlike the original Ryzen release, the TRX40 motherboards showed no signs of flaky behavior. ie: Running faster clocked RAM isn't a problem. With the original Ryzen release, trying to find a motherboard that would run stable with DDR4/3200 was a quest. If you're a ProTools user, Avid doesn't officially support Threadripper. In my testing, the 3970x runs ProTools Ultimate just fine. If you encountered any issues, you'd not have any official support from Avid.

If the OP is running disk-streaming sample libraries, he'll want to save the fastest drive/s for that purpose. A SATA SSD is plenty fast for a boot drive. Conventional HDs sustain ~200MB/Sec SATA SSDs sustain ~540MB/Sec M.2 Ultra SSDs (PCIe 3.0) sustain up to 3500MB/Sec M.2 Ultra SSDs (PCIe 4.0) sustain up to 4000MB/Sec

500GB SATA SSD makes a great boot drive. M.2 Ultra is overkill... and IMO a waste of that speed (use it for disk-streaming sample libraries)

Yes, those apps that support Eucon (directly) don't need any configuration (at least for most common features).

Eucon is a hardware controller protocol. Thus, *any* DAW application that supports Eucon can be controlled with the Avid iPad app. (Cubase/Nuendo, Samplitude ProX, etc) There's a Eucon "control surface" plugin for Sonar/CbB. Once that's installed, Sonar/CbB can be controlled via the Avid iPad app. You have to install the Eucon software (and the Eucon plugin for Sonar/CbB). You have to define the features/functions... so it'll take a little time/effort. Once done, you've got an advanced wireless remote.

The Intel drives sustain ~1800MB/Sec The Samsung 970 EVO sustains ~3500 The new Inland Performance PCIe Gen 4x4 sustains ~5000MB/Sec. (Need M.2 slot that is PCIe 4.0)

If you install the Eucon plugin for Cakewalk/Sonar, you can use this app as an advanced remote. You have to define things manually... but it can be a great help if you're working in the studio alone.

Davinci Resolve is also free... and would be more straight-forward for video editing (if that's your primary purpose).

Just checked the features... and it looks like they've added basic video editing/VFX/compositing to Blender.

Cinema 4D and Blender are 3D modeling/animation/rendering. HitFilm is video editing and VFX/compositing (kind of like a combination of Premier Pro and After Effects). There is some overlap... but two very different types of tools

The full version of Resolve comes with advanced video noise-reduction. I've not seen an OMF plugin that does the same thing. The free Davinci Resolve with Ignite Pro is a formidable video editing solution. Throw in Hit-Film Pro as a secondary option... and you'd be pretty well covered.

FWIW, From my experience using video editing software (Adobe, Vegas, Davinci Resolve, etc), it's good to have several options. I've run into "road blocks" with each... and having an alternative was the only way to get work finished. ie: I've run into issues with Davinci Resolve where the timeline was fine for basic cuts/edits. As the session grew a bit more complex, the timeline got scrambled. Many hours of work... effectively gone. Davinci Resolve (feature wise) is nothing short of amazing. If you have a new iPhone (new video and photo formats), your existing editor might not (yet) be compatible. Ran into this a couple weeks back. If you have higher-end video tools, Hit-Film is likely not going to replace them. ie: The Chroma Keying is basic. It works... but nowhere close to Primatte Studio or Davinci Resolve. You've got to have excellent/even lighting on the green-screen. Hit-Film combines a pretty decent video editor... with After Effects like effects/compositing. At $30, if you work with video at all, it's worth having in the tool-box. If you use it once, it'll have paid for itself.