CPUs For Consideration

[Tim Smith]

I have had my eye on this one it's a 10th gen i7. Since I plan to use a future computer for video editing I would need a video card in the minimum 350-400 dollar range. 

This chip can be OC'd to over 5ghz. Motherboard would be socket LGA 1200. I could easily have 800-1200 in the cpu, video, MOBO and memory with this.

It seems many are utilizing the i9  Alder Lake for high end builds which makes this whole thing a little more expensive. I don't see an O.C. max for that chip.

Or I could spend another 1500, get a Mac M1 Max ( just kidding). 

Edited July 29, 2022 by Tim Smith

[Jack Stoner]

If I were to build a new desktop, now, it would be a "Latest and greatest" with a 12th gen CPU.  10th gen is two versions behind.

[Cookie Jarvis]

I just finished a 12th gen build...i9-12900k, Asus ProArt Z690 Creator Wifi, 128gb DDR5 ram, 2 M2 SSDs(out of 4 slots),  MSI 1660 Super(6gb) Videocard, TB4, etc. Running Win 11 Pro with a Presonus Quantum 2626 and MOTU Midi Express XT. I highly recommend the experience!

Right now between the 2 M2's and 4 satas along with an external I have 19tb of space!

Bill

[Starship Krupa]

On 7/30/2022 at 3:26 AM, Jack Stoner said:

If I were to build a new desktop, now, it would be a "Latest and greatest" with a 12th gen CPU.  10th gen is two versions behind.

Depending on budget and amateur or pro status, I find that the price/performance sweet spot is often "last year's latest and greatest." I kick back and wait for the next gen to come out, at which point enthusiasts won't be interested in it anymore.

[Jack Stoner]

4 hours ago, Starship Krupa said:

Depending on budget and amateur or pro status, I find that the price/performance sweet spot is often "last year's latest and greatest." I kick back and wait for the next gen to come out, at which point enthusiasts won't be interested in it anymore.

In actuality for what I do with Cakewalk, very old hardware would probably do as I use it basically as a computer based "tape recorder" as everything I do is analog.

But if I was building a system for full blown DAW it would be "latest and greatest".    One reason is hardware obsolescence with Windows OS'.  We have seen this with the Microsoft hardware requirement for  Windows 11.   Within Win 10 Microsoft has dropped device hardware support in newer versions and I would expect this to continue with Win 12 and beyond.   Thus to build now, even though old is still good enough, go for latest.

[Jim Roseberry]

There's also the 12700k

• 12 cores (8 performance, 4 efficient)
• 20 processing threads
• 5GHz max turbo

 

12900ks is currently the top spot

• 16 cores (8 performance, 8 efficient)
• 24 processing threads
• 5.5GHz max turbo
•  

12900k is one small notch down

• 16 cores (8 performance, 8 efficient)
• 24 processing threads
• 5.2GHz max turbo

 

The 12900ks is basically a 12900k that clocks stable up to 5.5GHz.

 

12700k runs cooler than the 12900k/12900ks.

[Tim Smith]

Thanks for the update on these cpu's Jim.

These chips cost about what some of my entire first builds costed or more. I remember building a computer for 500.00.

Gone are those days.

Much like Erik, I tended to get a generation behind because of the price point and my needs which are generally less than a fully blown working studio.

I am tempted to go big the next time though even though it is uncharacteristic of me because I don't want to bother with it again for a long time.

[jackson white]

the "bang-for the buck" vs. "bleeding edge" decision.

Last build was an i7-5820k which continues to do the job well enough for the most part, but coming up on 7 years = time for a new build. Clock speed will be key, but having major concerns with potential thermal issues. Builds here are 4U rackmounts and had to bend the cooler fins a few mm on the last one to get it in. Cracking 60C under somewhat heavy loads., but holding up ok otherwise. Alder Lakes appear to be mini blast furnaces in comparison (perhaps they should rename them Lava Lakes) and doesn't look like the low profile Nocturnas are up to the task for a rackmount. 

Intel's roadmap claims "double digit" increases in "performance/watt" for the next few iterations (Raptor/Meteor/Arrow) with Lunar Lake in 2024 featuring "leadership in ultra low power performance".  Wondering if basic math is enough to confirm expected reductions in TPU.  In the meantime, pondering the impact of climate change on DAW performance... 

[Tim Smith]

That chip is circa 2014. It is still a nice setup especially if it's overclocked, but has long since been surpassed by updated hardware.I have one because I haven't felt a need to move on until recently, and that's mainly because I bought a lot of software since then and have a fair investment resting on a reliable build. If I were to load it up with a heavy project plugin wise it would undoubtedly choke. I mostly get by it because I pull a few tricks that minimize stress on the cpu until I'm ready to mix down.

If anything, coolers have gone larger as have higher end video cards. Might be worth looking at other configurations. I have seen a few builds which were very tight on space. 

Just thinking outside the box some here, maybe they make a video card jumper that would let me relocate my video card to another box cooled independently. Large video cards are now what main cpus once were. Room temps are important too. If you live in Brazil and don't have air conditioning, that's another 20-30F to overcome and imagine the advantage if the cpu could be extended outside the box. Part of the problem is in containing heat. There are other options but whether anyone has pursued them or not is another thing.

[jackson white]

fwiw, this build has done good for my purposes, only recently got around to o/c'ing it to get some AA plugins to behave. The Alder Lakes look like they run pretty hot, but the reality of the projects I work on may be within a usable range for a rackmount. A relevant benchmark of project load vs. cpu temp would be nice, but until  then expect to hold out for a future model. These are DAW only so grfx cards are minimal, but am considering the potential for video editing.  Don't know if relocating a video card is possible but I'd want to make sure noise was not a problem.

[Starship Krupa]

12 hours ago, Jack Stoner said:

In actuality for what I do with Cakewalk, very old hardware would probably do as I use it basically as a computer based "tape recorder" as everything I do is analog.

Indeed. I'm handing down a system to a friend to use mostly for college class work and other web browsing-ish things. It has a Core 2 Quad Q6600 and 8G of RAM.

He's also a musician, my age, but never gotten past Garage Band on his phone (and he's come up with some cool stuff).

I also loaded it up with every bit of freeware music software that I think he would like. DAW, Cakewalk of course. This was my shop computer for many years, and I've always had Cakewalk on it, just in case an idea popped into my head and for confirmation testing of bugs. I've tested this system after the rebuild and it works fine with Cakewalk, Audacity, etc. I think he'll be able to make good use of it.

Over the past 4 1/2 years, Cakewalk has only gotten more efficient, and I suspect that goes back a long way. It wouldn't surprise me to find out that it runs better now on this system than it did when it was well within the official requirements.

It used to be that as computing power increased, developers (who tended to always have the latest hardware) would immediately take advantage of that power. This left systems behind much more quickly than they are now. These days, developers seem to be more invested in efficiency, maybe because people keep their systems longer and are more likely to upgrade their software if it will still run on their older system. Mark McLeod, one of the Cakewalk developers, uses an i7-3770 as his main studio system.

Also, as I've progressed with my DAW skills and FX acquisitions, I've noticed that my expectations of what the system will do have expanded. Where I used to be more conservative with my use of FX, now I throw the things on, multiple instances, etc.

5 hours ago, Tim Smith said:

If I were to load it up with a heavy project plugin wise it would undoubtedly choke. I mostly get by it because I pull a few tricks that minimize stress on the cpu until I'm ready to mix down.

Curious, Tim, what kind of projects do you do?

When we have these topics about new builds and processor and RAM needs, I'm always curious about the kind of projects each person weighing in is doing. High/low track count with many/few FX? Orchestral with huge sample libraries? ITB electronica using synths and sound design FX of varying CPU needs?

This is key to decisions about how much computer I need. The first question is what am I using it for?

My projects are either low track count indie rock, or the aforementioned ITB electronica. I'm also dabbling in orchestral composition with smaller sample libraries. Most of my projects run okay on my 12-year-old Dell laptop with a 2nd gen i7 and 8G RAM. So with my main system, it doesn't even need to be the i7-6770 with 32G of RAM. I'm just putting RAM and processor generations between my DAW and eventual obsolescence. Upgrading before I need to. No matter what processor my budget computers shipped with, they eventually end up with the fastest thing that will fit their socket.

I can't give a credible opinion outside those parameters beyond "maybe last year's hot processor." Knocking bucks off the cost of the CPU allows for that much more powerful video card or a fancy mouse (something I just got).

"Low track count" these days probably means "under 24" to most of us. See how our expectations increase? 30 years ago, semi-pro studios were doing just fine with a pair of 8 track ADATS connected to make 16. We thought it was a luxury after doing our demos on 4 track cassettes. Now we want our retired office box Dell computer to be able to handle 3X that track count with as many FX on each track as those studios had in their entire racks. While also emulating multiple synths that would have cost $2000 back in the day. And make pro-level videos for YouTube. And play Warzone at maximum FPS when they're not making music with it. ?

One of the criteria for whether a plug-in will make it into my rotation is how well it uses resources.  It's part of why I'm such a Meldaproduction fanboy, they tend to be more efficient with the CPU than other companies' similar plug-ins. I love the way Chromophone sounds, and was almost ready to spring for it at $89, but with it, I was limited in how many other plug-ins I could insert before hitting the wall. Yeah, freeze, bounce, I know, but as part of my composition process, I change synth sounds and FX sounds as I go along, as the sounds themselves suggest changes to the arrangement. Things get different and weirder when you're treating the DAW as one big sound sculpture box.

(I'll toss in here, for those doing audio projects: if you're doing multiple takes, and want to save the takes for alternate versions or in case you notice a flub later on, don't keep them around in muted take lanes or clips. Put them in other tracks and archive them. Cakewalk streams every audio file in every clip in a project regardless of mute status. I found this out using Windows Resource Monitor. A drum session, 4 mics, 6 takes. That's 24 tracks streaming away every time you hit Play. For one instrument. 8 if it's stereo mic'd guitar.)

[Tim Smith]

16 hours ago, Starship Krupa said:

Curious, Tim, what kind of projects do you do?

You bring up some very good points in the subsequent statements after this. I'll do my best to answer this one. I look at my DAW probably the same way a lot of people look at an electric car, and why they hesitate to buy one. They don't wan to ever be in a position where they are low on charge and nowhere near a charging station. 

I look at what I might get into, because sometimes you just never know. I have started piano parts and branched them into something way more elaborate, or on the flip side, I might just throw the whole thing away and do something else. I can be very fickle that way. What often happens is I make something I think has potential, then after listening to it again I junk it or put it on the back burner. I can only stand so much orchestral stuff, so if I just got that desire taken care of I might go to a light guitar thing next. I would go insane only working fake orchestras all the time. I would also go nuts working small pop/rock things all the time. I don't feed on too much of any one thing for too long. This is a hobby and no one has offered me any money to make anything, so I don't tend to get very hung about any of it. I was on a Celtic kick for quite awhile. I also play what you might call religious music, but sometimes I don't want anything to do with any of that and might put some jazz together. I still like the feel of the Celtic stuff I sometimes come up with and that is usually always low track counts because they are simple arrangements in terms of mixing.

And I hate to say this, but I have some serious things going on in my life right now and just haven't had the time to sit down and do any long term anything. If I do anything I am looking at doing it pretty fast. Not that I rush it. This is where mixing/mastering skills can save a lot of time. Back in the day I would spend an entire Saturday putzing with one song and STILL would not be happy with the end result. Now I can make something happen pretty quickly if I have a direction.

....to answer your question, my computer needs are very minimal and if I am tracking a vsti drum kit, I will most often rely primarily on the mixer that comes with the kit. There was a time when I might have mixed 24 tracks of drums sent from various drum vsts into Cakewalk. I can usually get a pretty good drum sound using the factory GUI and plugins. I don't have tons of vocal takes. The vocal either works or it doesn't and should not need more than one or two passes. I spend a lot of time sometimes mixing the bass to sit right.None of that really presses my cpu. I have a few real cpu hungry reverbs. Even so, using only one or two on a dedicated buss isn't a huge hit.

I guess I mostly want to be covered for those "what if" moments. What if I decide to use a few different heavy sample libraries? I want to be able to do that and not worry. So I am more thinking of life expectancy for my present system and then covering myself for "what ifs". My present setup with the old 5820K overclocked almost never breaks a sweat, so I can't really justify an upgrade if it were only based on what I'm doing now.

Probably most new computer upgrades/purchases are more based on fear than performance needs. I mean, I know I can't indefinitely keep winging it on this system so I try to think ahead some to cover myself for the future. I guess this isn't really fear. It's more just concern and planning. If my system tanks , then I will just be moving a lot sooner than I expected to move. The problem with computers from the last 10 years is if you treat them right they just won't die on the Intel end.

[Starship Krupa]

You're buying future capacity and the freedom to throw anything musical at it you can imagine without a second thought of whether it can handle it. I get this.

I started playing drums a dozen years ago, started with a dumpster rescue Taiwanese kit. After I decided that I was serious about sticking with it (no pun), I started checking Craig's List for vintage pro-level kits. I wound up getting a 1970 Slingerland set. I wasn't "enough drummer" to "need" such a drum kit, but once I got it, any concern that the instrument might ever hold me back was out of the picture. I have a kit just like the ones Gene Krupa and Shelley Manne and Nigel Olsson played. It can do more than I will ever be capable of asking of it. I'll never have a nagging feeling that maybe I need a better drum kit. If I can't get a sound that I love out of these tubs, it is only due to limitations on my part, not theirs. That's a good feeling.

I've dug some Celtic music in the past. One evening a long long time ago I was honored to have a beer with Alain Stivell after a brilliant concert in Santa Barbara. I was friends with a dj who was friends with the promoter.

[Jack Stoner]

6 hours ago, Starship Krupa said:

You're buying future capacity and the freedom to throw anything musical at it you can imagine without a second thought of whether it can handle it. I get this.

I started playing drums a dozen years ago, started with a dumpster rescue Taiwanese kit. After I decided that I was serious about sticking with it (no pun), I started checking Craig's List for vintage pro-level kits. I wound up getting a 1970 Slingerland set. I wasn't "enough drummer" to "need" such a drum kit, but once I got it, any concern that the instrument might ever hold me back was out of the picture. I have a kit just like the ones Gene Krupa and Shelley Manne and Nigel Olsson played. It can do more than I will ever be capable of asking of it. I'll never have a nagging feeling that maybe I need a better drum kit. If I can't get a sound that I love out of these tubs, it is only due to limitations on my part, not theirs. That's a good feeling.

I've dug some Celtic music in the past. One evening a long long time ago I was honored to have a beer with Alain Stivell after a brilliant concert in Santa Barbara. I was friends with a dj who was friends with the promoter.

Speaking of drum kits.  Funny story.

The first year I toured with Johnny Cash's brother Tommy Cash (I toured 7 years in his Florida band) Jimmy Peppers came out of retirement to play drums.  Peppers was the road band drummer for Ferlin Huskey in mid 60's (and went on to be band manager for George Jones and a somewhat successful Nashville songwriter and producer).   Peppers didn't have a drum set and was loaned a Sonar set.  Peppers started with a full set and started send parts back to  the owner, said he didn't need them,  and wound up with bass drum, snare and hi-hat, nothing else.  The Sonar set got full use as the owner, who was also an ex Nashville drummer, toured with us the next 6 years.

[Tim Smith]

I have a friend who built a 3800 Ryzen system. I have traditionally been an Intel man all the way.

Lately though, the lines are getting much closer in terms of dealing with heat and performance on the Ryzen end. 

Even though I mentioned I was interested in probably more performance capacity than I likely will need, I won't be buying the highest end 700.00 dollar i9 chip for my build. It would be like me buying a Lamborgini and only driving in places with a 40mph speed limit. My hunch is that probably 90% of the Intel crowd are looking at something at least a few notches down from that.  The expectation is still high so far as what can be expected from a mid tier or upper mid tier i9. Still an incredible system.

In the example of my friend's 3800 Ryzen build he said he dropped about 2K on the build and I think he only has one hard drive. That does not seem lower priced than Intel, although this has been a selling point of the thread rippers. If I were looking at Ryzen I would probably look at the 5900 as of this writing. He claims he gets lightening fast performance out of the slightly older 3800. Heat was an issue in the past, but I think when we start to get into these hotter chips heat will be an issue no matter what. No such thing as a cool 12 core cpu on either front.

I am eyeing Ryzen. Not really kicking the tires too seriously yet. For similar performance and a significant reduction in cost I might consider. What I have seen though, is as Ryzen becomes more competitive the costs are also going up and one won't do better on graphics cards either way. I'm still enough of an Intel man to gladly spend a little more to have it over AMD, however if the differences are significant, like me saving 500.00 on a build, then I'm looking.

[Jack Stoner]

I know basically nothing  about Ryzen CPU's.  DAW guru Jim Roseberry, a couple years ago, stated Intel for lower latency and Ryzen for gaming and video.   I don't know if that still applies.

 

[Starship Krupa]

11 hours ago, Tim Smith said:

I'm still enough of an Intel man to gladly spend a little more to have it over AMD, however if the differences are significant, like me saving 500.00 on a build, then I'm looking.

I was an AMD fan waaaaay back in the 386-class years, when the 386DX offered about twice the performance at 2/3 the cost of the equivalent Intel (of which there really was none). They made Intel realize that they couldn't sit on their asse(t)s, that they had a lunch that could be eaten if they didn't watch it.

Then ATI were really quick with optimizing their video drivers for DirectX when Windows 95 came out. I was doing system builds as an IT person at the time, so that was very important. I had to transition a multimedia software company (Macromedia, now Adobe) full of legacy Windows for Workgroups 3.11 systems to Windows 95. If the system had an ATI card, I breathed a sigh of relief, knowing that the user would get a pleasing performance boost. I spec'd all new systems with ATI cards.

More recently, though, with DAW work, and being more engaged than the average user (beta tester for multiple DAW's), I've noticed that most developers' personal and build systems are Intel Inside. I was also having issues with excessive latency that vanished when I swapped my AMD video card for an nVidia. nVidia seems to be on top of the content creation market, with their Studio drivers and NVEC. As recently as 5 years ago, I couldn't find information on 2D performance about any video card. nVidia get big props for paying attention to that segment of their market. Gamers aren't the entire market.

I'm sure the aforementioned devs have AMD systems for testing, but that's different from a daily driver.

So my armchair impression (as incorrect and outdated as it may be) jibes with the one attributed to @Jim Roseberry. AMD if you want a ferocious gaming rig at a good price, Intel (and for me, nVidia) if you're optimizing for DAW and NLE work. However, I see that Jim's "Red Dragon DAW" model has an Ryzen 9 5900x under the hood. Maybe since I cited him, he'll weigh in on this thread(ripper).

[Jim Roseberry]

Threadripper offers great multi-threaded performance, but has two achilles' heels.

• Poor ultra low latency performance (due to CPU architecture)
• Super high TDP of 280w (there is no quiet Threadripper build - unless you allow thermal-throttling)

 

Ryzen 5xxx series is where AMD greatly improved low-latency performance.

When the 5950x was released, it leap-frogged the 10900k in both single-core and multi-core performance.

I tested the 5950x for a long while to get a configuration I was comfortable with for clients.

With current AMD and Intel 16+ core CPUs, thermal fluctuations (under load) are more extreme than with the 10900k (10th gen i9).

It takes more robust cooling... and (if you're wanting a near silent machine), it takes more radical settings in the BIOS.

5950x requires more radical BIOS settings than the 12900k.

Otherwise, you'll hear constant ramping up/down of fans.

 

The 11th Gen Intel i9 11900k was actually a couple steps backward (for DAW purposes).

• Low latency performance wasn't as good as the 10900k (due to CPU architecture changes)
• Overall performance wasn't as good as the 10900k

The 11900k wasn't well received... for any high-performance application (gaming, video, audio, etc).

 

With AMD clearly performance leader (both single-core and multi-core), Intel had to release something significant... and do it sooner than originally planned.

Intel released the 12th gen 12900k.

Totally new CPU architecture (8 "performance" and 8 "efficient" core, 24 processing threads, 5.2GHz max turbo frequency)

The 12900k bests the 5950x in both single-core and multi-core performance.

 

Intel's 12900k manufacturing yield has been good.

Thus, the latest 12900ks was released (same CPU as the 12900k... but max turbo frequency is 5.5GHz).

The 12900ks is currently the fastest CPU (for DAW purposes).

 

If you're talking a "Gaming" machine, the single most important factor is clock-speed.

If you're working a "hybrid" scenario (low latency audio and video editing), the 12900k/s and 5950x are both great options.

If you're doing loads of video rendering (and can live with significant noise), Threadripper is a great choice.

 

I tend to favor Intel CPUs (as long as performance is equal-to or greater-than AMD).

It's more rare today than a decade ago, but you can bump into an odd scenario where a particular application/plugin isn't well optimized for AMD.

ie: Celestion's Speaker Mix Pro was not well optimized for AMD CPUs.  Performed significantly better on Intel CPUs (at ultra low latency).

This isn't AMD's fault/responsibility, but it is something you may encounter.

 

 

Edited August 15, 2022 by Jim Roseberry

[Tim Smith]

On 8/15/2022 at 9:19 AM, Jim Roseberry said:

Threadripper offers great multi-threaded performance, but has two achilles' heels.

• Poor ultra low latency performance (due to CPU architecture)
• Super high TDP of 280w (there is no quiet Threadripper build - unless you allow thermal-throttling)

 

Ryzen 5xxx series is where AMD greatly improved low-latency performance.

When the 5950x was released, it leap-frogged the 10900k in both single-core and multi-core performance.

I tested the 5950x for a long while to get a configuration I was comfortable with for clients.

With current AMD and Intel 16+ core CPUs, thermal fluctuations (under load) are more extreme than with the 10900k (10th gen i9).

It takes more robust cooling... and (if you're wanting a near silent machine), it takes more radical settings in the BIOS.

5950x requires more radical BIOS settings than the 12900k.

Otherwise, you'll hear constant ramping up/down of fans.

 

The 11th Gen Intel i9 11900k was actually a couple steps backward (for DAW purposes).

• Low latency performance wasn't as good as the 10900k (due to CPU architecture changes)
• Overall performance wasn't as good as the 10900k

The 11900k wasn't well received... for any high-performance application (gaming, video, audio, etc).

 

With AMD clearly performance leader (both single-core and multi-core), Intel had to release something significant... and do it sooner than originally planned.

Intel released the 12th gen 12900k.

Totally new CPU architecture (8 "performance" and 8 "efficient" core, 24 processing threads, 5.2GHz max turbo frequency)

The 12900k bests the 5950x in both single-core and multi-core performance.

 

Intel's 12900k manufacturing yield has been good.

Thus, the latest 12900ks was released (same CPU as the 12900k... but max turbo frequency is 5.5GHz).

The 12900ks is currently the fastest CPU (for DAW purposes).

 

If you're talking a "Gaming" machine, the single most important factor is clock-speed.

If you're working a "hybrid" scenario (low latency audio and video editing), the 12900k/s and 5950x are both great options.

If you're doing loads of video rendering (and can live with significant noise), Threadripper is a great choice.

 

I tend to favor Intel CPUs (as long as performance is equal-to or greater-than AMD).

It's more rare today than a decade ago, but you can bump into an odd scenario where a particular application/plugin isn't well optimized for AMD.

ie: Celestion's Speaker Mix Pro was not well optimized for AMD CPUs.  Performed significantly better on Intel CPUs (at ultra low latency).

This isn't AMD's fault/responsibility, but it is something you may encounter.

 

 

Thanks for these comments Jim. I highly regard your observations. 

I guess that's the thing I am seeing with AMD in general and one reason why my skeptic meter goes into the yellow when discussing a Ryzen replacement.

Cclarry just did a 5800 series build and his didn't go off without a hitch. It's working fine now after some fixes.

I hear you saying AMD is great and has leap frogged the last Intel offering by ( I'm assuming ) a small margin.

It works ok "if" you do this and "if" you do that. By working ok, I mean a fairly silent well cooled computer with impressive specs for both audio and video work.

It's those "ifs" that cause me to pause. Never had any "ifs" using Intel. I put it together and it has been working probably longer than I remember. I take for granted sometimes the trouble free operation it has given me all this time, so I guess I'm still slightly more prone to Intel. Not that one day I won't try AMD.

Lots of variables, cost being one.

For a studio that would be fine using an i5 , even the 3800 series might be a very strong consideration, but once again "if" it can be cooled properly and kept fairly quiet.

[Jim Roseberry]

With the 5950x and 12900k/s (current gen 16+ core CPUs), heat is more of an issue.  

Temp increases under load are more dramatic... requiring more robust cooling.

You can certainly build a quiet 5950x or 12900k/s based machine, it's just more complicated.

 

If trying to keep the build a bit more simple, the 12700k is a great choice.