CPU for Audio Production

[SaladTosser9000]

Budget (including currency): $750+ (Flexible)

Country: Canada

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: Audio production, mainly in Pro Tools, gaming is secondary

Other details (existing parts lists, whether any peripherals are needed, what you're upgrading from, when you're going to buy, what resolution and refresh rate you want to play at, etc): I'm needing to upgrade my CPU. Running and AMD FX 9590, because in 2013, my house lost heat in a snow storm, and could get this CPU faster than I could get a repair man over. I have used it heavily, regularly pushing it up to 90+% for hours on end, and I'm surprised it's lasted this long, to be honest. I'm looking for a significant upgrade in performance for music production and audio editing. I need a CPU that will be able to deal with 64GB of RAM effectively (likely upgrade to 128GB in the future), and has at least 10 cores. While most of my workloads are multi-threaded, there are some plugins that I use that are old, and are single core hogs, so a decent balance between cores and clock speed is necessary. I will be upgrading my CPU, MOBO and RAM, as that is all necessary. I have an RTX2060, 850 Gold PSU, Corsair Obsidian 800D case, like 6 case fans, 2x PCI-e cards for I/o and TB3. Running Windows until Pro Tools is available on Linux. I have been looking at the Ryzen 3900X, but wondering if it would be worth it to go Threadripper for the ECC support (yes, I know, GPU bottleneck - that's the point). I currently have 64GB of RAM, and regularly use more than 60% of it for hours on end, and if I'm in a session with a client, I can't have any crashes or errors, period. I'm not stuck on AMD, either, just seems to be a way better price per performance, as it stands. Thanks in advance!

[Bombastinator]

I would say the most important thing is audio quality rather than system type.

 

 

 

further meanderings:

Spoiler

threadripper is probably not necessary.  The big question I would say is which motherboard has the best audio stuff on it, which I can’t answer  Could also do a seperate sound card or go intel if better on board audio is available there (again I don’t know)

temptation would be 3900x on some sort of b550 and fill it with 128gb of fast memory.  If there are better sound components on intel stuff though it might be worth going that route with a 10 core 10900 just to get the better audio.  There is also the option of a separate audio card in which case the motherboard audio wouldn’t matter.  Could limit high end gpu bandwidth but a 2060 doesn’t even eat half  of pcie3.0 so it won’t matter.

 

[SaladTosser9000]

42 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

I would say the most important thing is audio quality rather than system type.

 

 

 

further meanderings:

  Hide contents

threadripper is probably not necessary.  The big question I would say is which motherboard has the best audio stuff on it, which I can’t answer  Could also do a seperate sound card or go intel if better on board audio is available there (again I don’t know)

temptation would be 3900x on some sort of b550 and fill it with 128gb of fast memory.  If there are better sound components on intel stuff though it might be worth going that route with a 10 core 10900 just to get the better audio.  There is also the option of a separate audio card in which case the motherboard audio wouldn’t matter.  Could limit high end gpu bandwidth but a 2060 doesn’t even eat half  of pcie3.0 so it won’t matter.

 

Onboard sound doesn’t make any difference to me. I run external converters (PreSonus Quantum 4848) connected via a TB3 card. I’m just worried about real world performance with this

[brob]

I don't think budget is close to sufficient for a 3900X, 128GB of decent memory, a suitable motherboard, and aftermarket cpu cooler.

[Bombastinator]

14 minutes ago, brob said:

I don't think budget is close to sufficient for a 3900X, 128GB of decent memory, a suitable motherboard, and aftermarket cpu cooler.

Aftermarket cpu cooler can be dispensed withZ. 3900 doesn’t overclock much anyway. The memory could be a big deal though. It’s going to cost more than the cpu.  This is as cheap as I’d want to go with a 3900 and it’s a lot more than $750  There isn’t even much to be saved if you lowball everything.  Maybe $30 if you go with memory so slow that it will hurt performance, and maybe another $20-30 if a low end b450 barely capable of running that cpu is chosen. 64gb or a 3700x and 750 might barely be possible with a few harsh cuts.
 

The TB3 card May cause a problem.  They’re often not compatible with motherboards they aren’t built for.  B550 can be gotten with TB3 on the motherboard though so if it isn’t bought it becomes possible.  Lowers the choices available for motherboards though.  The one I picked probably doesn’t have it.  I didn’t look.  It’s just the cheapest reasonably decent b550 board.

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 3900X 3.8 GHz 12-Core Processor  ($429.00 @ Amazon) 
Motherboard: ASRock B550M Pro4 Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard  ($118.98 @ Newegg) 
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws V 128 GB (4 x 32 GB) DDR4-3200 CL16 Memory  ($469.99 @ Amazon) 
Total: $1017.97
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2020-08-06 02:29 EDT-0400

 

 

[brob]

8 hours ago, Bombastinator said:

Aftermarket cpu cooler can be dispensed withZ. 3900 doesn’t overclock much anyway.

 

Have to disagree. While the Wraith Prism is a good cooler for the 65W TDP 3700X, it is not really optimal for the 105W TDP 3900X. DAW systems can run at load for long periods and low noise levels are ideal.

[Bombastinator]

44 minutes ago, brob said:

 

Have to disagree. While the Wraith Prism is a good cooler for the 65W TDP 3700X, it is not really optimal for the 105W TDP 3900X. DAW systems can run at load for long periods and low noise levels are ideal.

I don’t think we disagree.

It is a lot narrower and 3700x is already a bit narrow.  3900x with a stock cooler for sure wouldn’t overclock and it would be warm even then.  You’re going preferred, I’m thinking minimal.  What one can get probably away with not what is going to be guaranteed along with some slop.  I’m leaving no margin and ignoring fan noise.  And it’s already over a grand.  Would a big air cooler be better? Sure.  A 4 pipe would likely do the job.  Because the whole ryzen2 line overclocks so poorly the most that is worth doing is pbo which makes 140w on a 9300 and a 4 pipe should handle that, barely.  Part of it is what one considers an acceptable temperature and noise level.  It’s possible the 3900x will be lead in which case an aftermarket cooler might be needed just to avoid throttling at stock.  They’re supposed to have gotten a bit better with line optimization but the possibility exists.  I’d much rather spend $1400 and get a better cooler and motherboard.