I have managed to improve my ASIO performance significantly on a 6 cores CPU so I thought I could share my settings in case it could help someone.
A lot of problems came from some Intel and Win10 features that are always trying down-clock the CPU speed to save power consumption, which is totally an ASIO killer. This was causing my ASIO meter to be very unstable, and was causing ASIO drop outs on heavy load.
CPU is a i7-6850K base clock at 3.6Ghz with a Turbo Boost at 3.8Ghz and a Turbo Max at 4.0Ghz. Max memory speed at 2400Mhz.
The key for me was to figure out how to “lock” the CPU at 4.0Ghz (Turbo Boost Max), all the time, which is the maximum speed of the CPU, without having Win10 or BIOS feature to down-clock the speed of the CPU.
So here all the BIOS settings I had to manually change to make sure the CPU stays at it’s full potential, all the time:
1-Extreme Memory Profile (X.M.P) at Profile 1, to have my RAM running at 2400Mhz instead of the default 2133Mhz
2-Intel Turbo Boost Technology: Enabled, all Default
3-Intel Turbo Boost MAX Technology 3.0: Enabled. (This is what makes my CPU running at the max 4.0Ghz.)
4-Hyper Threading: Enabled. Seems to be ok for me
Now to prevents the CPU to be down clocked or down powered:
5-CPU Enhanced Halt (C1E): Disabled
6-C3 State Support: Disabled
7-C6/C7 State Support: Disabled
8-CPU EIST Function (Enhanced Intel® Speed Step Technology): Disabled
9-In Windows, make sure to use the High Performance Power Plan. In advanced properties, make sure to have all Processor Power settings at 100%.
Now, after a reboot, my CPU is locked 4.0Ghz all the time, with my RAM running at 2400Mhz.
My ASIO meter is now barely going over 20%, even under heavy load instead of moving back and forth and causing ASIO drop outs.
Hope it helps someone.
Nick