CPU question

Hi guys without doing any research first (stupid on my part) I bought an Intil 9700k. 8 cores only 8 threads and no hyper threading.

If I where to upgrade to an 9900k with 16 threads and hyper threading, would I see much of an improvement in performance, and if so how much approximately in Cubase?

Thanks

Some info in the charts there

Hippo

Thanks! Yeah I’m not seeing a major difference between the two. At least not enough of a difference for me to spend again.

Its between 35 to 40 % which is what most people find hyperthreading gives in a DAW

Hippo

hyperthreading can actually work against you if you work with a low buffer/latency

My main issue are the U-he plugins. They are total CPU hogs, so I’m curious if the hyper threading and the extra 8 threads (16 total from the 8 I currently have) will help them in any way.

Not unless you have the highest spec MB with extremely good VRM. Have you checked the with the intel software? You might be getting power throttling.

VRM? Power throttling? I’m not familiar with either of those. Checked with the Intel software?

Intel Extreme utility. Download it. Run Benchmark… It shows you quite a few things including, Thermal throttling, Power limit throttling, Current limit throttling.

VRM: Voltage Regulator Module. The Square things and capacitors near the CPU.

For years all we cared about was CPU thermal throttling but we have super coolers now, it’s not an issue. The real issue is keeping the VRM’s cool or how well they can regulate the power going to the CPU. The better it can do that, the more stable your OC will be.

You could buy a 9900k but unless you put it in a flagship motherboard it won’t be getting the power it needs to run at all cores 5+ and HT.

I can clock my 9700k easily to 5+ but running the utility it clearly shows me that i get Current limit throttling. The motherboard can’t give it enough juice at a stable level. We only get slight flashes of throttling but in audio this wouldn’t be good.

My 9700k is set at all cores 4.9 and I’m yet to get past 30% on CPU usage in my projects… I don’t do anything fancy though, simple dance, rave music.

Ok I’m running intel extreme utility. I opened up a Cubase project and have been playing a section on loop, processor is at about 40%. Extreme utility says I only have 1 active core. How is that possible? My other 7 cores aren’t even being used?

Go in Studio drop down menu, Studio set up, VST audio System, make sure you have ‘activate multi processing’ checked. It should be checked by default, not sure why it would of changed. If it isn’t that, I wonder if you have something disabled in your bios or if you’ve changed something in the Intel utility.

Yeah I definitely had active multiprocessing checked. Always do. I checked my bios and there isn’t anything in the bios that deactivates multiple cores. I went through my manual and bios last night. Not really sure what to do. :frowning:

I think what I’ll do when I get home from work is reset the bios to default and see what happens.

You might of changed something in intel Extreme utility.

So I reset the bios back to default to make sure it wasn’t anything I did. Intel extreme utility still says only 1 core is being used. I think it’s wrong. Device manager shows 8 cores and so does task manager. It’s not making any sense to me.

The motherboard is a Gigabye Designare z390. It’s no slouch.

The graph? That only shows what you activate it to show. Yes the Designare is a very good motherboard. Run the bench mark with nothing running, see what score you get and watch for any of the throttling text to change colour. Take some time to familiarise your self with the different parts you can have displayed at the bottom and in the graph.

Finally got it all figured out. All cores actually are working just fine. I actually just got off the phone with Intel tech support. They where able to remote into my desktop and figure it all out. Yeah the XTU wasn’t setup to display all of the cores. Once they set it up to display all cores it showed that all cores were are actually working. So that’s a relief. I think between having the buffer set to 128, and the u-he and Roland cloud plugins being total CPU hogs that’s why my processor is hitting 40%. I’m used to using the Arturia plugins which aren’t hard at all on the CPU. I didn’t realize just how much CPU those things eat up at that low of a buffer setting. The u-he and Roland plugs are fine with a higher buffer setting because they have their own internal buffers so even at 1024 they play at zero latency. Spark 2 however which I use for all of my drums doesn’t. So you need to set your buffer to 128. I wish they would update that plugin already and give it its own internal buffer.

Thanks for all the help though I really appreciate it.

Hi,

I’m considering to a Gigabyte Designare for work with UFX+ (once it has Thunderbolt and DAC USB). How is yours in terms of performance? Any Cons?
Running lots of channels and plugins with 32ms Buffer, is it possible? Running synths like Arturia’s Buchla for instance, with 4 voices, is possible to run with 32ms?

Thank you!

I have no problem with the Designare at all. It does have Thunderbolt 3 ports, 2 of them in fact and DAC USB, mine does.

As far as performance goes, I run plenty of soft synths and my CPU usage is maybe 30%. I generally run my buffer at 128 and do not have any latency problems. 32ms is completely unnecessary, and to be honest ridiculous. I’ve never even heard of anyone needing to run that low because there is absolutely no reason to. 128 is perfectly fine, I don’t notice any latency at all.

As far as the Buchla synth, I really couldn’t tell you. I’m not a fan of it so I don’t use.

Thanks, nice to know, I just think that 32 or 64 are little more tight in terms of response when I play some instrument via interface.
But yes, of course, 128 it’s ok indeed.
I just mentioned buchla easel because it’s a really beast(!) to suck your CPU power.