My posts discussing Ryzen are coming from a DAW user's perspective.
A corporate server is a much different scenario.
Corporate servers are bombarded for many small files.
With a DAW, we're addressing many fewer... but much larger/contiguous files.
With a corporate server, since you're dealing with many small files, cache can make a significant difference.
This is why Xeon CPUs (even with lower clock-speed) are a good choice.
For a DAW, dealing with much fewer large/contiguous files, cache makes much less of a difference.
When choosing a CPU for DAW purposes, it's important to understand some basics:
Not all tasks in a DAW can be multi-threaded (spread across multiple cores).
This is why high clock-speed is paramount.
In a perfect scenario, you want highest clock-speed, the most cores you can afford, and Hyper-threading/SMT (simultaneous multi-threading).
If you go AMD, there's no option for Thunderbolt-3 (completely off the table).
When Ryzen was first released, supporting hardware (motherboards) were clearly "rushed out the door".
I've discussed this in numerous threads.
With AMD's Infinity-Fabric architecture, running faster RAM (DDR4/3200) is a significant speed boost.
Finding a motherboard that can run DDR4/3200 rock-solid stable is an epic quest.
Out of all the top-tier motherboards, only one came close.
After several days, it simply refused to post. Had to clear the CMOS and reset the BIOS settings.
Note that no over-clocking was implemented. This is all at stock-speed... trying to run DDR4/3200.
If you spend the majority of your time rendering video (which is a heavily multi-threaded task), don't expect to ever need Thunderbolt-3, and aren't concerned with the speed benefit from faster RAM, Ryzen is a good choice.
For DAW purposes, the new Intel i9-9900k (socket 1151) is hard to beat (~$540).
- 8 cores
- 16 processing threads
- 5GHz clock-speed (all cores can be locked at 5GHz)
- With quality air-cooler, it runs near dead-silent
- Thunderbolt-3 is an option
The (socket 2066) i9-9980xe is one monster of a CPU... best overall performance currently available
- 18 cores
- 36 processing threads
- 4.5GHz clock-speed
- Thunderbolt-3 is an option
Cost is also monstrous ($2000 just for the CPU)
Requires high-end power-supply
Requires high-end cooling (air cooling can't keep temps under control when under heavy loads like rendering video)
If going to the expense of ThreadRipper (also requires high-end cooling/power), I'd just go all the way and get the 9980xe.
Note that if going ThreadRipper or socket 2066 i9 CPU, the machine isn't going to run as quiet at the 9900k.