noiseboy
Jim Roseberry
Unless you're working on super dense projects, the 7700k will be more than sufficient.
ie: If you're doing huge orchestral mock-ups... pulling 4000 stereo voices of disk-streaming polyphony, you'll want socket 2011-3.
Found this thread via the wonders of Google, and Jim you seem to have been round the block here...
I'm in something of a dilemma. I have a 4930k system with which I've been less an enamoured. Compared to my son's humble i5 1156 system, it feels clunky (OS chores and post POST boots are terrible even with SSDs that are benchmarking well), and it's never felt like a genuine step up from my previous 2600k. I do indeed occasionally do huge orchestral mockups with a big ol VE Pro template, but thats now a fairly small part of my work. Plenty of synths though in day to day use rack up the CPU load and can cause trouble, so I'm looking for something that will feel much snappier in practice and handle the heavy CPU and streaming stuff.
I was toying with the 7740k on the X299 platform due to the increased SATA and NVMe lanes, combined with the very good single core performance. But perhaps the 7820X would be a better choice - the two negatives are a lower non-turbo boosted single core, and the power consumption / heat looks very high - problematic for keeping a silent rig, and really puts me off any thought of overclocking. Or maybe I should in fact go the other way and just get a 7700k with Z270? It would be nice to go up to 128gb RAM, but I think I can keep things under 64gb (and of course I'd need to with the 7740k as well).
Grateful for any insights, many thanks.
Hi Noise,
The 7700k is a formidable CPU.
For more typical audio production, you can run dense projects.
For large-scale orchestral mock-ups, you're better off with a socket 2011-3 system.
As a point of reference (using socket 2011-3), we have clients who stream up to 4000 stereo voices of disk-streaming polyphony (Kontakt libraries/etc). That takes numerous SSDs (including m.2 Ultra/PCIe x4).
Socket-2066 (with slightly higher clock-speed) will be a small percentage faster than socket 2011-3.
Extrapolate 6900k vs. 6850k (both up to 4.5GHz)... and you'll have an idea of what to expect.
With 8 cores running at 4.5GHz, the 7820x is going to be the "sweet spot" price/performance wise...
but... it's limited to 28 PCIe lanes (limiting if you want to run multiple x4 SSDs).
That's disappointing in a $600 CPU. The 7900x has 44 PCIe lanes.
If you go socket 2066, I'd sit it out a few months... and wait for several BIOS updates to solidify the platform.
I don't expect the same level of issues experienced with the Ryzen/X370 release, but 1st-generation motherboards will have early issues that need to be ironed out.
You can keep socket 2066 CPUs quiet, but it's going to take a high-end cooler.
Right at this moment, it's hard to find the 7900x and 7820x actually in-stock and available to purchase.
The 6850k is still a great CPU (now sub $500)... and a rock-solid choice for a professional.
- 6 cores running at 4GHz
- 40 PCIe lanes
- Mature socket 2011-3 platform
ThreadRipper (AMD's next release) looks very interesting on paper.
- 16 cores
- 64 PCIe lanes
- Quad-channel RAM
What a great time to be involved with DAW technology!