Dual Xeon Scalable LGA 3647 workstation. Anyone?

[Intini]

Originally Posted by TNM

You mean the 8086k? Turbo 5ghz? Not everyone can get them to sit at 5ghz permanently and that is single core turbo not 6.

Great processor for sure, but i'd take a 7900X over that any day.

I absolutely guarantee you right now that a 7900X clocked at 4ghz which is readily achievable will destroy coffee lake 6 core for vi count, even if it's at 5ghz.

Not to mention that, skylake X behaves better at low latencies.. This was revealed by Peter Kaine over at gearstluz who builds DAW dedicated computers.. Apparently with skylake X you can take the cpu to like 99% at 64 samples and not get pops or clicks, whereas ryzen and coffee lake are in low 90's. it does make a difference when arming a track at low buffer in an already busy project..

All the 5ghz processor will do is allow more polyphony on one core but with well multithreaded DAW's the core count will win every time.

On the other hand, i'd rather have a 6 core 5ghz than a 12 core 2.3ghz. That's a different story cause there will be some VI's you can't even play in realtime on such a low clock, even one instance.

7900X is the sweet spot processor for DAW's just as the xeon version of it is the sweet spot for imac pro's.

However the OP seems to want an unusually high VI usage.. I will recommend the 14 core to him, the 7940X, as it has the highest core clock for amount of cores, at 3.1ghz for 14 cores which is very impressive.
I'd clock that at around 3.8 with a good cooler.

It should also be known that windows 10 is limited to 32 threads per app instance so i don't see how it would benefit to have more, for one instance of PT? For a dual processor system it would make sense, if all on the one computer, to have pro tools use half the cores available and VE pro on the same system also with VSTi's using the others.

I do believe dual PROCESSOR systems are not the best for the lowest latency and some of those HP xeon clocks are terrible, like 1.8ghz! I definitely advise against that!

Since DAW Bench are doing skylake X 18 core tests at 64 buffer and all threads are being used by DAW and maxing out the cpu, i don't see how multiple cores on one physical CPU can be a problem for latency.

From all the various VI's I have used, I recommend at least a 3ghz clock speed minimum.. so even if the OP goes for say the 16 core 7960x at 2.8ghz, i would clock that at a steady 3.5 base clock.. would be very beastly overall.

Still I reckon a 7940X at 3.8 or 4.0ghz would be an amazing machine.

Bear in mind, there is always a limit..
Someone over at steinberg forums has an 18 core imac pro and gets like 9 piano VI's playing in total, each with an instance of some resource hungry nebula 5 second reverb.. point being, just that brings the entire computer down..
so it all depends on the VI's being used..

NI/PianoTeq/Roland are all well coded, I would say even the coming threadripper 2 would do a great job.. or any intel skylake X...

Thank you so much, fantastic insight!
You made a great remark on minimum base clock speed. That is key. Otherwise you can have 1000 cores and not be able to run a single instance of a heavy VI. And it is great to have the idea of what this minimum is: 3GHz. So, in short, I should get the highest number of cores (even dual processor) while not going below 3GHZ base frequency and, if doable, slightly overclocking the processors with adequate cooling.
My remark goes to the cost. The Intel Core-X series has a much better price/performance ratio. The Xeon Scalable (LGA 3647) is around 30% more expensive for comparable performance - although you can have a ˜50% more powerful single system if fully expanded. But then VEP can be used past the single Core-X system capability. Also, in general the base frequency of the Xeon Scalable is lower and it is really not overclockable (you can fine tune some parameters of the ASUS WS C621E SAGE motherboard but it is not really overclocking as we know it).
So, the final conclusion: best system is a set of as many as required Intel Core-X (i9-7940x or i9-7960x), LGA 2066,slightly overclocked, a high speed network 10Gbps(?), Pro Tools on one machine and VEP on the "slaves". Am I correct?
And what about the best motherboard for this job? What would you recommend?

[TNM]

Originally Posted by Intini

Thank you so much, fantastic insight!
You made a great remark on minimum base clock speed. That is key. Otherwise you can have 1000 cores and not be able to run a single instance of a heavy VI. And it is great to have the idea of what this minimum is: 3GHz. So, in short, I should get the highest number of cores (even dual processor) while not going below 3GHZ base frequency and, if doable, slightly overclocking the processors with adequate cooling.
My remark goes to the cost. The Intel Core-X series has a much better price/performance ratio. The Xeon Scalable (LGA 3647) is around 30% more expensive for comparable performance - although you can have a ˜50% more powerful single system if fully expanded. But then VEP can be used past the single Core-X system capability. Also, in general the base frequency of the Xeon Scalable is lower and it is really not overclockable (you can fine tune some parameters of the ASUS WS C621E SAGE motherboard but it is not really overclocking as we know it).
So, the final conclusion: best system is a set of as many as required Intel Core-X (i9-7940x or i9-7960x), LGA 2066,slightly overclocked, a high speed network 10Gbps(?), Pro Tools on one machine and VEP on the "slaves". Am I correct?
And what about the best motherboard for this job? What would you recommend?

I can't take a chance with recommending a motherboard as I am in the process of investigating this myself.. the key is one that has good bios options and allows you to disable features one doesn't need at the bios level.
I do know that a couple of the pro daw builders are currently using asus boards whereas they used to use gigabyte. I never seem to find any info regarding msi boards and daw setups. Again, no one seems to be answering whether 10GB ethernet is providing and real world latency improvement for VE Pro.. i also investigated this and can't get concrete answers.. Hell, i can't even find an answer for how much live playing latency a slave ve pro will have..well i realise the default is a 2x multiple of main interface latency but what is actually *usable* over ethernet? Is anyone successfully using it with the latency multiplier at 0 so the slave machine has the same real time latency as the primary? I have no idea..i have scoured the VSL forums.. there's just patches of info here and there.
Personally, for just two machines directly connected, i am sure gigabit is enough and that's what most use anyway as what was "standard" on most boards.

If you are talking multiple slaves, you need a network hub and in that case it's possible 10 gigabit will make a difference in performance.. it won't make a difference in the latency figures as VE Pro slaves work at a multiple of your main interface latency on the main (pro tools) machine, but maybe 10 gigabit will be able to stream it more consistently without clicks or pops.. Again I just don't know, and personally i will never go beyond the scope of two directly connected machines..

Yes, two intel core x systems would be insanely powerful, and if you don't need thunderbolt and want to save money, two threadripper 2 machines would also be insanely powerful. Or an intel main one and threadripper slave.. I am just thinking of that 32 core 3.2ghz chip with 4.2ghz turbo.. that's 32 cores and 64 threads, the 2990wx i believe.
You can open multiple instances of VE Pro on the slave machine and use ALL of those 64 threads.. it's crazy when you think about it, 32 real cores at 3.2ghz is over 100 gigahertz on one chip LOL!

Personally if i was doing a dedicated twin pc setup, i would get intel skylake X on my main, a 7940X with good cooling at a permanent 4ghz clock with turbo disabled, just one stable clock speed at all times, all intel throttling disabled via bios, and a threadripper2 32 core slave dedicated to VE Pro. But that's me. YMMV...
To tell you the truth if i didn't have a thunderbolt interface i'd just get two threadripper systems and save cash. One thing that is still valid today that the audio boards all seem to forget is that AMD chips are less susceptible to denormal spikes.. intel still suffers from this with many plugins.. most are coded properly but any dev can miss just one thing that will cause spikes under certain usage scenarios.

[Brandonx1]

I think this is in the area of what I want to move to when I build another daw. ASRock has a dual thunderbolt 3 card too.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sour...N8ZFOD4xbU2nov

[TNM]

Originally Posted by Brandonx1

I think this is in the area of what I want to move to when I build another daw. ASRock has a dual thunderbolt 3 card too.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sour...N8ZFOD4xbU2nov

This is the reason I am going gigabyte cause they have two ports on the TB3 card whereas Asus only has one.. And i know the gigabytes work with UA interfaces (but apparently asus works fine too.. I just want that extra port where i can put a portable TB3 hard drive, cause the end of my chain has the apollo twin which doesn't have a pass through to add a HDD to it, like the apollo 8's and 16's do).

Asrock, i have honestly not heard the greatest things about them at some audio boards, like, you get what you pay for kind of thing.. But who knows... let us know how it goes if you don't mind.

[Intini]

Hi! Thank you so much to everyone that replied!
I just want to update the thread. I have decided to stay within the Mac universe for now and wait a bit for the new Mac Pro next year.
For now I will use an iMac 5k 27 inch 2017 just to hold on and will use a couple other Macs as slaves.
I am still considering building slave PCs with i9-7940x (x299), but as my main machine, I really want it to be a Mac OS computer for composing. I want to focus on my music as much as I can and the Mac OS really helps me on that.

[TNM]

Originally Posted by Intini

Hi! Thank you so much to everyone that replied!
I just want to update the thread. I have decided to stay within the Mac universe for now and wait a bit for the new Mac Pro next year.
For now I will use an iMac 5k 27 inch 2017 just to hold on and will use a couple other Macs as slaves.
I am still considering building slave PCs with i9-7940x (x299), but as my main machine, I really want it to be a Mac OS computer for composing. I want to focus on my music as much as I can and the Mac OS really helps me on that.

So funny, I did exactly the same thing in staying on mac, but decided to get the imac pro as I don't want to touch Mojave with a ten foot pole for at least a year, and the mac pros will ship with that or even it's successor.. Imac pro's are very respectable workstations I feel :)

[Intini]

Well, yet another update for this thread.
I returned the iMac Pro as it didn't work for me at all, sadly. The i5 on it just wasn't up to the task.
I ordered a MacBook Pro i7 2.6GHz 6-core 16GB RAM and 512GB SSD. But then, one day before it was supposed to arrive at the store I cancelled after consulting the Mac thread of the DUC. Now I am getting the MacBook Pro i9 2.9GHz 6-core 32GB RAM 1TB SSD. Hopefully this will do it for now.
I thought about the iMac Pro (more or less the same price) but buying it now in 2018 wasn't recommended because a new one will come next month (or October) and as I plan to change it to a 2019 Mac Pro I figured the MacBook 2018 would hold its value better. Also, the performance for the iMac Pro 8-core and the MacBook Pro 2018 i9 are very similar - and in fact the MacBook is better on some tasks, like h.264 decoding/enconding.