i7 Builds - Specs and Results

[Skwaidu]

Originally Posted by ValkRider

A couple of questions regarding the newer high horsepower I9-12900K builds.
Do you bother over clocking your computers ?
Do you do custom over clocks and push hard or just use the built in XMP memory profile boosts? Maybe no O.C. at all.

With Windows 11 do you still do the same computer optimization procedures
that Avid always recommended? With the very fast M.2 pcie 4 or 5 drives
available now and the newer heavy duty motherboard construction is there still potential for the clicks, pops and noise issues?
I can see turning off the power schemes, hibernate and all that just wondering what you still fine tune.


Thanks for your info. I do appreciate the input that you share here it sure makes the decision process easier.

Memory - makes no sense *not* to use XMP.
CPU - I have dabbled with OC and I'm probably sticking with my current 300Mhz all core OC (so x52 P-cores and x4 E-cores on High/Ultimate Performance / when PT is running). I have an undervolt curve which has been refined (some instability on low clocks / when PT is not running but I think I found the settings now).

Note, I do get some thermal throttling (Noctua air cooling) with 100% all core load, but that only happens in synthtetic benchmarks and in very "wide" session offline bounces, not a problem. I don't really need the OC, but in some of my small track count/high processing 96k sessions the offline bounce is still very much single-core bound, wanted to shave some time off of that.

Other tuning and the Avid guide - I just switched scheduling to background processes and that's pretty much it (as well as the common sense ones like drivers). Hibernate is on (not used though, I could turn it off I gues), C-States are on, Hyperthreading is on. Pro Tools turns High Performance power on automatically btw. Note - as far as latency etc issues, I'm on HDX so maybe slightly less sensitive to some of them.

Hope this helps.

[EGS]

Originally Posted by ValkRider

A couple of questions regarding the newer high horsepower I9-12900K builds.
Do you bother over clocking your computers ?
Do you do custom over clocks and push hard or just use the built in XMP memory profile boosts? Maybe no O.C. at all...

Memory XMP for sure. For my i9-11900K build, I set all cores to a constant clock. I'm not going for a speed bump at all (these chips are plenty fast already), but rather to avoid any CPU throttling. For me, Pro tools runs stable with all-cores at a constant 5.1. The ONLY time this build runs hot is during a long video render i.e. all-cores firing at 100% for a long time. The other day I did a hour+ video render, so I temporarily dropped it down a bit for that.
Here's an interesting read:
https://www.tomshardware.com/how-to/...verclock-guide
Here's Gigabyte's official guide re: clock i9-12900K on their Z690 boards:
https://www.gigabyte.com/FileUpload/...0-OC-GUIDE.pdf

[snowplaysmusic]

What would be the socket and chip of choice these days (Intel) for working at low buffers with VIs and plugins? My experience is leading me towards faster base clock then more cores for low buffer work. The Intel world is pretty dizzying with socket choices, and many of the 3.6-4.0GHz chips are i7s are older editions of i9s. With the increase in caching, thermals, etc. in the new chips, I'd imagine it's best to stick with an i9 with a strong base clock.

[Skwaidu]

Originally Posted by snowplaysmusic

What would be the socket and chip of choice these days (Intel) for working at low buffers with VIs and plugins? My experience is leading me towards faster base clock then more cores for low buffer work. The Intel world is pretty dizzying with socket choices, and many of the 3.6-4.0GHz chips are i7s are older editions of i9s. With the increase in caching, thermals, etc. in the new chips, I'd imagine it's best to stick with an i9 with a strong base clock.

No sense building anything else than 12th gen at this point. The i9 is wonderful, i7 as well.

[snowplaysmusic]

Originally Posted by Skwaidu

No sense building anything else than 12th gen at this point. The i9 is wonderful, i7 as well.

Thanks! It looks like the 12900KS is #winning.

[Skwaidu]

Originally Posted by snowplaysmusic

Thanks! It looks like the 12900KS is #winning.

Keep in mind that the 13900K is coming in a few months though (or before the end of the year). But if it ends up a signifcant boost to the KS (multicore for sure), you can do a drop in upgrade and sell the KS.

[EGS]

Originally Posted by Skwaidu

Keep in mind that the 13900K is coming in a few months ...

Today I'd go 12th gen i9 or i7. In Q4 2022 though, might as well get the 13th gen...

[mdub]

Hey all. I am building a new system.
Be Quiet 802 case
I9 13900KF
Cooler Master PL360 water cooler
Corsair Dominator Platinum DDR5 5200
(waiting on the MSI MEG Z790 ACE Mother Board to drop) but I May get the Godlike z790 because they will be back in stock quicker
MSI GeForce RTX 3080 10GB graphics card
2x WD Black SN850X NVMe M.2 1 TB
1x WD Black SN850X NVMe M.2 4TB
What do you guys think?
I am on a i7 6core 3090k at the moment which a few guys helped me with years ago in this post!! This should be a huge jump.

[Skwaidu]

Originally Posted by mdub

Hey all. I am building a new system.
Be Quiet 802 case
I9 13900KF
Cooler Master PL360 water cooler
Corsair Dominator Platinum DDR5 5200
(waiting on the MSI MEG Z790 ACE Mother Board to drop) but I May get the Godlike z790 because they will be back in stock quicker
MSI GeForce RTX 3080 10GB graphics card
2x WD Black SN850X NVMe M.2 1 TB
1x WD Black SN850X NVMe M.2 4TB
What do you guys think?
I am on a i7 6core 3090k at the moment which a few guys helped me with years ago in this post!! This should be a huge jump.

Looks good to me. Personally I think having the iGPU as a fallback is a good thing in case of possible GPU issues.

I'm considering if I could justify a drop-in i9-13900K upgrade to my i9-12900K system, it looks to be like such a massive improvement. I haven't really run out of power yet, but I do tend to push any system towards it's boundaries, and on one large 96k Atmos mix I already had to resort to the 8k sample high latency mode on Liquidsonics Atmos reverbs, which actually might have some delay comp issues (I can also sell the old CPU for ok price or bring it to a home gaming system)

[mdub]

Good point on IG. I do have a GC in my current build as a fall back. It's a GT640, lol. But it gets the job done.
So, the 12th gen has plenty of headroom? I wonder how much faster everything is going to load. Right now, it takes a few minutes to load tracks. I haven't tried much OCing on my current rig, which I have always heard not to do for music recording.
What type of monitor setup are you guys using?