Getting the most out of Live on Threadripper
Posted: Sun Jun 23, 2019 8:36 am
For those of you who are considering building a windows studio rig for Live, im going to explain why Threadripper might be the best way to go, and how to set up your rig to get the most out of the DAW. This is intended for higher end home studios running Live or any other DAW for the matter.
First off one caveat, Thunderbolt for Threadripper is not a thing yet, but it is in development and i expect thunderbolt to be functioning on AMD by the end of the year. So if you have a thunderbolt audio interface you might want to hold off until development is complete. The other option is Dante network, but your are talking about dropping some cash on that as you will need 2 expensive Dante devices. A Dante enabled audio DA converter or interface, a dante PCIe card, and a gigabit(1000m) network switch hooked up with CAT6 Ethernet cable between all devices.
Ok so why Threadripper?
First. AMD's core to cost ratio far exceeds that of Intel.
Second. you still have the ability (with the right motherboard and cooling solution) to over clock the chip to extract higher performance.
3rd. AMD is using 7 nano meter architecture, which results in efficiency and lower latency per clock cycle.
4th. 64 megs of cache per core. when it come to your DAW Cache is king as memory seek times are reduced due to large amount of supper fast fetch, thus less latency.
5th. 64 PCI lanes that run direct to the CPU, that means no south side bridge bottleneck. Thus room for expansion cards, Video cards, NVME solid state drives. You could effectively have a high end video card, an internal Universal Audio DSP card, 2 NVMEs and a thunderbolt or Dante card and still have room.
What is the Best Threadripper Chip for Live?
I have determined that the 2970wx is the best way to go, ill explain why.
The 2970wx is a 24 core 48 thread chip. considering that you are on windows you are limited to 32 cores 32 threads. Why not go with the 16 core 32 thread version? this is rather complex... Threadrippers are made with chiplets, on the 2970wx you have 4 chiplets, each chiplet has 2 core complexes with 3 cores each. One of those cores is a latency nightmare for your DAW but it can be disabled so the DAW never touches it. So with 2 cores and 4 thread on 4 chiplets you have 16 core 32 threads with ENORMOUS bandwidth, ideal for Lives 32 thread limitation. But The 16 core Threadripper has 2 core complexes with 4 cores each on 2 chiplets, But instead of having 1 latency core you you have 2. so you need disable 2 cores per complex. this leaves you with only 8 cores. You could go the rout of the 2990wx which is a 32 core 64 thread chip but you have 2 core complexes that have 4 cores each on 4 chiplets after disabling your 2 cores per complex you are right back to 16 cores, but now at the extra cost of $600. with no improvement in performance.
So it seems as if the 2970wx is the best route.
So perhaps you decide to build this rig. what do you need. An X399 motherboard, i would suggest Asus or Gigabyte . Compatible 3200 or 3600mhz DDR4 ram corsair vengeance is my best suggestion. a whopping 1200 watt power supply. Video card of your choosing best to go with a 1000 series or above nvidia. NVME SSD drive for system. NVME or SSD or HHD Terabyte drive of some sort. Case, fans, cables. And a TR4 heatsink fan combo, or a custom built water cooling loop for overclocking.
So now you built your rig how do you configure it?
Enter bios.
Enable XMP memory profile for your ram, ensure that your Dram voltages are set at the proper ratings usually 1.35.
Disable Core Performance Boost.
Disable C-states
Disable SB Clock Spread Spectrum unless you live near power lines.
Disable any thing else dealing with Core Performance Boost, or Speed stepping.
Save and reboot.
Windows.
Set processor scheduling to Background services.
Set power management to High Performance.
Go into command prompt or powershell(admin) and type "powercfg -h off" this will disable hybrid hibernation(this is not sleep mode, this is a resource bastard).
Type "services" in search box on task bar, open "services" app. Find "Windows Search", click on it, click STOP, set "startup type" to disabled.
Disable any windows sounds.
open task manager, go to startup disable anything unnecessary.
UPDATE Windows to 1903 service pack, reboot.
Search google for X399 chipset driver. Download from AMD site. and run.
(there was a major bug with windows kernel and Threadripper. The Non Uniform Memory Access function was broken badly gimping Threadripper performance by half. the 1903 update and chipset driver fixes this.)
Make sure all of your other drivers are updated. "IOBit driver booster" is very good at maintaining drivers and you can do easy role backs if an error occurs.
Update your NVIDIA drivers from NVIDIA separately.
Download "AMD Ryzen Master" and install.
Open and Click on Profile 1.
In the "control mode" section click on Manual.
In the "Core section" Disable all cores that do not have a star or a circle marking them. (you can download" Ryzen Master 1.4 quick reference guide" to learn out why these cores should be disabled. Well sort of... the unmarked cores are Infinity fabric cores, they are great for all kind of stuff except LIVE.)
Click Save profile.
Reboot and you are good to go.
With this system you should be able to at least do 96khz sample rate if not 192.
Enjoy
If any one Is interested in Overclocking a Threadripper system, i can explain how to Build a custom water loop, and the process of how to do a stable overclock in another thread.
First off one caveat, Thunderbolt for Threadripper is not a thing yet, but it is in development and i expect thunderbolt to be functioning on AMD by the end of the year. So if you have a thunderbolt audio interface you might want to hold off until development is complete. The other option is Dante network, but your are talking about dropping some cash on that as you will need 2 expensive Dante devices. A Dante enabled audio DA converter or interface, a dante PCIe card, and a gigabit(1000m) network switch hooked up with CAT6 Ethernet cable between all devices.
Ok so why Threadripper?
First. AMD's core to cost ratio far exceeds that of Intel.
Second. you still have the ability (with the right motherboard and cooling solution) to over clock the chip to extract higher performance.
3rd. AMD is using 7 nano meter architecture, which results in efficiency and lower latency per clock cycle.
4th. 64 megs of cache per core. when it come to your DAW Cache is king as memory seek times are reduced due to large amount of supper fast fetch, thus less latency.
5th. 64 PCI lanes that run direct to the CPU, that means no south side bridge bottleneck. Thus room for expansion cards, Video cards, NVME solid state drives. You could effectively have a high end video card, an internal Universal Audio DSP card, 2 NVMEs and a thunderbolt or Dante card and still have room.
What is the Best Threadripper Chip for Live?
I have determined that the 2970wx is the best way to go, ill explain why.
The 2970wx is a 24 core 48 thread chip. considering that you are on windows you are limited to 32 cores 32 threads. Why not go with the 16 core 32 thread version? this is rather complex... Threadrippers are made with chiplets, on the 2970wx you have 4 chiplets, each chiplet has 2 core complexes with 3 cores each. One of those cores is a latency nightmare for your DAW but it can be disabled so the DAW never touches it. So with 2 cores and 4 thread on 4 chiplets you have 16 core 32 threads with ENORMOUS bandwidth, ideal for Lives 32 thread limitation. But The 16 core Threadripper has 2 core complexes with 4 cores each on 2 chiplets, But instead of having 1 latency core you you have 2. so you need disable 2 cores per complex. this leaves you with only 8 cores. You could go the rout of the 2990wx which is a 32 core 64 thread chip but you have 2 core complexes that have 4 cores each on 4 chiplets after disabling your 2 cores per complex you are right back to 16 cores, but now at the extra cost of $600. with no improvement in performance.
So it seems as if the 2970wx is the best route.
So perhaps you decide to build this rig. what do you need. An X399 motherboard, i would suggest Asus or Gigabyte . Compatible 3200 or 3600mhz DDR4 ram corsair vengeance is my best suggestion. a whopping 1200 watt power supply. Video card of your choosing best to go with a 1000 series or above nvidia. NVME SSD drive for system. NVME or SSD or HHD Terabyte drive of some sort. Case, fans, cables. And a TR4 heatsink fan combo, or a custom built water cooling loop for overclocking.
So now you built your rig how do you configure it?
Enter bios.
Enable XMP memory profile for your ram, ensure that your Dram voltages are set at the proper ratings usually 1.35.
Disable Core Performance Boost.
Disable C-states
Disable SB Clock Spread Spectrum unless you live near power lines.
Disable any thing else dealing with Core Performance Boost, or Speed stepping.
Save and reboot.
Windows.
Set processor scheduling to Background services.
Set power management to High Performance.
Go into command prompt or powershell(admin) and type "powercfg -h off" this will disable hybrid hibernation(this is not sleep mode, this is a resource bastard).
Type "services" in search box on task bar, open "services" app. Find "Windows Search", click on it, click STOP, set "startup type" to disabled.
Disable any windows sounds.
open task manager, go to startup disable anything unnecessary.
UPDATE Windows to 1903 service pack, reboot.
Search google for X399 chipset driver. Download from AMD site. and run.
(there was a major bug with windows kernel and Threadripper. The Non Uniform Memory Access function was broken badly gimping Threadripper performance by half. the 1903 update and chipset driver fixes this.)
Make sure all of your other drivers are updated. "IOBit driver booster" is very good at maintaining drivers and you can do easy role backs if an error occurs.
Update your NVIDIA drivers from NVIDIA separately.
Download "AMD Ryzen Master" and install.
Open and Click on Profile 1.
In the "control mode" section click on Manual.
In the "Core section" Disable all cores that do not have a star or a circle marking them. (you can download" Ryzen Master 1.4 quick reference guide" to learn out why these cores should be disabled. Well sort of... the unmarked cores are Infinity fabric cores, they are great for all kind of stuff except LIVE.)
Click Save profile.
Reboot and you are good to go.
With this system you should be able to at least do 96khz sample rate if not 192.
Enjoy
If any one Is interested in Overclocking a Threadripper system, i can explain how to Build a custom water loop, and the process of how to do a stable overclock in another thread.