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AMD Ryzen CPUs

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dhm

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AMD Ryzen CPUs

PostSat Mar 11, 2017 9:41 am

Does anyone have experience of these, which were released a few days ago?
Reviews seen so far imply that they are going to give Intel i5s and i7s a good run for their money.
(Allegedly at least as powerful, and about half the price.)

Martin?
Douglas Henn-Macrae
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RichardW

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Re: AMD Ryzen CPUs

PostSat Mar 11, 2017 11:01 pm

I have no personal experience but I have been looking at the specs and reviews.

The first thing you notice is that there is a lot of emphasis on gaming and that most games are optimised for 4 core CPUs. HW should benefit from the Ryzen's eight cores so may be better than a gaming style review might suggest. I don't know which of the many available benchmarks would be closest to HW.

However, the clock speed of a single core on the cheapest (Ryzen 7 1700) is lower than a similarly priced Intel chip so sample set loading times may be a trade off. The Ryzen 8 1800X should be OK but is more than I would normally pay for a CPU.

Also worth noting is that the current CPUs do not support graphics so you will need a separate graphics card, which will even up the pricing slightly. Motherboards are available with graphics ports but they are made to support some AMD A-series chips that will be released in the future that do support graphics.

The only worrying thing I noticed was that the CPUs seem to have variable clock speeds depending on load. I had to switch off that feature on my Intel chip because it would not react quickly enough for music. It sounds as if that might be possible with a BIOS setting but I have not found anything definite about it. Conceivably, disabling that feature may restrict the maximum speed you can use. Alternatively, running it flat out might cause it to overheat.

I am not quite ready to upgrade yet so I think I will let someone else find out if the last point is a real issue or not. :)

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Richard
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CaptainSpock4

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Re: AMD Ryzen CPUs

PostWed Mar 15, 2017 3:54 pm

"dhm",

I decided to join the Forum to answer this question, as not many people have a Ryzen processor yet. I got a 1700 about a week ago, and have overclocked it to 3.5GHz easily with the stock cooler (although I'm waiting for a new cooler so I can get that as close to 4.0GHz as possible!). By overclocking in the BIOS, it keeps the processor at the same clock all the time, thus removing the issue of variable clock in Hauptwerk. Although I haven't done any polyphony tests, I've had zero issues with my setup! I did, however, notice less of a Polyphony/CPU load when compared to my FX-8350 setup, although I only use stereo sets. I'll reply to this thread with some real numbers once I get my build completely finished. I hope this information helps!

P.S.: As a word of advice, these new processors are easy to get, but getting a motherboard is a whole other story! I was lucky enough to get an ASUS PRIME X370-PRO from Newegg just as they got some in stock. Looks like many others are still waiting for their preorders to be filled!

Regards,
Jonathan
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MrNhanduc

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Re: AMD Ryzen CPUs

PostFri Mar 17, 2017 6:00 am

The RYZEN cpu's look very interesting, especially the 5 series with 6-cores. However, one thing to consider, besides the ones already mentioned, is that they only support dual channel memory, hence a max of 64 GB. So for high end systems where you like mere than 64 GB, Intel is still the only option.

But it's great there is a Intel competitor again, and Ryzen cpu's are really well priced. If Hauptwerk in the near future would support more core/threads when loading samplesets (like 8 or more), these cpu's only get more appealling! The past years I would have never recommended an AMD cpu for Hauptwerk due to pore per core performance, but now, depending on budget, RAM requirements etc., they can be a good option.
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evertjan

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Re: AMD Ryzen CPUs

PostFri Mar 17, 2017 8:37 am

For the Ryzen processor, only Windows 10 can be used. Windows 7 and 8.1 doesn't support this new processor.
That is the same as for Intel Kaby Lake and AMD "Bristol Ridge". If you try to update your PC during the monthly security update session, you will get the message "Your PC uses a processor that isn’t supported on this version of Windows".
See https://www.ghacks.net/2017/03/17/microsoft-blocks-updates-for-new-cpus-on-windows-7-and-8-1/
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Romanos

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Re: AMD Ryzen CPUs

PostThu Jul 19, 2018 10:29 pm

Now that these are more mature and have settled into the market, I'm curious to bump this thread for any new input.

My current setup is an iMac with 32gb ram... that said, we are about to move and it looks like my organ will end up in the living room, not my office like my current setup. If that happens, I will need to build a dedicated HW machine (my wife is on board!) and will jump to windows for this particular application due to cost. I'm curious if there are any updates from Ryzen users out there. (Also, is the ram limit still 64gb?)
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tf11972

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Re: AMD Ryzen CPUs

PostFri Jul 20, 2018 2:12 pm

So why not consider the Threadripper 1950-X? It supports 1 TB (!) RAM. But the hardware costs would rize up to Apple dimensions :wink:
Best regards
Thomas

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