1 (edited by Lempereur1 2020-03-22 19:59:00)

Topic: RME Support for AMD's new 3990X and EPYC proccessors with PCIe 4.0

Hi:

Does anyone know if RME plans on supporting AMD's new 3990X and EPYC PCIe 4.0 processors by upgrading their MADI cards to PCIe 4.0 to use the full 128 cores and 128 lanes ?

These new AMD processors blow Intel out of the water by by over 100% according to the CPU Benchmarks.

AMD has delivered twice the CPU power as Intel, for HALF as much!

I built my current studio computer, a Twin Opteron, in 2013 and have used (2) 64 Channel RME MADI cards continuously since 2003-2004 (They still work! That is a testament in itself to great German audio engineering!). I paid $2000 a peice for them back in the day!

I have - my feet waiting on PCIe 4.0 and it is now finally here. I am spec-ing out a new Studio PC, with dual EPYC 7742. While I do believe the old 2004 RME MADI cards would work, it is time to move up!

I would hate to buy RME PCIe 3.0 cards, only yo have PCIe 4.0 cards show up 6 months later. I would also hate to buy another company's MADI PCIe 4.0 card.

HIGH END CPU Benchmarks.....
https://www.cpubenchmark.net/high_end_cpus.html

2 (edited by ramses 2020-03-22 21:53:54)

Re: RME Support for AMD's new 3990X and EPYC proccessors with PCIe 4.0

RME cards are PCIe 1.1 compliant, see product page / manual.

There is no requirement for RME cards to support higher transfer rates, as PCIe sockets (2.x, 3.x, 4.x ...) are always backward compatible and PCIe 1.1 (and its transfer speed) is
a) fully sufficient for audio and
b) supports by this many more systems.
This is beneficial for customers not having to upgrade their PC systems for no real reasons.

If you have a PCIe 4.0 compliant CPU and mainboard, then you may use PCIe 4.0 compliant cards. According to magazines PCIe 4.0 cards (i.e. graphic cards) currently do not deliver better performance in normal application szenarios, same for NVMe. IMHO its currently questionable where the benefits are.

PCIe 4.0 is only needed for network interfaces beyond 100 Gbps or Enterprise Grade NVMe SSDs.
Ask yourself whether you will ever utilize (and pay) such high speed devices.

Same with USB .. RME only uses USB 3.0 or Thunderbolt if there is a technical requirement because of a high amount of audio channels like it is the case with UFX+ or MADIface XT. RME supports up to 68 audio channels through USB2, see MADIface Pro.

Its the better more "intelligent" / "defensive" design choice which gives customer more benefits by being able to use the hardware also in older systems and not having to upgrade and pay for no real reason.

BR Ramses - UFX III, 12Mic, XTC, ADI-2 Pro FS R BE, RayDAT, X10SRi-F, E5-1680v4, Win10Pro22H2, Cub13

3 (edited by Lempereur1 2020-03-22 22:07:20)

Re: RME Support for AMD's new 3990X and EPYC proccessors with PCIe 4.0

Thanks!

That must be why the 2003-2004 cards still work perfectly! I do think there are new features on the current RME MADI cards that I could benifit by upgrading.

The new PCIe 4.0 Motherboards support up to (7) m2 ssd DRIVES ON THE 3990x SINGLE processor board. A reviewer noted that when bench marking the transfer rate, he achieved 15GBytes per second.

I have been unable to record at anything higher than 44Khz because of file size. unless I bounce the track every time I record it.


I also use Nuendo and a full Mercury Waves bundle.

Your response is excellent news!

Thanks!