Been thinking about adding a laptop to my setup. From what most folks here are saying, seems like a multi-core Intel i7 would be the better choice but what about AMD Ryzen?

Seem the Ryzen is garnering quite a bit of press these days for not only cost but also performance. But...I have read in some DAW and VSTi reviews that some music software has an issue with Ryzen chipsets. Is this true? Old news? Something that's been corrected?

Would appreciate your insights.

Jeff

jeff.
remember the pete ms guy article ?
and desktops are better ?
i believe refurb hp z xeon or lenovo workstations stuffed with memory and ssd's are still the smart buy over laptops.
just saw such a refurb for 300 buckies.
cos big bang for the buckie and more expandability.

haveing said that there are loads of people happy with ryzens
from what i see on gearslutz.com threads. i would read those threads carefully. loads of info bout ryzen.
another option if you have a couple of grand or so , is to do what lots of big studios do, and buy a laptop or desktop from a builder
of custom recording studio computers.
once again gearslutz has lots of info on vendors of such.
pg user rharv i know uses ryzen.
if i win the lottery i'd get a amd threadripper from all ive researched lol.

at the other end of the money scale try the 40 buck raspberry pi
computer that now runs daws reaper and traction waveform (Twaveform looks really nice these days !) for s's and giggles lol.
cant beat the small footprint. fits in a pocket lol.

whatever you get, i only deal with vendors who let me return a computer within 30 days. plenty of time to test compatability
with my audio interface gear etc.

best
muso.

I'd simply say, don't let Ryzen vs Intel be your deal breaker.
I've used both intel and amd processors for a lot of years and really have no preference based solely on brand.

Don't be shy of a Ryzen but don't choose a system based on that alone either.
Too many other things come into play.
That said I do tend to lean toward AMD .. I've had a lot of luck with them.

This is like asking which end of a see-saw is higher. Wait a moment and it will change. Right now, AMD seems to be getting better reviews.

Every computer I've built since 1983 is Intel.

I'm an Intel guy. I haven't had better results with AMD (and I have used them), but maybe that has changed?

It use to be that AMD chipset instructions and Intel chipset instructions differed slightly. That difference was chiefly reflected in DAWs by how the two chipsets handled audio timing.

The AMD chipsets did not have some of the low level chipset instructions most DAWs of the time used. The chipset's lack of specific low level instructions would cause a crash whenever the DAW issued one of the low level instructions.

The issue was resolved by DAW developers identifying and removing the offending low level instructions and AMD modifying chipset instructions to be more compatible with Intel chipset instructions.

Current DAWs do not have issues working with AMD chipsets. In fact because cpu speed and chipset instruction speed is so important to how fast and smooth a DAW performs some builders of dedicated audio production machines prefer AMD at this tie.

I honestly can't remember the last AMD machine I've personally owned - in part because I'm a Mac guy and they don't use AMD, but also because I'm a gamer and at the time the i7 4930K was the best choice for my gaming rig.

Most of the computers we have in the office are Intel, though some are AMD - my main machine is an i7 and my secondary testing machine is an AMD A6. I haven't found any specific issues between the two that could be pinpointed to the CPU architecture. I use a multitude of DAWs between the two.