Hello and warm greetings to all (unless you aren't where it snows, in which case stay cool)!
TL;DR skip to The Request at the bottom of the post. Thank you!
THE CURRENT SETUP
------------------------------------
I have found myself in a ridiculous cycle over the Christmas/New Years season. I figured it was time to retire two laptops of mine, an HP ProBook 450 G4 (i5-7200U, 8GB RAM, 1TB Samsung EVO SSD, integrated Intel Graphics) and a Dell G3 15 (i7-8750H, 16GB RAM, 1TB Samsung EVO SSD + 128GB SK Hynix NVMe, 4GB GTX 1050 Ti).
The HP is my current music production workstation, with acceptable DPC latency after Windows 10 OS/driver/power adjustments. The Dell is my gaming laptop, with poor but not-unbearable DPC latency issues. At least it doesn't affect my games.
I thought decommissioning both machines (to thus have one system) would be as simple as purchasing a prebuilt desktop from my local Best Buy during the Christmas deals they typically run. I researched online, settled on something with an i7 and an RTX card that felt like a good upgrade, and grabbed the spare change from under the couch cushions.
Oh, how I pity the naïve fool who wandered into that store only two weeks ago...
THE PROBLEM
-----------------------------------
I purchased one prebuilt made by iBuyPower (i7-14700f, 32GB 4800 MHz RAM, ASUS motherboard, 8GB RTX 4060 Ti), which had unbearable DPC latency (idled at over 1500 microseconds, opening a single Youtube tab caused unmanageable stuttering, microfreezes, and audio glitches).
I troubleshot the ever-living snot out of it by getting my hands on every driver upgrade/uninstall/rollback I could find, upgrading chipset/bios firmware, tweaking power setting adjustments in Win11, BIOS adjustments/factory resets, even reseating the hardware itself just in case there were loose components.
Thoroughly disappointed, I returned the PC, got my money refunded, and looked for a machine with similar specs on sale.
Enter the second mistake of this twisted charade: A second prebuilt, this one an ASUS ROG system. Less RGB (my eyes thank ASUS for that decision), but the same general hardware under the hood: i7-14700f, 32GB 5000 MHz RAM, 8GB RTX 4060 Ti, ASUS ROG motherboard.
Perhaps I should've paid closer attention to that hardware setup, because the problems not only were present on this machine, but they were exponentially worse! You ever see a computer pull 40,000 microsecond latency times? I didn't know Resplendence LatencyMon could track values that high!
Cue a re-run of the same show as before. BIOS/firmware updates. Driver updates/rollbacks/reinstalls/uninstallations/generic Windows driver replacements. Every power setting in Win11 lunged for like the last cookie at a Christmas party. Heck, I even tried plugging this new machine into an entirely different outlet on a different wall with a different power cord, just in case my home circuits were to blame somehow.
And doing an audio check with a single, lonely Youtube tab? Stuttering, like always. I've seen better lag response times from random community-hosted Counter-Strike servers. One tab of mild, corporate vaporwave would send the machine into stutters like a crappy 2010 camcorder video of the family opening Christmas presents. Even the games I downloaded to test suffered the wrath of the DPC latency gremlins that had overthrown the desktop.
At that point, I was going to get a concussion from how many times I had slammed my head on the desk in frustration. I lugged it back into the car, nearly fell over trying to put the thing on the desk at Best Buy, got my money back, and slunk back home in disgrace.
THE REQUEST
--------------------------
At this point, I'm completely out of ideas. I have a feeling that if I buy a third prebuilt and get the same results, I'm going to go crawl under the floorboards and become one with the rats.
The main culprits in every test and failure of DPC Latency are NVLDDMKM.SYS, WDF01000.SYS, and NTOSKRNL.EXE
My main goal is to build a computer with parts known/tested/confirmed to have as low of DPC latency as possible, or parts that are not known to cause DPC latency issues. The primary use is going to be music production, followed by gaming/streaming, then video editing/3d modelling.
Since both prebuilt computers were Intel/NVIDIA combos with ASUS motherboards, I'm not entirely tempted to build something with any of these elements unless there is demonstrated proof of low latency.
If anyone knows of any parts that have been proven to have low DPC Latency, or any builds you are running that are managing low latencies (especially for music production and gaming), please let me know the specs! I've been leaning towards AMD for both CPU/GPU because I suspect the P/E Cores of the Intel chips and NVIDIA's driver compatibility with Win11 might be partially responsible for the DPC latency. AMD also seems to be a more cost-effective choice for my budget, while not sacrificing too much in power and speed.
If budget is of concern, I'd like to get 16 CPU threads, 32 gigs of RAM, and 8 gigs of VRAM for as reasonably close to $1500 as possible. I understand if this is a difficult price point, it's just what I ended up paying for each of those prebuilt gaming desktops.
Thank you all so much! I appreciate your time and responses!
TL;DR skip to The Request at the bottom of the post. Thank you!
THE CURRENT SETUP
------------------------------------
I have found myself in a ridiculous cycle over the Christmas/New Years season. I figured it was time to retire two laptops of mine, an HP ProBook 450 G4 (i5-7200U, 8GB RAM, 1TB Samsung EVO SSD, integrated Intel Graphics) and a Dell G3 15 (i7-8750H, 16GB RAM, 1TB Samsung EVO SSD + 128GB SK Hynix NVMe, 4GB GTX 1050 Ti).
The HP is my current music production workstation, with acceptable DPC latency after Windows 10 OS/driver/power adjustments. The Dell is my gaming laptop, with poor but not-unbearable DPC latency issues. At least it doesn't affect my games.
I thought decommissioning both machines (to thus have one system) would be as simple as purchasing a prebuilt desktop from my local Best Buy during the Christmas deals they typically run. I researched online, settled on something with an i7 and an RTX card that felt like a good upgrade, and grabbed the spare change from under the couch cushions.
Oh, how I pity the naïve fool who wandered into that store only two weeks ago...
THE PROBLEM
-----------------------------------
I purchased one prebuilt made by iBuyPower (i7-14700f, 32GB 4800 MHz RAM, ASUS motherboard, 8GB RTX 4060 Ti), which had unbearable DPC latency (idled at over 1500 microseconds, opening a single Youtube tab caused unmanageable stuttering, microfreezes, and audio glitches).
I troubleshot the ever-living snot out of it by getting my hands on every driver upgrade/uninstall/rollback I could find, upgrading chipset/bios firmware, tweaking power setting adjustments in Win11, BIOS adjustments/factory resets, even reseating the hardware itself just in case there were loose components.
Thoroughly disappointed, I returned the PC, got my money refunded, and looked for a machine with similar specs on sale.
Enter the second mistake of this twisted charade: A second prebuilt, this one an ASUS ROG system. Less RGB (my eyes thank ASUS for that decision), but the same general hardware under the hood: i7-14700f, 32GB 5000 MHz RAM, 8GB RTX 4060 Ti, ASUS ROG motherboard.
Perhaps I should've paid closer attention to that hardware setup, because the problems not only were present on this machine, but they were exponentially worse! You ever see a computer pull 40,000 microsecond latency times? I didn't know Resplendence LatencyMon could track values that high!
Cue a re-run of the same show as before. BIOS/firmware updates. Driver updates/rollbacks/reinstalls/uninstallations/generic Windows driver replacements. Every power setting in Win11 lunged for like the last cookie at a Christmas party. Heck, I even tried plugging this new machine into an entirely different outlet on a different wall with a different power cord, just in case my home circuits were to blame somehow.
And doing an audio check with a single, lonely Youtube tab? Stuttering, like always. I've seen better lag response times from random community-hosted Counter-Strike servers. One tab of mild, corporate vaporwave would send the machine into stutters like a crappy 2010 camcorder video of the family opening Christmas presents. Even the games I downloaded to test suffered the wrath of the DPC latency gremlins that had overthrown the desktop.
At that point, I was going to get a concussion from how many times I had slammed my head on the desk in frustration. I lugged it back into the car, nearly fell over trying to put the thing on the desk at Best Buy, got my money back, and slunk back home in disgrace.
THE REQUEST
--------------------------
At this point, I'm completely out of ideas. I have a feeling that if I buy a third prebuilt and get the same results, I'm going to go crawl under the floorboards and become one with the rats.
The main culprits in every test and failure of DPC Latency are NVLDDMKM.SYS, WDF01000.SYS, and NTOSKRNL.EXE
My main goal is to build a computer with parts known/tested/confirmed to have as low of DPC latency as possible, or parts that are not known to cause DPC latency issues. The primary use is going to be music production, followed by gaming/streaming, then video editing/3d modelling.
Since both prebuilt computers were Intel/NVIDIA combos with ASUS motherboards, I'm not entirely tempted to build something with any of these elements unless there is demonstrated proof of low latency.
If anyone knows of any parts that have been proven to have low DPC Latency, or any builds you are running that are managing low latencies (especially for music production and gaming), please let me know the specs! I've been leaning towards AMD for both CPU/GPU because I suspect the P/E Cores of the Intel chips and NVIDIA's driver compatibility with Win11 might be partially responsible for the DPC latency. AMD also seems to be a more cost-effective choice for my budget, while not sacrificing too much in power and speed.
If budget is of concern, I'd like to get 16 CPU threads, 32 gigs of RAM, and 8 gigs of VRAM for as reasonably close to $1500 as possible. I understand if this is a difficult price point, it's just what I ended up paying for each of those prebuilt gaming desktops.
Thank you all so much! I appreciate your time and responses!
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