You may well have heard that Pro Tools and AMD don't mix. You may even heard it from Avid themselves, who state quite flatly that "AMD processors are NOT APPROVED to run Pro Tools" and list "Intel i3" processors or Apple Silicon processors as minimum requirements.

But while it's true that AMD processors may not have the official seal of approval from Avid, there is no reason to think they would be any less capable of running Pro Tools.

Quite frankly, I think Avid has been ridiculously over-cautious in ruling out AMD compatibility. Both Intel and AMD CPUs use the same instruction set (x86-64) and common extensions (SSE, AVX, AVX2 etc)—meaning in virtually every case, all software that can run on an Intel CPU should be able to run on an AMD CPU and vice versa.

Historically, AMD did lack support for the extra-wide AVX-512 extension, but if Pro Tools does use this in some way, it's an optional performance enhancement at best rather than a requirement: after all, Pro Tools runs on many Intel processors that lack AVX-512 support too. (Ironically, AMD introduced support for AVX-512 in their 7000 series chips, while Intel actually dropped support with their 12th generation, meaning their positions are actually now reversed!)

In fairness, some of AMD's earlier efforts—their FX and Bulldozer chips—did occasionally struggle to run Pro Tools relative to their same-gen Intel counterparts. Early Ryzen chips also had a core-to-core latency issue which could impact audio performance. But AMD resolved these issues when they released the Ryzen 5000 series in 2019, and indeed overtook Intel in terms of performance for the first time in a very long while.

Why Avid is Reluctant to Support AMD

Avid has revealed in forum posts that they only test their software on a very limited number of configurations. These don't include AMD systems, even though roughly one-in-every-four desktop computers uses an AMD chip—a significant oversight, I think.

The most likely reason Avid has taken the hard line it has is that it has historically developed for Apple systems (which were Intel-based for many years) and a small handful of Avid-certified PCs, most of which used high-end chips like Intel's Xeon range. This means their development pipeline is pretty Intel-centric, and they have indeed said that they compile their software using Intel's compilers, which might marginally affect performance in a few edge cases, though not compatibility.

But the reality is there is a vastly greater gulf between different generations of Intel CPUs than between Intel and AMD architecture within the same generation. Going back to Avid's claim that Pro Tools runs on any 64-bit i3 or better processor: this means they officially support chips going back to 2010! Since 2010 the PC industry has moved from DDR3 to DDR4 and now DDR5 RAM; seen the introduction of AVX, AVX2 and AVX-512 extensions; witnessed Intel's introduction of its radically different hybrid core architecture; and benefited from huge, huge increases in performance and efficiency. If Pro Tools can run across all those generations, there is no logical reason it cannot run—and run very well—on the latest AMD chips.

AMD Ryzen Systems May Actually Run Pro Tools Better

Real-world usage appears to back this up. I have never once come across a case where someone running Pro Tools on an AMD Ryzen CPU has run into compatibility or performance issues related to their choice of processor. Nor have I ever heard of anyone being denied technical support by Avid because of their use of an AMD Ryzen CPU. If you have ever encountered one of these scenarios, please contact me to let me know.

More to the point, there's a good reason for choosing AMD over Intel, at least for now: namely, Intel's move to a hybrid architecture that has proved to be highly problematic for processing realtime audio. If you are shopping for or building a system for use with any DAW, I firmly believe you should be more concerned about this than what Avid may or may not say about systems they simply haven't tested their software on.