Looking at a New Desktop - Quad Core vs 8 Core

[whyterabbyt]

The Intel i7 series has 4 (or 6) cores, and each one can be Hyperthreaded. In the case of a quad-core processor, this appears to Windows as 8 "processors", but it is not a true 8-core CPU.

Thought this was worth highlighting. And indeed, depending on the code/CPU/miscellaneous other factors, enabled hyperthreading/virtual cores can actually incur a performance penalty.

[jancivil]

I'm saying that audio applications do not use the CPUs up like video does, out of experience doing fairly heavy rendering.
It may not be good to state they are built for video _first_ but the fact of what is written for the machines is what it is. I'm not "regurgitating" anything really, that's my experience with pretty heavy loads in DAW territory vs video rendering and experience with video people and time.

But you're doing the same glib thing with 'except where it is', just to smack me on a generalized statement. Don't try and kid me. Show me where someone has a 16 or 32 logical cores and that's their actual bottleneck with a DAW, in any scenario and I'll be able to relate to it on an experiential level. If one needs more CPU this will tend to mean that the software is not using the cores. As I said, we that used server farms in Gigastudio days are still using server farms with these machines and VE Pro. That isn't theory being regurgitated, pal.
Big duh, if someone doesn't have enough muscle teh CPU is a bottleneck.

You are conveniently bypassing my actual point in order to slap me down (behind some previous encounter you're holding onto, or you're just being a dick as per usual). You're engaging in storytelling, too, compounding what at root is a really fallacious approach and argumentation*.

I stand by saying his statement is wild, to me from where I'm standing, that "Audio software leans on the CPU far, far more than anything else listed above". *Giving me his boda fides as a builder does nothing to make that more real, that just does not directly apply necessarily. I do not have the sense that statement comes out of hammering CPUs with audio software and I don't have any sense of anything but tossing from you either.

[whyterabbyt]

I'm saying that audio applications do not use the CPUs up like video does, out of experience doing fairly heavy rendering.

Firstly, you're comparing apples and oranges. Rendering video does not require streaming real-time output within a guaranteed vector of time. Audio does. For video, and offline rendering, a single frame can take minutes or hours to render; for realtime audio, the next 128 samples need to be available exactly 128 samples from now.

Secondly, with modern softsynths and high oversampling, its easy to 'use up' the CPU just as much as you're claiming for video.

Show me where someone has a 16 or 32 logical cores and that's their actual botleneck with a DAW, in any scenario and I'll be able to relate to it on an experiential level. It will tend to mean that the software is not using the cores.

Well, unless it is, and that's still not sufficient.
You do have experience of some of the modern high-requirements plugins like The Drop or Bazille, dont you?

You are conveniently bypassing my actual point in order to slap me down for some other reason.

No, your point was wrong, and you were getting told that your attempt to slap someone down who knew better than you was equally wrong. Simple as that. You want to ascribe other reasons, that's your paranoia.

You're engaging in storytelling, too, compounding what at root is a really fallacious approach and argumentation.

Again with the irony. Really fallacious approach and argumentation anyone?

"I don't know how anyone could arrive at the notion that audio is the real heavy workload like that, other than pull it out of his ass, it's basically fiction writing."

I stand by saying his statement is wild, to me from where I'm standing, that "Audio software leans on the CPU far, far more than anything else listed above".

You might help yourself by not imagining that where you're standing is the crucial viewpoint.

Giving me his boda fides as a builder does nothing to make that more real, that just does not directly apply necessarily.

Ah, I see. You have no bona fides in actually doing exactly the kind of testing and benchmarking he was basing his comments on, but you do somehow 'know' that his are invalid.

[egbert]

DAW users who pile on plugins and/or synth/sampler voices work their CPUs hard. The benchmark tests on DAWbench for example lean heavily on piled on plugin instances. This would not seem to be a controversial matter.

The thread title is perhaps an interesting question given the imminent arrival of the new Haswell-E chips - which have 6 cores or, in the case of the most expensive one, 8 cores but running at a slower clock rate. I imagine there are plenty who would like to know how well these would work on DAW loads compared to a 300 buck i7 CPU.

[egbert]

Intel Core i7 Haswell-E CPU Pricing:

Intel Core i7 5960X 8C/16HT – 40-lane PCI-Express support (x16 + x16 + x8) — $999
Intel Core i7 5930K 6C/12HT – 40-lane PCI-Express support (x16 + x16 + x8) — $583
Intel Core i7 5820K 6C/12HT — 28-lane PCI-Express support (x16 + x8 + x4) — $389

Launch is on 29/8/14

Here's a paste from techpowerup

Intel's Core i7 "Haswell-E" processor lineup will include three parts, two six-core, and one eight-core. Leading the pack will be the Core i7-5960X, featuring eight cores based on the "Haswell" micro-architecture, with HyperThreading enabling 16 logical CPUs; a staggering 20 MB of shared L3 cache, and 3.00 GHz clock speed. It will command a four-figure price. Next up, is the Core i7-5930K, featuring six cores, HyperThreading enabling 12 logical CPUs, 15 MB of shared L3 cache, and 3.50 GHz clocks. This chip will be priced anywhere between $500 and $750. The most affordable chip will be the Core i7-4820K, which will be a six-core chip. Its other specs are unclear. It is expected to be priced between $350 and $450.

[jcschild]

a few comments

1) Video editing (rendering is vastly harder on a system generally) I can PEG 48 threads to the wall (dual 12 core) try working with red 4K/6K. this is where more cores are definitely needed, and more cores beat higher GHz.
Animation rendering same thing.
HOWEVER
Audio is as close to real system time as you can get period. Video has an absurd amount of buffering/delay built in. its the nature of any editing engine.
running a project @ 64/32 buffer requires massive power more times than not GHZ more than cores but both are needed.
and the GHz aspect is more important with audio than video. particularly with sample libraries.

the last 2 gen of intel processors as well windows and most daw software is been better optimized to multicore.
so with that said I can ALSO peg 40 cores in audio
I can do it with hard hitting plug ins and I can do it with a ton of polyphony.

and if you go to Vienna's site they recommend dual Xeon. personally I would prefer 2 6 core systems@ 4.5GHz than a single dual Xeon.

lastly AMD sucks, the only point to an AMD is if you are broke as a joke and $50 will make you or break you.
for every price point with AMD there is an equally priced Intel that will beat it.
and for say $100-$200 more be more like double the power.
a 3.5GHz Intel 4 and 6 core will trounce that 4.7GHz 8 core AMD all day long

Scott
ADK

[egbert]

Thanks for the info, Scott. What do you make of the 59x0 chips? These new systems are DDR4 based so they introduce some new hurdles for desktop DAW guys.

[Kaine]

Hands up, I should have been clearer as I was talking about realtime processing not rendered output. With video rendering your simply going to be waiting longer for it to finish processing whilst it's hammering that CPU at 100% load. Yes, in that context it's pushing the CPU harder overall, but it's not in real time and its not going to ruin your session other than sitting around and twiddling your thumbs for an extended period.

In that context Jancivil your right and yes absolutely as Scott points out with his 2k/4k example it will give you a 100% CPU load along with those huge render times, just as real time processing of a stack of channels of intensive synths and plugs will eat up processing overhead when doing all the work in real time without freeze/bouncing down. I'm running an overclocked 3960X and I don't find it hard on a larger project to max out the ASIO load when working fully in the box, whilst having a high CPU load when working at ultra low buffer settings.

I can of course slacken the buffer and freeze to audio and I've got another 20+ tracks to play with, but at the same time I can sit around for a futher 10 mins drinking coffee and waiting for my Premier file to export too... both are a minor inconvenience I'd prefer not to deal with given the option.

Everytime someone tells me that I'm testing wrongly using benchmarks for audio setups I ask them to given me a way to test that they think is more fair. A selection of plugins or a project I can setup on both Intel and AMD boxes to prove that I'm wrong, nobody has managed to submit one yet that has done so, as much as I'd acturly like to see it happen.

I don't claim any benchmark is perfect (in fact Vin over at DAWbench will probably complain that I've given him enough headaches last time I asked him to get the core plugs recompiled using 14 different compilers last year to ensure a fair test), but I've done enough testing in and outside of those benchmarks both synthetic and real world projects to be happy that they give a fair reflection of what can be done on each platform and to that end I honestly wish AMD was better proving to be better for audio use.

We were the first UK firm to push AMD solutions back when they took the lead in the performance stakes and purely at a price point I could sell them all day long if the metrics were really in their favour, nobody wants to spend more than they have to, when they can get a bargin after all. Every refresh I pull the latest and greatest AMD release and take a crack and bouncing projects between that and the Intels and whilst the gap has closed they are still lagging behind at this point offering a decent solution if you can only afford to buy at the price point they land at but little more. The day they catch up and start to seriously compete once more against the i5's and upwards in this field I'll be more than happy to be the first in line to shout from the roof tops and start pushing solutions again.

[jcschild]

and I was the ONLY us company (audio/video) to sell AMD for years back when they were beating intel.
and Vin and I used to fight daily over it..
everyone was like oh amd not stable... whatever....

so as Kaine alludes I am not anti amd I just tell you what benchmarks better and $ to $ best money spent~
if next month amd comes out with a winning processor trust me I will be shouting it from the rooftops..

Scott
ADK

[jcschild]

Thanks for the info, Scott. What do you make of the 59x0 chips? These new systems are DDR4 based so they introduce some new hurdles for desktop DAW guys.

I have posted a good bunch of comments about the newer processors coming out on Gear Slutz.
I have processors (for a month+) and boards now waiting on ram arriving today or tomorrow.

I think its going to start off bad...
and probably the same 15% increase we normally see

expect benchmarks (gear slutz) by tomorrow or Friday
Scott
ADK

[mkdr]

Also, this processor only has 4 physical cores, just like Intel's designs. They're not "Hyperthreaded" per se, but they can basically do two things at once, like Intel's.

Not true actually. It sort of has "4 physical cores", as in the layout is divided in 4 sections. The four sections however include 8 cores which have shared components. In reality there is only 4 floating point calculation cores, but there is 8 integer and logic cores(and caches). This translates to benchmark figures that clearly show the scaling in single core and 8-core performance, regardless if it's a benchmark of float or integer computing. Whereas Intel HT architecture doesn't scale nearly as well over it's HT cores and for example a 4 core HT looks more like a 5-6 core cpu rather than an 8 core.

This scalability is clearly visible when working with DAWs too.

[mkdr]

Audio software leans on the CPU far, far more than anything else listed above, the CPU benchmarks are more relevent to audio handling than any of those uses and well worth taking note of. I've also noted in testing previously that the shared 2nd level cache designs found in AMD CPU's do appear to be not exactly ideal where audio applications are concerned.

For pro's, not tinkerers, the audio software tends to lean more on stability than actual CPU muscle. And that stability actually is what makes those low latencies possible, not the power. Stability also comes from other factors like mobo's, soundcards, and even the software configuration you run the machine with. Misconceptions about Cubase 7 is the perfect example of this.

Have you by any chance published your findings on the L2 cache troubles? I'd imagine that would take the biggest toll on reverb performance and such. Would you care to comment?

[jcschild]

since you asked about 8 core here you go

http://www.gearslutz.com/board/music-co ... chies.html

Scott
ADK

[egbert]

OK - pretty impressive. Intel has no stock fan with these I gather but they do have a new liquid cooling (ethylene glycol) boxed cooler which I guess is intended for these.

[mkdr]

since you asked about 8 core here you go

http://www.gearslutz.com/board/music-co ... chies.html

Scott
ADK

Oh yes, that is impressive:

5960x @3.00 (8 core)
Turbo @ 3.5
Win 8.1
Cubase 7.5.2
Hdspe
32 buffer 208
64 buffer 229
128 buffer 233
256 buffer 240

for comparison:

fx8350 @4.0ghz (stock)
RME HDSPe/ Digiface
RXC-EXT

Cubase 7.5.20
32 buffer 112
64 buffer 128
128 buffer 142

Reaper 4.7
32 buffer 100
64 buffer 126
128 buffer 150


So it's about 70-80% faster than my current setup. Cool.
Though the processor alone costs six times what this one does. Not cool

Btw. That Intel monster features a shared Cache too..