quote:

Originally posted by echosystm yeh, just looked at those benchmarks then... they don't have enough of a variety of plugins for the results to be accurate imo. regardless, the results are fairly convincing. i only saw the rain bench (i think?) where xp quad core performance sucked ass, particularly in sonar. they seemed to be really pro-vista though, so it was probably a sales ploy.

I remember seeing a lot of posts on the Cubase forums regarding the new 4.1 and if there was any problems on multi-core setups. I havent seen anyone posting any problems, and there seem to be a lot of people on that forum using quad core setups, so I just took that as "no news is good news". Generally if there is some kind of problem in Cubase with just about anything, they'll be people bitching up a storm over it on that forum, guaranteed.

I know that Cubase 4 is basically Nuendo and there seems to be a lot of effort by Steinberg to try to take some market share from Pro Tools in the Post Production arena, so it made sense to me that they'd try to shore up their software to work with the fastest hardware available, since they cannot rely on outboard DSP like a Pro Tools HD system seem to.

quote:

Originally posted by echosystm another thing i neglected to mention is that a lot of dsp cards have trouble with multi-core setups. if you're wanting to use a uad at any stage, better research into that - i don't know the specifics.

Its funny you mention the UAD cards, because that was one of the first things i checked into when considering this upgrade. I have 2 UAD cards and so I wanted to make sure that the cards would work with a new setup. I have checked the UAD forums on this and there seem to be a lot of people that have quad core's and are not having any problems, so i feel pretty safe that things are going to work OK. Time will tell of course

Again, I appreciate you giving me the warning in the first place. It better to research it and not regret making a mistake later on because I didn't have all the facts.

Todays totally off the subject commment:
I just noticed today is my one year anniversary on this board. Woohoo, time to party!

Hey guys. Few weeks ago I did a little test with my friend's quad.. We both run cubase sx, except I got the intel e6600 while he has intel q6600, same ram same motherboard, hd and psu.. - I build his system myself - he specified that he wanted everything exactly the same (after hearing from me that for the last 6 months I have ZERO problems) except with the recent intel quad core price drop it wasn't a brainer..
So we loaded up one of my projects on his machine, and it was running at half load of my system. Basically, I was around %40 load on an e6600 he was at%20 on q6600. He's been running some crazy plugin counts on his system in his other projects after getting the quad, and he's more than happy. I am personally going to go quad as well, since my motherboard is compatible, just waiting for Christmas

Eric, don't listen to what most douchebags on internet forums have to say. If you're going to go a quad, get Vista. Just make sure your interface manufacturers drivers are upto scratch. XP multicore support was tacked on so it's fucking rubbish be it a dual or a quad. Also, in regards to people with certain DSP cards having issues with multicore CPUs, I personally think that's a load of bullshit. In regards to FL studio, if you get a Q6600 quad or an E6600 dual, it will run EXACTLY the same, same clock speeds, same internals, just doubled up. Saying that FL runs better on a dual core than it does on a quad is a VERY ambiguous statement. What if the quad is a 3.33ghz Penryn and the dual is a dual core P4? Go quad and never look back dude. Oh your PC will need a slightly beefier power supply (500 watts + imo). Good hunting.

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If you want to future proof then get a quad, makes more sense to me . i think you'd be silly to pick a dual over a quad (future software updates will support it, no matter which program).. the future isnt about faster dual core chips, its about more cores, and quad will eventually be a minimum.

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quote:

Originally posted by deceptikon Eric, don't listen to what most douchebags on internet forums have to say. If you're going to go a quad, get Vista. Just make sure your interface manufacturers drivers are upto scratch. XP multicore support was tacked on so it's fucking rubbish be it a dual or a quad. Also, in regards to people with certain DSP cards having issues with multicore CPUs, I personally think that's a load of bullshit. In regards to FL studio, if you get a Q6600 quad or an E6600 dual, it will run EXACTLY the same, same clock speeds, same internals, just doubled up. Saying that FL runs better on a dual core than it does on a quad is a VERY ambiguous statement. What if the quad is a 3.33ghz Penryn and the dual is a dual core P4? Go quad and never look back dude. Oh your PC will need a slightly beefier power supply (500 watts + imo). Good hunting.

Well eventually I'm sure I'll upgrade to Vista. I'm running it on my fiancee's laptop and my secondary DAW which is running Ableton Live 6 (woohoo!). So far i havent had too many problems with it other than, you guessed it, drivers. Fortunately the secondary DAW is just for live monitoring and spectrum analysis, so its not a problem to run BETA drivers, but I would never consider it for a primary workstation at this stage.

I know that my MOTU drivers are Vista compatible, but I'm just waiting on SP1 at the minimum to go to Vista, plus I like to see a few other people take the plunge before I go there. The only other barrier to getting Vista for me at the moment is that I have an old Unitor 8 interface and I'm not sure how the drivers will work on Vista, if they will at all. Since eMagic is now an Apple company, I have zero chance of seeing any updated drivers for the MIDI interface, which means any upgrade to Vista will require a new MIDI interface.

However, considering my time frame for this computer, I definitely see Vista in it's future so I agree with you that its best to just go ahead and prepare for the future now.

quote:

Originally posted by deceptikon XP multicore support was tacked on so it's fucking rubbish be it a dual or a quad.

Wrong. Windows has had SMP support since NT. Nothing was "tacked on" in XP. It was already there, just not "active". Regardless, quad core performance is presumed better in vista, for the reasons I stated earlier, provided the bloat doesn't outweigh the benefit.

quote:

Originally posted by deceptikon Also, in regards to people with certain DSP cards having issues with multicore CPUs, I personally think that's a load of bullshit.

http://forum.cakewalk.com/tm.asp?m=...page=1�
This applies to a lot of DAWs.

quote:

Originally posted by deceptikon In regards to FL studio, if you get a Q6600 quad or an E6600 dual, it will run EXACTLY the same, same clock speeds, same internals, just doubled up. Saying that FL runs better on a dual core than it does on a quad is a VERY ambiguous statement.

I said a dual core with faster cores is better than a quad with slower cores. This is true for FL Studio and any other program that doesn't have good multicore support.

quote:

Originally posted by deceptikon Eric, don't listen to what most douchebags on internet forums have to say.

what, like you?

Last edited by echosystm on Nov-02-2007 at 03:37

quote:

Originally posted by Eric J OK, I'm looking at building a new machine for my main studio computer, and the research i have so far leads me to this: This machine is going to be running Cubase 4 with a MOTU 24IO audio interface, Serial Unitor8 MIDI Interface, and a Glyph external drive. Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 Kentsfield 2.4GHz 2 x 4MB L2 Cache LGA 775 Processor 4 cores should be enough. Crucial 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Only need 2 GB of ram at the moment, since I do not run a lot of software samplers. ASUS P5B Premium Vista Edition LGA 775 Intel P965 Express ATX Intel Motherboard This is critical because it is the only motherboard that has the following: A serial port for my Unitor 8 MIDI Interface (most newer MOBOs do not have a serial port) 1 PCIe slot for my PCIe UAD-1 card 2 PCI slots for my other UAD-1 Card and my MOTU-424 Audio interface card Built in firewire port for my Glyph external drive. XFX PVT84JUDF3 GeForce 8600GT 256MB 128-bit GDDR3 PCI Express x16 Getting this for the dual DVI outputs. Western Digital Caviar SE WD1600AAJS 160GB 7200 RPM 8MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive Dont need a large drive here, because its only going to be my system drive. Thermaltake TR2 W0070RUC ATX 430W Power Supply 115/230 V Reviews on this said it was a quiet power supply Thermaltake Armor Series VA8003BWS Black Full Tower Case w/ 25CM Fan Seems like a well-designed case with plenty of cooling and room for expansion. And its not Antec . Anyone see anything here that is unnecessary or anything I am missing? I figure this system should be good enough to last 3 or 4 years and have plenty of power. it is replacing a Dell Dimension 8400 with an old 3.2 Ghz Hyperthreaded Processor. What do you all think?

Sounds good!


Actually, sounds almost exactly like my new PC. Quad Core is a great choice for ableton. 2GB RAM is key (I only got 1, need more!!!).

I did splurge and get the water cooled version, which has worked out well so far. Enjoy!

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Keep in mind when watching this that echosystem claims that FL will only use 2 cores of the CPU. Excuse the mild load on it from recording my 2560x1600 desktop:

http://www.trancescape.net/lol/

I will post exact contents of the mixer channels if anyone ones, but unless I'm hallucinating quite vividly FL Studio with some VST instruments and effects actually loads up all 4 cores of my processor. Odd that. Hmmm.

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Just a heads up guys, this dude is a friend of mine who has had some releases, played out live, etc etc etc, the Aussies who have been around here for a while may know him but this echoes my sentiments and those of a few other producers i know:

alpharisc says:
I wouldnt advice anyone to buy a dual core over a quad core..
alpharisc says:
regardless of the application they are using
alpharisc@arcK says:
it doesnt make sense to buy a higher clock dual core EVER...

Oh well, what would we know?

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And one final note, a G0 stepping Q6600 ($327AU atm) will do 3.4-3.6ghz per core on AIR COOLING with ease. How do I know? Been there, done that.

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quote:

Originally posted by deceptikon echosystem claims that FL will only use 2 cores of the CPU.

I never said that.

I've said it once... I will say it again.

FL Studio will only run thread safe VST instruments on other cores. Everyone knows this. VST effects, FL effects and FL instruments can only run on one core. That core also holds the mixer, audio "engine" and the ASIO driver. So, we have:

Limited to 1 core:
Mixer
ASIO driver
All FX
FL instruments
FL sample channels
Non-thread-safe VST instruments

Can be delegated to other cores:
Thread-safe VST instruments only - not all are thread-safe!

Now... you can get a 3ghz Core2Duo or a 2.4ghz Core2Quad for the same price. If you're using good FX, this will be by far the biggest CPU eater. Let's be conservative and say your projects are 30% thread-safe instruments. In FL Studio, only 30% can be delegated to other cores. This is what would happen on a 2.4ghz quad core:

Core 1: 70% - Closer to 100%
Core 2: 10% - Irrelevant
Core 3: 10% - Irrelevant
Core 4: 10% - Irrelevant

In reality, these figures would be higher, due to the overheads of sharing a load between another two cores. This is what would happen on a 3ghz dual core (adjusted for clock speed difference):

Core 1: 54% - Further from 100%
Core 2: 22% - Irrelevant

Which one do you think is more likely to pop and click? It's not rocket science. It is a matter of headroom on the first core, not total processing power. Any DAWs with poor dual core support will fall in this category. Those tests obviously show Cubase isn't one of these. However, that doesn't mean Cubase is immune from the XP vs. Vista quad core debate, that is a problem for everyone (this, at least, we both agree upon).

Now lets remember we don't all use our computers just for music. Video games etc. are mostly all limited to one core. Obviously a faster dual core is better there too...

Last edited by echosystm on Nov-02-2007 at 05:19