Hi,

I've got myself an older PC with an Phenom 1 9750 CPU working very much to my satisfaction. My only concern is that I'm not able to record my band(8-10 drum-mics, 1 GTR-mic, bass(line-in), and myself playing a few VSTs) with my favorite plug-in(URS Control Strip Pro) inserted on all tracks(10-15) if I want to keep the latency down.

I don't need the extra power for mixing or working on a songs by myself, but I would like to be able to make a template with the basic plug-ins so that I won't have to insert them one by one after the recording session(10 songs and 10-15 tracks equals 150 manual inserts). And a the same time I would like to be able to make some better/fatter monitor(headphone) mixes.

Which brings me to my first question. Would upgrading(my MOBO accomodates that) to a Phenom 2 X6 1090, or faster, give me enough extra speed for the above to be possible?

I don't know why, but the only Phenom 2 X6 widely available is the 1045, which has more or less the same speed per core, but two cores more, than my present CPU. I'm not quite sure if that would simply translate to 1,5 times the speed, or if there's more to the equation.

Cheers, Jesper

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http://www.jesperbuhl.com


Edited by Phunky (08/12/12 10:55 AM)

What DAW are you using...? Could you create a template where the plugins are added but bypassed, and freeze them after you've applied them...?

There isn't going to be a simple ratio between the number of cores and the number of plugins. That would be much too easy.

I'm using Cubase 4.
If the DAW is sharing the load between the cores, then adding two cores, all of them being faster than what I've got(Phenom 2 X6 1090=twice the combined Ghz, and supposed to be a better design), then I would expect the machine to be at least twice as fast. I'm just not sure how that translates in latency.

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http://www.jesperbuhl.com

Decided to give it a try with a Phenom X6 1045t which was only 95 euro. Should give me quite a boost for a modest outlay.
But now I have a second problem. The plan is to transfer the Phenom 1 9750 to my old Athlon X2 4600, but it seems to be a bad idea if the 9750 is a 125W version and not 95W.
SiSoftware tells me there's a power rating(core) of 145,45W(?), and CPU-Z doesn't give any clues as well.
How do I figure out which one I've got?

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http://www.jesperbuhl.com

The Ph2 X6 1045 benchmarks about 1.6x faster than your existing CPU in ideal conditions. Real world that's likely to be about 1.2x to 1.4x faster depending on how well the system utilises the extra cores. Anything over that, and you're doing well.

If you get anything like twice as fast, then you're beating the benchmark scores by over 40% - I see that as being pretty unlikely without some over-clocking and extra cooling etc.

As for putting your Ph1 on the older board, you need to check if the board is capable of supporting the CPU. That means not only the socket type, but what the maximum watts for the CPU can be according to the board spec. and whether it's supported in the BIOS.

Edited by Magic Matt (08/12/12 05:38 PM)

MagicMike, I was referring to the 1090t when I was talking about double the speed. I was of course expecting a little less from the the 1045t. Phenom1 is 4x2400=9600 compared to Phenom2 which is 6x2700=16200 which comes down to more or less 1,6 times as many cycles. On top of that, the P2 seems to be a better design as well.
Cubase seems to be pretty good at sharing the load, so I'm not quite sure why you would expect the gain to be closer to 1,2-1,4 than 1,6. If Cubase can share the load evenly on a quadcore why would it then do worse on a sixcore?. What am I missing here?

There's a beta BIOS for my Asrock board allowing for Phenoms, they even testet it with some P2s(125W) with no problems. But some say that one should be carefull with 125W versions of P1, and it seems that the only way to tell which version(95 or 125) I've got, is to take off the cooling fan in order to look at the CPU inscription.

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http://www.jesperbuhl.com

Magic Matt of course, Not Magic Mike:-) My mistake, just saw the movie recently.

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http://www.jesperbuhl.com

Quote Phunky:

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Cubase seems to be pretty good at sharing the load, so I'm not quite sure why you would expect the gain to be closer to 1,2-1,4 than 1,6. If Cubase can share the load evenly on a quadcore why would it then do worse on a sixcore?. What am I missing here?

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I've read a lot of different explanations as to why it happens - generally speaking it just seems to be that other operations, or possible bottlenecks elsewhere (RAM, HDD, even just the core management within the host system) don't necessarily give you the gains you would expect from simply crunching the numbers based on CPU cycles etc.

Cubase5/stock plugins/rendering :

AMD Phenom II X6 1100T - 25 sec
AMD Phenom 9750 - 46 sec
AMD Athlon 64 3000+ - 242 sec

The new CPU(phenom2 X6 1045t) has provided quite a boost compared to the old one(phenom1 X4 9750).
Between 60% and 80% according to both XP task mananger and the Cubase perfomance meter.

I'm using primarily "small footprint" plug-ins, single instrument VSTs and the URS control strip pro, which makes it easy for the DAW to share the load according what to what I've read elsewhere.

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http://www.jesperbuhl.com

Excellent!