Which of these processors should I be going for?

I understand that the Sandy bridge has just come out.

I just need a quick and dirty response.

many thanks.

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"Never put a recording studio in your home, it is a black hole into which you can pour unlimited amounts of money" Pete Waterman.

Depends how much of a rush your in. The Sandy's are still proving a bit tempermental at the moment and the 950 is a well tested solution.

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ScanProAudio & 3XS Audio Systems
ScanProAudio Blog

Just go these specs from Hexus

Core i7 2600K 04-Aug 3.4 3.8 32nm 216mm² 995m 1MB L2 HD 3000 1,350MHz Dual-channel DDR3-1,333 95W LGA1155 $317
8MB L3


Core i7 950 04-Aug 3.06 3.33 45nm 263mm² 731m 1MB L2 NA N/A Triple-channel DDR3-1,066 130W LGA1366 $294
8MB L3

It seems that there are a few differences between the Sandy Brigde and Bloomfield. The main ones being: SB can turbo boost to 3.8GHz while the 950 goes to 3.33, the SB is dual channel memory and while the 950 is triple channel.

In terms of how much of a huuey I am in, I would like to order the mobo, CPU, and RAM this week so that I can put the thing together at the weekend.

How long is it advisable to wait for the SB to be sorted out? A few weeks is bareable but months....

Any how what are the issues with the SB Peter?

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"Never put a recording studio in your home, it is a black hole into which you can pour unlimited amounts of money" Pete Waterman.

I was hoping to place the order this eveing...

--------------------
"Never put a recording studio in your home, it is a black hole into which you can pour unlimited amounts of money" Pete Waterman.

have a look at this thread from the CW forum - jcschild is scott from ADK, the guys who build the laptops for scan...

--------------------
My metal music! My other music!

thanks for this mhaigh, very informative.

It seems that the 950 and x58 is the better option to go for. OK the 2600 SB could run at 3.9GHz but it appears very temperamental, as Peter said earlier.

I am inclined to play it safe and go for a 950 as I originally intended.

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"Never put a recording studio in your home, it is a black hole into which you can pour unlimited amounts of money" Pete Waterman.

Quote Baldo:

---

Any how what are the issues with the SB Peter?

---

Pick a board and I'll tell you

They range from memory cycling with certain batches of ram to load balancing failing to work effectivly across all threads under dawbench/cubase. If your building yourself this week then get the 950 as it'll save you from wanting to smash a window over the weekend.

As Scott mentions in that other thread the biggest annoyance is windows tendency to implode if you swap the board, even if it's boards in the same range and from the same maker. It means everytime I change my bench I have to resoftware again. At an hour and half a change over it's making validating a long process.

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ScanProAudio & 3XS Audio Systems
ScanProAudio Blog

Quote Pete Kaine:

---

Quote Baldo:

---

Any how what are the issues with the SB Peter?

---

Pick a board and I'll tell you

---

UD4, P8P67 please

--------------------
Composer;
www.ogonline.org

UD 4 - I'm having trouble getting to load balance. Stock with turbo gets you to about 80% (somewhere around a i7 950) before clipping occurs. Overclocked get's you to about 50% load and then all hell breaks loose.

Doesn't happen with the 2500k chip, but that doesn't have hyperthreading... draw your own conclusions on that one.


P8P67 - worked pretty well. Bluetooth devices on the board caused DPC to rocket but can be disabled. I left it with a few spikes still going on when i gave up on it although I'm sure with enough tweaking could probably be resolved. I haven't gotten around to doing so at this point through. I might take another crack at it in the morning should this latest MSI bios fail to amuse me.

Have to say, been following the 2600k posts on't web as I hope to be buying the Scan PowerDAW and I now see that it now only shows the 2600k

Has there been more resolution on the issues then??

Ritchie

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Engineering Surveyor and Musician Pretty Vegas Northwest Function and Wedding Band
Wedding Band Blog

Sorry, meant PowerDAW +

That still has the 950

Interesting though that with the 16GB dual channel RAM and only missing 1 internal HDD it's much cheaper

Ritchie

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Engineering Surveyor and Musician Pretty Vegas Northwest Function and Wedding Band
Wedding Band Blog

thanks for the input everyone.

I will go for the 950 with the cheaper 6GB of RAM. I just want to get my system up and running and stop spending all this time on being a systems engineer.

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"Never put a recording studio in your home, it is a black hole into which you can pour unlimited amounts of money" Pete Waterman.

OK system ordered last night form Scan. Its annoying that they harge me £13 for Scansure automatically which I had to cancel this morning....

I should get everything by tomorrow and then I can put it together on friday night (great!!!)

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"Never put a recording studio in your home, it is a black hole into which you can pour unlimited amounts of money" Pete Waterman.

Richie - Yes, sorry about that, it was a mistake at our end. Someone else rang me up last night shortly before your post asking where it had gone so I've added it back into the specs again.

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ScanProAudio & 3XS Audio Systems
ScanProAudio Blog

Fair enoughski!!!

Still not sure which to get.

From what folks have been saying about the Sandy Bridge, it seems that this is the consumer version with the "full fat" version and boards later in the year, with the Triple and Quad Channel RAM. Dont want to wait any more, but also dont want to be bitten by being an early adopter.

Ritchie

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Engineering Surveyor and Musician Pretty Vegas Northwest Function and Wedding Band
Wedding Band Blog

Well, thanks to the tireless work of people like Pete, you only have to wait because the boards will be tested to breaking point before being offered as an audio option.

Maybe within the month. . . ?

--------------------
Composer;
www.ogonline.org

What you've heard is right as far as the high end goes. We're expecting them to crop up 3rd Qish so all depends if you want to wait. Think I've got the required tweaks down now on a couple of boards but I've still got few days until I fully qualify them.

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ScanProAudio & 3XS Audio Systems
ScanProAudio Blog

Thanks for those replies. Was thinking of just going down to PC World and getting a Packard Bell gaming PC and using that !

Before SB chips came out, I was looking at the

i7 3.06ghz and 12gb ram as the core elements to my potential system, but did wait to see what happened due to the Intel release.

I suppose a few weeks wait until things settle down isnt a big killer, but was really sort of interested in what would be the SB comparable system now in terms of equal of better performance and the price point.

Was hoping the price of 980x's was going to plummet!

Ritchie

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Engineering Surveyor and Musician Pretty Vegas Northwest Function and Wedding Band
Wedding Band Blog

Well my current 2600k bench is pulling off 192 RXC instances at a latency of 32 where a 980X will do 210 and a 930 will do around 145.

The 2600k is roughly half the price of the 980X and has 90% of the performance.

Whilst I don't expect the 980X to plummet if move at all, it wouldn't be the first choice on my own personal shopping list if I had to buy a machine in the near future.

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ScanProAudio & 3XS Audio Systems
ScanProAudio Blog

okay, on the spot time Pete,

what would be??????????

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Engineering Surveyor and Musician Pretty Vegas Northwest Function and Wedding Band
Wedding Band Blog

If I was buying now and knew what I was doing to build it?

2600k

If I wasn't so sure... probably the 950 with the aim of upgrading to a 980X when the end of life and end up cheap.



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ScanProAudio & 3XS Audio Systems
ScanProAudio Blog

So you solved the issues with Hyperthreading Pete? Is the 2500K still more sturdy or are they about the same now?

--------------------
Composer;
www.ogonline.org

Well, as I would be buying the Scan DAW it would be you guys and hopefully you know what you are doing!!

I suppose then it boils down to the RAM being dual or triple channel. Is the difference THAT much different in real terms???

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Engineering Surveyor and Musician Pretty Vegas Northwest Function and Wedding Band
Wedding Band Blog

As Pete mentioned earlier, these problems vary considerably from motherboard to motherboard, and (so my flies on the wall tell me) even BIOS revision to BIOS revision. Graphics card drivers can also affect things, as can cooling schemes etc. etc.

Basically Sandy Bridge is a minefield for the musician at the moment, unless you like spending days trying to sort out why you’re getting worse performance than you could have got with a Core i7 950 and X58 motherboard

Considering the amount of work the specialists are spending behind the scenes getting SB systems that work reliably now and are likely to continue to do so when BIOS/drivers etc are updated in the future I’m personally surprised at how much information they are divulging (very generous Pete! )


Martin

--------------------
YewTreeMagic

Quote Martin Walker:

---

I’m personally surprised at how much information they are divulging (very generous Pete! )

Martin

---

Me too and yes he is and that's really good - i find very few people so candid and helpful with this stuff. Certainly if/when i have anything helpful to add i'll do so

--------------------
PC-Music.com hints, tips & reviews
Rain Computers UK - Creative Audio PC's

Quote Pete Kaine:

---

Quote Baldo:

---

Any how what are the issues with the SB Peter?

---

Pick a board and I'll tell you

---

Intel DP67BG?
MSI P67A-GD65?

Will make sure I buy from scan as part of some sort of karmic exchange program..

To be honest, thats why I ended up settling on a Scan system (when I finally choose!!!), because as a "Forum Lurker" I have seen Pete posting on a few forums and it shows to me a great level of customer care and genuine passion about what he / they are doing.

Jesus, I deserve a bloody discount after this!

I must say, Martins comments do make me sway towards the 1st gen i series, but the potential financial saving for choosing the SB i7 and the Scan Support points me down the SB route. At the end of the day, I am a hobbyist, doing it for me and to do backing tracks for my cover band, so its not like I will have clients breathing down my neck if something goes weird for a few days until it can be sorted. I just want to be able to record my 8 inputs, mix a load of tracks and play back a load of Kontakt based instrument tracks, and I am sure that either the 1st or 2nd Gen i7's will handle it with ease

Ritchie

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Engineering Surveyor and Musician Pretty Vegas Northwest Function and Wedding Band
Wedding Band Blog

Quote oggyb:

---

So you solved the issues with Hyperthreading Pete? Is the 2500K still more sturdy or are they about the same now?

---

Yeah, it's tied in with C states and powersaving again on these new boards. It tends to be different from board to board depending upon how they've implimented it in the bios but you can't just turn them all on or off and get smooth DPC and maximum performance. If you do a self build expect to spend a few hours tweaking to get the best results.

Quote RitchieM:

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Well, as I would be buying the Scan DAW it would be you guys and hopefully you know what you are doing!!

---

Yeah, sorry. I just replied to the last message without reading back. If your having us build it then the 2600k I'd say.

Quote RitchieM:

---

I suppose then it boils down to the RAM being dual or triple channel. Is the difference THAT much different in real terms???

---

In real terms no, not really. If your pre-loading loads of samples & audio it might if your going to make use of it all, but if your disk streaming and working with synths then the 2600k is the way forward.

Quote lazyrich:

---

Intel DP67BG?
MSI P67A-GD65?

Will make sure I buy from scan as part of some sort of karmic exchange program..

---

The Intel I had problems with. Would post first time and get to windows and then on the reset would fail ram detection and continue to not post until I reseated the memory in the slot. I've been told the's compatability issues which I'm sure will clear up as they validate more memory but at the moment it's just not playing very nice with what I have access too.

The GD65 I've not tested yet. The C45 through is currently on my spec list as the prefered board.

And for the rest of the comments thanks for your kind words. To be honest we advertise the specs and it's not hard to find out what we use, so I don't see the point in being awkward about it when people are asking questions and need help. We believe in karma too!

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ScanProAudio & 3XS Audio Systems
ScanProAudio Blog

Thank you very much, very handy to have that info. The C45 is also one of the cheapest boards out there which is nice. In a way it's sort of what I expected as whenever I've had a fancy board I've always had to spend half an hour disabling all the fancy bits in the bios before things would work properly

One final question before I stop pestering you; compatibility of PCI cards through PCIe bridge chips has been mentioned on one of the other threads. If you've tested the MSI board with any older cards, did you hit any major issues? I'm still on an RME HDSP 9652 for the time being. Not expecting it to perform as well as a PCIe card, but would be handy to know if it just plain doesn't work.

Thanks again, it really is appreciated.

Quote lazyrich:

---

Thank you very much, very handy to have that info. The C45 is also one of the cheapest boards out there which is nice. In a way it's sort of what I expected as whenever I've had a fancy board I've always had to spend half an hour disabling all the fancy bits in the bios before things would work properly

---

Exactly what I saw with a lot of them.

Quote lazyrich:

---

One final question before I stop pestering you; compatibility of PCI cards through PCIe bridge chips has been mentioned on one of the other threads. If you've tested the MSI board with any older cards, did you hit any major issues? I'm still on an RME HDSP 9652 for the time being. Not expecting it to perform as well as a PCIe card, but would be handy to know if it just plain doesn't work.

---

I've learnt since then, that it can get pretty close once you set the machine up properly. One of my bench cards has been the 9652 and once it was all in order it ended up pulling the same sort of scores as the newer PCI-E MADI cards. So yeah, older cards will work

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ScanProAudio & 3XS Audio Systems
ScanProAudio Blog

Was talking yesterday to someone about Intel's love affair with developing graphics which has always been rocky, bitter and messy... but wondered if they might just get it right with Sandy, Intel clearly want to make it with the gamers - having heard that nVida have now jumped in bed with them one can only wonder as to if they are developing CPUs or just trying to wipe out any form of competition

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www.dragonlogos.co.uk

Quote Pete Kaine:

---

I've learnt since then, that it can get pretty close once you set the machine up properly. One of my bench cards has been the 9652 and once it was all in order it ended up pulling the same sort of scores as the newer PCI-E MADI cards. So yeah, older cards will work

---

Brilliant news, thanks for that. Have now pressed the order button and am just waiting for that MSI board and some memory to come in to stock, so fingers crossed + all that.

Greetings!
I'm in the exact same position. either a 950 or a 2600K. now that its almost a month that the new SB came out, would you guys still recommend the 950? I've read lots of benchmarks audio specific and the 2600k was just amazing. Any suggestions?

I went for a 950 but have not yet managed to get the system up and running, not 100% what the issues are but they might be the way I Ave the hard drives set up.

--------------------
"Never put a recording studio in your home, it is a black hole into which you can pour unlimited amounts of money" Pete Waterman.

hmmm, I really can'd make a decision. Do you know someone who has a DAW using this processor (2600K) I'm running cubase. My actual computer is a pretty old pentium D heheh.

Quote PitoStudio:

---

hmmm, I really can'd make a decision. Do you know someone who has a DAW using this processor (2600K) I'm running cubase. My actual computer is a pretty old pentium D heheh.

---

My testing so far with Cubase and the 2500K unlocked to 4.4GHz Turbo rates it at about the same level as the i7 950, so i imagine the 2600K will top that easily.

--------------------
PC-Music.com hints, tips & reviews
Rain Computers UK - Creative Audio PC's

UPDATE!!!!!

I bought my Scan PowerDAW on Saturday with lots of help from Pete K and its an absolute dream!!

Not used it fully in anger yet, but the specs are:-

2600k SB i7
16GB 1600hz RAM
500GB OS Drive
1TB Audio Drive
1TB Sample Drive
Cubase 5

Its simply wonderfull!!

Ritchie

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Engineering Surveyor and Musician Pretty Vegas Northwest Function and Wedding Band
Wedding Band Blog

Lucky you


Martin

--------------------
YewTreeMagic

well, I have to compliment Pete.

I went in to order and they had 2 demo builds of it made already, but I needed another drive and another 8gb of RAM, and he staying 45 minutes after closing to finish it all.

Excellent service!

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Engineering Surveyor and Musician Pretty Vegas Northwest Function and Wedding Band
Wedding Band Blog

Quote RitchieM:

---

UPDATE!!!!!

I bought my Scan PowerDAW on Saturday with lots of help from Pete K and its an absolute dream!!

Not used it fully in anger yet, but the specs are:-

2600k SB i7
16GB 1600hz RAM
500GB OS Drive
1TB Audio Drive
1TB Sample Drive
Cubase 5

Its simply wonderfull!!

Ritchie

---

May I ask which Motherboard is used in this Setup?

Cheers Richie, I would have been quicker with it but the guy who built it left about 20 mins before you came in without informing me where he'd placed the serial list for so we could invoice it.... got there in the end through.

Did you get taken shopping for that Kinect on Sunday in the end then?

Pito - On that machine it will have been a P67A UD3.

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ScanProAudio & 3XS Audio Systems
ScanProAudio Blog

No, as soon as the machine went into the car, I was dragged into PC World on the retail park to buy it!!!

Spent Saturday night playing it next to my new PowerDAW installing sample library after sample library!!!!

Must say, BFD2 with all channels running and at 24bit resolution, Trilian and about 8 other midi instruments, 5% CPU load!!!! It's awesome!!

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Engineering Surveyor and Musician Pretty Vegas Northwest Function and Wedding Band
Wedding Band Blog

If you'd said, we could have kept you until the rest of the shops closed!

Sounds like it was put to good use through. I always keep steam open on another box when adding software. I even managed to get a game of Civ 4 in during a particularly long Kontakt install

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ScanProAudio & 3XS Audio Systems
ScanProAudio Blog

Sorry to hijack the thread a bit, but I'm thinking of upgrading soon and am wondering about compatibility of sandy bridge with other bits of my system. I have 2 UAD1s (PCI and PCI-E), a Focusrite Saffire pro 40, and an Nvidia GT240 graphics card (which I need for video editing). Would be grateful to know any of this spells trouble for upgrading to either an i5 or i7 sandy bridge system.

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www.facebook.com/owenduffmusic / http://soundcloud.com/owenduff / www.owenduff.co.uk / http://www.youtube.com/clothmotherrecords

I know people who have had that combination of uad cards working fine on SB boards. The 240 should be alright and I'm not aware of any Saffire issues.

All in all it *SHOULD be alright.

(*except if it isn't somehow)

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ScanProAudio & 3XS Audio Systems
ScanProAudio Blog

Excellent, thanks Pete, that's really helpful. One more quick question - do you think it's worth paying the extra £130ish for the 2600k over the 2500k? I'm moving from a core 2 duo E6600, using Ableton Live. I've been searching for benchmarks that give me an idea of the difference in performance between my current setup, the 2500k and the 2600k but haven't been able to find much.

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www.facebook.com/owenduffmusic / http://soundcloud.com/owenduff / www.owenduff.co.uk / http://www.youtube.com/clothmotherrecords

2500 will pull about 140 instances in DAWbench and the 2600 will pull about 190.

The main differences are hyperthreading and more cache which will both help with your software.

Personally I'd go with the 2600 but then I'm sort of sloppy loon who can max out a i7 950 with too many plug in's...

So milage may vary. If your 6600 is giving you pretty much enough at the moment then a 2600 may look to be overkill. But then if history has teachs us anything, it is that software will bloat quickly enough that you may regret not going all out a few years down the line. Without knowing how you use your machine and what your doing with it, I couldn't begin to guess what your requirements are!

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ScanProAudio & 3XS Audio Systems
ScanProAudio Blog

Thanks again Pete, that's useful info. I think my bank balance will dictate which (if any) I end up going for...

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www.facebook.com/owenduffmusic / http://soundcloud.com/owenduff / www.owenduff.co.uk / http://www.youtube.com/clothmotherrecords

So what is better, the gigabyte or the intel board?

I like the intel as its got a texas instruments firewire connection. It doesn't have ide so i'll need a new dvd burner. Stupid intel. Why can't we have a board with overclocking and internal graphics anyway? Any possibility of this happening in the near future?

Quote johnny h:

---

So what is better, the gigabyte or the intel board?

---

Depends what features you want. I had trouble with some Intel samples althrough I hear the issues I had in development have been fixed. I'm happy with my solution and the support we've received and I'm not looking at another currently unless someone specificly requests one in an order.... that's not to say the isn't more solutions that are suitable that may suit your requirements better.

Quote johnny h:

---

I like the intel as its got a texas instruments firewire connection.
It doesn't have ide so i'll need a new dvd burner.

---

Also no PS2 ports which annoyed the hell out of me. The Giga with a Firewire worked out cheaper than the Intel I was looking at plus had a few extra ports I wanted on the board.

Quote:

---

Stupid intel.

---

Read in the voice of Homer Simpson.

I will now start calling Intel reps "Flanders"

Quote:

---

Why can't we have a board with overclocking and internal graphics anyway? Any possibility of this happening in the near future?

---

Z68 chipset in a few months should allow this.

--------------------
ScanProAudio & 3XS Audio Systems
ScanProAudio Blog

Quote Pete Kaine:

---

Quote johnny h:

---

So what is better, the gigabyte or the intel board?

---

Depends what features you want.

---

Just need a good firewire port for my RME Fireface. Then its all about price/DAW performance. Also have a PCI UAD card which I'd sort of like to keep but I wouldn't shed many tears if it had to go tbh.

Quote:

---

I had trouble with some Intel samples althrough I hear the issues I had in development have been fixed. I'm happy with my solution and the support we've received and I'm not looking at another currently unless someone specificly requests one in an order.... that's not to say the isn't more solutions that are suitable that may suit your requirements better.

Quote johnny h:

---

I like the intel as its got a texas instruments firewire connection.
It doesn't have ide so i'll need a new dvd burner.

---

Also no PS2 ports which annoyed the hell out of me. The Giga with a Firewire worked out cheaper than the Intel I was looking at plus had a few extra ports I wanted on the board.

Quote:

---

Stupid intel.

---

Read in the voice of Homer Simpson.

I will now start calling Intel reps "Flanders"

Quote:

---

Why can't we have a board with overclocking and internal graphics anyway? Any possibility of this happening in the near future?

---

Z68 chipset in a few months should allow this.

---

Maybe I'll wait for that then. Thanks for your very helpful information! Do you know what price the Z68 boards will be?

Quote johnny h:

---

Just need a good firewire port for my RME Fireface. Then its all about price/DAW performance. Also have a PCI UAD card which I'd sort of like to keep but I wouldn't shed many tears if it had to go tbh.

---

Quote johnny h:

---

Do you know what price the Z68 boards will be?

---

Afraid not, still classed as midrange through so I'd expect them to be in the same ballpark as the current P67 with perhaps a small premium for the extra features. We'll have to see through as more info comes through. Should be easy enough to meet your requirements through going off the boards so far.

--------------------
ScanProAudio & 3XS Audio Systems
ScanProAudio Blog

Not that I want to pressure anyone into giving up proprietorial secrets of pro DAW building (!)but I'm just working on a friend's new 2600k/Gigabyte P67 UD5 system running Cubase and, although DPC latency is low and steady, we're having problems getting the loading to balance across the cores (possibly problems with turbo boost?).

Any suggestions gratefully received!

Just a quicky to say thanks to Pete, Robin and all for the post.

I was on the cusp (order day) of building a 950 based system when I came across this thread but the contents convinced me to go P67/ sandybridge.

Last time I felt this early adopty (real word) I was carrying a ZX81 box!

Thanks chaps

--------------------
No dog should ever be seen at the dining-room table.... unless absolutely certain that he can hold his own in the conversation.

Quote Rain:

---

Not that I want to pressure anyone into giving up proprietorial secrets of pro DAW building (!)but I'm just working on a friend's new 2600k/Gigabyte P67 UD5 system running Cubase and, although DPC latency is low and steady, we're having problems getting the loading to balance across the cores (possibly problems with turbo boost?).

Any suggestions gratefully received!

---

If you flick back a few pages to my testing threads, you'll see I was feeling the rage over this. I noticed it on a few different boards, but none of them had a single smoking gun fix for it, rather it was a selection of differnt tweaks on each one that did it.

I haven't used the UD5 but with the 3 & 4 messing about with the C-states tended to help. You have to keep C1 on for turbo this time round for it to function currectly but the rest of the power saving features can be tweaked on and off until it get's better.

Spumph - Cheers, although I feel a bit guilty now in light of the past few weeks palava over the chipset. Make sure you keep an eye on it all for when they start to sort out the exchanges in the few months.

--------------------
ScanProAudio & 3XS Audio Systems
ScanProAudio Blog

Hi

New to the forum (first post!).

I've been using an Athlon machine I built in 2001. Coming back to music, and need new comp.

Rather out of touch. Should I wait for Sandy Bridge to be sorted out, or go for i7-860?

Thanks.

Quote Pete Kaine:

---

Quote Rain:

---

Not that I want to pressure anyone into giving up proprietorial secrets of pro DAW building (!)but I'm just working on a friend's new 2600k/Gigabyte P67 UD5 system running Cubase and, although DPC latency is low and steady, we're having problems getting the loading to balance across the cores (possibly problems with turbo boost?).

Any suggestions gratefully received!

---

If you flick back a few pages to my testing threads, you'll see I was feeling the rage over this. I noticed it on a few different boards, but none of them had a single smoking gun fix for it, rather it was a selection of differnt tweaks on each one that did it.

I haven't used the UD5 but with the 3 & 4 messing about with the C-states tended to help. You have to keep C1 on for turbo this time round for it to function currectly but the rest of the power saving features can be tweaked on and off until it get's better.

---

Thanks very much for the input Pete (by way of karma, all the components were ordered from Scan!). I had turned off the C1 without thinking from previous experience so will try those and report back.

If its any help to anyone with this processor/mobo combination I found that turning on the bios setting 'extreme memory profile (X.M.P.)' to 'profile 1) was necessary to get the correct ram speed to be recognised and also helped performance noticeably.

Said I'd report back so - 2600k + Giga P67 UD5

First I tried running the system with the default bios settings (apart from disabling unused onboard devices) and surprisingly got results very close to those posted by Scott from ADK earlier for the 2600k using Dawbench (the discrepancy could be down to the less than brilliant low latency performance of the Firewire Steinberg MR816). All 8 threads seems to be running evenly and that's with C1, C6 and EIST all on - results almost exactly six times faster than my previous Core Duo machine and very solid.DPC latencies in the low to mid 20s. I tried turning off the C6 and EIST but have not noticed any difference yet.

I'll possibly swap out the motherboard when the new versions become available but I'm only running two discs onboard and both on the SATA3 sockets.

In short, a cautious thumbs up!

One thing I forgot to add which is of importance for music use is that the CPU runs very cool compared to previous i7s. The 2600 has TDP of 90watts but seems less than this. I have a single 140mm fan on the heatsink running at a totally inaudible 500rpm and it idles at 22 degrees C and peaks under stress test at 48 degrees C.

Quote Pete Kaine:

---

I haven't used the UD5 but with the 3 & 4 messing about with the C-states tended to help. You have to keep C1 on for turbo this time round for it to function currectly but the rest of the power saving features can be tweaked on and off until it get's better.

---

What exactly does turning off C1 do to turbo? I only ask as I've turned off C3/C6 in order to get rid of some nasty electrical whine (as mentioned over PM a while back, thanks again for the suggestion!) and I noticed that the CPU never turbos past 35x any more, which is the BIOS setting for when all 4 cores are in use.
No big deal as DAWs tend to use as many cores as you can throw at them, but just wondered what else disabling C1 does..

Quote JNicolson:

---

Rather out of touch. Should I wait for Sandy Bridge to be sorted out, or go for i7-860?

---

You'll get a load more performance for your money going Sandy Bridge, but you'll be waiting a few months for it, so all depends how much of a rush your in.

Quote Rain:

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Thanks very much for the input Pete (by way of karma, all the components were ordered from Scan!). I had turned off the C1 without thinking from previous experience so will try those and report back.

If its any help to anyone with this processor/mobo combination I found that turning on the bios setting 'extreme memory profile (X.M.P.)' to 'profile 1) was necessary to get the correct ram speed to be recognised and also helped performance noticeably.

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I've not acturly played about with the UD5 board that much here so you could be finding all sorts of things out I've not witnessed. Not sure why it wouldn't allow you to set in the memory manually, althrough could be something fixed in a later bios if you have an early board. I suppose if it's working fine for you with XMP then it's probably best left alone!

Quote Rain:

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Said I'd report back so - 2600k + Giga P67 UD5

First I tried running the system with the default bios settings (apart from disabling unused onboard devices) and surprisingly got results very close to those posted by Scott from ADK earlier for the 2600k using Dawbench (the discrepancy could be down to the less than brilliant low latency performance of the Firewire Steinberg MR816). All 8 threads seems to be running evenly and that's with C1, C6 and EIST all on - results almost exactly six times faster than my previous Core Duo machine and very solid.DPC latencies in the low to mid 20s. I tried turning off the C6 and EIST but have not noticed any difference yet.

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That was an easy set up then! I noticed that the tweaks seemed to vary from board to board in testing, so I'm not that suprised that some are proving easier than others. That must be the hidden benefit when you purchase the top of the line model!

Quote lazyrich:

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What exactly does turning off C1 do to turbo? I only ask as I've turned off C3/C6 in order to get rid of some nasty electrical whine (as mentioned over PM a while back, thanks again for the suggestion!) and I noticed that the CPU never turbos past 35x any more, which is the BIOS setting for when all 4 cores are in use.
No big deal as DAWs tend to use as many cores as you can throw at them, but just wondered what else disabling C1 does..

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I was pretty sure that having C1 on would allow it to turbo rather than C3/C6. I'll find a machine later and test that here.

How did you establish turbo wasn't taking affect? Might be worth double checking using the Intel turbo monitor Intel Turbo Monitor in case the app in question isn't being acurate.

Other than that if your interested I've got a new beta here that sorts out a few board problems including the annoying bios roll back that I've seen happen a few times. Something I leant on Friday was that ALT+F12 apparently backs up the current bios to the spare recovery bios on current Gigabyte boards. Something else you'd think they'd make a bit more public knowledge as I was starting to get wound up by GB's failsafe roll backs.

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ScanProAudio & 3XS Audio Systems
ScanProAudio Blog

Apologies for hijacking this thread!

[Pete, I've emailed you on the email address on your SOS Forums profile but as it's a commercial question I didn't want to post it on the Forums in case it breached the T&C's.]

Back on topic... this thread is pushing me towards investing in the 2600k. The benchmark tests on the likes of Tom's Hardware put it really high and the 'bang for your buck' element seem to make it a no brainer apart from of course the reliability / sandybridge issues.

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.:|johnsonboro|:.