Dual socket cpu vs single socket - DSP performance

Want to talk about music hardware or software that doesn't include Reason?
Post Reply
User avatar
Re8et
Competition Winner
Posts: 1512
Joined: 14 Nov 2016

18 Jul 2018

Hi, it's july 2018, after the new benchmarks of the i9 780XE processor with kategra test song, I've done some research, as my rig is now two year old.

I've come around some pretty amazing builds of workstations on the internet, but none of them had significant impact on audio and dsp or that was tested at all. And then there is Vst bridge, what it means, is that I find myself often trying to run Reason with some vst open, and before get into VCV rack, which still has a buggy bridge, I find myself to use quite often Reaktor6, in multiple instances, but two are basically enough, one for instruments, and one for effects, in a Reason project that got its own instruments and effects... so in my case, the Kategra test, is not really fit *((all)) my needs for benchmarking a rig, but, on paper, higher frequency cpu like the i9 XE should perform better that dual-slower cpu's (in about the same price range). Reaktor prefers to work on a single thread, for example.


A good mobo for a dual Xeon cpu (i9 does not support multi sockets) could be the Asus Z10PE-D16, and the there are several Xeon out there with
6 to 22 cores, and up to 3.7 ghz in turbo mode like the E5-2696/E5-2699 v4 (around the price for the i9) or go the 1650v3 route, (mac pro? any?) with 6 cores but 3.6 ghz base speed. It has to be a recent Xeon (Q16 and later) or it will bottleneck.

https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/product/4q4 ... z10ped16ws


So here is the deal, or not... of course there will be more cores available then the i9 (less with the 1650v3) but, how would the dual cpu works when single thread processing is needed? (not going into the price barrier/bang4buck ratio)? Would it split the task in the first core of both cpu's giving a boost preformance in the DSP over the i9?


Is there anyone with a dual cpu configuration that could do some testing or give some advice? Like- that actual bandwith would double but still bottleneck by ram speed, etc, etc. ty. :post:

User avatar
normen
Posts: 3431
Joined: 16 Jan 2015

18 Jul 2018

Re8et wrote:
18 Jul 2018
So here is the deal, or not... of course there will be more cores available then the i9 (less with the 1650v3) but, how would the dual cpu works when single thread processing is needed? (not going into the price barrier/bang4buck ratio)? Would it split the task in the first core of both cpu's giving a boost preformance in the DSP over the i9?
No, a task can't just be "split" like that. The algorithm using the CPU power (meaning the synth, instrument or effect) has to somehow use multiple cores to take advantage of... multiple cores :lol: But splitting the work between cores takes time and time needed is what the DSP meter shows, not CPU load.

User avatar
sublunar
Posts: 507
Joined: 27 Apr 2017

18 Jul 2018

Re8et wrote:
18 Jul 2018
Hi, it's july 2018, after the new benchmarks of the i9 780XE processor with kategra test song, I've done some research, as my rig is now two year old.
Just commenting to say that my last music production PC build served me daily for, literally, 10 years. 2006-2016. As such that means my current build is 2 years old and I haven't even thought about upgrading. If yours ain't broke, don't fix it otherwise you might find yourself chasing specs that don't pan out like you hoped. /mytwocents

User avatar
Re8et
Competition Winner
Posts: 1512
Joined: 14 Nov 2016

18 Jul 2018

sublunar wrote:
18 Jul 2018
Re8et wrote:
18 Jul 2018
Hi, it's july 2018, after the new benchmarks of the i9 780XE processor with kategra test song, I've done some research, as my rig is now two year old.
Just commenting to say that my last music production PC build served me daily for, literally, 10 years. 2006-2016. As such that means my current build is 2 years old and I haven't even thought about upgrading. If yours ain't broke, don't fix it otherwise you might find yourself chasing specs that don't pan out like you hoped. /mytwocents
I hope it won't break soon, the i9 alone costs more than double my workstation, which took a considerable amount of effort and research to build it right.... when new hardware get out, there's always to consider other worthy points, first, how much time will your hardware keep the price tag before no-one would buy because of much better options, second, do you really need it? So I tend to think it in terms of balance within these two variables :thumbs_up:

User avatar
Re8et
Competition Winner
Posts: 1512
Joined: 14 Nov 2016

18 Jul 2018

normen wrote:
18 Jul 2018
Re8et wrote:
18 Jul 2018
So here is the deal, or not... of course there will be more cores available then the i9 (less with the 1650v3) but, how would the dual cpu works when single thread processing is needed? (not going into the price barrier/bang4buck ratio)? Would it split the task in the first core of both cpu's giving a boost preformance in the DSP over the i9?
No, a task can't just be "split" like that. The algorithm using the CPU power (meaning the synth, instrument or effect) has to somehow use multiple cores to take advantage of... multiple cores :lol: But splitting the work between cores takes time and time needed is what the DSP meter shows, not CPU load.
That's like saying those won't work in parallel, right.....?? :?: :roll:

User avatar
tiker01
Moderator
Posts: 1423
Joined: 16 Jan 2015

18 Jul 2018

Navi Retlav has a dual CPU rig. Hit him onFB.
    
Budapest, Hungary
Reason 11 Suite
Lenovo ThinkPad e520 Win10x64 8GB RAM Intel i5-2520M 2,5-3,2 GHz and AMD 6630M with 1GB of memory.
:rt: :reason: :essentials: :re: :refill: :PUF_balance: :ignition: :PUF_figure:

User avatar
normen
Posts: 3431
Joined: 16 Jan 2015

18 Jul 2018

Re8et wrote:
18 Jul 2018
normen wrote:
18 Jul 2018


No, a task can't just be "split" like that. The algorithm using the CPU power (meaning the synth, instrument or effect) has to somehow use multiple cores to take advantage of... multiple cores :lol: But splitting the work between cores takes time and time needed is what the DSP meter shows, not CPU load.
That's like saying those won't work in parallel, right.....?? :?: :roll:
Is it though? :lol: You were specifically talking about a single threaded process, right?
MarkTarlton wrote:
09 Jul 2018
here is a post from facebook by magnus lidstrom!

"Simple truth is that less cores with higher cpu clock is nearly always better than more cores with lower cpu clock (not only talking about audio). In general (and in theory), more cores means you can run more plug-ins simultaneously. Higher CPU clock means you can run heavier plug-ins with lower latency. Modern processors actually run on variable clock frequency that adapts to CPU heat, which means that the CPU will begin to run slower if you push a lot of work on all its cores = bad for latency. However, the single biggest (or narrowest? :) ) bottleneck is usually memory accesses, not raw number crunching power. Also for audio. This complicates matters so much that it is virtually impossible to estimate CPU performance reliably nowadays."

User avatar
aeox
Competition Winner
Posts: 3222
Joined: 23 Feb 2017
Location: Oregon

18 Jul 2018

I have a dual socket machine from 2011 :D

Post Reply
  • Information
  • Who is online

    Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 10 guests