clockspeed? or CPU mark (also, Optane?)

[PhillipOrdonez]

Hi guys, yet another thread, I suppose. But the search didn't deliver answers so I guess I'll ask you fellow reasontalkers:

I am buying a new laptop. Current one is great but has a reason unrelated issue where the disk goes to 100% on the task manager and it becomes unusable for several minutes every day as soon as I start it and then sometimes later on during the day in the middle of work (!!!!). the specs are:

win 10,
i5 7200U with a clockspeed of 2.5 GHz (turbo maximum 3.1)
4GB ram

And I am eyeing newer machines with newer specs, but I notice their clockspeed is inferior to my current one? The machines I am referring to are w10 and have the following specs:

i7 8550U at 1.80 GHz (turbo up to 4.0 GHz)
4gb ram
16gb optane

And

i5-8250U at 1.6 GHz (up to 3,4 GHz)
4 gb ram
16 gb optane

By the looks of it, either would be an upgrade, but then the clockspeed at the regular level (not turbo) seems higher on mine? What role does the clockspeed play when using Reason and other audio programs?

Should I only care about the CPU mark CPUBENCHMARK.com and not care about the clockspeed? (mine: 4612, i7: 8309, i5: 7679)

Bonus question: How does the optane have an advantage when working with audio software?

Many thanks and hope this is not the wrong forum section for this question.

And sorry for the long post!

[antic604]

Clock speed is just part of the story. Your current CPU is 2 core, the new ones are 4 cores so - simplifying - if they were running at the same clock you'd have 2x the performance. Also, new generation cores are typically more efficient, doing more per clock speed. So yeah - I'd focus on benchmark scores and not number of cores and/or clock. Personally I'd go for the fastest computer I can afford, so in your case that's the i7-8550U, but if you could stretch the budget to i7-8750H then that would be preferable. I heard great things about Lenovo's Legion Y530 laptops with this CPU, which probably is the best "bang for the buck" deal right now.

RAM speed & type play a role, but aren't quite as important as CPU. Also, 8GB of RAM I'd say is minimum.

BTW, are you the guy asking similar things over at Facebook group?

[PhillipOrdonez]

Thank you for your answer and the suggestion. I'll look it up, though it seems like a better processor would be out of my budget.

Regarding ram, I might be able to expand it at a later time; it has been okay with 4gb, and with the addition of optane, I'm hoping it will be even better, have you heard of that and how it works in addition to the ram?

No, I don't use Facebook.

BTW, are you the guy asking similar things over at Facebook group?

[jam-s]

https://www.pcworld.com/article/3322499 ... emory.html

As optane is just a kind of ssd cache it will only reduce loading times for big sample libraries/romplers, but it won't help with respect to CPU or DSP overload.

[PhillipOrdonez]

But if you could stretch the budget to i7-8750H then that would be preferable. I heard great things about Lenovo's Legion Y530

Holy cow! That one costs twice the i7 I was eyeing. Huge stretch for my budget!

[PhillipOrdonez]

https://www.pcworld.com/article/3322499 ... emory.html

As optane is just a kind of ssd cache it will only reduce loading times for big sample libraries/romplers, but it won't help with respect to CPU or DSP overload.

Thanks! So it does help when having little ram?

[jam-s]

https://www.pcworld.com/article/3322499 ... emory.html

As optane is just a kind of ssd cache it will only reduce loading times for big sample libraries/romplers, but it won't help with respect to CPU or DSP overload.

Thanks! So it does help when having little ram?

No, not very much. If your PC is out of RAM it won't thrash as bad as with just a hdd, but nothing can substitute RAM, but more RAM.

[Kategra]

... but I notice their clockspeed is inferior to my current one? The machines I am referring to are w10 and have the following specs:

Base clock speed is the guaranteed clock-speed that CPU will work. Depending on the cooling solution of that laptop it may or may not thermal throttle the speed to base clock in heavy (Reason) loads, specially when the ambient room temperature is higher and the last time you cleaned the inside of the fan & cooler was 3 month ago

I had the "pleasure" of buying an entry level gaming laptop few years ago , payed ~ 1400 EUR and it thermal throttled the CPU to it's base frequency every time I played a game, which ruined most games like Company of Heroes 2 and Battlefield 3. It did not have dedicated cooling, instead same cooling pipes went to both CPU and GPU, bad design, but still worked at base specs. So that turbo is not guaranteed to work when you actually needed the most.

[napynap]

Hi guys, yet another thread, I suppose. But the search didn't deliver answers so I guess I'll ask you fellow reasontalkers:

I am buying a new laptop. Current one is great but has a reason unrelated issue where the disk goes to 100% on the task manager and it becomes unusable for several minutes every day as soon as I start it and then sometimes later on during the day in the middle of work (!!!!). the specs are:

win 10,
i5 7200U with a clockspeed of 2.5 GHz (turbo maximum 3.1)
4GB ram

I shortened your question to the part I can answer. The disk going to %100. I have a much more powerful system than yours and still had the same trouble. When the disk goes to %100 utilization, it makes it almost impossible to even troubleshoot it from the same PC. I checked task manager to try to find the culprit, but it was never clear. After researching and trying things, I finally found the resolution. DISABLE WINDOWS DEFENDER. To compensate for the loss of protection, I installed Bit Defender (free version).
Here's how:
https://www.windowscentral.com/how-perm ... windows-10

[PhillipOrdonez]

No, not very much. If your PC is out of RAM it won't thrash as bad as with just a hdd, but nothing can substitute RAM, but more RAM.
[/quote]

Thank you!

[PhillipOrdonez]

Base clock speed is the guaranteed clock-speed that CPU will work. Depending on the cooling solution of that laptop it may or may not thermal throttle the speed to base clock in heavy (Reason) loads, specially when the ambient room temperature is higher and the last time you cleaned the inside of the fan & cooler was 3 month ago

I had the "pleasure" of buying an entry level gaming laptop few years ago , payed ~ 1400 EUR and it thermal throttled the CPU to it's base frequency every time I played a game, which ruined most games like Company of Heroes 2 and Battlefield 3. It did not have dedicated cooling, instead same cooling pipes went to both CPU and GPU, bad design, but still worked at base specs. So that turbo is not guaranteed to work when you actually needed the most.
[/quote]

So these new processors have a lower base clock, meaning that they perform worse under heavy load? Oh f... Better clean the fans more often then!

[PhillipOrdonez]

I shortened your question to the part I can answer. The disk going to %100. I have a much more powerful system than yours and still had the same trouble. When the disk goes to %100 utilization, it makes it almost impossible to even troubleshoot it from the same PC. I checked task manager to try to find the culprit, but it was never clear. After researching and trying things, I finally found the resolution. DISABLE WINDOWS DEFENDER. To compensate for the loss of protection, I installed Bit Defender (free version).
Here's how:
https://www.windowscentral.com/how-perm ... windows-10
[/quote]

I got avast ruining besides defender. Wonder if that would be enough! Will give it a try though. Task manager usually tells it is either system or Windows compatibility telemetry or some other windows process using up all the disk. Thanks!

[Kategra]

So these new processors have a lower base clock, meaning that they perform worse under heavy load? Oh f... Better clean the fans more often then!

These new processors should be better, because they have more physical cores. If I would buy a new laptop now, I would get from somewhere with a good return policy and then test it.

There are great stress utilities like: CPU Real Temp, Super Pi, CPU-Z which I would run many times to see the real temperatures vs heavy loads vs clock speeds and of course how it would handle Reason versus the old laptop, is it stable?

If it's fast but you get some pops when you record because it has some latency spikes... that could be verified with DPC Latency Checker.
If all good I would keep the laptop, otherwise return it.
Also, be careful with the Windows OS license, is it sold together with the laptop or seperate buy? If it's separate buy and not retail copy can you return it also? Prepare for all scenarios, make the best informed decision

[PhillipOrdonez]

So these new processors have a lower base clock, meaning that they perform worse under heavy load? Oh f... Better clean the fans more often then!

These new processors should be better, because they have more physical cores. If I would buy a new laptop now, I would get from somewhere with a good return policy and then test it.

There are great stress utilities like: CPU Real Temp, Super Pi, CPU-Z which I would run many times to see the real temperatures vs heavy loads vs clock speeds and of course how it would handle Reason versus the old laptop, is it stable?

If it's fast but you get some pops when you record because it has some latency spikes... that could be verified with DPC Latency Checker.
If all good I would keep the laptop, otherwise return it.
Also, be careful with the Windows OS license, is it sold together with the laptop or seperate buy? If it's separate buy and not retail copy can you return it also? Prepare for all scenarios, make the best informed decision

Thank you! I've purchased one, just waiting for it to arrive! I will test it thoroughly before settling; got 8 days to return.

[antic604]

Here's the test of Lenovo Y530 for music making:

Unfortunately it's in Polish and I've no idea how to enable subtitles (that could be auto-translated to whatever other language). I asked the author to add them, so hopefully you'll be able to eventually understand it too.