Super Computer for DAW

[jimenycricket]

Hi Everyone,

First post here, hope it's in the right forum. I'm working with a friend on an album mix using Reaper and an awesome plugin called Nebula, by Acustica Audio.

http://www.acustica-audio.com/

It is by far the most CPU intensive audio plugin out there and emulates old analogue gear using a clean sample and harmonics.

At the moment we are using an OC'd i7 920 with 1600mhz CL7 RAM.

It's pretty darn fast BUT... we need at least double the power, possibly triple.

I have been investigating Dual 2011 motherboards and the new E5 Xeon chips.

Could anyone recommend a system that will crunch the numbers sufficiently without being ludicrously expensive?

I see over on Anand's main site that the E5-2690 is pretty much the fastest out there but costs are very high. The article reccomends the 2630 as a cost effective alternative.

So, what we need to know is:

1) what processor to go with, balancing cost and extreme power. (E5-2630?)
2) what dual 2011 motherboard would be the best option for low price.
3) if going with the 2011, would non-ECC DDR3 1600 CL7 like we have in our system be ok/the best option?
4) if there are any other solutions, ie AMD? (without suggesting changing the plugin we're using, cos it's superb!)


Any help on this would be seriously appreciated.

All the best,

Jimeny

 

[tweakboy]

That 920 has just 4 cores and 4 threads.

Do only reason you should get a server over a desktop for DAW is so you can put 128GB RAM in there instead of desktop 32GB max.

Whats important is core performance and also how man cores you have. AMD side is cheap and slow. Their 8 core processor would be good for you but single core performance will struggle.

Grab a Ivy Bridge E and OC the heck out of it close to 5Ghz. You will have 6 cores and 12 threads ...... compare that to the 4 threads you have now and old old 2009 processor.

I promise you this hexacore desktop chip will get the job done for you. Drop in 32GB 2400Mhz RAM and your set. No need for server, this chip kicks server chips butt!!! so ya not worth it to spend 500 on mobo and 1k on server chip.

With this CPU if I had it with my Sonar X2 Producer ,, I can load 50 real time synths and 50 plugins and I would still have 50 percent CPU free

 

[jimenycricket]

I didnt think Ivy Bridge E was out yet.

Looking at this example from Ebay, which I think is a Engineering Sample, it appears to be 3960X with the full 6 cores and I guess it could be overclocked pretty high.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Intel-Cor...Computing_CPUs_Processors&hash=item3ccbdda27c

Would the C0 stepping cause any problems?

I thought that the 2 Xeon's would end up with more horse power.

Any other thoughts, people?

 

[AtenRa]

http://www.acustica-audio.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=14&Itemid=247

It can also take advantage of CUDA parallel GPU computing architecture.

and

Multi-threading Support

To get the most out of modern multi-core processor architectures, CPU intensive sub-systems of the Nebula Core Engine have been rewritten in order to support multi-threading.

Do a little more research, perhaps a couple of NVIDIA cards will be faster than the XEONs.

 

[jimenycricket]

Been down the CUDA route, it isnt fully supported yet and only works on long tail Reverb programs.

We do have a GTX560ti but can't use it with Nebula at the moment.

 

[jimenycricket]

thanks for the suggestions so far..

 

[tweakboy]

I didnt think Ivy Bridge E was out yet.

Looking at this example from Ebay, which I think is a Engineering Sample, it appears to be 3960X with the full 6 cores and I guess it could be overclocked pretty high.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Intel-Cor...Computing_CPUs_Processors&hash=item3ccbdda27c

Would the C0 stepping cause any problems?

I thought that the 2 Xeon's would end up with more horse power.

Any other thoughts, people?

I was talking 1 XEON. Well 2 XEONS, 16 cores 32 threads in that case if I had that I could open 100 real time synths and 100 plugins and still have 2 cores available....

Dude its a overkill for your app ? You dont need 2 CPUs to run your app and your plugins. IF your rich and dont care do it but Im giving you better advice.. your not Hans Simmer, all you need is a Sandy E 6 core or Ivy B E 6 core. Dual CPU is only good for video rendering and serious DAW.

100 tracks and real time synths 100 plugins. IF you do that then get DUAL CPU but you dont do that, your playing with 1 or 2 plugins your talking about on a cheapo application. not even pro app...... all you need is a fast sandy 2600k but well give you 2 more cores and 12 threads I recommend E chip sandy or Ivy, or wait for next years Haswell. But ya Dual CPU for your application and needs is not needed and its a overkill, just as if you got 128GB RAM I know you will never use that much... gl

 

[jimenycricket]

I was talking 1 XEON. Well 2 XEONS, 16 cores 32 threads in that case if I had that I could open 100 real time synths and 100 plugins and still have 2 cores available....

Dude its a overkill for your app ? You dont need 2 CPUs to run your app and your plugins. IF your rich and dont care do it but Im giving you better advice.. your not Hans Simmer, all you need is a Sandy E 6 core or Ivy B E 6 core. Dual CPU is only good for video rendering and serious DAW.

100 tracks and real time synths 100 plugins. IF you do that then get DUAL CPU but you dont do that, your playing with 1 or 2 plugins your talking about on a cheapo application. not even pro app...... all you need is a fast sandy 2600k but well give you 2 more cores and 12 threads I recommend E chip sandy or Ivy, or wait for next years Haswell. But ya Dual CPU for your application and needs is not needed and its a overkill, just as if you got 128GB RAM I know you will never use that much... gl

Thanks for that! So... lets take Reaper out of the equation for now, what with it not being a 'pro app'. Nebula is pro and sounds better than any other plugin for EQ, dynamics and reverbs. Completely 3 dimensional sound.

At the moment, with the (8 threaded) i7 920, we can run 4-10 instances (on high settings).. say 3 eqs on kick, snare and overheads for example. Then, the computer starts gibbing out and stuttering.

So, hyperthetically, what system would be able to double/quadruple this performance?

Dual Xeon E5-2630 on a 2011 board? Would that compare to the i7 3960X OC'd to 4ghz??

We need MASSIVE power.

But a within a budget. If it's gonna work, i'd be prepared to spend £1200 on the parts

 

[ShintaiDK]

Dont OC if you want clean data and dont use ES samples. ES samples are illegal. Its the property of Intel, nomatter how you got it.

Do you have any licensing costs in terms of cores or physical CPUs?

 

[tweakboy]

Thanks for that! So... lets take Reaper out of the equation for now, what with it not being a 'pro app'. Nebula is pro and sounds better than any other plugin for EQ, dynamics and reverbs. Completely 3 dimensional sound.

At the moment, with the (8 threaded) i7 920, we can run 4-10 instances (on high settings).. say 3 eqs on kick, snare and overheads for example. Then, the computer starts gibbing out and stuttering.

So, hyperthetically, what system would be able to double/quadruple this performance?

Dual Xeon E5-2630 on a 2011 board? Would that compare to the i7 3960X OC'd to 4ghz??

We need MASSIVE power.

But a within a budget. If it's gonna work, i'd be prepared to spend £1200 on the parts

Your dropouts should not happen, I record at 64bit/192khz @ 1ms latency so it feels like my grand piano, its instant. I have never gotten a drop out with my Q6, this is a used mobo , I used to have it on 3.7Ghz 475 bus , and it handles all. You should not get a drop out with a 8 threaded. I would love to have your CPU ,,, My peak project took my CPU usage to 86 percent and never a clip and smooth operation going from diff traks and diff 5k dollar plugins Waves,,

Once again the app you use. I doubt it is HT hyperthreadeed multiprocessor optimized app. I bet it cant recognize over 2 cores alto it will use your cores it behaves no good with CPU cuz its not HT app.. soo ya, dude listen to my advice been producing since 1997 .......

The E processor will be more then enough and you if you look at your CPU usage while you do your thing with your app and plugin or plugins , youll see that out of 100 percent ,, your using 20 percent at the most........its that powerful....... I guarantee you... soo dont throw money away on a server... gl

:whiste:

You need a pro audio card,, what sound card you using ? you should not get drop outs,,,

 

[jimenycricket]

Dont OC if you want clean data and dont use ES samples. ES samples are illegal. Its the property of Intel, nomatter how you got it.

Do you have any licensing costs in terms of cores or physical CPUs?

Yes, point taken about ES samples.

What do u mean by the licensing cost question? Sorry, couldn't work out the context!

 

[joshhedge]

Yes, point taken about ES samples.

What do u mean by the licensing cost question? Sorry, couldn't work out the context!

Some software you buy, such as solidworks at an engineering firm I was doing placement at, limit the number of cores you can use on an application depending on how much you pay to use the software. For example we were limited to two cores per machine for the cluster of 20.

 

[kowalabearhugs]

Quick calculations say a moderately (+300-500mhz) overclocked i7-3930K would double your performance.

What does your cpu usage look like under the current load?
What is your disk activity?

I believe you need to be more specific in regards to your needs. Saying you need double, triple, or quadruple the cpu performance puts you in many different categories. On top of that you have a budget which could make 3x-4x gains difficult.

Make sure you do not hit any other walls which would make your cpu gains irrelevant...eg. drive I/O, memory, limited multithreaded support (can your application efficiently handle 12-24 available threads?), etc

*edit* : Here is a new thread about 3930k overclocking. Looks like +300-500mhz is easily within reach without exotic cooling.

 

[MisterMac]

3930k \ SB-E


Thread.

i highly doubt any DAW take advantage of true scaling.

I doubt youll see much difference on a project with 6core\12thread than 10core\20thread with the same uArch.

Get some fast ram, and OC as much as possible within your limits - with a 3930k.

 

[BrightCandle]

The performance gain you are looking for simply isn't on offer today in a reasonably priced package. The fastest reasonable thing is X79 with a 3930k which will eat up much of your budget. Over clocked to 4.4 fish you will get about double the performance assuming your app utilises the 6 cores. Alas CPU performance has pretty much stalled so there isn't a great deal to upgrade too.

 

[jimenycricket]

Yes, that does seem to be the most cost effective option. Hopefully nebula will improve cuda over the next year so we can implement faster graphics cards.

3930k it is then, I reckon.