Icore7 or better form music computer

G

Gibson

Member
Hi,

I have a Core 2 quad CPU and my motherboard is maxed out and I need to get a better motherboard and CPU as the ASIO has hit the limit.

We know its not the sound card (RME Raydat) as we monitor the CPU and the CPU is through the roof now. The reason this has happened is we have added more VST instruments to it as they are required.

Question is is there anything (motherboard and CPU) that is substantially better than the Core 2 Quad that would solve this problem or is it only a little better?

Many Thanks
Joe
 
Gibson said:
Hi,

I have a Core 2 quad CPU and my motherboard is maxed out and I need to get a better motherboard and CPU as the ASIO has hit the limit.

We know its not the sound card (RME Raydat) as we monitor the CPU and the CPU is through the roof now. The reason this has happened is we have added more VST instruments to it as they are required.

Question is is there anything (motherboard and CPU) that is substantially better than the Core 2 Quad that would solve this problem or is it only a little better?

Many Thanks
Joe
Click to expand...

A core 2 quad is as powerful as an i3 in general, and the i7 is equal to 2 i3's. If you can afford it you can get a lga 2011 mobo and an i7 3930k which is equal to 3 i1's, but there is an obvious price difference. And if you really really want the performance, you can get a dual socket motherboard and 2 i7's!
 
Hi!

Thanks alot for the reply :) So essentially and I7 is like have 2 Core2quads?

I have tried to look round for dual socket boards but cant find anything that isn't AMD. Are you able to advise what I should look for please?

Many Thanks
Joe
 
Just get a 3770K, an aftermarket cooler, lots of RAM and a Z77 board and overclock. Will outperform pretty much any C2Q. Sounds to me like you have a Q6600 right now, have you tried overclocking it?
 
spirit said:
Just get a 3770K, an aftermarket cooler, lots of RAM and a Z77 board and overclock. Will outperform pretty much any C2Q. Sounds to me like you have a Q6600 right now, have you tried overclocking it?
Click to expand...

Hi,

Thanks alot for all the replies. I am running both Windows 7 and a form of Mac Osx on it. I have never overclocked as the computer needs to be 100% stable as its a working Pro studio (I'm the "tech" person! haha)

I'm not sure about overclocking at all but have heard a fair few horror stories haha

Many thansk
Joe
 
If you do it safely you'll haver no issues whatsoever. I overclocked my 2500K to 4.3GHz and recently I've been rendering/encoding video and I left it rendering for hours on end and it didn't crash or anything.

A 3770K would be a cheaper option than an SB-E processor and it would run rings around a Q6600.
 
Hi,

Thanks again for the reply. I've spoken to the person in charge and they'd rather do it without overclocking and spend the extra. With the server board you listed you said id need a new case and powersupply. What type of powersupply as i can't seem to find any when im looking around on PC component sites (probably don't have a clue what im looking for to be honest!!!!)

Thanks again
 
It would not run off of a normal PSU because the PSU needs to have 2 EPS leads (8 pin processor power). Server PSUs will have the power you need. Just go to newegg, look under PSU, and then under server PSU.
 
Hi,

Thanks alot found one (sorry from the UK so I avoided Newegg lol. Another question would this RAM work in the Asus Z9PE-D8 motherboard?

Corsair 8GB DDR3 1866Mhz Vengeance Memory

Many thanks for all your help
Joe
 
It should work without issue. Surprisingly that board does not need buffered or EEC RAM, so anything you throw in there should work.
 
jonnyp11 said:
A core 2 quad is as powerful as an i3 in general, and the i7 is equal to 2 i3's. If you can afford it you can get a lga 2011 mobo and an i7 3930k which is equal to 3 i1's, but there is an obvious price difference. And if you really really want the performance, you can get a dual socket motherboard and 2 i7's!
Click to expand...

Xeon's ;)


Gibson, if you can answer three things, we can give a lot more help:

1. What are the current full system specs?
2. How much would you have to spend on the upgrades?
3. What are the intended purposes?

For point 3, I'm not one for music production as few to none of us are here, so a better question may be what do you need the system to run
 
Aastii said:
Xeon's ;)


Gibson, if you can answer three things, we can give a lot more help:

1. What are the current full system specs?
2. How much would you have to spend on the upgrades?
3. What are the intended purposes?

For point 3, I'm not one for music production as few to none of us are here, so a better question may be what do you need the system to run
Click to expand...

Hi Thanks alot for the replies again :)

That;s great news on the Ram.

1. What are the current full system specs?
As for the spec I can't tell you what to motherboard is other than an Asus as the Computer is sealed in an isolation box and isn't the easiest of things to get out!

I know the motherboard can't take anything above Core2quad and was bought about 4 years ago.

The CPU is a 2.4ghz core2Quad and has 16gigs Corsair Ram with 4 terabyte harddrives.

How much would you have to spend on the upgrades?
Well the system we are looking at with your guys/girls help has come to about 1500 GBP / 2,500 USD (can't find dollar sign on stupid keyboard!)

What are the intended purposes?
I shall do my best to explain as its so involved. Basically it Runs a RME Raydat card which is the audio interface which passes 42 channels of audio to a mixing desk. It runs on the system itself it runs Cubase 6 which is the audio creating/editing/etc etc software. This must be able to record 42 channels of audio with no glitches at all (pops and clicks)

It also has about 120 VST instruments which are virtual instruments. These can range anywhere in size from a few KB up to gigabytes. This is where the system gets taxed and causes the audio glitches. There are also audio effects that add to the glitches the more you use.

I hope that makes some sense?
Many thanks
Joe
 
Whilst I am not going to pretend I understand how you do what you do, I get what you mean :P. You are basically taking audio inputs from the mixing desk which goes into the Raydat card, where you are then able to record, mix and edit the sounds on the system. Alongside that, you have the sounds/instruments that are part of the software, so not physical instruments but rather preset sounds that "make" the virtual instruments on the system.

Because of the performance gains, you should be able to get a new CPU, motherboard and memory and be set. It will come in at way under your 1500 quid too. As a guideline for prices:

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-392-GI&groupid=701&catid=5&subcat=2265

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CP-405-IN&groupid=701&catid=6&subcat=567

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MY-347-CS&groupid=701&catid=8&subcat=1517

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HS-034-CM&groupid=701&catid=2330&subcat=

Would get you up and running. Your current power supply should be powering it fine if it can handle the C2Q. Your hard drives will still work fine, it is standard ATX so, assuming your current components are the same form factor, the motherboard should fit in the box.

The memory has to be changed as you will still be on DDR2, whereas the Ivy Bridge processors only work with DDR3, and a cooler has been included. Obviously as you won't be overclocking, you don't need anything extreme, but it will keep the temperatures down creating less noise more than anything.

If you don't mind me asking, where in the UK are you? Unless you already have a vendor that you use for your systems, if you are in the north will be able to point you to your nearest vendor. It is great because all of the decent ones are up here rather than down there :D
 
to OP....you may want to invest in a good sized ssd, and if you have more than 1 hard drive (you said 4tb drives, so is that 4 x 1tb drives, or 2 x 2 tb drives ect ect.?) you should back up the data and set them up in a raid 0. that way you eliminate any possible problems with drive speed holding you back and causing problems. it will also allow you to do more, quicker, since you wont have to wait so long from your drives reading and writing at the same time, which could cause you problems on quality in the end. and i7 3770k is a minimum cpu you should have in my opinion, (or the i7 2600k or 2700k). i know you said that you wont be overclocking, so if thats the case then the i7 3770 would be fine. but i figure spend the extra money on the "k" series cpu. you dont have to overclock it, but it will be there for if you ever choose to. it would really turn up the productivity, either way. to me, its just always good to have as many options as possible, since im spending the kind of money these parts come to. idealy, the socket 2011 with a intel i7 3930k six core cpu would do you even better. i say this only because from your description in what your doing with this machine, you are a serious editor and music creator. probably for a job maybe? this will save you time, and time is money. but, that cpu is over $500 so if you cant swing it, then the i7 3770k on a socket 1155 motherboard will do you great.
also, youwill need new ram (ddr3)...so be sure you get at least 2 x 8gig sticks. preferably with low cas (like 8 or 9), and a speed of 1600Mhz. editing uses up ram especialy the more effects you add. and i say 2 x 8 gig sticks, that way you will still have 2 open slots on the motherboard and will be able to add more if you need to. when i do editing stuff with adobe, (granted its video, but i work with audio streams all the time) i can almost peak out my 16 gigs of ram
 
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Hi,

Thanks alot for the replies.

I Live in Essex (unfortunately!) I have listed below the setup I was going to build using what people have suggested above:


Asus Z9PE-D8
2 x Intel Xeon E5-2620W 2.00GHz
2 x Corsair 8GB DDR3 1866Mhz Vengeance Memory
CP-1000/CPX Form Factor

I would ideally like a substantial upgrade rather than a small one if you get me and also upgradeable aswel. The Ram and Drives aren't so much a problem as the main read/write drive is an SSD (should have said that from the off) and then once the song/backing is done it is moved to Backup/Archive drums (the 2 terabyte ones) and yes it is a Professional studio so it is very important that its stable with a big performance leap where possible :)

Thanks alot for your help on all this :)
 
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