Topic: CPU Recommendations for Audio Processing

[gratefulphish]

I have been trying to figure out just how much a faster processor will affect post-production speed in Soundforge, Audacity, etc.  Will a significantly faster processor have a direct effect on speed?  I am using an older quad-core now, but am looking to build/buy a newer faster machine, with my primary interest being speeding up audio processing.  Any ideas, suggestions, recommendations would be most appreciated.

[capnhook]

Get a niiiiice sized Solid State hard drive, and have fun man.  It will speed Audacity up significantly.

[gratefulphish]

Get a niiiiice sized Solid State hard drive, and have fun man.  It will speed Audacity up significantly.

Yes, I am planning on working with an SSD in the new rig, but what I am really trying to figure out is whether or how much a much faster processor matters.  Sometimes, the limitations of the programs mean that additional cores/speed won't really do much, so I am trying to see whether people have upgraded to any of the new fairly top processors out there, i.e. fifth or sixth generation i7 4790K or 6700K, and noticed dramatic speed improvements in the time that it takes to process any change to a file, which for me, is what makes post production such a PITA.

[admkrk]

Any time a processor does calculations, a faster one one will be faster. You are also right that what ever program you use might not utilize the speed past a certain point. In my opinion, memory is likely to be a bigger bottleneck than CPU speed, and that does not just include physical memory. 

[gratefulphish]

Any time a processor does calculations, a faster one one will be faster. You are also right that what ever program you use might not utilize the speed past a certain point. In my opinion, memory is likely to be a bigger bottleneck than CPU speed, and that does not just include physical memory.

I will have more high-speed RAM than the memory capacities of a lot of my former computers.  I am hoping that between the incredible speed of the new processors, the mass RAM and an SSD drive things will process much faster.  I would love to be able to "test load" soundforge on one and see for sure in advance, but that's not likely to be possible.

[yltfan]

Who is happy with what they have? What do you have? What do folks think is the minimum amount of processor/memory with a decent ssd for audio work?

[opsopcopolis]

Just fwiw audacity can only get so fast

[mec111272]

At this point just stay away from Atom and Celeron processors is the biggest thing. Unless you are gaming the i3-i7 processors are all pretty much so fast that the upgrades from one to the other is in very small increments.  A very wise computer guy once told me the sweet spot on computer hardware is stuff that is 6-12 months old.  Never chase the "best" and pay premium for the very newest as it will be old quicker than you think. 

For hard drives,  I had a raid drive start to go on me.  One of the spinning drives on a Raid 0 was starting to go.  I replaced with a Raid 1 SSD and did not notice a loss in speed that I would expect due to changing the raid protocol.

[cybergaloot]

Who is happy with what they have? What do you have? What do folks think is the minimum amount of processor/memory with a decent ssd for audio work?

My aging MacBook Pro (last of the 17 inch models) is still humming along quite nicely. It has an i7 CPU and I upgraded it to 16GB of RAM (which is beyond what Mac claims is max). I got it with a 7200RPM HDD but am thinking about putting in a SSD once 1TB prices drop to acceptable levels. Wont be long! I've even processed a little 24 track stuff on it with no issues so far.

[rocksuitcase]

Who is happy with what they have? What do you have? What do folks think is the minimum amount of processor/memory with a decent ssd for audio work?

I just moved from a very old 1.8 GHz Pentium (4GB RAM) to a i5 3340M 2.7 GHz with 8GB RAM and can say it is doing great for me with Audacity.
If I was to build new, I'd go with SSD for the system drive and fast SATA drives for the data drives. I agree with mec111272, avoid Celeron for sure.
A quick search tells me that Audacity mostly utilizes only one core (at a time):
http://audacity.238276.n2.nabble.com/Multi-core-optimization-td4981002.html
http://wiki.audacityteam.org/wiki/Proposal_Threading_and_Acceleration
From this link (2004) we can read that Audacity uses two core for audio I/O processing, but one core for most operations (I poked around, but can't find any updated info on this aside from the 2014 wiki link above:
http://osdir.com/ml/audio.audacity.general/2004-04/msg00067.html

Audacity uses a second thread for audio I/O, so a dual-processor machine
may help reduce latency during playback and recording.

However, most of Audacity's editing and processing is single-threaded,
so it will not take special advantage of multiple processors. Multiple
processors will still help Audacity run slightly faster, because other
applications and system tasks can use the second processor while
Audacity is running.

[dnsacks]

Who is happy with what they have? What do you have? What do folks think is the minimum amount of processor/memory with a decent ssd for audio work?

My aging MacBook Pro (last of the 17 inch models) is still humming along quite nicely. It has an i7 CPU and I upgraded it to 16GB of RAM (which is beyond what Mac claims is max). I got it with a 7200RPM HDD but am thinking about putting in a SSD once 1TB prices drop to acceptable levels. Wont be long! I've even processed a little 24 track stuff on it with no issues so far.

Does your macbook have an optical drive that you can live without?  If so, it's relatively easy to replace the optical drive with an internal hdd (see www.macsales.com ) and use a smaller ssd (say 256 gb) to run your programs and OS a LOT faster than a mechanical HDD -- Can't say enough about the speed increases I've realized since going to ssd-based boot disks on all of my computers -- FWIW, the USB3 interface is ALMOST as fast as a good sata SSD, if folks with desktops are wary about installing an internal drive, using a USB3-based external ssd as a boot drive provides 99% of the advantage of an internal drive . . . . seriously low-hanging fruit . . .

Going a bit more on-topic, Seems that if audacity/etc. aren't taking advantage of multiple simultaneous processing, the OP should focus more on processor speed than the # of processor cores.

[DancyGeorgia]

Who is happy with what they have? What do you have? What do folks think is the minimum amount of processor/memory with a decent ssd for audio work?

I just moved from a very old 1.8 GHz Pentium (4GB RAM) to a i5 3340M 2.7 GHz with 8GB RAM and can say it is doing great for me with Audacity.
If I was to build new, I'd go with SSD for the system drive and fast SATA drives for the data drives. I agree with mec111272, avoid Celeron for sure.
A quick search tells me that Audacity mostly utilizes only one core (at a time):
http://audacity.238276.n2.nabble.com/Multi-core-optimization-td4981002.html
http://wiki.audacityteam.org/wiki/Proposal_Threading_and_Acceleration
From this link (2004) we can read that Audacity uses two core for audio I/O processing, but one core for most operations (I poked around, but can't find any updated info on this aside from the 2014 wiki link above:
http://osdir.com/ml/audio.audacity.general/2004-04/msg00067.html

Audacity uses a second thread for audio I/O, so a dual-processor machine
may help reduce latency during playback and recording.

However, most of Audacity's editing and processing is single-threaded,
so it will not take special advantage of multiple processors. Multiple
processors will still help Audacity run slightly faster, because other
applications and system tasks can use the second processor while
Audacity is running.

In other words, Audacity can only use 1 processor for computations but can use a 2nd processor for reading/writing to disk.

To compare processors, search on the processor model at: https://www.cpubenchmark.net/
Compare the "Single Thread Rating" (1 processor used) to compare processors performance for Audacity. I suspect SoundForge also only used 1 processor for computations and a 2nd processor for disk I/O. This is fairly common unless the software is built for high performance.

[Chilly Brioschi]

It takes a bit of research and effort.

This still holds basically true for Windows 10:
http://www.sweetwater.com/sweetcare/articles/pc-optimization-guide-for-windows-8/

Install the largest & fastest memory that  your OS  can utilize, ...going over is wasted.  Both the motherboard (and bios, if applicable) and the OS should support your investment in memory
Buy that fastest SSD that you can get, if your BIOS and Motherboard have native support. Then optimize for SSD and the type that you get. There are SSD tweaks, find them ...TRIM, etc.  This will enhance SSD life and performance.
Tweak that OS to prioritize your audio processes, and disable the crap that steals clocks and memory, of course!
Get a modern audio editor program that provides update support  (iZotope, Wavelab, SoundForge, Audition, even Acoustica)
Don't scrimp on the soundcard, but there are diminishing returns... get one for your fastest available bus
If using USB, be sure that it's USB3.0 or better, disable the unused ports, avoid external hubs

That's a start

I don't have Mac expertise, but most of my friends who do pro work use them.
They have a lot invested and tend to upgrade more slowly, so I see some older gear on their benches, but it gets the job done.

Processor facts (get the full name, as marketing half-truths in CPUs are abysmal):
http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu_list.php

Oh, and a final word...  your DAW is not for websurfing or email and should never be directly on the Interwebs
Get a Chromebook for that!

[rigpimp]

I hand-build my DAW(s).

My current one, built in June of 2012, is 4790-k based and is still running hard.  16GB of DDR3 RAM and a 256GB SSD for C and terabytes and terabytes for storage.  You won't currently find too much of an upgrade going from Ivybridge to Haswell.  Some current benefits of going with a newer socket motherboard might be a faster bus and the addition of DDR4 RAM.

Personally, I wish that I knew enough about Audacity to discredit the comment above that it is the weak link in audio processing speed. 

If you want a good OS tweaking guide then bookmark and follow some Black Viper tweaks.  Even though my DAW never touches the internet I usually still only tweak mine to the "safe" levels.

http://www.blackviper.com/

[yltfan]

Any thoughts on this machine:
http://computers.woot.com/offers/dell-t7500-intel-xeon-quad-core-workstation?ref=cp_cnt_wp_7_4

Dell T7500 Workstation Desktop, Intel Xeon X5550 2.66GHz Quad-Core, NVIDIA NVS 300, 1TB HDD + 180GB SSD, 8GB DDR3, Win7Pro 64-Bit