KVR Audio

ermi · Post by **ermi** » Wed Feb 11, 2009 12:09 am

I'd like to see some benchmarks or just some experiences from users on how the new Phenoms perform for audio tasks. They seem to do well in games, not so well in audio/video conversion (compared to i7).
But the prices are supposed to be attractive, so I'm keeping an eye on them.
Based on the price they should be in competition more with the Core 2s, than the i7.

Here's one review, including the AM2+ and AM3 socket versions:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/soc ... ,2148.html

I'd also like to see some benchmarks like this one:
http://www.dawbench.com/images/dawbench ... 20i7-4.JPG

jcschild · Post by **jcschild** » Wed Feb 11, 2009 12:38 am

for samples they are great only the core i7 beats it (or Core 2 with DDR3)

effects not so hot. 1/2 of what a standard Quad core can do.

i posted some numbers here i have not got around to updating the benchmarks on my site with the newer Phenom II
still not tests with AM3

http://www.soundonsound.com/forum/showf ... 665#699591

Scott
ADK

Scotrick · Post by **Scotrick** » Wed Feb 11, 2009 1:53 pm

Indeed. Their main attraction is price, nor performance. I just built a computer for my girlfriend using the Phenom 5000, or whatever it is, their naming conventions bug me, but I'll say this:

It was a perfect build, which rarely happens for me, in that the chip was easy to install, its own cooler was quiet and effective, Windows XP and the assorted drivers went smoothly... and it booted on the first go round.

I was sort of stunned. Normally there's at least a little fiddling I have to do, having forgotten some driver or cord or something.

And its performance for every day tasks was also very surprising, in that the board I used, a Gigabyte small form factor (but still with a PCI-E video card slot in addition to built in DVI video) had great ethernet performance, and for her sped through downloading and installing new drivers.

For my own audio work, which mainly consists of Reason and Cubase SX 3 and Live, I have an Intel Core 2 Duo, 3.1ghz, not overclocked or anything, and I installed Reason on her machine so that I could do some rough sketching out when I'm at her house, and I was pleasantly surprised to see that it could easily load some of my more demanding Reason projects, grabbing the samples off the hard drive and with Reason's performance meter barely registering. It only began to stutter when I really pushed it with projects that also make the Intel's performance meter rise nearly to the top. This is using the onboard firewire and a MOTU Ultralite portable interface.

So, obviously, a report completely absent of benchmarks etc, but for me, needing a cheap computer as a present (I wish I wish I was rich enough to give her what she deserves

) it turned out to be a fun and quick build.

Oh, and I just realized that I need to update my signature. The sig computer was the computer I replaced with my new Intel build, I'll have to change the details.

Mister Natural · Post by **Mister Natural** » Fri Feb 13, 2009 12:01 am

Just ordered a new machine which I pick up next week :

Phenom II 940 running XP pro at 3.0ghz
on a Gigabyte ga-ma790x-ud4 mobo that has the TI firewire running my Alesis MultiMix fw interface
c: 74gb WD velociraptor sata hdd @ 10k rpm for os & apps
d: 500gb WD sata hdd for audio/samples
e: 250 gb Seagate hdd for my home office stuff
nVidia geForce 7200gs w/ 128mb ddr - I don't game at all
w/ 4gb ddr2 memory running at 1066mhz
450 watt ps inside a pretty basic Thermaltake case - extra fan in front of the hdd's
as well as the requisite DVDrw - memory card reader

Can't wait to rock it LOUDLY

ermi · Post by **ermi** » Sat Feb 14, 2009 11:37 pm

alabamian: I don't think a "Phenom 5000" exists... the Phenoms usually start with 9 or 8. The 5000+ is a dualcore.

Mister Natural: Let us know how it goes, especially compared to some other systems you use(d).

rbet · Post by **rbet** » Sun Feb 15, 2009 11:41 pm

jcschild wrote:for samples they are great only the core i7 beats it (or Core 2 with DDR3)

effects not so hot. 1/2 of what a standard Quad core can do.

Half?! I know the scaling is not exactly linear, but an AMD quadcore is only as good an Intel dualie? You sure about that?

jcschild · Post by **jcschild** » Tue Feb 17, 2009 5:37 pm

rbet wrote:
jcschild wrote:for samples they are great only the core i7 beats it (or Core 2 with DDR3)

effects not so hot. 1/2 of what a standard Quad core can do.
Half?! I know the scaling is not exactly linear, but an AMD quadcore is only as good an Intel dualie? You sure about that?

very sure of it,

a Quad core (montevina) Laptop kicked its butt, 2 times the effects at the same buffer.

here is numbers
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

8500-mv Q9100 laptop
4 gig ram

xp pro sp3

cubasev 4.52
fireface 800
ti fw 400 express card

C4 Vin's Blofeld MK2 test (www.dawbench.com )

512- 72

256 -62

128 - 51

64 - 37

32 -19

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

amd x4 940
gigabyte GA-MA790X-DS4
vista 64 ultimate SP!
8 gigs ram
RME HDSP RAYDAT

cubase 4.52 32 bit

Blofelds Mk2 for C4 test -

512 - 84
256 - 79
128 - 73
64 - 61
32 - 35

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
just for gigles core i7

rme madi pci-e driver version 3.072
> cubase 4.52
> vista business 64 sp1

> 3,2 gig CPU Core i7 965
> 6 gig ram
> 8600GT video card
>
> The system was rebooted after each test phase.
> _Buffer | Instamces_
> 512k 160
> 256k 158
> 128 133
> 64 125
> 32 109
>

Scott
ADK

ObsoleteAcc99 · Post by **ObsoleteAcc99** » Tue Feb 17, 2009 5:57 pm

[DELETED]

rbet · Post by **rbet** » Tue Feb 17, 2009 6:41 pm

From your own bench results:
1. A Phenom II beats an Intel Core 2 Quad, i.e., a quad-core Montevina laptop did not kick Phenom II butt.
2. The Core i7 is in a different league altogether, with ~2x performance compared to a Phenom II at the same buffer size.

Just wondering, jcs, wouldn't you get a significant improvement (~10-15%) in the results had you used XP SP3 (like you did for the Q9100 laptop) instead of Vista x64? Also, can you put up more numbers, esp. with the Q6600 and the newer Q9x50 processors and AMD's newer AM3 tricore (X3 720) and quadcore (X4 810) offerings?

The Q9100 is a mobile processor, ttoz, probably the first quad for mobile. [link]. Wow, a quad with only 45W TDP, that's incredible!

jcschild · Post by **jcschild** » Wed Feb 18, 2009 9:05 pm

LOL LOL DOH!

God do i feel stupid....

i am so used to looking at "lower cpu usage" the funny thing about this is the guy who did the benchmarks did the same thing..

we just started using Vins tests rather than having our tests, his tests someone elses tests etc
we are trying to support a one test option.

so yeah the AMD did kick its butt cool~
ok so got to try this test on a standard Q9550/9650 with P45 chipset.

FYI if you have followed the samples tests i did the Phenom II did 128 buffer
vs 256 for the Phenom 9950.
test here
www.adkproaudio.com/benchmarks.cfm

FYI the Core i7 produces better benchmarks on Vista than XP. funny huh?

Scott
ADK

Evan · Post by **Evan** » Sat Feb 21, 2009 6:15 am

So wait... the Phenom II actually competes nicely with the Intel Quads?

Any tests/comparisons done with a similarly priced desktop version of the Intel Q9xxx?

Marbla · Post by **Marbla** » Sat Feb 21, 2009 11:24 pm

"FYI the Core i7 produces better benchmarks on Vista than XP. funny huh?"

Could possibly have to do with NUMA support in Vista, less thread bouncing. With the small cache size in the I7 that could be bad for performance.

sounddesigner · Post by **sounddesigner** » Sat Feb 21, 2009 11:45 pm

Marbla wrote:"FYI the Core i7 produces better benchmarks on Vista than XP. funny huh?"

Could possibly have to do with NUMA support in Vista, less thread bouncing. With the small cache size in the I7 that could be bad for performance.

I read somewhere in the past that i7's where optimized for Windows 7. Being Vista is a very similar Platform might explain it some.

Mister Natural · Post by **Mister Natural** » Tue Feb 24, 2009 2:48 pm

Up & running after some hinkey XP pro stuff . . . oh, my God

this machine is a fast one. Running LIVE7, Rapture and reverb, compress and eq plugins in the 30% cpu range of the meter

Highly recco'd to all

MaliceX · Post by **MaliceX** » Fri Mar 06, 2009 2:09 am

I'm particularly interested in comparison benchmarks of the Phenom II 920/940 to the Intel Core 2 Quad Q9440/Q9550/Q9650. I'm in the process of building a new (somewhat futureproof) machine however price is a bit of an issue.

More specifically, which can encode a video faster? How many instances can you run in a VST Host until it bottlenecks? Bounce/render times? Polyphony handling in terms of CPU?

Phenom II performance