KVR Audio

Compyfox · Post by **Compyfox** » Sun Mar 31, 2013 9:43 pm

I'm just curious here.

Recently, I feel like that my i7 920 (stock clocked at 2,9GHz, Win7 64bit, only 6GB RAM though) is running low on CPU power. I must admit, I barely do sample work, or strong reverbs, but I do realtime editing of WAV files and synths. So yeah, I'd love to still have that option to do real time songwriting if desired.

But recent plugin creations give a funk about CPU power - they want more recent CPU's. Here I actually like Macs - even old rigs still work fine - because you're limited in terms of upgrading. But... I'm not Mac user, I'm a PC user. So let's leave it at that.

I know that I need to get a new mother board while going from Bloomfield (Socket 1366) to either Sandy/Ivy Bridge (Socket 1155).

The question is, what can I keep from my old rig, while porting to a new rig.

Just some small infos:

I use an old NVidia 9500GT, passive cooled, PCIe dual head GPU. I'd love to get a more recent NVidia card, since my graphics start to pull me some crap. But I'm fine either way. I just need a dual head system, best if passive (noiseless) with at least two DVI ports or suitable connectors. No VGA.

My PSU is a 550W Dark Power beQuiet. I use three HDD's (OS, Record, Samples), one DVD drive (want to get a Blu-Ray one), my GPU, the CPU on full load and 5 fans (3 case, 2 CPU ones) just fine. No power surges or anything. Even with several USB2 devices connected.

My CPU cooler was a Nocturne fitting for the i7. Can I reuse that one for the Sandy/Ivy bridge?

My case is an ANTEC (IIRC) - I love that one. My HDDs are all SATA II's (300MB/s), so I'm not against getting a mother board that is capable of SATA II/600MB/s.

My current mother board is an ASUS P6T SE. I have 8 USB slots (4 on the board, two in front with the case, 2 additional ones with an adapter), so the new one should at least have 8 USB slots. Firewire is not that important to me, since I use RME hardware with PCIe cards. Overclocking would be nice, but I don't need a killer mainboard.

SATA slots are more important to me. The more the better (for connecting external devices though SATA). Also a suitable amount of PCIe slots for RME cards (a second HDSPe) would be nice. Maybe even an UAD Quad at a later state, or even two GPU's to connect more screens for voice over work.

So yeah...

I'm just asking what options I have, what best price/performance deal I could get, and whether or not it makes any sense.

Or should I just try to OC my current rig to get a tad more CPU power? Though I don't think that this would offer me much compared to getting a more recent CPU that is not over 3 years old (I upgraded from a P4 to i7 in Autumn 2009).

Thanks for the infos.

Compyfox · Post by **Compyfox** » Tue Apr 02, 2013 6:24 pm

This is probably the wrong board section, I have to admit that.

Can one of the mods maybe move this into the Computer section? I'd really love to get some feedback. Thanks.

AstralExistence · Post by **AstralExistence** » Wed Apr 03, 2013 5:32 pm

compyfox, i suggest you ask this on tomshardware. those people live and breathe hardware.

Nanakai · Post by **Nanakai** » Thu Apr 04, 2013 12:25 am

I recently found this site. Thought it was interesting: cpuboss.com

Use it to compare chip specs. There's even a robust sorting mechanism, but it's a bit unwieldy.

ClubHo · Post by **ClubHo** » Thu Apr 04, 2013 1:08 am

Hey Compyfox,

3 years is a long time for a CPU. You should be able to re-use most of your parts. I would upgrade.

If you have an NH-D14, it is compatible with a LGA1155 IVY Bridge CPU.
NH-D14 SE2011 is for Sandy Processors.

http://www.noctua.at/main.php?show=produkte&lng=en

If you use the old heat sink you will need to buy new CPU heat conducting paste.

I'd suggest going for i7-3770k, even the new Haswells will be close in performance. With the NH-D14 you can even OC the 3770k to 4.7 if you want.

ASUS MBs are good. I think the Z77 chipset is the latest.

http://usa.asus.com/Motherboards/Intel_ ... /Intel_Z77

There are some other things you may have to look at when using older parts.

1. Power supply connectors to MB
2. RAM compatibility for your MB.

-Club Ho

Compyfox · Post by **Compyfox** » Thu Apr 04, 2013 8:51 am

I think I'm fairly fine with the PSU, it's the "Dark Power" Design by beQuiet with individual cables. But yes, a check wouldnn't hurt.

RAM wise, I "could" use my old ones, but 6GB are thin. I plan at least to go 16GB this time.

The Noctua... I think I had the NH-U12, but not the SE version? I don't even know how to check this again since I didn't keep boxes and the likes. But maybe I can still find the receipt.

So in short:
I could reuse (if I'm lucky) all but the motherboard, CPU and RAM. So an upgrade would remain within a 400EUR range, if at all.

Wasn't there a DAW benchmark page or something?
And this still doesn't clear my initial question if my CPU is still strong enough, but I have other bottlenecks (like low RAM, old GPU, etc)?

Kaine · Post by **Kaine** » Thu Apr 04, 2013 9:53 am

Compyfox wrote: Wasn't there a DAW benchmark page or something?
And this still doesn't clear my initial question if my CPU is still strong enough, but I have other bottlenecks (like low RAM, old GPU, etc)?

You'll see a sizable jump. My own chart is here : http://www.scanproaudio.info/?p=551

The 3370k score at stock is about 5% more than the 2600 score you see there (yeah, the chart needs a good update!) so you'd probably see something in the region of a 20% jump at stock or 40% if you overclocked. The should be further charts over at ADK and on the dawBench site itself which may have updated benchmarks for the newest chips.

ClubHo · Post by **ClubHo** » Thu Apr 04, 2013 4:21 pm

Check this site:

http://www.cpubenchmark.net/high_end_cpus.html

EvilDragon · Post by **EvilDragon** » Thu Apr 04, 2013 4:27 pm

Regarding GPU, I just got this one:

http://forum.cockos.com/project.php?issueid=4742

Very affordable, runs great. Can MultiView up to 4 monitors

Kaboom75 · Post by **Kaboom75** » Fri Apr 05, 2013 12:46 am

I would wait for the Haswell i7 CPUs when they come out they will be 10% faster and push the price down of the other CPUs.

Compyfox · Post by **Compyfox** » Fri Apr 05, 2013 9:26 am

Kaine wrote:
Compyfox wrote: Wasn't there a DAW benchmark page or something?
And this still doesn't clear my initial question if my CPU is still strong enough, but I have other bottlenecks (like low RAM, old GPU, etc)?
You'll see a sizable jump. My own chart is here : http://www.scanproaudio.info/?p=551

Ah, the man I was looking for.

I take it the X58 i7 930 is somewhat... on the lines of my i7 920. Then I see a drastic improvement with the 3370k, not so much with the 2600k at stock speed (I'm only talking about stock speed here, since I hate OCing - meessed up a lot back in the days).

The thing is, how long will we stay with socket 1155 (Sandy and Ivy), or will the Haswell CPU's also stick to socket 1155 (whenever they will be out)?

And most important, which pricerange do we talk about then?

I might also need to check if I activated HyperThreadening, but I think I did in BIOS. But wasn't there some discrepancies with performance? Hm...

EvilDragon:
That link leads to the Reaper Boards, with a nice GUI bug. I'm actually taking focus on either the ZOTAC 6x0 range with passive cooling, or the (unfortunately high priced) nVidia NVS. But I'm currently fine with two screens. It's just that I feel that my Nvidia 9500GT is a bottleneck. I have graphic glitches and the likes, as if the redraw rate of the screen if very slow.

Kaboom75:
Any timeframe when those Haswell's will hit?

Summary:
Currently I can still use my rig, I "might" be able to tickle out a bit more with OCing and more RAM (which can later be re-used with an upgraded MOBO, unless that new MOBO needs 4 stick rather than three).

If I want to upgrade (which is inevitable), I can reuse my Noctua heatsink (best case, need to look first), my RAM, and of course everything else (GPU, HDDs, recording cards, etc).

So it's recommended to wait for the Haswell chips, but upgrade the rest in the meantime to loosen the bottleneck/strain on the CPU.

I can live with that.

EvilDragon · Post by **EvilDragon** » Fri Apr 05, 2013 9:29 am

Crap, how the hell did I manage to post a wrong link! My apologies.

I meant this one: http://www.gigabyte.com.hr/products/pro ... id=4359#ov

Compyfox · Post by **Compyfox** » Fri Apr 05, 2013 9:56 am

Hm... interesting, but active cooled. Even though the fan looks less noisy than the ZOTAC build of similar design (that thing always had a high hissing noise, which was the reason I modded the card to passive).

EvilDragon · Post by **EvilDragon** » Fri Apr 05, 2013 10:01 am

Active cooled, but it's not really that noisy. If you have a decent case (I have a Coolermaster Cosmos S) with additional 12 cm fans to provide more airflow and cooling, you're all set.

It's definitely worth it because of MultiView and 384 CUDA cores (GPGPU convolution!).

Compyfox · Post by **Compyfox** » Fri Apr 05, 2013 10:45 am

Thinking about it. Would still prefer a passive version though. I don't play games, so no need to permanently cool it with an additional fan. And more fans add up to the noise in the rig. Especially if you can't control them.

Upgrade from i7 920 (Bloomfield) to more recent i7 - Sandy or Ivy Bridge?