Athlon 64 - Clock Rate or cache size for softsynths?

[Treeper]

Decided to build an Athlon 64 system for softsynths. (Probably Imposcar & Albino). It seems AMD have introduced the Newcastle chip alongside clawhammer. Both are rated at 3200, but the Newcastle has a clock frequency of 2.2GHz and a half meg of cache versus a 2Ghz clock with 1 MB cache on Clawhammer.

Would the higher clockspeed be more beneficial for VSTi's, or the larger cache?

I guess the end result might make no difference, but AMD make a big thing of the 1Mb cache outperforming an Athlon XP 3200.

So...what's more important in this case? Cache size, or clock speed?

[whyterabbyt]

Recent A64 vs Opteron benchmarks seem to indicate clockspeed is where it at. Try Anandtech et.c. for that sorta thing...

[McLilith]

You might want to send an email to the people who made the softsynths you plan to use. They probably know the balance of clockspeed vs cache that suits their program best. If any of the manufacturers give you an interesting answer, be sure to share it with us.


later,
McLilith

[Treeper]

Hi Guys,

I took McLilith's advice, and dropped a quick email to Gmedia. Chris kindly replied, and as this may be of interest to others considering going Athlon 64, I'm sure he wont object to me quoting some of his reply.

"I can't guarantee the answer, but first instincts would be that on most systems it seems the filters are the biggest loads on performance (both the actual impOSCar filters, and the various ones in the effects section), and they're processor bound, not memory bound. Therefore the first guess would be that the higher clock speed would be more important than the smaller cache."

Having a developer respond to pre-sale enquiries like this helps build confidence in their ability to back up their product range - so thanks to Gmedia.

As for AMD, It seems like the Newcastle is replacing Clawhammer in the sensible price Vs performance end of the Athlon 64 range - but it looks like that's no bad thing for VSTi users.

[electro]

Clock speed is the most important factor in softsynth performance. AMD Athlon64/Opteron is the best chip there is for this. I think where cache becomes more important, is when the the CPU is managing more tasks simultaneously.

[ObsoleteAcc99]

[DELETED]

[jens]

Clock speed is the most important factor in softsynth performance. .

i don't get it. an amd 3800+ at 2.4ghz will blow a P4 3.4 ghz away in fx plugins and vsti's. doesn't that kill the whole 'clockspeed is the most important" thing?

that's kinda comparing apples and oranges I think, because Intel and AMD have rather different processor architectures

[pj geerlings]

The real power of the modern processors is the "super scaler architecture" i.e more than one instruction per clock ...

So the (admittedly simple) formula is (instructions per clock cycle) X (clock speed) = (CPU performance)

IIRC, the intel chips are around 6 instructions per clock and the AMDs are 9+ instructions

have fun,
pj

[Midiworks]

If it is just to run those 2 VSTi,
better save your money and get an older, slower AMD.
They are still fast enough to run a few more VSTi at the same time.
Some more things too at the same time, like your host program, FX and other.

Albino2 on my "old" P4 2ghz = 8.5% CPU for 4 notes
impOSCar = 8.3% CPU for 4 notes.

These are the facts that count !

Better spend your saved money on a few other cool VSTi and your dream host and fx.

[tony tony chopper]

Cache is important and often neglected. It's important for things that use precomputed tables, which is common. It just depends how much clock speed vs how much cache vs which architecture.
For audio, AMD is better (& cheaper), especially for older plugins that aren't P4-optimized.