i5 4core vs 6/8 core - any experience?

[pppppppppp]

Hi all,

looking for some advice: currently using an (older) i5 quad core overclocked to 4GHz. Using Cubase and constantly maxing it out.

Since I am aware that only newer processor generations do not really provide some increase in performance here, I am looking towards more cores in case I do an update.

What is your experience, is it worth to upgrade from my i5 to some recent 6 core Intel or even 8 core (8 cores are quite expensive though).

Not sure if an update will really help, any recommendations or experience? (4vs6vs8 core, i5/i7 better?)

Thank you, cheers Pete

[pppppppppp]

Hi,
anyone has some experience, and can share it would be glad

Cheers Pete

[starflakeprj]

Short answer since I'm writing on my mobile. I had an i7-2600K (4 cores @ (I think) 3.5GHz), replaced it two years ago with an i7-4930K (6 cores @ 3.4GHz). I didn't really notice much of a gain at all, and this is because most DAWs and plugins don't handle multi core very well.

I have been thinking of upgrading again, to the coming i7-series, and 8 cores. But this will lower my frequency per core to 3.2 or if it was 3.0GHz. I will probably gain more by overclocking my current one from 3.4 to 4.0GHz.

This is the sad "truth".

[Zexila]

Well, you will max out pretty much anything in existence without freezing things or using less CPU intensive plugins, so instead of dropping a buck and not solving your problem, solve the root of your problem not dropping any.

[UltimateOutsider]

Not all DAWs perform alike. Cubase is a good example of a DAW that can and will make full use of every physical and virtual core you can give it. It's kind of impressive watching how well it distributes load across threads when you're really pushing it hard. So for Cubase, I'd go for the i7 with the best highest cores/clock speed I could afford. (My previous DAW PC ran on a 4-core i7 950@3.07 GHz and my current one has an i7 5930K@3.5 GHz. The new computer can power almost 3 times as many plugins as the previous one on Cubase without cracking up.)

Ableton Live's on the other end of that, with a really strange (and ultimately not very successful) way of distributing CPU load when hyperthreading is available under a heavy DSP load, so the argument for i7 over i5 isn't as strong. You'll still get a boost with more physical cores and higher clock speeds but HT just doesn't help Live very much.

[pppppppppp]

Thanks for those helpful answers.
Since I am using Cubase I will consider the i7 6core .
I assume a real difference in performance b/w newest 6x and a 5x should maybe not be there.. or If so please drop me a hint

Cheers, Pete