Intel CPU question for the tech dudes

[wyllie]

Hey guys,

I'm thinking of upgrading my cpu and im wondering if a quad 2 core @ 2.50Ghz would be be a improvement (for audio production) over a duo 2 core @ 2.93ghz.

Any help would be great!

Cheers and beers
-Wyllie

 

[Rendered]

Not really. It might be a little bit better at multi-tasking, but honestly, with those clock speeds I doubt you'd see a significant jump. If your board/wallet supports it, I highly recommend an i5. I've got one in mine and I run EZD, 4-6 podfarms, 7 synths, and a shit ton of other plugins on at least 25 tracks. What's your system specs currently, if you don't mind me asking? If you don't have much RAM, then a CPU upgrade won't go as far.

 

[wyllie]

Hmm, that's certianly food for thought. Currently im running a pretty modest setup duo 2 core @2.95 Ghz as i mentioned with 4Gb RAM going into 32bit Cubase. I'm doing a similar thing and it's absoultely slaughtering my comp to the point of audio drop outs. Any tips?

 

[Rendered]

How new is the computer? If you're running DDR2 RAM it may be time for an upgrade. I don't have any experience with Cubase, but I'd imagine if your CPU supports it, maybe try installing Windows 7 64bit and then the 64bit version of Cubase and your plugs. That may help with some things. But honestly, even that will only get you so far with that cpu/ram.

Disclaimer: on my system i ran an i5 with 4 gigs of DDR3 for a year and it worked like a charm. Be warned though, you can't just switch out CPUs/RAM. With RAM, you need a motherboard that supports DDR3, which honestly most today should. As for the CPU, you want to make sure that the board can support whatever you're looking to upgrade to, whatever it may be.

 

[wyllie]

It's about 2/3 years old now. I do have DDR3 ram in it but my board can't take an i5 so possibly a mobo upgrade is on the cards. I've been thinking of getting a solid state hdd and using that solely for recording and running it in 64 bit.

 

[Rendered]

That would work pretty I'd imagine. I don't really know, though. I've got a ssd, but it's still sitting in the package. (It's for my wife's build). You could go with a ssd/ then upgrade to a quad, then run 64 bit. And if you're feeling that still isn't enough dump some RAM in it. That right there should get you a pretty decent system. Just try to make sure your CPU is at least. 2.5ghz, but I'd try and get as high as I could.

 

[slo77y]

a quadcore is quite a big upgrade to an core2duo, for sure.