Six core or quad core????

[xmortumx]

So guys Im thinking of building a new PC but im really debating what kind of processor I should get. I know that this computer specs is brought out often but come on guys every couple of months theres something new out there lol.
So to cut to the chase Im looking to spend about 300$ on a CPU and my top 2 choices are:
- Intel Core i7-950
-AMD Phenom II X6 1090T

Im usually and Intel lover but reading reviews and benchmark test on the AMD 6 core cpu is really something for the money!

So what would you guys suggest, Im running Cubase 5 does it take advantage of multi cores? Any suggestions of other CPU's feel free to chime in so far im not looking to spend more that 300$ on the cpu alone because i still have to consider a motherboard and RAM.(I have case, PSU, GPU)

 

[Seth Munson]

AMD Phenom II X6 1090T
getting this within the next couple of weeks.

 

[xmortumx]

Sweet dude im leaning towards that since i can easily overclock it, but Im just confue how much improvement would i get against a quadcore especially for my daw.

 

[xmortumx]

Any other thoughts??

 

[acappa]

I prefer Intel Crabcore Dude

 

[crazykarl]

The AMD units are more suited for gaming PCs, but will absolutely work for recording. On the other hand the i7 is definitely a sure thing for recording. I know some techies that evaluate what's on the market to use in recording PCs, and they currently swear by using the Intels. I don't know if they evaluated the six core yet though. I know the i7 links directly to the ram from the cpu. If the AMD Phenom has to go through the hub to access the ram, and you're getting a cheaper hub, you'd be better off with the i7. Does anyone know how the Phenom accesses RAM?

 

[kev]

Intel still better than amd in every department. An intel quad will punish an AMD hex too.

 

[Soundlurker]

+1 to Kev

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/CPU/58

I've got the I5 750 and a 20-euro cooler from CM and it overclocked effortlessly to 3.5ghz. I used the mainboard software to adjust the fan so it only speeds up when the Cpu is over 60-65C and it's been whisper quiet unless I'm exporting (which is fine with me since I'm not mixing at that moment and exporting with this beast takes 1 or 2 minutes even with long songs and a lot of processing)

 

[xmortumx]

So I see the i5 750 benchmark is intop among the i7's , so Whats the difference between i5 and i7?

 

[aortizjr]

Personally I am a huge AMD fan and have been for a long time. But... I have to say that if you can afford the i7, go that route.

In DAW's it is hard to go by just the published benchmarks since it is a bit of a different deal. With Cubase 5, you will get better performance out of the i7, well at least compared to any Phenom Quad out. The 6-cores I haven't really heard of anyone using them.

The thing is you definitely want a LOT of ram to not choke out the cores. So you will need to be 64-bit.

Cubase does do multi-core just fine, but it doesn't handle it very elegantly. At least with my system, running a lot of VSTi's and such, I get dropouts and such in multi-core mode. Disabling it to single-core mode, I can actually get more working smoothly at low buffer settings. This is with an AMD Phehom 9055 which is the older gen.

Straight CPU benchmarks though, the i7 940's still outperform the 1090T's:

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

Something to consider there as well.

 

[joeymusicguy]

six core and never look back.

 

[kev]

six core and never look back.

Only intel tho Joeyness

 

[xmortumx]

Lol Yeah dude i viewed the comparison chart of the I7 950 to the AMD Phenom II X6 1090T and the 950 had much better results so im really considering that CPU wit ofcoarse a lot or RAM. Yeah Joey trust me if i had the money i wouldnt hesitate to go with the i7 980x lol

 

[xmortumx]

Also do any of you have problems with Gygabyte MB and Windows 7 64bit???

 

[kev]

No problems with gigabyte on w7 64 for me. Very good boards.

 

[sprack]

Personally I'd say save the money and get an i5 760 series. Hyperthreading only really buys you something on synthetic benchmarks since most ITB work is limited by IO not by instruction processing time.

 

[xmortumx]

The reason I ask about gygabyte MB is because the one i have currently has some latency issues that i only get on windows 7.

 

[sprack]

You've disable c-states and turbo mode?

 

[xmortumx]

Yeah dude i disabled C state, and updated bios and i still got those latency issues even with the windows 7 settings for high performance.

 

[sprack]

Win7 hi-perf mode doesn't disable c-states or turbo transitions, only asks the PM scheduler to set itself to max p-state. I'm asking about Turbo too since it uses a c-state transition to take cores to a low power state before it bumps the VRM up for boost. You have to disable this stuff in BIOS so that the ACPI tables are populated correctly otherwise the OS will still call for it. If you're still seeing latency issues after that run DPC latency checker to see the interval. A low polling interval could be something like a USB device or even a NIC. Anyway, best of luck. Let me know if I can help.