Which CPU to buy for SAC PC?

[kdiamond]

Hi.

SAC is single CPU app, so I guess there's no point of buying multi-core CPU, right? It's also 32bt app, so mo benefit going to latest OS?

I'm asking about pros and cons of new CPU's. From the local store they gave me few CPU options. What is smart CPU for SAC choice?

Thank you very much!

Celeron:
E3300 , 2,4GHz
E3400 2,6GHz

Pentium:
E5400 2,7GHz
E6600 2,93GHz

Core2Duo:
E7500 2,93 GHz
E7600 3,06 GHz
E8400 3,00 GHz

[Ogmeister]

I have had great success with the E8400. I was able to get it over-clocked to
3.4 GHZ with little effort.
Runs great with 48 channels and 12 monitor mixes.

I can highly recommend this CPU for SAC.
SInce the price for the E8500 is coming down I may do an upgrade to that soon.

[kdiamond]

Thank you for a reply.

But what is advantage using (E8400 3,00GHz) over (E6600 2,93GHz) with SAC which is single CPU app?

0,07Ghz?

Speaking of overclocking. Is this safe? How do you know your system is running stable? Is there any recommended motherboard to chose for overclocking? Any additional CPU cooling?

Thank you

Br,
Dali

[DominicPerry]

SAC will use two cores.

Don't buy a Celeron, for any reason. They under-perform in a serious way.

The E8400 is substantially faster than an E6600. Different chip dye, more L2 cache, lower heat production - it's a different generation of chip. I'd advise an E8400, E8500 or E8600.
Will be building an i3 machine soon myself, but if it all goes wrong, I won't be letting anyone down, except myself.

Dominic

[AntonZ]

It seems RAM access time is key factor in SAC performance. I think the new i5 platform would be a very nice and affordable step up, it should have faster RAM access than Core2Duo. I cannot speak from personal experience though, as my SAC rig is very low budget (a used P4 system :o).

[905shmick]

It seems RAM access time is key factor in SAC performance. I think the new i5 platform would be a very nice and affordable step up, it should have faster RAM access than Core2Duo. I cannot speak from personal experience though, as my SAC rig is very low budget (a used P4 system :o).

I'll have to disagree with you on the ram access argument.

I have 2 systems, 1 with a P4 3.2 GHz and one with a C2D E8400 3.0 GHz. Both are using the same make/model of motherboard and ram. The P4 falls over when loading up the mix session I was using on the E8400 machine (30 inputs + 12 monitor mixes + a few plugins).

Also, the E8400 will also overclock to 3.8Ghz with extreme ease and stability, which gives you another 26***37; increase in performance.

[DominicPerry]

All the new i series procs are different. Socket 1366 takes one bunch of i7s with triple channel memory. Socket 1156 takes a different bunch of i7s with dual channel memory and all the i5 and i3s, although you need different chipsets to support i3/i5 and i5/i7. And there are reports of increased memory latency for some of the i3 or i5 CPUs - worse than E8x00 - even though there's higher memory bandwidth. No, I don't want to get into the latency v bandwidth discusssion again.
IMHO, the only way to know if they're any good is to try one, which is what I'm planning on - i3 next for me.

Dominic

[Bob L]

Not sure where you got the idea that SAC is only a single CPU app... it is specifically designed to split tasks across two cores... but... that does not mean two cores will give the best performance.

There are many discussions here about the issues with dual core memory access and slipped buffers when loads are maxed past about 70%.

The best choice for the SAC engine and its particular needs would be a single core of the highest speed and fastest RAM access... but... the industry seems to be going the other way... with more cores and less mhz.

I have built many stable and great performance SAC systems using the E8x00 cpu series.

I have helped many users chase down problems who originally decided to ignore my comments about more cores are not better and in the end, many have gone back to the dual core systems.

Bob L