Which Intel i5/i7 CPUs can I use?

[WTFinn]

Hello,

I would like to know gladly, which i5/i7 CPUs for SAC is suitable?

Greets
Finn

[905shmick]

Hello,

I would like to know gladly, which i5/i7 CPUs for SAC is suitable?

Greets
Finn

You can use any of them, though you'll be wasting your money on anything beyond 2 cores, which is why I'd recommend the i3 processor over an i5 or i7.

[cgrafx]

You can use any of them, though you'll be wasting your money on anything beyond 2 cores, which is why I'd recommend the i3 processor over an i5 or i7.

There is a 2-core i5

[WTFinn]

How does it look with 4 core? Can I use it, too?

[Bob L]

The two core i5 is working extremely well... turn OFF Hyperthreading so it shows as two cores... i5 650, 660, 661... etc.

You can use more cores, but they will only stomp on the main engine thread and possibly cause slipped buffers.

Bob L

[WTFinn]

Already did someone make a test with a i5-750?
I would like to operate a second SSD HD with Cubase for Recording

[905shmick]

i3-530 - 2.93 Ghz - $120 Link (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115222)

i5-650 - 3.2 Ghz - $180 Link (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115220)

i5-650 costs 50***37; more for 9.2% more speed than the i3-530

The i3-530 can be easily overclocked to 4Ghz.

[DominicPerry]

i3-530 - 2.93 Ghz - $120 Link (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115222)

i5-650 - 3.2 Ghz - $180 Link (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115220)

i5-650 costs 50***37; more for 9.2% more speed than the i3-530

The i3-530 can be easily overclocked to 4Ghz.

The i5 650 will be more than 9% faster. It's not just clock speed which is different, they are different designs. Passmark measures the i5 650 at 14% faster. I have to say that just because you can O'C your i3 to 4GHz doesn't mean they all will. The Integrated Memory Controller on the Clarkdale chips is apparently rather weak, and it does depend on what MoBo you have; I think results are variable. I do still agree that it's probably the best bang-for-buck Intel chip to buy though - better than the E8x00 these days.

Dominic

[cgrafx]

i3-530 - 2.93 Ghz - $120 Link (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115222)

i5-650 - 3.2 Ghz - $180 Link (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115220)

i5-650 costs 50% more for 9.2% more speed than the i3-530

The i3-530 can be easily overclocked to 4Ghz.

Overclocking an i3 to 4 GHz, is a recipe for disaster. Regardless of additional external cooling, you will reduce the life expectancy of the chip, as well as increase stability issues for the entire system. The purpose of a dedicated purpose-built system is to improve reliability, not to have bragging rights about how souped up your system is.

Yes, your system might function at 4 GHz, but it will be subject to increased points of failure for any number of reasons that may or may not be under your control. (ambient temperature, power fluctuations, radio and other injected interference, dust, fan failure, etc. etc.

It makes no sense to push systems intended for appliance use to the limits of their functional specs (its actually poor engineering to do so).

[905shmick]

Overclocking an i3 to 4 GHz, is a recipe for disaster. Regardless of additional external cooling, you will reduce the life expectancy of the chip, as well as increase stability issues for the entire system. The purpose of a dedicated purpose-built system is to improve reliability, not to have bragging rights about how souped up your system is.

Yes, your system might function at 4 GHz, but it will be subject to increased points of failure for any number of reasons that may or may not be under your control. (ambient temperature, power fluctuations, radio and other injected interference, dust, fan failure, etc. etc.

It makes no sense to push systems intended for appliance use to the limits of their functional specs (its actually poor engineering to do so).

If the CPU isn't overheating, it wont decrease the life expectancy by any significant amount. Any of the things you mentioned above apply to regular and non overclocked systems.

I should also note that I adjusted the CPU voltage in the BIOS for my overclock and it's actually running with less voltage than if I were to leave it at auto.

I also don't ever expect to run the system at 100***37; for days at a time. What I've achieved with overclocking is the ability to give myself additional CPU overhead at no cost. A SAC mix session that was running at 60% load will now be running at 45% and the CPU can actually run cooler than if it was running at 60%.

Overclocking isn't for everyone, but saying it's going to do all sorts of bad things and reduce system life and reliability isn't true.

[cgrafx]

If the CPU isn't overheating, it wont decrease the life expectancy by any significant amount. Any of the things you mentioned above apply to regular and non overclocked systems.

I should also note that I adjusted the CPU voltage in the BIOS for my overclock and it's actually running with less voltage than if I were to leave it at auto.

I also don't ever expect to run the system at 100***37; for days at a time. What I've achieved with overclocking is the ability to give myself additional CPU overhead at no cost. A SAC mix session that was running at 60% load will now be running at 45% and the CPU can actually run cooler than if it was running at 60%.

Overclocking isn't for everyone, but saying it's going to do all sorts of bad things and reduce system life and reliability isn't true.

You can't lower the power and overclock.. you can't overclock and run cooler... those things are mutually exclusive.

Overclocking requires higher voltages and more power...period. It also requires more cooling... period. There are no magic settings that will allow you to run a chip at a faster clock speed and reduce power and heat.

Pushing the clock speed up, reduces clock timing margins, making timing between devices for the entire system more critical (PCI Bus, Memory, DMA Control, Drive Control, etc.)

Yes, over clocking a system to its extremes will reduce the overall reliability of the system.

I'm not saying it won't work, but don't pretend there aren't consequences to doing so.

[905shmick]

You can't lower the power and overclock.. you can't overclock and run cooler... those things are mutually exclusive.



If you leave the motherboard at its default settings, you'll see a vcore value that is higher than if you manually set the vcore voltage in the bios.

So yes, you can lower the power and overclock.

[dasbin]

You can't lower the power and overclock.. yo


Well... in many cases you can both lower the core voltage from its default voltage, AND overclock, and have a reasonably stable system. Of course this just means that you could leave it at the default clocks and decrease voltage even more.

But, I don't think this is good practice. A system that seems totally stable under normal operation at first may become unstable under particular types of load which use different parts of the CPU, and I believe may also become more unstable over time due to electronic wear of pathways and transistors which will require more voltage "push" to overcome. The default voltages are what they are for a reason - just because you seem to get a stable system at a lower voltage, doesn't mean that's where you should run it.

Brings me to a small tangent - many Gigabyte and Asus motherboards come default with a "reduce VDroop" or "Load Line Calibration" option in the BIOS turned ON. This is supposed to reduce or eliminate a voltage drop to the CPU when the CPU is demanding large current under load.
From what I've read though, this is a horrible idea, as Intel CPU's are designed to expect certain amounts of VDroop, and you can drastically reduce the lifetime and stability of your system by leaving this option enabled. Seems counter-intuitive that a less stable voltage supply would be better, but it's designed that way.

I would never overclock at all a system that has to be 100***37; stable, such as a SAC system. Even if I ran dozens of tests and never encountered instability, Murphy's Law will invariably kick in during a show one day.

And one last thing - independent of voltage, an overclocked CPU will run hotter than a non-overclocked one. It's not accurate to say that "If the CPU isn't overheating, it wont decrease the life expectancy by any significant amount." In fact, the rule of thumb is that every 10 degrees increase in temperature will HALVE the CPU's expected lifetime.

[cgrafx]

If you leave the motherboard at its default settings, you'll see a vcore value that is higher than if you manually set the vcore voltage in the bios.

So yes, you can lower the power and overclock.

Lower the vcore value and push up the clock and you'll make your system timing even more critical.

There is no free lunch.

As each of the buss timing paths become more critical, the ability of the sytem to work in more adverse conditions becomes more and more compromised.

Run the clock up to 4 GHz and increase the ambient temperature and suddenly your memory doesn't work reliably anymore.

Something that seemed to work perfectly suddenly has random glitches or stops completely.

Its also not just about heat. Its also about clock timing, and a bunch of other parameters that have been engineered to work together. Lowering the vcore increases susceptibility to noise.

Push any system close to the limits and you will reduce the reliability of the system.

When the intent of the thing you are building is to be stable and reliable you don't engineer to the limits of the components.

[905shmick]

We'll have to agree to disagree on this, because I've been doing this in the real world for years and I've yet to see this act as the weak link in the chain.

[Donnie Frank]

We'll have to agree to disagree on this, because I've been doing this in the real world for years and I've yet to see this act as the weak link in the chain.

Just playing Devil's advocate here...Why have you over-clocked your CPU so much? Are you running a boat-load of channels or FX or plugins or something? What was your CPU usage in SAC the last time the CPU was at its default timing?

Not trying to stir the s**t pile here...just curious to know.

[905shmick]

Just playing Devil's advocate here, by why have you over-clocked your CPU so much? Are you running a boat-load of channels or FX or plugins or something? What was your CPU usage the last time the CPU was at its default timing?

Not trying to stir the s**t pile here...just curious to know.

I overclocked it because it was a relatively conservative tweak which netted more processing power and useable overhead than if I didn't. The system listed in my sig is O/C'd and runs about 45% load with about 48 inputs and 12 monitor mixes in use.

The system I'm in the middle of building right now won't be running as much, but I'm building an overclock profile that is stable so that I can flip to it if needed. So I'll leave the system stock and if for whatever reason we run into a processing bottleneck, I can fire up the overclocked profile from within the bios and get a 25% boost if needed.

[905shmick]

Some screenshots showing system info and SAC load between default and overclocked settings.

https://www.dropbox.com/gallery/833508/1/Corei3_530?h=203a75

Both the 24 and 72ch configs are setup as follows:

Inputs set to mono on FOH, Mon 1 set to tap FOH, Mon 2-20 set to tap Mon 1 pst fader

LoCut, HiCut + all 5 bands of EQ enabled on FOH and Mon 1

Note: the 72 Ch SAC load showing 96***37; load had a lot of slipped buffers. None of the others have any slipped buffers and have been previously tested to run for 24+ hours with no slipped buffers.

[Bob L]

Running the host to over 90% on a multi-core system will most likely always slip buffers... but... force the system down to one core and your 9x% will probably drop and you will probably not see slipped buffers at all.

Not what people want to believe... but test for yourself.

Bob L

[905shmick]

Running the host to over 90***37; on a multi-core system will most likely always slip buffers... but... force the system down to one core and your 9x% will probably drop and you will probably not see slipped buffers at all.

Not what people want to believe... but test for yourself.

Bob L

Both configs only have 1 core enabled and hyperthreading disabled via the bios. At 96% load, lots of slipped buffers and lots of audible ticking sounds.

[Donnie Frank]

Both configs only have 1 core enabled and hyperthreading disabled via the bios. At 96% load, lots of slipped buffers and lots of audible ticking sounds.

96%?! You, sir, are a madman!!!...<;^)

[905shmick]

96%?! You, sir, are a madman!!!...<;^)

It's only 69% when overclocked. Plenty of headroom!

[DominicPerry]

If it works, it works. If you're keeping your eye on CPU, voltage controller and memory temps, then it's cycles for free. My comment was simply that not every i3 chip is going to O'C so easily - maybe Intel just sends us Brits the dodgy ones;)

Dominic