AMD or Intel?

[Microstudio]

I have been using a Mac Mini for a couple of years and it has been great..very quiet. Well I purchased a new Onyx 1220i for my new audio interface and my Mac Mini Firewire port died Only way to fix it is to get a new Logic Board+ $300 ish

So It's time to build a new system which will be Windows.

The last 2 systems I built were AMD and they were great. It has been a couple of years so what say you people....AMD or Intel... is it worth the cash to go Intel or just over kill?

Just know I am running on a Cord Duo 2.4 with 8GB Ram now and it does rather well.

[TotalSonic]

I've stuck with Intel as a no headache solution for 19 years now - so I can't really offer any comparisons but can say that I've had great success with them. I'm building a new DAW currently - ASUS P8Z77-V LX mobo, i7 2700k 3.5GHz quad core cpu, 8 gig DDR3 1600 RAM, Western Digital Velociraptor 10000rpm 500gb system drive. A big selling point of the mobo for me was the 3 PCI slots so that I can still use my old Mixtreme 192 and UAD-1 cards in it.

Best regards,
Steve Berson

[tomasino]

I've done both n' I vote Intel too.. i5 or better.. stay x64.

Build for your other DAW software, Plugs and VSTi's. (You mentioned somewhere you use the Melodyne plug.)
SawStudio will be fine.

[Adam Christopher]

I've done both n' I vote Intel too.. i5 or better.. stay x64.

Build for your other DAW software, Plugs and VSTi's. (You mentioned somewhere you use the Melodyne plug.)
SawStudio will be fine

I have to agree with this. I have an I5 and it works great. I did some research on this before settling and right or wrong the conventional wisdom seems that AMD is no longer the better bang for the buck offering that it once was. And supposedly Intel's mid-grade chips seem to compare well to a Bulldozer. I don't know how true that is but this is the advice I was given. But I am very happy with the I5. Haswell is scheduled to be released in June so you will probably be able to get an Ivy Bridge even cheaper pretty soon. I have Sandy Bridge and am quite pleased.

[Microstudio]

Thanks for the input guys! I have never been one that falls for the hype when it comes to Mobo's and CPU's. I use many DAW's with my lowly Core Duo 2.4 and it does pretty good.

With SAW I can load up a 59 Track session with lots of Comps/EQ and a couple Aux sends on many tracks and the CPU is around 2 to 4% and HD/Ram is bursts of 20 to 30%.... that's impressive which none of the other DAW's come close too.

I wish I could just stay with my Mic Mini but the Firewire does not work so maybe the i5 will fit the bill.

@ Steve: Why do you feel the need to move to the i7 if I may ask?

[Adam Christopher]

Well I can't answer for Steve Berson but If I had to guess, perhaps with that mobo, he went for the I7 as it is the best you can get (more future proof) and still be able to use PCI. In his case, PCI is obviously important and PCI is not available in most mobos anymore. Everything is PCI Express from X1 to X16 now.

The I7 Sandy Bridge he has should give him plenty of longevity but if PCI is that critical that might be the best processor he'll be able to use so maybe he just went for the best.

With the newer I5, I7 sockets, you can't find motherboards anymore with PCI expandability. And you can't just fit any I5, I7 in any mobo either. It has to be right socket and right generation(s). Intel changes their socket it seems at least every two generations.

For perspective though, I really don't think you'll benefit from the premium of paying for an I7 in your case Matt unless you do a lot of video encoding. Even some gamers report better performance in some instances with their I5 than I7. I7 has slightly better cache but you will never realize the benefits of that with Saw. You really start to see the benefits going from I5 to I7 in multi-threaded applications than can take full advantage of the maximum virtual cores available in an I7. Realistically, we are talking about processes like video encoding on the latest software.

But I would definitely go I5 over I3. I3 is a suped up dual core, which for SAW, would be quite fine. But you will see less of a difference from an I3 (as your current rig seems to work well already) than going straight to I5. if you are going to buy new, you might as well go with something where you can really notice the difference. That's my take.

[Microstudio]

Good stuff Adam,

I think i5 will be fine for my needs. Now to what I have to have... I fanless computer! My Mic Mini makes so little noise you have to put your ear to it to hear it. Anyone gone fanless?

i have done a lot of research on fanless builds and there are a lot of products out there that will work with the i5's.

Fanless is a must in 2013!

[TotalSonic]

Well I can't answer for Steve Berson but If I had to guess, perhaps with that mobo, he went for the I7 as it is the best you can get (more future proof) and still be able to use PCI. In his case, PCI is obviously important and PCI is not available in most mobos anymore. Everything is PCI Express from X1 to X16 now.

The I7 Sandy Bridge he has should give him plenty of longevity but if PCI is that critical that might be the best processor he'll be able to use so maybe he just went for the best.

With the newer I5, I7 sockets, you can't find motherboards anymore with PCI expandability. And you can't just fit any I5, I7 in any mobo either. It has to be right socket and right generation(s). Intel changes their socket it seems at least every two generations.

For perspective though, I really don't think you'll benefit from the premium of paying for an I7 in your case Matt unless you do a lot of video encoding. Even some gamers report better performance in some instances with their I5 than I7. I7 has slightly better cache but you will never realize the benefits of that with Saw. You really start to see the benefits going from I7 to I7 in multi-threaded applications than can take full advantage of the maximum virtual cores available in an I7. Realistically, we are talking about processes like video encoding on the latest software.

But I would definitely go I5 over I3. I3 is a suped up dual core, which for SAW, would be quite fine. But you will see less of a difference from an I3 (as your current rig seems to work well already) than going straight to I5. if you are going to buy new, you might as well go with something where you can really notice the difference. That's my take.

Yeah - my original plan was indeed to just get an i5 - but TigerDirect was running a sale and the i7 I went for wasn't much more in price than then the best i5 options. fwiw - I went for a cpu with the highest speed per core rather than for more cores - as this will benefit SAWStudio performance more. But I'm also planning on getting into a little bit of video editing with this machine - so the multi-threading will in fact help me as well.

Best regards,
Steve Berson

[Adam Christopher]

Yeah - my original plan was indeed to just get an i5 - but TigerDirect was running a sale and the i7 I went for wasn't much more in price than then the best i5 options. fwiw - I went for a cpu with the highest speed per core rather than for more cores - as this will benefit SAWStudio performance more. But I'm also planning on getting into a little bit of video editing with this machine - so the multi-threading will in fact help me as well

.

Smooth moves Steve! Man, I bet that baby blazes with SAW. I actually like Sandy Bridge cpus a lot. To be honest, even though the specs are slightly different I haven't noticed any difference between Sandy Bridge and Ivy Bridge so I'm sure you got one heck of a deal.

I have my doubts that Haswell will be much better either for a desktop PC but it looks like laptop notebooks will benefit from the improved Intel integrated video processor and improved battery life. Since you'll probably have dedicated video and steady power supply, there's little to be gained. I hear that by the time Intel gets to Skylake or Skymont, all Intel-powered computers could go fanless. But that's a few generations away still.

[Microstudio]

This company makes some great products for a NO Fan solution. I am defiantly going no fan!