I've had an i3 4150 processor (3.50 ghz, dual-core) for a while now, and it just isn't cutting it for my music productions. If more than five 8Dio or Spitfire libraries are playing simultaneously, my computer's CPU usage shoots up to 70-80%. I'm in the market for buying a new PC, but I'm the second-poorest person on our planet and I'd like to find the best possible deal.

I stumbled across a processor I'd never heard before. Anyone have any experience with Xeon processors (like the E5-1620, E5-1650, or the X5690)? Would they work well for making music with Kontakt?

Here are some customizable computers I found (just set the specs as high as they'll go to see what I'm considering). Are they this cheap because they're awful? But I watched some Youtube videos that said Xeon processors are surprisingly good for gaming.... I'm confuzled!

Chicken

Turkey

Roast Beef

Salmon

Bacon

Don't worry about the hard drives. I've got a 4TB external that I'm good with. I don't need SSDs.

Thanks a heap, brodies! You guys always answer my questions more than adequately.

 

Last edited: Jul 7, 2017

i have i3-530, and it's working fine for mixing 450 tracks with video.

It seems like the most economical option would be to find ways of saving CPU/in kontakt.

You could, check out http://cpuboss.com/

 

I've been using Passmark as my guide, and it's saying the Xeon is miles better than the i3. Do you use Kontakt libraries? They're very CPU-intensive.

 

good idea to upgrade

x5690 is good (i use this one in my mac pro)

Xeons are good for Audio, especially for Orchestration stuff because they can handle way more memory
only time xeons suck for audio or gaming is if you go for too many cores and loose to much in single core power,
but we aren't in that price category anyway

this workstations are a steal for the money, but you have to get a decent one, condition wise.
all workstation class hardware, made for 24/7. no gaming junk. this are real workhorses.

go for it, you wont regret

just be sure to get the x5690 and stay on 6 cores max per cpu, dual cpu 12 cores are fine as well.

they have less power per core than yours, but have 4 more cores and whopping more cache

(edit)
your i3 is quite powerful per core, how is your workload on 1 core if you use only 1 demanding track ?
look in task-manager and open the core meters,
if there is about 50% headroom left, your good to go with this xeons

otherwise you need to rethink

 

Last edited by a moderator: Jul 7, 2017

In my experience, disable any reverb activated in every of your Kontakt instances and use sends instead to add it to the tracks that need it.
You will see a big difference in CPU and RAM usage..
I did it and was amazed at how many tracks I could run with my old xeon aging computer.
It's not the instruments samples that tax your computer it's all the FX added to make the library sound better on their own.
Try it you may decide that you are not as poor as you think with the computer you have now even if it's only a dual-core, or maybe it's time to change.
Just my 2 cents.

 

Wow, I never thought adding a single reverb would put such a drag on the CPU usage.... Thanks, dude. Still, I'm at 40% usage now instead of 70%, and I'm only playing five tracks at once.... I'd like to use at least ten in a song! I think it's time to upgrade my PC. Thanks a heap.

 

When I only play one track (the most demanding one), it uses about 30% of the CPU. Maybe it's just because it's old, but that's disastrous for me.

You've given me an okay to buy the x5690, but what about the E5-1620? It's newer and has a higher clock speed (as well as a higher overall score on cpubenchmark.net). I understand if you're speaking from experience, but I'm just making sure.

 

Have you tried free ones like http://bigcatinstruments.blogspot.co.nz/ or going non-kontakt? Or combining kontakt instances?

 

Make sure to compare both single-core and multi-core performance of your new CPU of choice.
From my experience, modern server CPUs often have somewhat lower single-core performance in order to achieve core counts of 16 (32) or above per CPU, which is desirable in modern virtualization environments but not necessarily in music production.
Both performance figures are important in music production, as is the fact how well your DAW can distribute CPU load over multiple cores using multiple Kontakt instances if necessary. Sometimes changes in your plugin and signal flow routing are necessary too.

See https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201838
and https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3179568?start=0&tstart=0

for tipps about equalizing CPU load over multiple cores.
It's written for Logic Pro, but just as valid for any other DAW on any OS.

 

Windows Side, i totally and strongly recommend you wait for the Threadripper CPUs from AMD, with 16cores 32Threads...

it will be released on a x399 Motherboards and they look like this, wish to me look like a perfected version of the rushed x299 from intel,

it will have 64PCI lanes, wish means up to 4GPUs at full 16X, in your area that might translate to unlimited UAD power, if you combine it with cubix expander, up to 128gigs of ram...

to me is the perfect combination for almost unlimited horse Power of CPU.

what's great is, it is gonna cost half of what intel is asking for, the CPU is gonna cost 850$ wish is really cheap compared to how intel prices their CPUs.

the motherboard on the other hand might be a bit expansive, but look how gorges it is!

forget about the bastards from intel go with AMD!

 

You can look for cheap "workstations" on ebay. I bought mine for about 450€. It has 16gb of ram, 2 xeon cpus with 12 threads each. The benchmark is above 17.000. And all this for just 450 €€€€

 

That xeon looks great, it seems it performs not far off mine, 5820k, and for that price...wow. I payed my x99 master 2000eur... ok, every part is great, but still for that price... dunno, check it out.

Also, I would recomend going with 64gb ram for todays kontakt libraries. Also, you can use your i3 machine as a slave via VEP (i have it legit but there is on the sister site too). That combination would serve you very very well for a quite a while.

 

be aware that some XEONs do not have a good Single Core Performance which might be nice when using a DAW

 

I've got a Z820 Workstation with 2x8 core Xeons. And a Dell Workstation with one Xeon proc.
Z Workstations are good machines for almost everything.
But they are just too loud for music production.
The fans you can hear outside are as loud as a small 1000W hairdryer and you can't change that behaviour, because the machines need that "cooling solution" icluded in their tower (runs around processors, drives and extension cards). Not only the processors are getting extreme hot but also the RAM is so hot that you can cook your scrambled eggs on them.
The DELL workstations won't even run without their proper "cooling solution". Means if you change anything there, the computer may even refuse to run.

But when it comes to performance, they both are beasts.

As far as I can imagine, you can use the Z/DELL Workstations for music production only, when you give them an extra airconditioned cabinet (or you'll need to wear headphones all the time!?)

 

Last edited: Jul 7, 2017

But with (Dual-) Xeon, be prepared for a noisy computer and a hefty energy bill..

 

threadripper,i9, even ryzen is way out of his budget

 

this is the way to go, but not on dual cores

 

this is not important, you need to know how much the peak(!) of 1 core is, thats all that counts to determine if the x5690 has enough single core juice, if it does, you can run 6 of them for sure and probably 12 of this very demanding channels without hiccups in realtime.
(which in real world usage usually does not happen)

its really key to understand how a daw and cores work, then you can squeeze out a lot more from your machine, but a dual core is just limited.


if you are at 30% total cpu usage but 1 core is over its capability you get crackles

if i load diva (beauty pad /accuracy = draft / 512 buffer) and play a constant 3 note chord i can run 64 instances without crackles because i have a constant load and im still under 100% per core usage

constant load:

64 channels 95% total cpu usage:


if i do a chord change every couple bars i get peaks because the reverb and chorus have to process more "stuff"

peaks:


now i have only 51% total cpu usage but have to go down to 36 channels to not get into crackling because the peaks need to be in range of the single core power

 

its a good idea to sometimes have your core meter open while you work in your daw and look how the load is spread if you use on channel effects or sends. this way you can determine what uses the most and causes crackles, and you learn how to manage your plugins properly.

the new cpus from Intel and AMD are a freaking dream for us but you have to spend a lot more to get even a basic machine.
i think you will be happy with the x5690, you can just resell it if it doesn't perform good for you.
then i would seriously look into some new ryzen machine.

watch this entire thing to understand whats important for us:

 

the e5-1620 is only a quad core