Dose anyone use i7

chops2010

...roughly how many plugins /synths can you be running at once without having to bounce to audio?????

I can't put a figure on it, but I seem to be able to run dozens of synths and effects (so many that I lose track), including some taxing ones (e.g. Aether, Z3ta), without the CPU meter ever hitting 20%.

Yes it is. Remember to add memory too. The difference is astounding. Another astounding difference is one or two solid state drives.
John

I upgraded from Pentium 3 (I think it was) to i7 and it was night and day.   I've never even passed 40% CPU activity whilst having a selection of soft synths open.    

I have an i7 DAW. Just looking at my current project I have:

- 27 audio tracks (20 with in-line Eq enabled)
- 10 midi tracks
- 18 sends
- 8 busses
- 26 effects plugins across all busses and tracks
- 8 soft synths (SD3, DimPro * 3, Truepianos,  ProteusVX and Dropzone * 2)
- ASIO latency 4.0ms
- maximum total CPU usage on the project 18%

How I ever managed on a P4, I don't know :-)

daveny5

...and to really take advantage of the i7, you need to go to 64-bit Windows 7...

Not strictly essential.  An i7 system is very fast, even with a 32-bit o/s.  I'm still using XP and I'm not complaining.

While I was building my current PC a few months ago, I had planned to soon upgrade to 64-bit W7.  I even have an empty partition reserved for W7 and 6GB of RAM installed.  But once it was up and running with XP and I saw how fast it was, I decided to stick with this and didn't bother to upgrade.

I decided to stick with this and didn't bother to upgrade.

Whatever. You don't know what you're missing. I went from XP to Windows 7 (skipped Vista) and never looked back. Besides the many functional improvements like jump lists, with Windows 7 64-bit you can access over 3GB of memory and you can't do that with XP. 

chops2010


Hi

At the moment my PC has a pentium 4 Chip and its doing my head in as , i have one instance of session drummer, Z3ta, two instances of rob papen Predator , one instance of Cakewalk Pentagon and one instance of Rob papen Blue running and over a 4 beat bar my CPU useage is clocking up to 70 - 80 % useage .

I have just been told it would cost roughly £500 to upgrade to i7 with add ons such as power supply etc

Can anyone verify if i7 is worth the upgrade ???? and roughly how many plugins /synths can you be running at once without having to bounce to audio?????

Thanks,

Chris

If your budget allows, buy a completely new machine.
Adding an i7 to a old mobo (if it's even compatible) has limitations.

Adding an i7 to a old mobo (if it's even compatible) has limitations.

An i7 CPU requires a dedicated motherboard.  Hopefully this has already been taken into account in the upgrade estimate.

It really depends...

I don't require the full headroom of power that 64-bit provides. I did take on W7 64-bit  on an SSD Vertex II drive though, as I will need it soon with the libraries I'm getting, but so far running my spec (in signature), there's not a world of difference. I dual-boot to XP as that's where I run my email and office apps and install all my bloatware. W7 took away some crucial workflow aspects for me like custom toolbars (drag a folder to the edge of the screen and can fiddle around with it for brilliant instant access to commonly-used folders) also doesn't remember folder view settings. It runs very well, but I personally still work a little faster in XP...

I actually agree that when you're running more intensive stuff you'll certainly notice that difference in power. But at the level I'm working and probably Kev999's also it would be unfair to invalidate his posts... :\ This becomes no different than a Mac/PC or sequencer-choice debate:

If your machine's doing everything you want it to; you just don't need anything more...

Unless like me, you don't need it, but just WANT MOAAAR!