microapp
Unless you have like 50-100 tracks with tons of effects or many instances of Kontakt or something like that, I think you need to optimize your PC. My friend has virtually your setup (he just upped RAM from 8 to 16) and has never encountered what you describe even with 8GB. Maybe you could provide more details of the offending project(s). I think I would look at a couple of SSD's before I dumped the 2600K. THe 2600K is prob only 15-20% slower than Broadwell (if that) and you could make that up with overclock. The Sandy Bridge is one of the best OC parts ever. I think you could get a 20% OC even with the stock air cooler.
If you have limited funds a Broadwell 10 core is NOT the way to go. Last summer I built a Haswell-E 5820K six-core system (OC'ed to 4.5G) and the CPU was 400$ on sale. The 8 core 5960-X was $1000. I doubt the Broadwell-E will be much cheaper and prob more.
Even with Broadwell or Skylake core #1 is going to have a higher utilization than the other cores. Parts of Sonar code (and other multithreaded programs) must run on one core. The audio and VST processes are distributed to the other cores. AFAIK, the GUI and MIDI,etc need to run on core #1.
I ran across this article on building a cheap dual processor 16 core system with Xeon CPUs.
http://www.techspot.com/review/1155-affordable-dual-xeon-pc/
I almost wish I had gone this route and saved several hundred bucks but my Haswell-E is so much overkill for what I need I am very pleased.
Okay, thanks for that. As mentioned in another reply, when placing a few modules in Kontact - like in a 5-16 Output setup - that's when I'm pushing that core 1. Friedlander Violin really pushes core 1, when using poly voices.
I have a fairly new 1K SSD fitted, which was a great upgrade for my system.
I have just found that recently, as my projects grow in synth, wave, FX etc, I seem to be hitting CPU usage limits. So I'm just researching to see if I can build something more powerful. Also, one member mentioned for example the Gigabyte GA-Z17OX-Gaming G1 mobo, and in particular has USB DAC-UP, which it offers - apparently - 2x Less noise and since my RMR-UFX in on a USB2, I have been noticing low ground noise...manageable yes, but still contributing to a less than ideal mix. So this too, was part of my consideration.
I didn't know however that even the Skylake with its power spread evenly across its cores, Sonar would not reap that benefit...so thanks for that.
As also mentioned in another post, some vst's like Session Horns Pro, use quite a bit of memory. I had this one Kontact module loaded and I had 10Gbs out of 16Gbs being used. Still okay but I thought perhaps adding some more memory could be helpful done the line.
Yes the Xeon article was quite interesting. Would be interesting to build something like this. The power usage for 2 cpu's does seem quite high,
if being used ie.
Anyway, those were my 3 considerations: noise, memory and better CPU and/or more cores. I too have a 6/12 CPU on my other computer, but the Gigabyte mobo was fraught with issues and can now only support 12gbs of ram out of its 24, despite it being able to do so in the past...big wasted of money on that one, although still a good system. I have consider migrate to it, but really don't trust it.