PG Music Home Forums General Discussion Off-Topic Intel vs AMD

I'm getting close to needing an upgraded Windows desktop. Because of disk drive and USB port considerations it's looking like I will be going down the gaming PC path even though I have no need for high-end graphics. I'm also leaning toward either the Intel i7 or i9 processor.

Does anyone have experience that says I should lean toward AMD?
I don't care about processor price. I want multi-tasking performance and longterm reliability/cooler core temperatures.

I have had both and I prefer Intel. Just seems to be better. No real data here. I went with a "refurbished" machine a while back and it was a good price from Amazon. It was good, had plenty of RAM and storage and USB ports. I added a huge storage hard drive and SSD for VST samples. Then I went with Dell when it was time to upgrade and have not been happier.

I have no experience with AMD but only good experience with Intel. And you can read the reviews until blue in the face. AMD is probably fine but 1 review [mainly] leaned toward Intel.

These two companies go back and forth as to which has the most powerful CPU at any given time. Right now the pendulum may be toward AMD, but not enough to matter, and I would never spend the obscene money to buy the very top of the line anyway when something a bit down from that will do fine at less than half the cost. At one point, there were compatibility issues where a program might not run correctly on AMD, but those days are long past.

If it helps, I just bought an Intel i9 for my new production machine. This is my first PC since 1983 that I did not build myself, because I'm not familiar with the latest M.2 drives and cooling systems.

A few things follow from your choice of CPU, such as the socket on the motherboard or the cooling unit, so get some advice if you're not fully familiar with the ramifications of this choice.

I never overclock (avoids heat, better stability), and I choose a processor with more speed over one with more cores. BIAB does not require many cores. If you have other software, check the requirements of that software, but in general eight or more should be fine. I have ten, and most are never used much.

About the 'gaming' part, that's mostly about having an added Graphics card (GPU). BIAB of course does not need that at all. My new machine doesn't even have a graphics card; I got a CPU with integrated graphics. Intel chips have long been very good at this.

Does that help?

I see these companies arguing about "most powerful" like I see internet providers claiming "the fastest". Well, internet speed is provisioned. If you get 300mbps down from AT&T, Spectrum, Xfinity... whoever, it is 300mbps down. Speed of a CPU is the same no matter what name is printed on it. Whatever the speed rating is, it is. "Most powerful" relies on many other things. Number of cores, front side cache, as well as tangent things like RAM in the computer. The exact same CPU is going to APPEAR to run faster in a PC with 32gb or 64gb or RAM because the data processing across the data bus (from hard drive thru CPU to RAM where programs actually run) makes the response on the screen faster. Remembering what the CPU actually does is key. It doesn't make your program RUN faster. It makes it LOAD faster. An then if the CPU has a bigger front side cache it remembers instructions that are repetitive and runs it from that cache. Remember, the bottom line for these companies is how many of your dollars they can get rather than the competition getting it. I have always used Intel just by preference. Matt is spot on when he says speed over cores. Unless you are playing Grand Theft Auto, editing video, surfing and emailing while you are making music, cores are overrated. As I sit here I am watching TV in one browser on one monitor, playing backgammon in one of the 7 Chrome tabs I have open on another monitor, and typing this on a 3rd monitor in one of those 7 tabs. I have a 4 core Intel i5 with 16gb of RAM in this particular computer. When I go upstairs to make music on my i7 with 32gb of RAM nothing is over but Real Band. Too many people don't really get how a computer works and they eat up the hype and build "testosterone" computers when they don't need them.

Like many things, its horses for courses. Your usage pattern determines what you need.

Can you explain "USB port considerations?" Is this computer dedicated to music? If so, how many things do you need plugged into USB? For example, on my music computer the only thing in USB is the Focusrite. (If you are using MIDI over USB, stop that and buy an interface. Really. Life will get easier.)

Well, I'll be the odd ball and say I have always ran AMD, and mainly for the price/benefit aspect ..

When building your own, the CPU cost is a big part of what you decide to build.
Otherwise, as others have said, not much difference.
AMD is more likely to not have an integrated video driver option in my experience.
You really don't need to spend much on a video card for most stuff.

This particular machine has a simple 2 out video card.
I don't need 3 monitors here at home, but starting to consider it at work.
I think really high priced video cards are a pretty big waste for what we do.
The AMD I chose runs all my apps fine, including running Kontakt Komplete while running RB and/or other DAWs & plugins at the same time.
It's a 6 core 12 thread .. so cores is not the only consideration when picking a CPU, same with speed .. it's really about how much data can it process in a given amount of time.
Many things come into play, cores, threads, speed, and like Eddie mentioned, front side cache etc all matter 'a little'.

AMD Ryzen 5 2600 Six-Core Processor 3.40 GHz
They make much better these days

Just to redress the balance, I'll weigh in on the side of AMD. Not that I've anything against Intel, but I'm a long-time AMD user.
I have two AMD machines, the first being my teaching one which has a twin core AMD at 3.4GHz and eight gig RAM with WIN 8.1. It's been used all day every day since 2013 without a single problem, running Realband 2021 and PowerTracks. I keep it clean and it still runs as fast as the day I had it built.

My off-line machine is an AMD Rysen quad core at 3.8GHz with sixteen gig RAM under WIN 10Pro. It runs Realband, Powertracks and Harrison Mixbus 32C and generates Realtracks in the blink of an eye. It will cope happily with over twenty four tracks of Mixbus with EQ plus 12 sends and compressor on every channel. As for reliability, its been running for over two years with hardly a crash.

I see a lot of people running systems which I think are possibly over-spec for the work involved. My advice is to keep your main music computer off-line - with no anti-virus it'll run faster and with no forced updates it'll work the same every time you boot it.

But Intel is OK too....

Yep AMD here as well on a thirteen year old pc with an SSD, running good at the moment does everything I want it to do.

I have never been unhappy with intel. I have been disappointed with AMD, but that was a while back.

The last two primary machines I built were an intel i9-9900 and an i5??. Both run all my software without issue, including video software.

I can not upgrade the i9 processor without changing the motherboard. Check into socket issues.

Thirty-two gigs of fast RAM, All SSD drives on and above board. WIN 10 Pro on one and Win 11 Pro on the other. No real issues with 10 or 11. Medium-quality video processors on both are both expensive and useful for video and better quality visuals on my DAW.
Are they worth the extra cost? Who knows.

USB issues. Three USB piano keyboards, a USB computer keyboard, a BIAB USB drive, a webcam, a mouse, two USB backup drives, an interface, and whatever else I forgot...lol, I forgot, USB connection to UPS. OH and a USD midi interface... I installed 8 USB ports on the computer and now I have an adapteror also. Two firewire connections. Midi on the interface for the main keyboard.

Too much stuff!

Billy

Thumper.

i dont know if this helps..but this time i went with an amd mini pc.
So far I'm thrilled with it for 400 bucks. it seems to laugh at anything i throw at it.
(my reasoning being higher speed cpu's and busses are coming down the pipe in the next few years.)

but whether it would put a smile on your face i dunno as your needs might be way different than i and you might want massive trak counts and you use resource hungry plug-ins.

https://www.pgmusic.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=736515#Post736515

one IMPORTANT point i want to make is there is a very handy site that tests in great detail core latency of some pc's and lots of other stats.,...imho core latency is rather important as one doesnt want to buy any old pc only to find running latency mon you get various warnings and problems. my ryzen mini pc has one of the lowest core latencies.
heres the site >>>


https://www-notebookcheck-net.webpkgcache.com/doc/-/s/www.notebookcheck.net/DPC-Latency-Ranking-Which-laptops-and-Windows-tablets-offer-the-lowest-latency.504376.0.html

obviously they cant test every single pc on the market.
all i can say is ive gone from being a mini pc sceptic to being a big fan of such.


if you wanna go hog wild , these are the type of custom built pc's used by lots of
studios with big budgets. they are turnkey highly optimised rigs for recording etc. you tell em' what you want and they build the rig.

www.silentpc.com

there are many competitors…heres another one of many.
(another thing you can do is go on gearspace.com and ask for references re custom built for recording. many people love this custom option.)

www.studiocat.com

good luck with your quest.


happiness


om

Harv the only reason I have 3 monitors is that a friend of mine ordered a case of that rocket sauce energy drink kind of stuff and Amazon sent her a 3 monitor stand instead. She called to tell them about it and they told her to no bother returning it, so she sent it to me. I then had to buy 3 matching HP 27" monitors, but it's only money, right?

Billy, what do you mean "USB pianos"? Don't they have MIDI ports? And don't you have a dedicated music computer that you don't need a camera on it? Backup drives can be plugged in and unplugged when you do a backup, unless those USB drives are general storage as well. I have a 1tb drive for music I want to store off of my main (C:) drive but I still have 700gb free. I don't download like I used to, and often I download, listen, then delete if I'm disappointed in the album I wanted to sample.

The reason I bought the external USB powered hub is that I don't want to use USB ports to charge phones and tablets. I bought a 12 port, and 9 are in use. It's getting hard to think of things that DON'T charge via USB anymore. I just bought one of those high lumen long throw flashlights. It has a lithium ion battery and charges by USB, so that 10th port on the charger will be taken by the flashlight. I don't know why but I just like the idea of charging by wall power instead of the computer power supply.

But back to topic, it's Ford vs Chevy vs Mopar. Whatever you like, you like. For me it's Intel.

Chevy! Chevy!

I can't respond to everyone separately on this thread but want to thank all who offered their inputs. I appreciate you sharing your experiences.

My philosophy is similar to Matt's in that I won't be first in line to pay a premium for cutting edge technology be it a computer processor, smart phone or other. For me that doesn't make financial sense plus I know something about the engineering process and I want the design and manufacturing flaws to be worked out before jumping onboard.

Since retiring, my "needs"/workflow mainly involve writing, recording, arranging and mixing music with BiaB and Studio One. Been doing this for a little over 3 years now. And as I continue to explore BiaB, S1 and my Korg keyboard I find that the number of tracks in my arrangements continue to grow. Not too long ago my bass and 3 or 4 BiaB tracks would be the norm. The latest song I shared contained 11 tracks each with volume and panning automation. I could see this trend continuing at least a little longer.

Of course, there are ancillary applications that are also up and running at any given time. Several web pages perhaps with a YouTube video or 2, my email web tool, MS Word to capture chord progressions, poems and lyrics, PowerPoint, Windows Media Player, my interface software, etc.

Yet my Win 11 i5 machine is currently meeting all my multi-tasking needs and even my palsey 12GB of memory is still serving me well. It's my C: drive size, too few USB ports and not having much overall headroom for future growth like synthetic vocals, OS upgrades and the like that is driving me to upgrade.

Back in the day, I led a small team to establish the connection between our local site and a Cray "Super Computer" located hundreds of miles away to execute large FE (Finite Element) models. Then UNIX-based Sparc workstations met that load. And when the engineering PC entered the picture, some of my Monte-Carlo simulations would run up to 48 hours wall-clock.

My current needs are nowhere that high these days so I'm thinking an i7 (or i9), 16 (or 32)GB RAM and two 1 (or 2)TB hard drives should keep me in the game for at least 5+ years. I need to look at availability and what makes sense as I get closer.

Based on some comments here and a little research, an AMD chip (like Ryzen 7 5800X) would probably work fine if assembled by a pro. But unless, something major is released in the press regarding Intel chips I think I'll be sticking with them. I've been an Intel guy for years with no issues.

No way baby! It's Toyota !!

Since you say this is for BIAB and Studio One (and I use these two) I will offer that BIAB benefits by spending your money in this priority:

First, by a wide margin, the CPU
Second, fast storage like M.2 SSD drives
Third, enough RAM
Fourth, dead last, graphics.

For Studio One I might consider RAM more important if you use lots of tracks and effects and plugins, but even then it would only move into second place by a bit.

I didn’t want to get too detailed but Eddie is correct to mention cache. There are tons of variables.

What Matt said.

Eddie, two of the "piano keyboards" only have USB connections. Having three keyboards set to different things running in Studio One makes it easier for me not to forget stuff. Bass on one, piano on two, synth on three, and sometimes a drum pad on keyboard four.

These USB keyboards are cheap enough. The Technics 88 key piano has USB and midi in, out, and thru.



Eddie, I use the video camera almost every day to communicate with people over zoom. I can see their screen/DAW, and they can see mine. I also have had Audiomovers in the past and just bought a new annual subscription. All of this facilitates collaboration and learning new stuff. This provides the ability to play in near real-time anywhere in the world. Most of my musical friends do not live in the USA.

I am getting so forgetful I need the charts up on the wall...lol Don't ever get old!

As a side note, although I am not a keyboard player, I had one on stage to use while I played guitar.

So...back to the thread. It most likely does not matter so much about the brand of CPU. What Matt said is my thinking also.

Billy

Well, not that anyone is asking, but... I bought my new PC (Intel I7) ~ 2 months ago from here:

https://www.ibuypower.com/gaming-pcs/prebuilt-gaming-pcs

Service was excellent - I called and spoke with a tech on the phone once and via email a second time really just to see if I would get responses. Both times quick responses with knowledgeable guys (here in US).

Delivered in days.

Price was better than my standard alternative Dell XPS.

I am a happy camper. Just sayin...

Since Dell was mentioned, I'll just add that the brand name computers like Dell and HP save money by not including things you might want if you decide to expand your computer. For example, you may find there is no place to mount a second disk drive, and no power cord for it. This is a good argument for assembling a computer from parts you choose, with guidance from someone who has assembled them before.

I also didn't get into USB connectivity. Any recent computer case will have several ports, and you can buy inexpensive hubs to augment them.

Are power supplies in newer computers coming with lesser power supplies that there are not enough pigtails for extra drives?


Wall powered. Trust me. 10 port hub that holds 10 devices is under $50 and it doesn't draw power from the computer power supply. And data flow is not diminished at all. I used to have a 7 port passive hub and all my ports were in use. Now 1 port is used (for the hub) and everything is powered from the wall.

Yes, I make sure I know all my Dell case and motherboard specs before I purchase. It's very important to know what you can expand to after purchase. This is especially important for CPUs. If the MOBO has an old CPU architecture, you may not be able to upgrade in the future.