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CAN ANYONE BEAT RHARVS NEW PC CONFIG ?
pg long time user rharv blew me away this week with his new pc ryzen 5 config.
1900 trak approx capability real band action>> test audio performance reports.
WOW ! previous best was a pg user reporting acer predator 250 trak count if i remember. my current i5 ssd pc 190 traks.
then i looked up cpubenchmark.net that reports the ryzen 5 with a great 14000 performance figure. darn impressive.
(the intel popular i5 8400 is less at 11000 approx. )

i'm in the process of evaluating my studio pc needs for 2021 onwards.
normally i get refurbs , cos i never get problems with them. never a one.
ive been considering refurb xeon beasts eg this hp z workstation stuffed with ssd's.
a lovely deal imho.
https://www.bestbuy.ca/en-ca/product/hp-z440-workstation-xeon-e5-1620v3-3-5ghz-4-cores-16gb-ram-512gb-ssd-quadro-k2200-4gb-win10-pro-refurbished/14348023

but NOW rharvs RB stats of 1400, have made me do a major rethink regarding hp z refurb.
kudos to rharv.
of course , as anyone knows, multiple instances of high cpu demanding plug ins need more and more pc resources. even more so with many instances of such. eg guitar amp emulation plug ins. which i would like to explore more, but i'm a realist as to resource useage.
so far ive been useing tricks plus my own gtr amps , plus the guitar amp emulations built into reaper
which dont demand loads of cpu in executing dsp code.
you just cant keep on bunging loads of dsp plug ins onto a pc with a low end cpu.

in conclusion, CAN ANYONE BEAT RHARVS RB TRAK COUNT ?
(without spending a small fortune of course. processor cost per unit under 400 buks.)
also, perhaps, if you could also post the following stats, would help in my upgrade decision.
1. win boot time from totally cold to win desktop. (me currently 9 secs to beat.)
2. daw icon to daw trak display, with a decent sized project say 30 traks.(me currently 3 to 4 secs in reaps.)

many thanks, and happy new year to all.
i'm in an upgrade mood.
muso.

Last edited by justanoldmuso; 01/09/21 04:36 AM.

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Don't know if anybody can beat The RharvMiester, but I can come close. 1550 tracks.

Jeff

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This is from my scratchpad computer.





Until just now I didn't even know this was a thing.

Last edited by eddie1261; 01/09/21 07:30 AM.
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Nice Eddie!
Noticing Jeff has a faster processor (4.3 vs 3.4) and twice the RAM.
Wonder if it's because the Ryzen is a 6 core 12 thread processor, maybe that affects the math in this test somehow.
FWIW my count seems a little higher today yet, if we're comparing swords here .. but Eddie leads so far. smile


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Last edited by rharv; 01/09/21 07:41 AM.

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That's a good point Rharv, that could be it. Mine is a 4 core, 8 thread processor. More cores the better? I don't know.

The only thing I'm interested in is regenerating realtracks faster. What ever would do that I'm all for. Having more audio tracks, not so much.

Jeff


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Originally Posted By: MountainSide
The only thing I'm interested in is regenerating realtracks faster.


How long does it take now? Cutting into your exercise time?

I don't get this obsession with speed in computers. I heard all the stuff about bootup times, program loading times... unless it takes hours... often from people who still don't understand that programs run in RAM and not from the hard drive.

I don't remember who it was but about 2 years ago, some unnamed user here, taking the advice of someone who knows buzzwords but not computers, defragged his solid state drive. And with as many write cycles as that defrag used up, that drive was dead in about 10 days after that. Defragging does nothing at all to make your computer "run" faster. It allows for programs to "load" faster, but you ae talking milliseconds. So whoever that was, I hope they learned a lesson. Defragging NEVER had any value. Between that and blaming every computer malady on "drivers need to be updated"... oy.

I remember back when somebody bragged to me how he stuffed 64GB of RAM into his XP computer. I didn't have the heart, or the patience, to explain that XP 32 bit could not access more than 3.25GB, and he wasted all that money he could have spent on beer.

So how about some data? How long does it take to regenerate a track right now, including the save of the undo data? I never bothered to look because if it bugs me that much I will just open something else to amuse myself while it works. Like I keep a backgammon game open in another tab at all times. Like right now, for example.

But that's just me. If some function takes 2 minutes to complete, so be it. I have nowhere to go and nothing to do, so take 3 if you like, function!! I'll go make 7 or 8 more moves!

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It would be interesting to see Steve's (sslechta) performance figure. I recall he has some pretty high-power gear. See this post.


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all.
well cpubenchmark.net is an important source for accurate processor benchmarking. (i'll use cbn for short.)
basically the higher the figure the better.
mountainside, look up on cbn high end processors. but the prices will astound you like a mortgage lol.>>
https://www.cpubenchmark.net/high_end_cpus.html

rharvs and mountainsides, and my figures made sense with cbn lets tabulate. (cbn/rb.)



rharv ryz 5 14000/1900 traks.
mountainside i7 9000/1550 traks.
moi i5 5200/190 traks.

thus , up to this point all correlates with cbn, about expected.

BUT THEN.
eddie i5 5200/2222 traks.
ive never seen that high a rateing of 2,222 traks.
as cbn rates the i5 at 5200.
anyone got any ideas why ?
best.
muso.


my songs....mixed for good earbuds...(fyi..my vocs on all songs..)
https://soundcloud.com/alfsongs
(90 songs created useing bb/rb)
(lots of tips of mine in pg tips forum.)
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No clue. I checked it a few more times and it bounces between 2222 and 2150. That is with no data loaded. I will look at the figure with data loaded, and varying sizes of song file.

Okay. I loaded 5 different song files, with varying numbers of tracks used. It's bouncing between 2150 and 2222, even though it clears the current song when it runs the test.

Maybe someone at PG can offer some input in what this actually all means. Since it is number of audio tracks in this metric, it may also have to do with the interface, like an onboard (Realtek) vs external (I have a Focusrite 2i4). Perhaps different interfaces have different limitations and capabilities.

Last edited by eddie1261; 01/09/21 11:11 AM.
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FWIW, I turned off MS Teams and it went to over 2k .. still not exceeding Eddie's 2222

Gotta say though, if you need over a hundred tracks you're probably doing it wrong

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Last edited by rharv; 01/09/21 01:09 PM.

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Rharv.
you said "if you need over a hundred tracks you're probably doing it wrong". YEP ! agreed.
its just some guitar plug ins/other alternatives i might be interested in the future probably will use higher cpu.
so its nice to have reserves. i dont want to upgrade for awhile.

i'm very efficient at trak useage, and remind myself constantly that big songs were once done on 3 trak machines long before big studios went wild with big trak counts.
believe it, i am the hardest on myself regarding keeping trak counts within bounds etc.
also i dont miss the costs of 2 inch tape.lol.
best.
muso.

Last edited by justanoldmuso; 01/09/21 03:31 PM.

my songs....mixed for good earbuds...(fyi..my vocs on all songs..)
https://soundcloud.com/alfsongs
(90 songs created useing bb/rb)
(lots of tips of mine in pg tips forum.)
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Here's an interesting take on all of this.

I have two ASIO drivers on my machine. One from MOTU with my 828MK3 interface and a second directly from Steinberg on my Yamaha Montage 7. Shutting the system down completely between ASIO driver runs and looking at the results over 10 runs of the RB "Test Audio Performance", the Steinberg driver runs between 1350 and 1450. The MOTU ASIO drivers runs between 1500 and 1550. It appears that the type of ASIO driver makes a difference.

Here's what makes an even bigger difference...sample rate. Using just the MOTU ASIO driver at 24 bit / 44.1, I get the numbers above. But, if I switch to 16 bit / 44.1, potential tracks shoot much higher, running between 2325 and 2430.

Switching over to the Steinberg ASIO driver, at 16 bit, gives a narrower range, from 2000 to 2020 but still higher than the 24 bit range.

So from what I'm seeing how the driver is written, how its integrates with your interface and sampling rate seem to make a difference.

Jeff

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Nice observation Mountainside.
Testing on a level playing field always helps.

I was at 16/44 already so no gain for me there.
I am consistently around 2000 (1980 - 2040 range). So you and Eddie both got me beat.

Also wondering about the drivers. I *think* Eddie also has a MOTU, which would be interesting to note, since your MOTU seems to have outperformed the Steinberg.

That said, the motherboard, processor, RAM and fresh OS for this thing was around $550.
I already had the hard drives, PS and case from the previous build, so it was an economical upgrade for me.
Wondering just how much of a difference SSD would make now. All four of my HDDs are not SSD.

Last edited by rharv; 01/10/21 07:47 AM.

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Good point Rharv.. I'm on 4 HD's too, but like you only the C drive with my programs are on the SSD...actually an NVME SSD drive. The HD's are 7200 rpm mechanicals. I put the RT's and Temp files on different drives per you suggestions years ago. I do think it makes a difference.

I guess I'm so so on SSD's. Does the system start faster....for sure! Do programs load faster...for sure! Everything starts faster! Does anything run faster....not so sure.

More than anything, I think actual running of programs, regenerations etc is more a reflection of processor speed, cores and RAM. But our friend Matt would know for sure!

Jeff

Last edited by MountainSide; 01/10/21 08:18 AM.

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jeff.
nice research. v good points.
imho/ymmv ssd's all the way for me. i use the old rotating hard drives in a caddy connected over usb to do backups only.
just google "rotating hard drive vs ssd".
lots of tech info. eg
https://www.crucial.com/articles/about-ssd/ssd-vs-hdd

for me now, as ssd's are so cheap i'll use them for everything.
some people say they have had the odd failure. i never have had one problem.
my next system will have one ssd for win, and one ssd for recording duties.

rharv.
i urge you to just run a test with ssd. useing ssd my win 10 boots from cold 9 secs.
reaper from cold 3 secs with loaded traks. and these arent nvme or m.2 ssd's.
i love ssd's. with that nice ryzen of yours rharv , it would
be interesting to see if that rb test changes. i dunno.
i certainly noticed a diff when i went to ssd's with apps and win.

best.
ssd's rule muso.

Last edited by justanoldmuso; 01/10/21 09:28 AM.

my songs....mixed for good earbuds...(fyi..my vocs on all songs..)
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Quote:
.. but like you only the C drive with my programs are on the SSD.

I don't have any SSDs
Like I said, now wondering how much difference it would make.
I have SSDs at work, so I get how much faster stuff loads, just wondering in relationship to the recording side

Last edited by rharv; 01/10/21 09:42 AM.

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Originally Posted By: VideoTrack
It would be interesting to see Steve's (sslechta) performance figure. I recall he has some pretty high-power gear. See this post.

My tank didn't look too good on the Realband tool, only 295 which I had listed on this post:
The new computer build list

So my theory is that the Realband tool does not consider number of CPUs or RAM in it's calculations.




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Number of CPUs/RAM would likely not count in the 32 bit version, which may be what you tested with.
Do you have RB64 to see if there is a difference?


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Originally Posted By: rharv
Number of CPUs/RAM would likely not count in the 32 bit version, which may be what you tested with.
Do you have RB64 to see if there is a difference?

I'm on BIAB/RealBand 2020. I see separate executables for BIAB but not RealBand. I believe 2020 RealBand was still 32 bit.




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Originally Posted By: justanoldmuso
all.
well cpubenchmark.net is an important source for accurate processor benchmarking. (i'll use cbn for short.)

rharv ryz 5 14000/1900 traks.
mountainside i7 9000/1550 traks.
moi i5 5200/190 traks.
eddie i5 5200/2222 traks.

Muso, I looked mine up and it looks to be 19,092. I have 2 of them in my machine so I'm not sure how much higher that would drive the score. So with the two of them I have 32 cores and 64 threads as opposed to the one that the screenshot shows.

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The 2026 49-PAK is loaded with other great new add-ons as well. Learn more about the 2026 49-PAK!

2026 Free Bonus PAK & 49-PAK for Band-in-a-Box® 2026 for Mac®!

With your version 2026 for Mac Pro, MegaPAK, UltraPAK, UltraPAK+, Audiophile Edition or PlusPAK purchase, we'll include a Bonus PAK full of great new Add-ons for FREE! Or upgrade to the 2026 49-PAK for only $49 to receive even more NEW Add-ons including 20 additional RealTracks!

These PAKs are loaded with additional add-ons to supercharge your Band-in-a-Box®!

This Free Bonus PAK includes:

  • The 2026 RealCombos Booster PAK: -For Pro customers, this includes 27 new RealTracks and 23 new RealStyles. -For MegaPAK customers, this includes 25 new RealTracks and 23 new RealStyles. -For UltraPAK customers, this includes 12 new RealStyles.
  • MIDI Styles Set 92: Look Ma! More MIDI 15: Latin Jazz
  • MIDI SuperTracks Set 46: Piano & Organ
  • Instrumental Studies Set 24: Groovin' Blues Soloing
  • Artist Performance Set 19: Songs with Vocals 9
  • Playable RealTracks Set 5
  • RealDrums Stems Set 9: Cool Brushes
  • SynthMaster Sounds Set 1 (with audio demos)
  • iOS Android Band-in-a-Box® App
Looking for more great add-ons, then upgrade to the 2026 49-PAK for just $49 and you'll get:
  • 20 Bonus Unreleased RealTracks and RealDrums with 20 RealStyle.
  • FLAC Files (lossless audio files) for the 20 Bonus Unreleased RealTracks and RealDrums
  • MIDI Styles Set 93: Look Ma! More MIDI 16: SynthMaster
  • MIDI SuperTracks Set 47: More SynthMaster
  • Instrumental Studies 25 - Soul Jazz Guitar Soloing
  • Artist Performance Set 20: Songs with Vocals 10
  • RealDrums Stems Set 10: Groovin' Sticks
  • SynthMaster Sounds & Styles Set 2 (sounds & styles with audio demos)

Learn more about the Bonus PAK and 49-PAK for Band-in-a-Box® 2026 for Mac®!

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