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I'm guessing most people don't give much thought about what's under the hood of their computers when they make music or do other tasks. I'm quite guilty of this myself.

An engineer friend sent me this video hoping I'd like it . . . and I do.

Even though it's somewhat dated, I learned a few things. Some of the areas addressed is where I spent chunks of my career and still have a baby toe or two in these areas today.

And yes, 36 trillion is a very large number . . .

GPUs and CPUs


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BiaB 2026 Windows
For me there’s no better place in the band than to have one leg in the harmony world and the other in the percussive. Thank you Paul Tutmarc and Leo Fender.
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That was very interesting.
I have a nVidia 4600RTX in my music/photography computer, obviously for my photo work, thus my interest in this video. I'm passing this one on to my research and computer friends.

But it did put the matter + antimatter = warp speed theory out the window grin


I think my wife has started to show the first signs of dementia.
She said she can't remember what she ever saw in me!

64 bit Win 10 Pro, the latest BiaB/RB, Roland Octa-Capture audio interface, a ton of software/hardware
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Buy Micron? I have no problem with that as there's a lot in my portfolio as well as NVidia, Apple, Microsoft etc.


BIAB 2025 Audiophile Mac
24Core/60CoreGPU M2 MacStudioUltra/8TB/192GB Sequoia, M1 MBAir, 2012 MBP
Digital Performer11, LogicPro, Finale27/Dorico/Encore/SmartScorePro64/Notion6 /Overture5
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Amazing stats.

Interestingly, the GPU power isn't critical for BIAB. The 2011 Minecraft spec would likely still be fine. I'm not saying this as a knock against BIAB, just an acknowledgement that the GPU isn't among the important things. The CPU is, though, if you have version 2025 and want rapid results, since the CPU is now being asked to do more to give us the greatly improved song regeneration speed. I don't even have a separate graphics card; my CPU handles it (I don't work with video and don't play games).


BIAB 2025 Win Audiophile. Software: Studio One 7 Pro, Swam horns, Acoustica-7, Notion 6, Song Master Pro, Win 11 Home. Hardware: Intel i9, 32 Gb; Presonus 192 & Faderport 8, Royer 121, Slate VSX, Adam Sub8 & Neumann 120 monitors.
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nterestingly, the GPU power isn't critical for BIAB.

Or any DAW, for that matter.

Graphics, AV and AI, yes.


BIAB 2025 Audiophile Mac
24Core/60CoreGPU M2 MacStudioUltra/8TB/192GB Sequoia, M1 MBAir, 2012 MBP
Digital Performer11, LogicPro, Finale27/Dorico/Encore/SmartScorePro64/Notion6 /Overture5
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Originally Posted by Mike Halloran
Quote
nterestingly, the GPU power isn't critical for BIAB.

Or any DAW, for that matter.

Graphics, AV and AI, yes.


BIAB 2025 Win Audiophile. Software: Studio One 7 Pro, Swam horns, Acoustica-7, Notion 6, Song Master Pro, Win 11 Home. Hardware: Intel i9, 32 Gb; Presonus 192 & Faderport 8, Royer 121, Slate VSX, Adam Sub8 & Neumann 120 monitors.
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Originally Posted by Matt Finley
Originally Posted by Mike Halloran
Quote
nterestingly, the GPU power isn't critical for BIAB.

Or any DAW, for that matter.

Graphics, AV and AI, yes.
Ok. I wasn't willing to go that far, because I've seen some pretty impressive graphics in some audio programs like Acoustica, and in some plugins used by DAWs. Nothing approaches the power needs for realism when rendering fake people and scenery, though.


BIAB 2025 Win Audiophile. Software: Studio One 7 Pro, Swam horns, Acoustica-7, Notion 6, Song Master Pro, Win 11 Home. Hardware: Intel i9, 32 Gb; Presonus 192 & Faderport 8, Royer 121, Slate VSX, Adam Sub8 & Neumann 120 monitors.
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Originally Posted by Matt Finley
Interestingly, the GPU power isn't critical for BIAB.
This is my understanding too that BiaB is powered by the CPU and on my machine runs just fine.

My local GPU has 1280 CUDA cores and 6.6 billion transistors; that just blows me away at where the technology is today.

As for Mario's comment about warp speed:
"Captain, I’m givin’ her all she’s got, but the engines can’t take much more!"
"She’s gonna blow, Captain! We can’t push her any harder!"
cry


https://soundcloud.com/user-646279677
BiaB 2026 Windows
For me there’s no better place in the band than to have one leg in the harmony world and the other in the percussive. Thank you Paul Tutmarc and Leo Fender.
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Originally Posted by Bass Thumper
As for Mario's comment about warp speed:
"Captain, I’m givin’ her all she’s got, but the engines can’t take much more!"
"She’s gonna blow, Captain! We can’t push her any harder!"
cry
I saw a nice meme about that ... "Just turn them off, Scotty, and we'll just carry on forever in the same direction ... that's how space works".

Apparently also, in space nobody can hear you scream, but they can hear phasers, crashes and explosions. Maybe that's where string theoty comes in.

Maybe I'm odd, but I auitomatically thought warp/weft from weaving rather than warp speed.


Jazz relative beginner, starting at a much older age than was helpful.
AVL:MXE Linux; Windows 11
BIAB2025 Audiophile, a bunch of other software.
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Well my ENIAC computer contains 18,000 vacuum tubes, 7,200 crystal diodes, 1,500 relays, 70,000 resistors, 10,000 capacitors, and approximately 5,000,000 hand-soldered joints.

Let's rumble!


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WA6NCB

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When you boot that thing up, does your block experience a brownout?


BIAB 2025 Win Audiophile. Software: Studio One 7 Pro, Swam horns, Acoustica-7, Notion 6, Song Master Pro, Win 11 Home. Hardware: Intel i9, 32 Gb; Presonus 192 & Faderport 8, Royer 121, Slate VSX, Adam Sub8 & Neumann 120 monitors.
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Originally Posted by Joseph Land
Well my ENIAC computer contains 18,000 vacuum tubes, 7,200 crystal diodes, 1,500 relays, 70,000 resistors, 10,000 capacitors, and approximately 5,000,000 hand-soldered joints.
I never worked with the ENIAC (developed around 1945) but I did program the UNIVAC 1100 (developed around 1951) using Fortran. They weren’t called “IT guys” back then but their equivalent would allocate precious CPU time on a strict priority basis. I was a young buck 20 something and I quickly learned that I could get all the CPU time I wanted . . . but only after 10 PM frown

Then we had these big, solid, dark olive screens with fluorescent green text that we used. I think Sperry built them. Prior to that for me it was the slide rule and then early hand calculators. Those were interesting/fun days.


https://soundcloud.com/user-646279677
BiaB 2026 Windows
For me there’s no better place in the band than to have one leg in the harmony world and the other in the percussive. Thank you Paul Tutmarc and Leo Fender.
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When I built my last computer a few years back, I put two RTX 3090s into it to support a budding YouTube music video project but it has been mind boggling how quickly bleeding edge technology has become obsolete. A 10 second video clip can be created in Google Flow/Veo 3 in less than 5 minutes just by typing in a description of the scene. I can do the same thing locally using WAN 2.1 but even with all the firepower in 2 3090s it takes 4 and a half hours to make an 8 second clip. It’s pretty much impossible now to privately own sufficiently advanced GPU technology to stay ahead of the competition in video creation. AI is crushing it in video production and the only way to go in that area is to rent GPU time from the big boys in AI.


Keith
2026 Audiophile Windows 11 RYZEN THREADRIPPER 3960X 4.5GHZ 128 GB RAM 2 Nvidia RTX 3090s, Vegas,Acid,SoundForge,Izotope Production,Melodyne Studio,SONAR,3 Raven Mtis
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Originally Posted by KeithS
It’s pretty much impossible now to privately own sufficiently advanced GPU technology to stay ahead of the competition in video creation. AI is crushing it in video production and the only way to go in that area is to rent GPU time from the big boys in AI.
It looks like Moore's Law might not continue holding for much longer if underlying approaches don't change.

Advanced Chip Architectures, moving beyond traditional silicon, designs like 3D stacking and chiplets should help improve performance.

And Neuromorphic Computing, inspired by the brain’s neural networks may help computations of all kinds be more efficient.


https://soundcloud.com/user-646279677
BiaB 2026 Windows
For me there’s no better place in the band than to have one leg in the harmony world and the other in the percussive. Thank you Paul Tutmarc and Leo Fender.
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