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.

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

Jeff

This is from my scratchpad computer.





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

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.

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

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!

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

Jeff

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

Hey Muso, my curiosity got the best of me and I had to download the free trial of the PassMark Performance Test 10.0 from your link. I was convinced I could get a much higher score running the test on both CPUs as the single CPU info on my last post was just previous user submitted info. The results were awesome!!!! I scored 32,179.6 on CPU, 96th Percentile! WOOT! My next best specs were 2D and 3D graphics which I have to thank my EVGA GTX 1070 card.

i nearly spilt my tea.lol.
NICE ! i'm gonna get me a beast lol.
i hope rharv does same test to compare.

Yeah, Steve's specs whoop mine.

My CPU was 13616 (he has 2 so that kinda makes sense)
My graphics scores were dismal, which dragged my score down a bunch I'm sure .. but I admit I have a basic (cheap) graphic card in it.
Memory was a closer match (2413 for me)
He also seems to have beaten me handily in the drive tests, which is likely a testament to SSDs

FWIW I built this machine for audio/work, so graphics are of minimal concern to me

No worries sir. I just wanted an overall multimedia machine since I like to render video and use flight sims in addition to music. Rendering video is the most CPU intensive thing I've found for a PC.

I should mention the Ryzen does not have any graphics capabilities, unlike most Intel and other AMD processors.. You'll need a separate card if you go that route.

I'm pretty sure my machine was a lot more wallet friendly that Steve's, choices and tradeoffs and all that.
It was a huge step up from the previous W7 machine and by reusing some parts I was able to keep the cost around $550.
It does what I need here.
I have other machines available for Photoshop, video editing, etc.
This particular test seems focused on a gaming type machine, weighing pretty heavy on graphics, which is by no means a concern with RB/BiaB/PT .. <grin>

If I remember to, I'll try this on my computers at home. I've got a 6-core i7 desktop and an 8-core dual Xeon Mac running Windows, and I'm interested in seeing what RB makes of those.

My five-year old home-built i7 is about half the PassMark CPU readings of Steve's, at 8476. I don't even have a graphics card; I use the Intel HD graphics on the CPU, so that hurts. My Disk Mark, though, with multiple SSD drives, was 21,445. Pretty fast.

Nice Matt! I just have the OS SSD of 1TB and a small music/video temp 250 GB SSD. Both of them are older drives too, hence the bad rating compared to yours.