PG Music Home Forums General Discussion Off-Topic New Intel i5 is up and running verses Intel i9

I have not used much yet but the i5 looks like it will do pretty good. It does not boot quite as fast as the i9 but not bad.

I had to make a new win 10 USB install drive. I guess they have changed some stuff in the last few months.

BIAB try out tomorrow.

Billy

I'm running an i5 chip in my DAW and it works well. Of course, I'm also running XP Pro 32 bit.... sooooo......

What generation of i5 chips do you guys have? There's a big difference between the oldest and the newest i5 chips: https://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare/Intel-i5-750S-vs-Intel-i5-11600KF/1659vs4261

Funny enough, I don't own anything with an i5 in it, even though they're very respectable chips. My 3 machines have Xeon, i7, and Core 2 Duo, and the current gen i5's are more powerful than all three combined!

Simon.
this new gen of i5's are starting to look very interesting.
what i'm wondering is...is intel going to start dropping the
prices of its powerfull processors in response to apple
doing its own M1 processor design. ?

i hope within a few years now a user wont have to pay a couple of k for a powerfull system in order to get the big
trak/plug in counts some users need.

best
om

My i5 chip is most likely in the older generation. The machine is easily 12+ years old at this point. I think it was commissioned for duty in 2008. I built it from the specs on a custom DAW building web site. I chose the i5 Intel chip for it's performance specs and price vs the i7 that was also available and not wanting to go with the i3.

It's actually a quad core and can run 64bits if I was to upgrade the OS. But, it's not hindering my process, so I shall use it as is until it dies.

The 11th gen i5's are about on par with the M1, with the i5-11600 having roughly the same performance. Of course, the M1 loses about 30% of it's power when emulating x86 putting it on par with a 10th gen i5-10400F, but native ARM apps get the full speed. Keep in mind we're comparing a 15-watt mobile CPU/GPU combo to a 65-watt desktop-class CPU that may or may not have a built-in GPU, and those are some seriously impressive numbers.

It's not just Apple's M1 chip that Intel has to worry about - Windows for ARM exists already, particularly with the newer Microsoft Surface.

We're already in a golden age of computing really - I mean, the current lowest end i3 that's available for under a hundred bucks vastly outperforms the dual Xeons in my 12-year-old Mac. If my 2009 Mac Pro can handle huge projects with ease, what's stopping a new sub-$500 desktop from doing that? I mean, we all want the most powerful thing out there (I'm currently spec'ing an i9 machine) but how much power do we really need?

Simon, I am not sorry I built the i9 machine but it really does not buy me much of anything I don't get out of the new i5 I just finished. It's only issue if any is it is a LGA 1151.

Intel Core i9-9900K Desktop Processor 8 Cores up to 5.0GHz Unlocked LGA1151 300 Series 95W (BX806849900K) cost me $330.

Intel Core i5-10600K Desktop Processor 6 Cores up to 4.8 GHz Unlocked LGA1200 (Intel 400 Series Chipset) 125W cost me $214

For those two there is only $115 bucks difference. That was really why I got the i9 processor to begin with. Not much difference in price.

Now, if you are looking at a Intel Core i9-10920X Desktop Processor 12 Cores up to 4.8GHz Unlocked LGA2066 X299 Series 165W, that will cost you close to $700 bucks.

There was a good bit of difference in the ROG STRIX Z390-E GAMING motherboard around $400 and the GIGABYTE Z490 AORUS Elite AC (Intel LGA1200/Z490/ATX/2xM.2 Thermal Guard/Realtek ALC1200/SATA 6Gb/s/USB 3.2 Gen 2/Intel 802.11ac/2.5 GbE LAN/RGB Fusion/Gaming Motherboard)at $240

I assume some people need all the horse power they can get. I don't get more than thirty tracks deep into a song and am not having any issue with the i5 or i9.

Heavy duty graphics work could be another issue but I am not involved in that.

I have one gig internet up and down. Some days it is more like 850 but nothing is slowing down on my end. All that speed did not buy me anything the other night downloading some stuff from Toontracks.

I guess what all this means is how much money can anyone really afford or want to spend. I have a brand new car and a 2008 Nissan Titan. Guess which one I drive 99% of the time?...lol

Billy

Simon.
what i'm wrestling with right now is what is the smart move regarding upgradeing to a new pc.
(your comment bout the new i3 has me pondering if refurbs are still the way to go.)
for the budget minded musician ?

just one example. lets take the scenario, for arguments sake...
the musician might run 48 traks , all with 3 plug ins per trak (i know its difficult depending on cpu useage of plug in, so lets say pg or reaps low cpu plugs), and lets assume a desktop running 2 ssd's; one for win 11 and one to record to with 16 gigs ram.

question. what processor installed in a under 500 buk pc will do the above, plus....
a. fast boot from cold in a few secs. (like my current never sees the net optimised i5 system.)
b. 3 minute song , gives me fastest possible mixdown time.
c. run biab, rband and reaps like a bunny rabbit.
ie app boots in a couple of secs.

new budget i3 ? i5 ? ryzen type cpu ? OR still a refurb ?
OR should someone save their pennies, and go "all in " on a threadripper type amd system ?
(and eat porridge for a year or two..lol.)
eg from a builder that specialises in custom builds for recording studios. ie like some of the big recording studios use ? ie turnkey ? eg purrfect audio or adk or scan or one of the others.
(simon...ever looked at dawbench ? interesting testing suite.)>>>
https://dawbench.libsyn.com/

best
oldmuso
billy !...nah this is my fav car.
when i win the lottery...lol. ITS FUN !
>>>
https://www.caterhamcars.com/en/models/the-iconic-range

A phrase mentioned many times on these forums..... "Buy as much as you can comfortably afford." I lucked into a massive discount on that tank of a Dell tower I have that has tons of cores/memory. It still cost $3K from Ebay as it was a refurb. Retail pricing for all that processor and memory power that came with it was $10K. So based on that huge discount, I was willing to part with my $$$. I've had it three years now and it's still running faster than a lot of 'normal' PCs.

For what its worth, I used to be a 100% Intel man. I've built a number of computers for myself and friends over the years and never even considedered puttting anything other than an Intel CPU in any of them......until my most recent build. AMD has completely eclipsed Intel in almost every way. I looked at the newest generation of Intel CPUs before doing my latest build and it was obvious to me that Intel is no longer taking the lead in invoation and have let AMD leapfrog them and start leading the way. The Ryzen family of AMD CPUs, is the way to go IMHO.

KeithS.

i agree with you. your threadripper system looks superb.
what sound device are you useing with that system ?

please could you post some stats as i'm haveing trouble finding threadripper daw stats ...eg.
1. how long does it take your system to boot from cold start till you see win main screen ?
2. what mixdown saveings in time taken do you see over your previous pc ?
3. in realband action>>test audio performance (yes i know its a crude test) ,,
what trak number is reported versus your previous system ?
any other stats would be also usefull. eg max trak/plug in counts/rough ideas. app load times with big trak/plug in counts. any idea of round trip latency for that system etc etc.
yeah i know some stats are tuff to measure.
has there been measureable differences in biab generation
times versus your previous pc ?
i am sure biab and realband are running like bunny rabbits on that rig.


best/thanks.
oldmuso

I'll answer this first question then defer the rest for a few weeks.

From the time that I push the ON button to getting a windows 10 desktop is in the vicinity of 14 seconds with what will probably be my most common set up although just playing around with various configurations I've gotten as low as 7 second boot times. Main reasons for the rapid boots are the ASROCK motherboard which has a setting that gives it a post time of around 3 seconds. Turning off the fast boot mode on the MB pushes the overall boot time up to around 30 seconds. I'm booting from Western Digital BLACK SN850 NVME Generation 4 2TB M.2 SSD drives which are crazy fast.

For now, I'm still using my Focusrite as the primary sound and a Tascam conroller surface although I'm contemplating the purchase of one or two Steven Slate Audio RAVEN MTi2 Multi-Touch Production Consoles if I can deterine that they are compatible with the rest of my system.

I'm setting this up as a triple boot system with one drive booting up to a dedicated gaming PC, one for video rendering, and the third for all audio functions. Since I'm having to go through all of my programs and plugins on my old PC so I can deactivate them and transfer them to the new, I've not yet done a lot of audio testing on the new rig, still using the old until I'm sure I can make a relatively smooth transition to the new system. I did some experimenting on the old machine simpling cloning the hard drive and using it in the same machine and it knocked out a number of things on the cloned drive including BIAB, Addictive Drums, Vegas, and Sound Forge all of which seemed to think they were on different computers rather than just cloned versions of the same drive.


I'm setting a deadline for myself of labor day to have the audio stuff transfered so I'll try to have some more answers for you then on how it is performing.

The i9 is theoretically about 30% more powerful than that i5, however as you said, you might not notice any difference depending on what you do.

And personally, depending on which new car it is, I might also prefer the old Nissan - this is why I still have my 2005 Pontiac.



Many of the refurbs you've suggested have a 4th gen i5 or i7 in them, and these are often adequate for basic music purposes. For a decent budget brand new CPU the lowest current i3 and the equally low priced Ryzen chips will mop the floors with most of those 4th gen chips - see this link for comparisons:

https://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare/Intel-i7-4770-vs-Intel-i3-10105-vs-AMD-Ryzen-3-3300X-vs-Intel-i7-4930K-vs-Intel-Xeon-X5570/1907vs4259vs3716vs2023vs1302

The 4770 is a very common chip for refurbs, but see the benchmark vs the 10105 and 3300X, both are around $150? No comparison. For fun I put in the benchmarks of my two home computers - you'll notice the 4930K is much faster than the 4770 as it's 6-core and runs on a Xeon motherboard, but you'll also notice the X5570 - I have a pair of those in my old Mac Pro (so double the benchmark to ~6500 or so) and it'll chew through audio like nobody's business.

The difference comes down to the other components, as the CPU only crunches the numbers. Everything else determines how quickly data gets into the CPU so that it can be processed. Billy's i9-9900K machine would feel awfully slow if it had only 2gb of ram, a 5400rpm hard drive, and an old GPU of some sort. Toss an SSD into my old X5570 Mac and load it with 48gb of ram though, and it handles everything I need.

Your A/B/C questions - most of that depends on fast data access, which means SSD. You might not see/feel much difference in CPU speed if your storage is fast and you have adequate RAM. Really only plugins will require the faster CPu.



I fully agree with that, though I also say "buy something that can be upgraded". I paid a fair chunk for my old Mac Pro, but had I bought it brand new it would've likely been over $10k as well - list price for it new with a mere 6gb of RAM, a 640gb HDD, and the lowest end GeForce GT 120 was nearly $6k, and I've since added in a 512gb SSD, 2tb HDD, SATA 3 card, USB3, Geforce GTX 960, and 48gb of ram.



I agree - the Ryzen chips are definitely taking the lead in both processing power and in efficiency - the top end Ryzen 5950X at the time of this writing not only outperforms the top end i9 10980XE by 36%, it uses 37% less electricity in the process - meaning 37% less heat.

bowak.

im heavy into mini pc now.
had no probs...ryzen.cpu...storage...m.2 etc. very low.internal microsound latency....see my tips in pg tips forum...acquiring a pc..for a link to a web site that tests internal microsound latency
as well as a link to latency testing software.
the biggest mistake ive seen from helping daw users over the years is people often get any old pc so they sometimes get probs.

my new pc boots into win and bb and rb in just a few secs.
but ymmv im not a believer in zillion tracks and plugins that bring a pc to its knees....im a believer in as i was told in a big studio once...if the songs good...you should be able to do it with 40 tracks max !...lol.

in summary...the type of pc you need will be dictated by your needed max track and p!ug in counts as well as are the plugins needing heavy pc resources....??
i took a flyer on a mini pc from amazon for peanuts...because i had 30 days to test it out and return it if unhappy....i kept it as i was rather impressed by its capabilities.

if your open minded with modest needs re tracks and plugins like me check out geekcom and beelink and other mini pc builders.
most importantly get a decent usb audio interface with ultra low latency...see pg tips forum again...a looongaudio interface thread.

i dont recommend specifical pc components eg mainboards or pc systems etc etc cos production runs and tech is so changeable and i dont know yourmax track and plugin needs.
what might work for me might not for you.

would suggest like me you get a 30 day pc return thus giving you testing time with your apps.
i recommed m.2 plus processors with high single thread performance..eg above 3000...see passmark web site for performance tables for each processor.

happiness.

om

Whatever you buy, don't tweak the CPU. If you're making music, you want stability, not the last ounce of speed.

Good advice. I definitely concur. Overclocking can lead to problems that are extremely difficult to identify / resolve.

Agreed. I also recommend getting a lower wattage CPU, as those are easier to keep cool (and stable) without having to deal with fan noise. For example, look at the 13900T or 7900 instead of the 13900K and 7950X, as they're both low wattage CPU's which have WAY more than enough power for audio work. The slowest of those is over 4x as powerful as your 4960X already...

My previous computer had an i9-9900K, and even with the biggest and best CPU cooler (without going to water cooling) it still managed to hit 100° regularly. By comparison my super-low-wattage M1 never gets warm, and I can't hear the fans.

for all you geeks out there...lmao.
a bit of fun.

even tho im a pc user i thought the mac m4 mini was a heck of a performer price wise....
very impressed...BUT...heres the kicker...

notice the capabilities and expandability of this minisforum re the m4 mac mini.
blows my blinking mind.


https://www.bing.com/videos/riverview/relatedvideo?q=MINISFORUM+MS+a+1+Ryzen+9+mini+pc+vs+mac+m4+mini&mid=CA0EC28C1F33C62394BACA0EC28C1F33C62394BA&FORM=VIRE

eg...notice the 4 ssd slots...!..

things are getting very interesting...
notice the processor and other upgrade capabilities of
thr minisforum mini pc.

as always i suggest one tests useing the 30 day return window.
minisforum has lots of competition of course in the mini pc market.

happiness.

om

The only way I know that my M1 and M2 have fans is when I run a diagnostic utility that tests them and they run full for a few seconds.

Both are way overkill for everything I do except video editing where the GPU horsepower comes in quite handy, especially my M2 Ultra. Had I waited a year, I could have bought an M4 Mini Pro and saved a couple thousand dollars. Oh well… glad I didn’t wait because of the work I was able to do during that year but still…

something is telling me we are coming into the age of amazing mini pc's that are not just powerfull but also a reasonable cost.
for example a few months back as i was very happy with my new ry mini pc for music production i took a flyer on a fanless mini pc costing 140 bucks just for net use and mucking around. i wasnt expecting much as its got a low single thread score processor for music production....ie.. it wasnt meant for music production...but its usefull for also playing yt gear vid reviews.

i thought i wonder if it would even load up bb or rb.
much to surprise it did. took about 20 secs to open bb compared to my ryzen mini thats blinkin fast at a few secs. once open it even generated bb tracks at a
decent pace considering the base clock of the processor is under 2ghz.
rb reported much to my surprise it would do 70 tracks.
much as some knock bb re needing an overhaul i was pretty darn impressed.
well done pg.

of course it wouldnt be able to handle resource heavy plugins.
but for maybe just setting up a chord sheet in bb and generating it wasnt a slouch either.
by comparison on my ry production mini pc rb reports over 200 track capability.

in reality i always halve what rb tells me as to max track count...
to allow a comfort zone.
so...35 tracks for the fanless used for the net and 100 tracks for the ry production pc which never sees the net.

im stoked on this whole mini pc market.

at the same time i wait with some degree of excitement re apples M silicon.
and how much better than m4 will m5 and m6 be assuming such come out.
i notice some win mini pc's are starting to include usb 4 which is crazy fast.

@Mike...Mike Apple is really doing some very nice tech imho.
my only critique of the mini...and correct me if im wrong....is its lack of expandability ?
whereas im seeing win mini pc's with all sorts of expandability...eg memory up to 64gb.
and now multiple ssd's and usb 4 and powerfull processors plus fancy things like hanging off fancy gpu's.

@PG Simon. gotta agree with 'watching ones wattage'.
its the reaon why i went with the ry 7 processor...ie...its a pretty low wattage processor.
but it can go up to 4.2 hz. bb and rb are hardly ticking over with it as is reaps.

interesting times...bring on the 20 ghz processors...lol.

happiness.

om

My new Mac Mini M4 does not make any sound that I can hear but I know there is some kind of fan in there. This machine has more power that I will ever need for recording and editing music. My PC is a gaming machine and the fans are very noisy so I don't actually record with it but both machines share the same monitor with a switch. Of course the PC is off while recording!

Brian.

re silent pc. tbere are various ways one can cut pc fan noise.
dunno if this might interest you but this company makes silent pc-s for very sophisticated music production daw work....eg big studios.
the web site is kinda interesting.

https://silentpc.com/daw/

might give you some ideas.

theres lots of info on the net and you tube re how to run a silent pc daw.

your right...imho apple is doing some exciting things.

frankly ive never been interested to buy a mac until the m series silicon came out.
but its very competitive what with pc builders not standing still either. lots of innovation going on.

lol...what im rooting for is the little 80 buck raspberry pi which keeps on getting updated. already reaps and waveform daws run on it. i like to support the underdog.

happiness.

om

My mac mini is completly silent and is used for my audio work. I only use my PC for BIAB and other stuff. Also this is one reason I wish BIAB would be cross platform like most of my other programs.

PG Music made those decisions long ago, unfortunately. Deciding that, since GarageBand was now free, there was no point in Real Band for the Mac being chief among them. Making BIAB cross-platform would require a major rewrite of both Mac and Win versions to adopt an audio engine compatible with both. I don't see that happening anytime soon. Perhaps when ARM based PCs dominate Windows, PG M may see cross-platform as a marketing opportunity but I don't see any advantage to doing that now.

I do hope that BIAB 2025 is AS Native, however. Much of the current version no longer plays well with other apps, not the case when I was running everything on my Intel iMac Pro.